Haiti - Evacuation

When I left Haiti, there were few options for getting out. The best option, it seemed, was the US Citizen Evacuation. According to the US Embassy web site, citizens just had to go directly to the airport and could get in line for evacuation flights. So I went. I naively imagined that I'd have to be flexible but that I'd be flown somewhere in southern Florida and have to fend for myself from there. When I got to the airport, I found out that even though I got to the airport at 10 am (after battling traffic through a nasty traffic jam where the UN was distributing food right next to the only road to the airport), they said there would maybe be an evacuation flight by 11 pm. Furthermore, they said that it could go anywhere in the US and that I would have to fill out a complicated form ("Emergency Loan Application and Evacuation Documentation"), which obviously from its title was more about the "Loan" than the evacuation. So the bottom line about evacuation is:

• you go wherever the flight happens to go, anywhere in the US


• you have no idea where you're going, until you go, and you have to commit to going before this step


• you pay full coach fare prior to the emergency for the route you finally end up taking


• you fill out a form that provides all your credit info so they can collect the full coach fare from you


• you may be strapped into the back of a C130 and flown to Anchorage for all you know, and charged thousands of dollars

Luckily, while I was waiting in line, a gentlement from Missionary Flights asked me if I felt lucky. "For about the last 5 seconds" I replied. To make a long story short, he offered to get me out of Haiti on one of their flights, after I and my luggage were weighed. We flew on a Locair charter, which didn't have enough fuel to make it to Florida without stopping to refuel in the Bahamas. It was a 19 passenger plane with 16 passengers, and we flew to Fort Pierce, FL (which does not have any services like taxis or rental cars, except for Hertz which offered cars at $146/day). Missionary Flights specializes in flying doctors and Christian missionaries into Haiti. I am quite grateful for their assistance.

From Fort Pierce, the 4 of us hitchhikers who made it onto the flight convinced the pilots to fly us back to Fort Lauderdale, where Locair is based. Thank goodness.

Haiti - distribution accomplished

Junior distributed the items I left with him. The people you see with him in the photos are from the Committee at Toussaint High school (preparatoire Toussaint), facing Place Saint Anne, whom he entrusted to distribute the items according to who needed them most. The Costco-size bottles of vitamins and children's vitamins were broken up into ziploc bags to distribute to a larger number of people, as were the protein bars, Immodium AD, beef jerky (light and high protein!), collapsible 5 gallon water bottles (walmart camping gear), tuna (in cans and in foil/plastic sealed packages), and trail mix. I brought protein-rich foods, because the food people are getting from the NGOs is mostly rice, so they lack protein in their diets.

Haiti - moments

Two moments stand out from the rest...

One day, Junior was talking about his sister who died in the quake, two months after giving birth. His mom is now raising the baby, and he was wondering what to do about the situation, whether to put the baby up for adoption in another country. He was struggling with the idea of losing yet another family member, vs. the opportunity for the baby to have an education and a life outside of Haiti. I talked with him about how I was adopted, and how it was possible to have a relationship with my birth mother's family (once I found her when I was 28), while still respecting the primacy of my "real" (not biological) parents. The issue was that if the baby is adopted in another country, it's unclear how much contact the baby would ever have with the family.

On the day I left Haiti, I stopped by Samba's offices at CHF. He was working with Hughes Communications, and introducing them to a new CHF employee who he proposed would work with Hughes. He said that he spoke English and knew a lot about networking technologies. Then he explained that this new employee had lost his wife and two children in the quake, and that he just needed to get out and get busy to distract himself from what happened to him (to which the guy nodded in agreement). The new employee then proceeded to explain his experience (in almost perfect English) and offer ideas about how he could help out and be productive.

I assume no commentary is necessary.

Haiti - dinner in the US compound

The first night I was in Port-au-Prince, I went to the compound where the Google.org team was operating (along with many other NGOs). It was a converted country club, with tents and military vehicles set up on tennis courts, parking lots, and other open areas, all tightly guarded by the US Military. At the front, they asked me what I was doing and I told them, and offered to show some ID. The soldier said, "you speak English, that's good enough for me". I continued to where the team was staying, but they were out. I sat down to dinner at a picnic table on a tennis court, set out among the tents, and was introduced around. Sean Penn and a couple of people from his team were there, eating the regular meals (stew, with MRE snacks on the side). We talked about what his group was focusing on - medical care to some of the underserved populations. They were doing incredible work, and large volumes of it. He was very gracious, friendly with the US troops, and obviously focused on actually getting stuff done there, not image. Very impressive.

Haiti - context

A friend mentioned to me today that the blog was interesting, but that it would be nice to have some context about why I was there, what I was doing, etc.

When the earthquake happened, I was in Seattle. I read the news, and saw how horrible it was. Haiti was already a country on the edge of chaos, and could easily have been termed a disaster area the day before the quake. I had just read a few days before the quake how Haiti had gone from 60% forested in 1923 to less than 2% by 2006 (because charcoal is the main cooking fuel). Its literacy rate was 53%, and there were 300,000 "orphans" (some of which have parents, as we have learned).

I wondered how I could help. I gave immediately to Yele.org, Wyclef Jean's organization, since I thought as a Haitian he would be better connected to the people's real needs. But I wanted to do more. (Note about Yele and Wyclef - he's right about what he says about Haiti, and he says it before most other groups do. People do need to evacuate the capital to a large degree, and they are willing to do so. His food packets contain the food Haitians traditionally eat - not MREs. And he personally walks around Cite Soleil and the other supposedly "dangerous" areas where many NGOs and celebrities are afraid to go.)

I had never been to Haiti, but I had spent considerable time in the closest countries to Haiti - the Dominican Republic to the East, and Cuba to the West. I speak (spoke?) French, from the year I spent in France in 11th grade. And I had seen various approaches to the social problems plaguing Haiti, from the Cuban approach on one end, to the various open-market (and frequently open-season on corruption!) approach on the other. I thought about going to Haiti myself and trying to help directly, but was dissuaded by the reports I had read about the misguided solo visitors who had gone to Haiti to help, but had gotten in the way more than anything else, taking up valuable space in hospitals with their various ailments when they weren't ready for conditions.

I then contacted my friend Megan at Google.org, suspecting that they were going to do something there. I was right - they were doing mapping work (like this), and are also working on language support (like Creole translation), among other things. I offered to support them, and she was receptive, so it seemed I could be useful.

At the same time, I called Helene Mounkoro, a long-time friend I had met in Santiago de Cuba while she was getting her doctorate in sociology. I knew she had married a Haitian, and had visited Haiti many times, so I asked her what was going on and how I could help. She said her husband Louis Joseph (Junior) was there in Haiti helping, and that she wasn't sleeping, as she wished she could be there helping as well. She said that there was much work that needed doing, and that I could be helpful. She promised that Junior and her friend Samba Sidibe would take care of me and make sure I was safe there, and she reassured me that it wasn't as dangerous as people were saying.

With the reassurance of Helene, and the opportunity to help the Google.org people, I changed my mind and decided to go. I bought a one-way ticket on Orbitz to fly United from Seattle to Denver to Philadelphia, and US Airways from Philadelphia to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in order to take advantage of my Star Alliance Gold status and be able to check 3 70 lb bags. By checking in with United, which does not serve DR, I could check my bags with an airline which did not have a DR-specific baggage restriction (which many had as a result of the Haiti disaster).

In DR, I met up with Junior, and with the help of Voila Comcel Haiti, which was flying regular charters between Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince, I was able to get both Junior and me into Haiti.

Haiti - driving around

Driving around Port-au-Prince has three forms: motorcycle taxi, car, and back of a truck. One day, Junior and I relied on a moto taxi the whole day. For about $20 for the day, we would jump on the back of the motorcycle (me in the middle, Junior on the back), and the driver wore a helmet but we did not. (It was relatively unusual for our driver to have one.) It's far faster than a car, because of the terrible traffic. We would wind our way between and around lanes, and change directions with mid-block U-turns. It's normal there for a car to see some space on the right of the street and pass the line of cars on the right and merge back in. I never saw other drivers get annoyed by the aggressive maneuvering of the other drivers, which was surprising.

To go to Gressier, we rode on the back of a truck. There was a metal rack around us, but we were pretty much unprotected. The truck made various stops, and there were agreed-upon fares for each distance. Not comfortable (see photos).

Haiti - My Living Situation

While in Port-au-Prince, I stayed with Samba Sidibe, a Malian who runs CHF International there, in his apartment in the Montagne Noire neighborhood (like Petionville, in the hills above Port-au-Prince). In the apartment were Samba, Samantha (who mostly listened to music at home since she was disturbed by the sights she saw in town), Junior (real name: Louis Joseph), and me. Junior had been studying in San Luis Potosi, in Mexico, and is now in Haiti trying to help people survive, relocate, and rebuild. He formerly worked in the Port-au-Prince mayor's office. Samba has lived in Port-au-Prince for years, and works long hours working to create job training opportunities for Haitians.

Every night we ate a stew made of goat meat and vegetables, with a creamy bean mixture, over rice (except for one night that we substituted corn grits for the rice).

We had power the whole time I was there, sometimes from the generator at the apartment complex, and sometimes from public power (about half the time). We had water service about half the time, and the other half, we had to use buckets for everything. Drinking water comes from large bottles that are delivered to the house.

I slept on the mattress in the living room (visible behind Samba). Junior and the woman who cooked for us slept outside in a camping tent on the porch. Samba and Samantha slept in the bedrooms.

Haiti - distribution

Of all the items I brought, I thought the water purifiers and the solar oven plans were the most powerful. The solar oven plans are a scalable solution, so that if one group of Haitians learns how to use them, then others can continue to use the plans and build solar ovens from supplies readily available in-country (cardboard, aluminum foil, glue, hanger wire - to avoid having to use oven bags). Yet none of these has been distributed yet. The reason is that the current urgent needs do not include water and food, and the future needs while migrating to the countryside do. I would have liked to have tested the solar ovens before going to Haiti, but alas, Seattle isn't really the place to do it.

Junior distributed some of the food and medicine (vitamins, immodium, gauze, neosporin, antibiotic wipes, etc.) the day I left, and took some videos, which I'll post as soon as he sends them to me.

Haiti - the encampments

Yesterday I walked through Place Petion and another of the camps in town, along with Junior (Louis Joseph) who is my friend and guide here. I met Junior through his wife Helene Mounkoro, a Malian who studied for her doctorate in sociology at the University of Santiago in Cuba, where I met her while I was traveling in 2005. Junior lost a 22 year old sister and a 9 year old brother in the quake, but continues to spend his time working 16 hour days (maybe 3-4 hours sleep) on the project to get people out of the city and get them decent housing that will survive the rains. I suggested to him that we use some of the resources I brought to help his two sisters who are living in the encampments (town squares), and he said it would be better to find out if the communities had been organized, and to find the community leaders and ask who had the greatest need instead.

Contrary to the news reports I had seen before going, the camps didn't feel dangerous. I was accompanied by a local who had family in the camps, so we were treated like invited guests. Inside the individual homes (which have roofs made of bed sheets or thin tarps bought for $6-7 USD in the local markets) people have all their remaining possessions, which are few - generally no changes of clothing, maybe a cooking pot, some soap, a bag of donated rice. People take sponge baths in the narrow aisles between the homes, or in areas near the entrances/exits. People say that there is generally water and food available now, but some people came up and asked for some.

People who are alone are in particularly bad shape - like an older man who said he sleeps on the open ground (stone) with no bed and no sheet to protect him from the sun. A man in a wheelchair who does not have the use of his arms or legs said that his wife went to another town to check on her family and hadn't returned. Neighbors were making sure he was covered from the sun and could get from the wheelchair to the ground at night and back into the chair in the morning. There were also people saying that babies are not happy being exposed to so much heat, with just a bedsheet between the sun and their heads.

Communication is an important need which hasn't been addressed. There are people with generators at the camps, charging around 20 Gourdes ($0.50 USD) to charge a cellphone. Most people had cellphones prior to the quake, but some people don't have chargers and no one in the camps has access to power.

Around the camps, rumors fly about what the latest batch of aid consists of. The main concern is housing, especially housing that could survive the rains that will come in about 3 months. There was a rumor of tents coming, so some people came up to me and asked if I was distributing tents. I was also asked if I was a doctor.

There aren't really any foreigners walking around alone. The aid organizations travel in groups, most of which are well-armed. While I am told that apparently peaceful groups can quickly turn violent, I never felt threatened.

Port-au-Prince & Gressier Government

Today I met with some of the Port-au-Prince mayor's office. They were doing the city's payroll, writing paper checks sitting on chairs between two buildings on (I kid you not) Rue D'Enterrement (Burial Road), where all the mortuaries are located. These guys were doing what they could to keep the city running, but it was just a group of about 10 people (if you could the sister of one of the guys, who was hanging out there with her daughter). While my contacts put the proportion of honest people in government at about 20%, they tend to find each other and conceive and manage projects on their own, leaving the others in government to do what they do. These guys are looking for a way to put the contributions of San Luis Potosi, Mexico to work, moving 2000 people from Port-au-Prince to a smaller town outside the city center called Gressier. The reason San Luis Potosi is involved is that one of the ex-staff of the mayor now lives in San Luis Potosi, and everyone he knows there (including those from Caritas, the Catholic charity) is trying to contribute, because they trust him.


We later went out to Gressier to find out how plans for the land for this resettlement are going. We met with the Mayor of Gressier, an older gentleman affiliated with the Duvalier regime (and still maintains regular contact with Baby Doc's son). He was very quick and matter-of-fact, wanted to know why we were there, and was very gracious. He gave his approval, but we still had to meet with the Adjunct Mayor and the Mayoral Administrator. (Each municipality in Haiti, no matter how small, has a Mayor and two Adjunct Mayors, all of whom are elected. This provides more work for the political class. The Mayoral Administrator is a position appointed by the Mayor.) While we met immediately with the Mayor at his home, we had to wait over an hour for the Administrator, at an office with a very armed guard in front. When he arrived with the Adjunct Mayor and assistant, it was out of a movie scene. The Adjunct Mayor seemed to be focused on the task at hand, but the other two guys were more about the bling. Each sported big chains, watches, and rings. After reading the same information the Mayor had seen, they agreed to meet again on Friday (in 2 days) to pick a spot for the encampment to be located.