Lots of Avocados

...that we didn't have to pick ourselves, because the storm did it for us!

In all seriousness, though, it's bad news 'round here. The storm had a devastating impact on displacement camps. See: Reflections on Hurricane Sandy. And on agriculture. See: Storm damages crops in Haiti, fueling food price woes. As to be expected, four consecutive days of rain has also already caused a spike in the number of reported cholera cases.

"Sandy, can't you see, [we're] in misery..."

When John Travolta sang about Sandy, he was stranded at the drive-in. I'm stranded at home without Ben, who is in NYC, but with extra water, propane, gas for our little generator and the company of Luna and a houseguest. I am not, like so many, in a displacement camp, or on a precarious hillside, or living on the bank of a river.

Port-au-Prince is wet and cold. It's been raining for more than 72 hours, and forecasted to continue to rain for at least the next day. Schools, businesses and the embassy are closed. Many towns and villages in Haiti's south are flooded, as are low-laying parts of Port-au-Prince. Sandy has caused landslides, bridges to wash out, and power outages. Rivers are surging their banks. Homes have collapsed. Fields of crops have been wiped out. So far, 16 people have lost their lives.

I know it's frivolous to compare this storm to the 1978 soundtrack of a teen's breaking heart, but we are all sitting and wondering why-y-y the rain won't stop.

This is the River Grise in Croix-des-Missions, on the northern edge of Port-au-Prince:

Weathering Isaac

Sunday, August 26

The sun is finally out.

On the main streets of Petionville, you can’t even tell there was a storm. The streets have been swept - are cleaner than usual, in fact. Shoe and second-hand clothes vendors are out, the tap-tap station is bumping, that annoying moto taxi driver on Rue Faubert that always whistles at me… The street market is bustling and supermarkets and restaurants are open.

That post-storm, post-disaster greeting of neighbors and acquaintances: “Nou pa gen anyen?” (roughly: “Is anything wrong?” meaning, of course, “Did anything happen to you, your family, your house…?” ). Everyone is fine. Everything is fine. 

I’m looking for an extension cord, candles and a replacement globe for our kerosene lamp – the only lasting impact of Isaac at our house is that we still don’t have electricity. (Then again, we could be without electricity here on any given day).

It took me about an hour to clean up our yard today, and our ‘debris’ looked like pretty parade confetti:

Friday night was long, though. Even with windows shut tight against 60-mph winds, I couldn’t sleep. Howling, slashing, shredding winds and a little rain, that by early morning turned into a lot of rain. I stayed glued to the news, to twitter, to try to find out what was happening out there. Of course the people being most affected weren’t tweeting about it.

Ben spent the night in Canaran, the sprawling tent camp slum that has mushroomed up on Route National One since the earthquake – in the past year, really – as people evicted from camps in the city or simply looking for space, for land, of their own move outwards to this publicly-owned desert that they have appropriated. If government acknowledged its existence, it would be the third largest city in Haiti.

At 1:30 am, the strongest wind yet. The roof blew off of the friend’s tarp shelter where Ben was staying. By morning, half of the tents around them had shredded.

The devastation of tent camps: this is the impact of Isaac. For the most part, the impact has been on those that already may as well be invisible.

Poor people made invisible by proclamations like the one made by the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance on Saturday, that the US Ambassador and USAID disaster experts had observed "no grave humanitarian conditions" after the storm.

Poor people made invisible by the allocation of reconstruction funds – 5 star hotels instead of public housing; by the government’s relocation program, pushing them out of visible camps, out of sight; by the re-imaging of the country as a hot tourist destination, never mind the fact that most ‘locals’ can’t afford a $5 meal, much less a $50 meal.

Except in Haiti, poverty can never truly be out of sight. And a storm like this – when pictures of flooded tent camps are broadcast around the world (even if only for a few hours before they’re replaced by concern about the Republican National Convention) serve as a reminder that those people exist, and that they’re living in desperate and vulnerable conditions.

In Cite Soleil and other low-laying areas, camps flooded – some with waist-high water. So far, seven people have been reported killed in the storm. Mostly, though, people all over the city lost the tarps and tent material that have been their shelter since the earthquake two and a half years ago.  

Channels simply do not exist for the majority of people to talk to the government, to express what they want and need or to ask for help. 9 members of Camp Avik (near the old Teleco building) that tried to block the street in front of their camp, tried to make some noise to get attention and, ultimately, assistance were arrested on Saturday. The guys at Camp Avik are members of a housing rights coalition. They're organized and active in trying to claim access to what they know is their right to safe and affordable housing. They still haven’t been released.

As much as you or I, their families deserve to have roofs to shelter them from rain and windows that they can shut against 60 mph winds.

A storm in SMS

These are the unsolicited SMS messages I received from Digicel, our local (Irish) cell phone provider over the past three days:

Friday 6:53 am: "Tropical Depression Isaac could become a category 1 hurricane. Please send the word cycone to 4636 for weather information."

Friday 7:08 pm: "Tropical Depression Isaac could become a category 1 hurricane. Please send the word cycone to 4636 for weather information."

Saturday 12:40 pm: "You would still like to know the results of the bòlet (lottery) drawing. To read the results, send RLOTTO to 4636. Price: 3 gourdes."

Saturday 8:11 pm: "Isaac is continuing toward the Gulf of La Gonave. We ask that everyone continues to take precaution as there could still be heavy winds and rain for the next 12 to 24 hours."

Sunday 1:00 pm: "We hope that you and our family are okay. Thank you for using Digicel. Send the word cyclone to 4636 for weather information."

Sunday 3:00 pm: "Remember to ask your friends and family overseas to put minutes on your phone for you. Thank you for choosing Digicel."

Note: messages translated from Creole

Battening down the hatches (Those of us that have hatches, that is)

The National Hurricane Center's Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook is at the top of my list of bookmarks this time o' year, and the 'Outlook' this week is not so good. Tropical Storm Isaac is scheduled to become a hurricane by Friday, and hit Haiti by Saturday.

See the US Embassy emergency message here. 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: have you signed this petition yet? 390,000 people in Port-au-Prince do not have houses to protect them from this impending storm. Thousands more have been evicted from tent camps in recent months and remain without access to safe, affordable housing.

Please call on the Haitian government and international community to resolve this urgent crisis.

(If you remain in any way skeptical, check out the front page story of the New York Times from Thursday).

My, what shocking red rain boots you have on!

Yesterday was the first all-sunny day we've had this week. Even during rainy season, a gray day is rare in Haiti but the past week has been cold and drizzly, scattered with pummeling rains.

When I had to go out on Monday afternoon, I pulled on my sturdy boots, my rain jacket, and grabbed an umbrella -- as any practically-minded woman would do, right? Without a functional waste management system or drainage ditches, the streets in this city become rivers of nastiness when it rains.

My feet are my favorite mode of transport and, maybe I'm just oblivious, but I don't think I typically draw that much attention when I walk around. To get where I was going on Monday, I walked the equivalent of 4 blocks and counted the highest number of stares and jokes EVER, every single one directed at the fact that I was wearing rain boots. In the rain.

Here's the thing: in Haiti, city folk don't wear rain boots. Rural 'peasant' farmers wear rain boots to work in their fields. Construction workers wear rain boots on job sites (and it doesn't have to be raining). But, never ever have I seen anyone heading home from an office job thus adorned.

Social and class divisions run deep here, and the urban-rural divide is one of the most acute. Though most people living in and around Port-au-Prince have come to the city within the past thirty years or so, the social status (and norms) gained by education, a desk job or perhaps just by general city living precludes use of rain boots and other things associated with rural life and manual labor. Instead, people in the city take off their shoes -- to keep from ruining them -- and walk barefoot when it rains.

It's a good thing I've always had a rebellious streak.   

(On a far more serious note, we don't remember past year's rainy seasons beginning with so much ferocity. This week's rains have been devastating. By midweek, 9 people were drowned or killed by landslides in Haiti and 11,000 displaced by flooding in the Dominican Republic. Roads have been damaged, bridges washed out, streets are blocked up, and the situation for those still in earthquake displacement camps is beyond abysmal. Cholera is on the uptick, too.)

Sodden

In rainy season – or the abrupt onslaught of daily, heavy rains currently preceding it – owning a motorcycle becomes really inconvenient. (Read: tonight we drove 4 miles uphill in the pouring rain, our lips pursed and legs tucked up as high as we could get them, through rivers of trash and sewage flooding downhill. We got soaked and it was gross.)

Then, with almost half a million people are still homeless in this city, I feel guilty for complaining about my ride home. You can probably already guess how I feel about the Red Cross idea to build a hotel for foreigners in Port-au-Prince...

Happy Birthday to me?

When I catch myself pouting that Tropical Storm Emily is slated to hit Thursday morning (and will presumably obstruct our plans to go hiking and have a birthday picnic), I am ashamed of my selfishness. We have a roof over our heads.

Sign of the Times

 

This was the amazing front cover of Le Matin, a bi-weekly Haitian newspaper, on Monday. ONG is the French acronym for NGO. Below the collapsed presidential palace is Sarokozy, whose visit to Haiti after the earthquake was highly publicized and politicized. Below him is flooding from hurricane season. In the center are Bill Clinton and the Haitian Prime Minister, Jean Max Bellerive, who co-chair the ineffective and controversial Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (CIRH). Center right, a UN soldier is pooping cholera into a tent city. And, along the bottom are the president, Provisional Electoral Council and leading presidential candidates.

Tomas in Leogane

Pretty terrible flooding in Leogane, a city that was mostly destroyed by the earthquake. Most large NGOs had the day off for safety reasons (other than PIH, who was set up in a large camp in Port-Au-Prince, ready to respond) but all of the major news networks and journalists made it out. Go figure. No need to fear the hurricane, though, because the UN had their tanks and guns ready.

Tracking Tomas

It's been raining consistently since early afternoon and the wind is starting to pick up. We've sort of personally prepared (ie, bought food and candles and stood in line in the rain to buy propane until the pump broke at the station... so no propane). Ben's rain and camera gear is all laid out and ready to go, which sounds a bit opportunistic and dangerous but that's how he rolls. Although it's not looking good, we're still hoping and praying that Tomas will change course. For now, it looks like we'll be getting the worst of it early tomorrow morning - not we, per say, but the many many people that are in tents and flimsy shelters and were unable to evacuate because there's nowhere for them to go. (Read this).

Please keep all of us in your prayers,
A & B

Tomas; ETA: Thursday

Hurricane Earl

Sounds like it should be a bluegrass band, which we would love, but is actually a Category 4 hurricane, which we do not love, especially with 1.5 million people in Port-Au-Prince living under deteriorating tents and tarps. Thankfully we haven't gotten more rain or wind here than usual. The hurricane itself seems to be headed to our other home, North Carolina.

Incidentally, we will be following ol' Earl to North Carolina next week. Ben leaves on the 7th and I on the 11th to spend some time with our families, especially Martha.

Some recent work: Fonkoze's Hurricane Response

to accompany a text story

Gonaives four months after hurricanes, w/ bicycles

MCC's response to the storms

There is currently a team from our office distributing food, medicine and other supplies to flood victims in Gonaives. Last week MCC posted a press release detailing what we hope is a preliminary response to the disaster here. You can also view a photo gallery from the MCC website that includes a few of the photos Ben took last week.

Please continue to pray for the people that were affected by these storms. Even here in the Dezam area many have lost their gardens to flooding, entire villages are cut off from access to markets and still it continues to rain daily. Just yesterday Jean-Remy, who manages the reforestation project, received word that one of his fields flooded. For people who grow cash crops on leased land, a flooded field can mean the loss of more than a year's income.

Hurricane damage

Yesterday I went to Gonaives, the city most affected by the recent hurricanes. It's incredible how much water is still flooding the city. It's been six days since the last hurricane but rivers are running through the center of the town. People are drying out their belongings on their rooftops and cleaning up. In many places where there isn't water, there is mud. Somebody told me yesterday that it took three years for the mud to dry out after Hurricane Jean in 2004.

I went with three other people. We drove a truck for two hours until we came to a bridge partially falling down due to flood damage. Then we rode in the back of a pickup truck taxi for an hour. After that, we paid a taxi to take us to Gonaives, and this leg of the trip took two hours. We rode in Toyota minivan identical to my old one but with 4-wheel drive. Because of the flooding the normal road is now a lake and there is a new road that is still under construction. Our driver was awesome. The new road had puddles fifty feet long and some were two feet deep. At one point, we hit something really big under water and the spare tire fell off. When we were almost to the city, we came to a puddle that was probably a quarter of a mile long and waist deep. A tall dump truck ferried us across with others that could afford to ride. Everybody else was wading across.

We spent an hour and half in Gonaives and only saw a small part of the tragedy that has occurred there. The headline on BBC right now says "One million homeless in Haiti" the report also says 550 died.

When the possible proves impossible

In a previous post, Ben mentioned this comment made by our Kreyol teacher: Haiti is a place where the possible is impossible, but the impossible is possible. We're thinking about that as our simple plans for the week become unfeasible.

We were supposed to leave Port Au Prince on Saturday to spend a final week of orientation visiting MCC's reforestation project in Desarmes. This changed when Hanna washed out several major bridges between here and the Artibonite valley. It's not possible to travel there overland (which, incidently, is making it difficult for the UN and other relief NGOs to access the severely flooded area in and around Gonaives).

We thought that instead we'd spend the week moving into our apartment, or maybe even start work. As it turns out, my office is moving and not ready for me to start work for at least another week. Ben's boss is attending a conference in the States. And negotiations for our apartment were complicated when the landlord - who lives in Miami - decided to rent out the aparment below ours, and so has no place to move his oversized furniture. A few solutions have been presented, including - and I'm still not clear on how this would solve the furniture issue - sharing our bathroom with the person that would live in the shed that the landord intended to build on our terrace. What?! Needless to say, negotiations are still in process...

We're still at the MCC guesthouse in Port Au Prince. We're taking two hours of Kreyol everyday, doing our own grocery shopping and cooking, dealing with the crashed hard drive on our laptop, getting accustomed to hearing gunshots at night and learning our way around the city. We've gotten cell phones and opened bank accounts. Tomorrow we apply for our residence permits.

Haitians like to tell a joke about hurricanes that goes something like this: When hurricanes come, they see Haiti, say, "Oh I've already been here" and turn around to leave. But unfortunately, the devastated state of the Haitian coast did not deter Hurricane Ike. Sunday was just another rainy day here in Port. But Ike hit hard in the same area that was affected by Hanna. Here's a fairly sensational description of Ike, as per the Associated Press:

"In flooded Haiti, Ike made an already grim situation abysmal.

At least 58 people died as Ike's winds and rain swept the impoverished Caribbean nation Sunday. Officials also found three more bodies from a previous storm, raising Haiti's death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 319...

Haiti's coastal town of Cabaret was particularly hard hit — 21 victims were stacked in a mud-caked pile in a funeral home there, including two pregnant women, one with a dead girl still in her arms."

More on the weather

Pray that it stops raining in Haiti. We are getting acquainted with the National Hurricane Center's website these days: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/. Port Au Prince doesn't get much fall out from storms, but parts of the country are being devastated by floods. Relief efforts are complicated by the fact that it's still raining. To make matters worse, category four hurricane Ike is forecasted for Saturday.

Hurricanes with a death toll/ Reducing poverty through the church

Today I (Ben) drove an MCC truck to the Baptist Mission above Port-Au-Prince with a few other people. It was nice to get a chance to drive. When we left the city it was raining lightly, but as we gained altitude the wind increased. There were trees down on the road. And at one point, we came to a telephone poll that had fallen across the road. A group of guys with machetes would move it when passing vehicles gave them money, then drag it back across the road. I scraped under and drove over a lot of down power lines. At one fallen tree we had to wait half an hour while guys cut it up with axes and machetes.

Hurricane Hanna is currently pounding Haiti. The city of Gonaives, a few hours north, is flooding and it’s very likely that a lot of people are dying right now. Gonaives is in a flood prone area, where 2,800 people died from flooding after hurricane Jeanne in 2004. Relief organizations are on their way out there now but it’s still raining. There are also two more hurricanes heading this way, Ike and Josephine.

We are in Port-Au-Prince now studying Creole a few hours a day. Our teacher is really good and passes on cultural insights when he thinks of them. One thing he said recently was,“Haiti is a place where the impossible is possible and the possible is impossible”.

We visited one of MCC's partner organizations today that is working through the church to reach the UN’s millennium development goals. Here in Haiti they are raising awareness about what the church's role should be in eliminating poverty and promoting social justice and environmental stewardship... It's very impressive, I think Jesus would dig it. The “Micah Challenge is a global Christian campaign. Our aims are to deepen our engagement with impoverished and marginalized communities; and to challenge international leaders, and leaders of rich and poor countries, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and so halve absolute global poverty by 2015.”