Mon 3/21
Big full moon last night. Clear and beautiful, no clouds, the wind is dying down. Surprisingly the dogs were relatively quiet. The locals build smoky fires at dusk and the village fills with smoke, to drive away the mosquitos we are told. Either it works or maybe the local mosquitos don’t like white people. Ken tells me a story about how when the British arrived in Honduras and found people there building smoky fires inside their houses without chimneys, they promptly taught them how to build chimneys in every house. The result was a plague of malaria. Stupid F...ing white man, thinks he knows better. We are told the mosquitos here get much worse in the rainy season in summer when it is hot and damp. Remind me not to come here then, November to May is the time to visit Ile a Vache if you value comfort.
Wagner heads for Aux Cayes along with Federique and a few others to pick up money for the water filters and to pay the crew. It is payday and many will be happy. Monclaire and I cover the roof of the bathroom with two very small jib sails that were donated and are too small for the Haitian fishing boats, must have been from small yacht club racing boats or kids learn to sail programs. Once the sails are covering the roof, we lay 2 x 4’s across over them, The (temporary) roof is ready for the two water cistern barrels to be replaced, one for well water for the toilet, the other for cleaner water for the sink and shower. Later in the day Jackson comes by to work on the shower pipes.
Samuel brings over his solar panel and I show him how to make mounting brackets for it out of some pipe clamps by bending and drilling them. We attach 4 of the 12 brackets Sam makes to the panels and head over to his restaurant/store to install it on the roof. On the way we run into an interesting couple of young Americans, Rebecca and Cory from Atlanta. They are camping in a tent in a field on the other side of the village at a friends house, taking a break from working for NGO’s in Jacmel and Port au Prince. They are on the way to Mme Bernard to the market and we invite them to stop by later on their way back.
The installation at Sammy’s Place goes well, I buy a couple of scrap wood blocks from the boatyard nearby for a dollar to use as backing blocks on the underside of the roof. I am sure they would have given me the small scraps for free, but I feel good about giving them a dollar anyway. I’ll get a free beer from Sammy when we are done so it all works out. We are a little skeptical about Sam’s roof supporting my weight, but I distribute it well and put my knees over the supports only. The very thin sheet metal roof makes lots of cracking, creaking and groaning noises, but does fulfill its threatened collapse. We are successful and retire to inside Sam’s for refreshments and music powered by the newly installed battery and solar panel.
After lunch I grab my snorkel and fins and head for the lagoon. It is pretty dirty today, a lot of floating paper and plastic and sea grass, probably blown over from aux Cayes in the strong North winds we had for several days. Jean Lorique and Genieux have departed, but there are two new boats in the harbor so I swim over to take a look. One is Harmony VI, a sleek 48 ft monohull flying a very faded Japanese flag. As I swim by, one man sitting in the cockpit waves and says hello. We chat for a few minutes and he informs me they have spent 2 1/2 years sailing here from Phuket Thailand by way of the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. From here they plan another year and a half to complete their circumnavigation back to Phuket.
The other boat is a big catamaran flying a French flag, but no one is up on deck. I notice a large graphic painted on the side of both hulls that shows a logo of the earth and a sail with the name “Voiles sans Frontiers”; Sails without Borders. Remind me to look it up next time I get access to the internet, sounds interesting, I hope we get a chance to meet and hear their story.
After my swim, a washcloth rinse and a nap, I feel pretty good, a little tired but a good tired. I begin preparations to build a door for the bathroom by removing nailed on cleats from some thin plywood sheets from a crate that has Made in China stenciled in big red letters on it. The plywood is thin, maybe 1/4” thick, but sturdy enough and made of some nice red hardwood veneer so it will look beautiful when varnished. It will make good door skins when fitted to a 1X4 frame. We will leave the Made in China stencil on it to add character. It is a lot of work removing the nailed on cleats, three cleats per sheet, 6-8 nails per cleat and all of the nails have been driven through and clinched over so I need to dig each one out with a hammer and chisel (a screwdriver really, we don’t have chisels) straighten with pliers, pound back through and pull each one out with the most rusty claw hammer I have ever see. It is so rusty it has scale on it, like an antique or artifact from another era, but it still works. A hammer is a satisfying tool. They rarely break and can be counted on to almost always work properly, even when rusty, unlike a lot of other tools.
I have dragged a chair out on our front porch to pull the nails out of the plywood and attract a fair amount of attention, Karma comes by to watch along with Monclaire and a man passing by on the path in front who is so fascinated I think he takes out his camera to take my picture.
Wagner returns from Aux Cayes with a load of cinderblocks for Federiques house, some steel and cement for our projects along with a lot of food and other supplies, plus the money to pay the crew and for the water filters.
As dusk approaches Rebecca and Cory return from Mme Bernard, a long walk they confirm, an hour and a half each way. We offer them lemonade, and later we share some rum and coconut water. They tell us amazing, crazy, wild stories about life in Haiti. Rebecca has been here for over a year, since the earthquake in January 2010. She came first with Burners Without Borders, but has worked with 4 or 5 NGO’s since then, often living in tents and horrible conditions but avoiding the prison like dormitories of the larger NGO’s. She tells us of how prevalent cocaine and pot use is among the NGO workers. Most Haitians don’t use cocaine, only the wealthy ones, but there is a huge trade in it for the UN and NGO workers. She tells us there are two classes of NGO workers, the “on the ground and in the trenches” types like herself and others, who live work and travel in the open and among the people, and the “chickens” as they are called derisively, the NGO’s that are so big and powerful that they have to worry about lawsuits and damages if anyone gets hurt, so they insure safety of their workers by keeping them like prisoners under armed guard with strict quarantine areas, curfews, rules and regulations. She says they are more concerned with their own safety than helping people, so much so they are almost handcuffed and tied and totally ineffective.
Yet another way that resources that could be helping people here are wasted. Even a huge international NGO with a half a billion dollar annual budget and a good reputation for high ratio of funds raised to funds going to programs, is called Save the Chickens here in Haiti, because their volunteers are kept cooped up like chickens and rarely get out to see what is really going on and are not allowed to do as much as other free lance or grass roots organizations. Your donation dollars at work. Yet another reason to give donations to organizations that deliver 100% of the money and goods donated directly to the people of Haiti rather than to a big NGO that, even if they don’t use it up on overhead and advertising, uses it up on ineffective programs.
Rebecca confirms that she loves the Filter Pure water filters, they work well and she has been using them in Jacmel for a year. Only a few drawbacks she points out: 1) At $30 each they are too expensive for most Haitians who need them; 2) they need to be cleaned every week; 3) the ceramic insert is fragile and easily broken during cleaning if you are not careful. We talk about reinforcing the top and rim with Gorilla tape or Duct tape and she agrees this will be a good idea and might prevent breakage. So if they can be subsidized and given to those who need them, if they can be trained and will follow up and clean them every week, and if they treat them carefully and don’t break them, they sound like a very good water filter.
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