This last week our plans to travel fell through but we are still planning on visiting clients sometime in the next couple weeks. However, I was able to make two day trip Sunday-Tuesday to a city of about 125,000 people 120 miles north of Port-au-Prince called Gwomon (translates to "big mountain") to inspect several schools, a church, and a dispensary. The damage there was considerably less as they were much further from the epicenter, but there were still some major cracks in buildings I looked at.

My method of transportation to Gwomon was an old school bus. There is a bus station near a slum called Site Soley (Sun City) with old school buses waiting to embark to villages across the country. Luckily my boss gave me a ride to the station because even Haitians are scared about traveling to this area alone because of its proximity to Site Soley. The ride cost 300 gourdes (roughly $7.5 USD) which seems high for a country where 80% of the population lives on an average of $2 USD a day or less. I was expecting a rough ride as from previous experiences I had learned how few Haitian roads are paved outside of PAP. In addition, we sat three per seat in the bus which is not ideal on a long bus ride. I tried to get a good picture of how crowded the bus was but the below picture did capture the scene well. I didn't want to take too many pictures because many Haitians do not like their picture taken without asking them.Luckily, about half the route was paved and the whole route was flat (rare in Haiti). I know 4 hours still seems like a long time for a 120 mile trip, but considering it took us 6 hours to go 40 km to Baudin last year, it seemed to go by quite quickly. I was surprised to see construction crews out working on the road. On my trip back I could see and smell the freshly laid tar along the new stretch of pavement. It was nice to see some signs of improved infrastructure in a country where it doesn't seem like the government is doing much. Because one of the priests at the church I stayed at in Gwomon had to make an emergency trip to PAP, I had the luxury of traveling back in a private car (much more comfortable).

One thing I struggle with is people's requests for money or help. Because there are not many Americans in Haiti (at least I don't see many besides the ones at work) and Haitians know America is richer than Haiti, I am an easy target. Walking out of church reminds me of leaving Blackhawks/Bulls games at home because there is a line of older people, often physically impared, waiting for donations. When they see me exit, some of them yell "blan" ("white") with their hands out. In Gwomon, as I was inspecting a school, several school girls came up to me and asked me 1) how to say "give me 10 dollars" in English and 2) to give them 10 dollars! Up until now, I have not given in often because I do not want to send the message that begging is the right thing to do. I have come to the conclusion that to raise oneself out of poverty, charity is not the solution. Also, I am already working to help people raise themselves out of poverty through business loans. But at the same time, I know deep down that they would have better use for the money than me. How I can best help the people I meet is something I will continue to toy with throughout my stay.

In the last few days, the delayed gas shipment finally arrived at the port in PAP and gas is no longer as difficult to find. I appreciate days where I don't have to catch a taxi to work as I usually am drenched in sweat due to the long walk and the overcrowded ride in the taxi. Another bit of good news is the electricity poles to our neighborhood have finally been rebuilt. This does not mean we get consistent electricity, however. For example, in the last 24 hours my apartment only had electricity from maybe 3-5:30 in the morning. This is common with a few people that live in different areas than me. However, I have heard electricity is more stable in wealthier parts of PAP (no surprise). My boss shared with me that since "Baby Doc" Duvalier left power in the 80's, PAP has never had enough electricity for a whole day. I am hoping that this situation will be improved the funds are appropriated to rebuild Haiti. Also, I am waiting to see if, as many people claim, that electricity will all of a sudden be plentiful during the World Cup.

First Haitian Party

Transportation has been very difficult this past week because of a national gas shortage. Since last Wednesday, gas has been very difficult to come by. Traffic, although now a bit lighter as more cars are off the road, comes to a standstill near gas stations as cars pile sit waiting in hope that gas will be distributed shortly (see below - sorry the picture is sideways but I couldn't figure out how to fix that). From what I have heard, gas is still the same price at the stations (about $3 USD/gallon), but people are selling gas on the street for as much as $9 USD/gallon.


I didn't see any fights break out but I heard if any gas was distributed, it was rationed in small amounts and you needed to push your way to get any (from my experience Haitians don't seem to like waiting in lines). A few times in the last few days my boss and I have walked to several Port-au-Prince gas stations carrying empty gasoline cans in hope of finding gas. This has meant that instead of being driven to work, my boss and I have taken either taxis or tap-taps to get to work. Several of the tap-taps we have taken are now charging double because of the gas shortage. Below is a picture of where I catch taxis - an intersection a 1/2 mile from my apartment called Kafou Ayewopo (in English, airport crossing). There is constantly a swarm of people sifting in and out of rusted out tap-taps and taxis to and from several different locations around Port-au-Prince. Some of the vehicles I've ridden in are so old I'm impressed they're still on the road. I've even seen a number of 1992 Toyota Previas (the first car I drove).

Supposedly the next tanker will not arrive in Port-au-Prince for another week, but I understand gas is a little easier to come by since yesterday. When asked by Haitians when the last time something like this happened in the United States, I can only think of the gas crises in the 1970s. Until now, gas has always been something I have taken for granted.

Yesterday I had a surprise visitor. My roomates knocked on my door to tell me Obama wanted to see me. Curious who my roomates wanted to introduce me to, I crawled out of bed to find my friend Martin and his girlfriend. Martin has translated for two groups I have been on and lives nearby Port-au-Prince. He had just returned from a week-long dental trip he translated for in the town I visited my first time in Haiti. After chatting for a bit I agreed to take a glance at his girlfriend's home. A Haitian engineer had already inspected the building but she was still living in a tent because she did not trust his word (this has been a common trend from my experience). After I walked through the building and did not find any critical problems, I told her I agreed with the other engineer. I could tell she was relieved. Engineers have made good progress on marking buildings (my building was marked as safe last week, don't worry), but it seems like the inspections are just carried out from the street, which limits their quality.

Last week there was a disconcerting radio report that predicted a 6-8 magnitude earthquake in the next couple weeks and informed all Haitians to sleep in tents until then. This caused my roomates, who were previously confident about the safety of our apartment, to start to worry that they should heed the advice. The report did not make sense to me becuase I don't think someone can be that confident there is going to be an earthquake and tell people to live outside when it is raining almost every night. I also cannot comprehend why this report was issued now of all times, over 3 months after the earthquake, and why in two weeks time it is suddenly safe to move inside again. I hope that the report does not give Haitians too much additional stress.

Yesterday was also my first Haitian party. My roomates, about 25 guests, and I celebrated my roomate Gertrude's birthday on the roof adjacent to our apartment. My roomates spenthours preparing for the party - ironing dresses, doing their hair, getting manicures, cooking, etc (see the above picture of me, Gertrude, and my boss, Getro who forgot to dress up, haha). There was plenty of food and beverages. The party, scheduled from 4-6 (I was curious why it was scheduled for only two hours), began two hours late and ended at 10PM. Even though we did not have electricity and gas was hard to come by, somehow we got hold of a generator and the dj's were able to play music for the duration of the party. Most of the music played is a Haitian style of music called Konpa. Several girls at the party put up with me and tried to teach me how to dance to it. I found out that Konpa originated as a modified version of salsa introduced by Cuban visitors years ago. It is much slower than salsa, and therefore a little easier to learn. As soon as I took my camera out, everyone and their mother was grabbing at my arm to have their picture taken, litterally. Luckily I had a spare camera battery as I quickly used up the first. Overall it was a fun experience.

I hope to be going out into the field in the next week. I have an inspection trip planned for the sister parish of a church in Lafayette, Indiana and will also be visiting Fonkoze clients in the north part of the country. Work has been challenging lately because we are trying to figure out how to reduce our high rates of delinquency since the earthquake. Our goal in visiting clients is to find out what is going on and how we can get more clients to resume loan payments. Hope things are good with everyone back home and that you all had nice weekends!

A lot of humanitarian aid has made it into my neighborhood in the last few weeks. Two weeks ago my roomates came home on consecutive days with half-filled 50 lb bags of rice as wells as bags with beans and corn given to them by WorldVision. I have no idea how challenging it was for them to haul all that food across PAP - I would have had trouble! I was happy to see people getting food but a little annoyed that most of the food aid I've seen is from the US, the Dominican Republic, etc. Granted, Haitian agriculture is much less developed than the US and they can't feed all of their population, but I hope some of the aid agencies are purchasing food aid locally to stimulate the local economy. From what my roomates tell me, a representative walks around the neighborhood and hands out cards/tickets to different households that say where and when the food will be distributed. This seems like an ardous task because Haitians are living anywhere they can. It is hard to know where one household ends and another begins. How can you know for sure if someone is just following the aid distribution from neighborhood to neighborhood?

This last week Doctors Without Borders created a scene in the neighborhood. As they weaved their way through the neighborhood, their truck was completely surrounded by Haitians desiring any kind of help they were giving. Although I presumed they were distributing medicine, it turned out they distributed hundreds of tents (doesn't seem directly in the mission of Doctors Without Borders to me but I don't think my neighbors cared). Although my street had a few tents before, now the entire street is lined with tents (see picture). Some tents have additional tarps over them to protect them from rain, but I'm guessing the bottom of the tents become damp. As rain has become more common (we've had rain 3 out of the last 4 nights - but only for 30 minutes or so), I am concerned people will become sick.

As one can imagine, all the tents and rubble around Port-au-Prince create a lot of traffic. Occasionally, sections of roads will be closed for a few days to allow workers and dump trucks to clear rubble. Although my boss can make it to his home outside PAP in 30 minutes with no traffic, now it takes 3 hours some mornings! There is still an immense amount of rubble that needs to be cleared. One government official estimated it would take 1000 dump trucks 1000 days to clear all the rubble from PAP! Some good news is that we can see electricity getting nearer to our apartment at night. Now it is only two blocks away. I hope that in the next couple weeks, our electricity will be restored but I am trying to not be too optimistic. Ironically, my roomate told me our apartment only had electricity installed two days before the earthquake. What luck! So far, however, not having electricity has not bothered me too much. My smartest move was investing in a headlamp that I use nightly to read or frantically look up words in my creole-english dictionary. Ok - time to get back to work. Bon Weekend!

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter. I haven't updated in a bit and thought I'd take advantage of a slow point at work to update. I posted new pictures in an album titled "around town" on http://picasaweb.google.com/109023387440893709524. There are pictures of my apartment and its surroundings, my roomates, the church I went to, where I work, and some more shots around PAP. My roomates were pretty lucky in the earthquake as our block had little damage whereas others nearby were not spared. I'm guessing the soil conditions under our block were much more solid and attenuated the ground motion from the quake. Work has been still keeping me busy. One of my goals is to improve efficiency of our department. Last week I worked on developing a macro (a code in excel) that will automatically generate contracts for the clients entered with a push of a button. It was a challenge that I didn't think I could complete but gave me a good deal of satisfaction to achieve. I was able to meet with the CEO on Thursday to get a better idea about what my goals are, which was nice. She encouraged me to get out into the field as much as possible and to meet with managers of other departments to get their views about what can improve about my department. My task is going to be to come up with suggestions to improve the performance of our loan portfolio (fewer defaults) while increasing efficiency. Overall, I was happy to hear this because as an engineer, I feel those goals are right up my alley.

Another thing that is exciting is a new product that we are going to help bring to market. The father of the family I stayed with my first week with Fonkoze is importing solar lamps that use solar panels to power a set of LED lights. The lights last 4-8 hrs depending on the setting on an 8 hr charge. An 8 hr charge can also charge 2 cell phones. The panel also has a hookup for cell phones. Since the system is expensive for Haitians ($70 US), he is teaming up with Fonkoze to allow Fonkoze clients to purchase the solar lamps on credit over a period of 4 or 5 months. He did a study where he found Haitians without electricity spend an average of $20 or so on candles/kerosene per month and $7 on charging their cell phones per month. One can see that purchasing this solar lamp can have a large impact on their budget as it will not take that long reach a break-even point. Cash that clients would be spending on candles and charging cell phones can now be diverted to paying for food, healthcare, or sending kids to school. My boss and I will be the ones running the program from our front, so that will be a learning experience.

Since Haiti is a very Christian country (~70% Catholic, 95% Christian), we had a half day off on Thursday and a full day off on Friday. On Friday there were many processions where Catholics would walk the stations of the cross over several hours of the day all over Port-au-Prince. I felt a little bad I skipped out on this because it might have been a great experience, but as I still don't speak a lot of Creole or French I was afraid I wouldn't get a lot out of it. On Sunday I did go to Mass though. In typical Haitian fashion, it lasted 2.5 hours and was packed with singing, praying, and dancing. I found it amusing that, just like the US, there were a lot more people there than the previous week. Many people watched from outside the church since the walls contained plenty of gaps in the bricks to facilitate airflow. In Haiti it is a tradition that kids fly kites around Easter. I posted a picture of this on Picassa but it did not come out well. Unfortunately, since my roomates are Adventists, we did not have a Easter Party but that was alright. It was really tough to be away from my family. I was a little homesick but I think things will get better as I build more relationships. I spent a lot of time over the weekend talking with my roomates and their friends. I have been helping them with their English and they have been helping me with my Creole. It is still difficult for me to understand when someone talks quickly, but I can see some improvement which is comforting.

Monday was the first day school started since the earthquake. Supposedly the reasoning behind this was that the government wanted to wait until all schools were open before letting any begin. In my opinion this doesn't make sense as some schools were undamaged. However, when I asked some kids if they were going to school, I found out many were not. Their families are still worried that there might be another earthquake nearly 3 months after the first. The hardest thing for me, especially when I was inspecting structures the first week was for me to understand the psychologic state of the Haitians since I did not experience the earthquake. Even though you tell someone a building is safe, it seems very difficult for them to regain a feeling of safety. Even my roomates waited a month before moving in to our apartment after the quake despite the fact that there were no cracks.

I am already observing the affect living in such a polluted city has on people's health. Frequently when I am talking to my roomates and their friends, one of them has some sort of a sinus attack lasting up to 20 seconds. My one roomate has been having throat problems for the last 3 weeks (maybe an infection). Combine living in a polluted city with not eating enough and one can imagine how fragile the immune system is. I am lucky that I am only experiencing this for a few months and not a lifetime. I am thankful I have not gotten sick yet.