Who: Aaron Gordon, Civil Engineering Student at Clemson University
What: Working as a Project Manager
Where: Haiti
When: January-August 2015
Why: Keep reading to find out for yourself

Monday, April 27, 2015

Ravet pa jamn gen rezon devan poul.

Roaches are never right when facing chickens.

Tomorrow, I depart again for Morne Michel to resume work on repairing the school. While showers and inconsistent electricity were nice, I am legitimately excited to return and see the project through. We are hoping to finish everything up by mid-May. I’ll be sure to post pictures when I come back later this week on our progress.

I may have a meeting with DINEPA, the Haitian water and sanitation department, on Thursday that I will have to come back for. We are trying to form an agreement with this branch of the government to get our water systems officially approved and start working projects with the public sector. Ideally, this will be the first of many meetings and we will be able to establish a mutually beneficial partnership.

One of our water team members here in Cange will be coming up the mountain with us tomorrow to do water testing at the various sources around the village. While I don’t really want to know exactly how dirty my bath water is up there, we need to start coming up with accurate cost estimates for their potential system. I have doubts whether I will be able to break ground on a water system by the summer but I want the first DINEPA/CEDC water system to be at Morne Michel, whenever that may be.


Whether or not I come back on Thursday, I know I will be back on Saturday. Stay tuned for pictures this weekend.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Se nan chimen jennen yo kenbe chwal malen.

If you want to catch a wild horse, find a tight corral.

I went to the A.S. Cange soccer match the other day. Thanks to the 500HTG (about $11) VIP Season Pass I purchased, I got to take this awesome picture with the team (I'm on the far left). We are currently pursuing a relationship with the Clemson Athletic Department to provide this professional Haitian club with jerseys, cleats, and other equipment. The game ended in a 1-1 draw.

I connected the biodigester to the gas line for the school kitchens yesterday. Once the kitchens are complete, the students' waste will be converted to methane gas to cook their food. It's a sustainable, albeit kind of gross, cycle.


With my off-week from working at Morne Michel, I also got the chance to visit the Prestige factory in Port-au-Prince. Prestige is the national lager of Haiti, the perfect way to relax after a long day on the job. It even won best American Lager in 2012. The tour we had was amazing; we saw the whole process from sorting to fermentation to bottling. I've never seen such advanced technology in Haiti before. The picture above is of me with the water team from Cange.



Monday, April 20, 2015

Bourik swe pou chwal dekore ak dentel

The donkey sweats so the horse can be decorated with lace.


The past week has been quite the experience to say the least while working and living at Morne Michel, a (very) remote village. Despite our less than sanitary conditions, which included bathing in a dubiously clean ravine and sleeping on the floor of the school, I remained healthy and productive. We made some real progress, as seen in the photos below, and I am actually looking forward to returning next week.

Our masons working on strengthening the church foundations and pouring a concrete floor.


Yours truly overseeing the sand excavation. Sand proved to be our biggest obstacle there. Hopefully we will build up enough of a resource this off-week so we can work the whole time next week. And yes, I wore that shirt and jeans combination everyday. 


A typical view of our job site. The church is the wooden structure. 

We finished the church last week. It looks so much nicer with a sturdy concrete floor and foundation. Hopefully a future project will be to construct a more stable church building itself.


We cooked our own food up there in a huge pot for both meals a day. Our days start around 5:30am or 6:00am and we work until breakfast, usually some sort of pasta, around 9:30am. We then work again until 2:00pm or so when we eat again, rice and beans with canned fish. The day usually wraps up by 5:00pm when we go clean up and relax. I would read or play cards with the Haitian workers until going to bed around 8:00pm. With no electricity, you can’t do much once the sun goes down.

This week I am resting and taking care of some office things. Next Monday I embark once again up the mountain to start fixing the school and building their courtyard.

The biggest difference between living in the village and living in the compound has been my relationship with the local Haitians. Cange has had a significant international presence for a few decades now; Morne Michel has only been exposed to a handful of Americans myself included. As such, I was never once approached by a Haitian child asking for food or for gifts while up there. It was such a relief; I felt so much more comfortable.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Lajan fe chen danse

Money makes the dog dance.

Tomorrow we start repairing the school at Morne Michel. I am both eager and anxious to get things underway. It is starting to rain more and more (every other afternoon/evening now) and rain delays can seriously drive up the budget for the project.

The plan is to stay up on the mountain, camping on-site for the week and returning on Saturday. We have ten bags of water, five bags of rice, three bags of spaghetti, and several pounds of other provisions for food and sustenance. It is going to be several consecutive days where I will not speak any English or see any Americans, the longest time in my life without speaking or hearing English. It’ll be like Avatar except without the special effects (although I’m not sure what Avatar is exactly without the special effects).

I’ll also be going several consecutive days without showering. On the other hand, sweating that much will do wonders for my pores (right?).  

In other news, I went to another remote village on Friday to repair their water system. I brought a backpack full of couplings, compression valves, 90s and other PVC piping only to realize that the issue was a galvanized union. On the bright side, we keep plenty of unions in our depot…in Cange…darn. Regardless, we should be able to fix that later on this week. I might send one of our employees with the replacement pieces and let them handle it. It’s a quick fix.


I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures of our progress up on the mountain. I don’t know for sure when the next post will be but it will most likely not be until the weekend.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Bel flé san zode

Beautiful flower without a good smell.


The other day we started carrying up tools to Morne Michel, a remote village in the Central Plateau, for our next project. We are trying to do some basic repairs to their school and church. However, the village's location make even the most basic and straightforward projects a logistical nightmare and a physical challenge. On a separate note, it took close to an hour to figure out how to tie a wheelbarrow onto a donkey; I should've taken the Donkey-Wheelbarrow Relations class at Clemson.


This is another picture of us climbing the mountain. We all took turns carrying/pushing the wheelbarrow. Most of the trail up to Morne Michel is like this: steep and rocky and exposed. That being said, the hike has gotten easier and shorter every time I go. 



In order to get gravel up at the school, we have to make it by hand by taking big rocks and turning them into little rocks with a hammer. Above, you see a student working on his rock pile. Many people will probably be shocked at us using "child labor." Allow me to reassure you that (1) the students are on vacation this week, (2) they are being paid and fed for their work, and (3) it discourages a sense of entitlement in the community. We are not descending upon Morne Michel like angels and fixing their problems. We are working directly with the community to accomplish this project. Their school, courtyard, and church will be something that they can be proud of and that can boost their confidence. When it is finished, the students will not only learn the rewards of hard work but also that their problems will not just be solved by white people and their bottomless wallets.



Of course, I'm not above crushing rocks myself. It's actually therapeutic in a sense. You can pick up a big problem and smash it repeatedly with a hammer. That's satisfying.



Here is a picture of the school as you approach it after cresting the final ridge (look for a green building in the middle of the picture). As you can tell, it is about halfway up a mountain which is behind three other mountains behind me when I took the photo. It will be my home for the coming weeks. 

Monday, April 6, 2015

"M'kone fe" ak "M'a fe tou" se de bagay diferan.

"I know how" and "I will do" are two different things.

Happy Easter! I thought Easter would be a huge holiday here but most people here treat it like we do in the United States: church in the morning, a big(ger) lunch, and then just a typical Sunday. However, the church service did include music by the student band at the local school here.

There is an NGO (non-governmental organization) from the US that provides the school in Cange with instruments to foster the education of young musicians here in Haiti. You can argue how helpful music really is when many students in Haiti struggle for food, water, and shelter but the issue I have with this NGO is that the school band practices outside my room every Wednesday.

They have been practicing since February for this Easter service. Bless these kids’ hearts for trying but listening to them practice is a valuable lesson in patience and grit. There were some Wednesdays when I’d rather hear pigs being slaughtered outside my window (which they also do sometimes) than listen to those kids practice. Many days I couldn’t tell if they were each practicing individually or if they were actually trying to play together.

That being said, I was very impressed with their performance at the Easter service. Their music, when accompanied with the church’s keyboardist, guitarist, and choir, was actually quite moving. It made all those frustrating and maddening Wednesdays worth it.

This week I hope to get started on the Morne Michel School Repairs. It will be huge lesson in planning and logistics and chances are that I will spend several nights up there. I am really looking forward to getting more involved in this community and I bet the stars up there are beautiful at night.


If I am at Morne Michel, I will not have access to any electricity or running water much less Wi-Fi. As such, I don’t know for sure when my next post will be but I will upload pictures of our progress as I have time.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Chak chen pipi jan li kone

Each dog urinates the way he knows how.


A few weeks ago I mentioned how we are trying to dig a trench to place a pipe from our dam to a fish hatchery we are building (see 'Bwe dlo nan ve, respekte ve'). The results of our survey indicated that they will have to excavate at least 14 feet of earth to accommodate these water lines. Above, you see a picture of their progress so far. You should've seen the look on their faces when we told them that they were not even halfway done yet. You should've seen the look on their faces when we told them that it needs to be straight...


I went back to Morne Michel today to investigate local places to get sand and gravel for concrete. It was a successful trip but an extremely long one (I like to think I approached 15 miles of hiking). We found a great place to get sand for our projects but, as you can see in the picture above, it is pretty high. I think it may be in our best interest to invest in a helicopter for this one.