Little Update - sorry for reiterating the first few paragraphs!

Wow.
So, eventually I have found some (semi) free time. Feels like it’s been an age since I last got to write here.
I have been extremely busy, though I must still apologize for the lack of information flowing from me recently.
I’ll start off with leaving England, the flight to Miami was long and uneventful, it was definitely one of the more enjoyable ones, it seems God provides for everything – even a pretty brunette to sit next to and flirt with!
My one night in Miami was extremely enjoyable; I bought a $5 bus ticket and trundled down to the seafront. Once there I entertained myself by strolling through the bustling streets, and browsing the “Art Basel”, comprising of various different types of modern art – for instance, giant painted mice, startroopers lining balconies and graffiti-daubed toilets. Picking up whatever free posters I could find, I hopped back on the bus and had barely any sleep before getting up at 0400 for my flight at 0700 to Port au Prince.
On my flight I was mildly amused to meet a man volunteering with a company installing Living Water Treatment Systems (which I had just spent 7 months installing in Uganda!). I was glad to be able to provide information necessary to fix some problems we had discovered with the system. Arriving in Port au Prince I was immediately accosted by 2 men who grabbed my bags and would not relinquish them! I eventually gave up and reluctantly let the guys carry them, though I knew what was coming next. Meeting my contact, Dennis Maupin, I was then told by my self-appointed porters that they had carried my bags for the entirely reasonable price of $40. At this point I politely told them how unlikely it was that they’d receive that amount, and gave $5. Cheeky blighters.
Travelling through Port au Prince is probably a bit of an exaggeration; we came out into solid traffic and stayed there for at least another hour. Eventually we had inched past a particularly snarled intersection and managed to get moving at a more reasonable pace.
Having been in Uganda so long, and learning the lust-for-near-death-experiences style of driving I thought things couldn’t get much worse. I was wrong. Just when you thought it was safe to get back behind the wheel. The biggest vehicles initially making me almost defecate in my trousers were the giant “Mack” trucks. With monstrous bull bars these beasts roam the road, avoiding potholes at all costs and hunting smaller, terrified automobiles as motorbikes dart wildly, confidently squeezing through absurdly tight spaces whilst travelling at frightening speeds.
I have to say, Uganda appears to be a developed country compared to Haiti, the roads here are even worse and the infrastructure is non-existent. In the city the earthquake damage is drastically evident, the scale of destruction is incredible. As we gradually filter out of the black smog churning from pickups not merely heavily loaded, but dragging on the ground with the amount of people perched on the back, I was struck by the lack of vegetation, and the profuse amount of tents, shacks and other makeshift homes lining the hillsides. I am informed about the profuse amount of tarantulas that live in holes dug into the ground, and begin to pray that I don’t have the misfortune to be surprised by one of these frighteningly large arachnids. I’m told that they come out at night and like to hide in piles of clothes –strangely the cleanliness of my room has been exceptional recently….
Apparently voodoo has been semi-merged with some Catholic churches here, and voodoo in itself is still rife. Even if people proclaim themselves Christians they still fear the power of the witchdoctor. These voodoo practitioners have some pretty nasty tricks, one of which being the use of poisons to coat coins, and other ornaments, which they then leave on the street. For the unwitting person unlucky enough to check these objects a disturbing process occurs. The poison seeps into the skin, and the person dies. Or so it would seem. It gets worse, they don’t actually die, but are put into a deep coma, from which they could awake in a morgue, or a grave. But that’s not the weirdest part, presumably due to lack of oxygen to the brain, or the effects of the toxin, or both, they are not really aware of what they are doing once they awake. This is where our western idea of a “zombie” comes from. The “zombie” will stagger, dazed, unable to comprehend what they are actually doing, in a state of fugue. Often these people are killed by wandering into traffic, powerless of realizing the danger they are stumbling into. Creepy.
On the outskirts of PAP we arrived at my home for the next two weeks, a reasonably large house, I was given a room and we immediately started getting some plumbing work done for the national team who were coming to stay too. Eventually finishing up for the day, I was completely shattered and collapsed into bed, relishing the opportunity to sleep.
The next afternoon our national team arrived from Cap Haitian. Pleased to be meeting the guys I would be working with, I decided some male bonding was required, so invited them to join me in my boxing training. We had a great time; they may have been slightly surprised how aggressive the big smiley Englishman could become though!
The subsequent morning we started work, repairing pumps in PAP and the surrounding areas. Whether it was the day after or the next I can’t quite remember, but we ended up penned in on both sides of our road by burning tyre barricades. Bit of an issue trying to get around for repairs. Of course, these were the riots due to the fact that Jude Celestin had apparently made it through to the second round of voting rather than “Sweet Mickey”, strange considering the utter lack of supporters we found – though, what is expected when daddy’s still president? We took a back road out the first day and went in the other direction to a pump slightly out of town we knew was broken. Like many of the pumps in PAP the pipe was about 190ft long, which, and when made of steel, it’s pretty heavy! One of the other problems we faced was when a pump had been fitted with 20ft pipe instead of 10ft sections – it’s hard enough wrestling a 10ft pipe out and avoiding power lines, let alone 20 ft! Just to make things even more interesting, some of these still contained a column of water inside – increasing the weight incredibly. The tire barricades immediately blocking us had burnt out overnight, so the next day we headed into PAP, planning on avoiding large crowds and taking the back roads to try and avoid more blockades. We inevitably ran into a few more though. Our approach was to stop maybe 50ft away, then walk towards the barricade and find the leader and explain to him what we were doing. Once we had done this we had no problems and they promptly created space for us, though we were told that we could only go through at a price sometimes – if we fixed their particular well! This seemed like a reasonable price to make friends and avoid being pelted with rocks and attacked.
After 2 weeks we were finished, and planning our trip up to Cap Haitian. We had completed repairs on 21 wells in total, restoring the water supply to some 35,000 people. The day before we go, we’d had no problems at all - barring a flat tyre, and I was confident and happy that no damage had come to the vehicles. That is until – unbeknown to me, Dennis needed to go out and one of the workers volunteered to drive for him – of course this man managed to tear the wing mirror off and buckle the gate of the compound we were staying in. I heard a huge crash and ran out in time to see this fellow stepping sheepishly out of the driver’s door and offering it to Dennis.
Luckily no other accidents befell us that day and we left early the next morning for CAP. On the way out of the PAP area a horrific, gag-inducing stench of eggs enveloped us. As I looked out to our left I saw an emerald green pool of bubbling water, and realized it was a sulphurous spring. Continuing on our long trek up to CAP I realized there was something much greater to fear than the big Mack trucks. Remember the yellow school buses you see in American films? Know what happens to all the old, broken, no longer roadworthy ones? They get sent to Haiti. And used for cheap, death-trap transport. These yellow behemoths thunder along at a frightening rate, quicker than all the other vehicles on the road. We were keeping to what was an average of about 100kmh and these under-maintained human sardine cans of peril would career past us, blasting their horns, on blind bends and hill crests. Nevertheless, even these speeding beasts had to slow slightly for what lay ahead - one of the worst roads I have ever seen, considering it is the main route from Port au Prince to Cap Haitian. Climbing up steep mountain slopes, the cavernous potholes threaten to swallow you whole if you’re not careful, and we proceeded at a snail’s pace, steering well clear of the edge of the road, that had in many places simply eroded away, dropping to the depths below. These conditions and the motorbikes taking hairpin turns on the wrong side of the road to avoid these craters made the journey…. interesting! Coming down was not much better, the corpses of lorries and yellow buses attempting to make up time littered the road, mainly due to wheels or axles being ripped off whole after falling into a particularly deep pothole at speed. As we descended the mountains I realized a change had taken place, we were now surrounded by lush, vibrant greens, prolific in palm trees and cacti.
Eventually we arrived in Cap, and I was able to get a look at the city I would be based in. Or I would have been able to get a look if it hadn’t been so dusty. Up went the windows and down went the vision. I will never quite understand how a Haitian manages to travel on a motorbike with no helmet on these roads, the caking of dust on the eyes must become inches thick. I hear a cacophony of blaring horns, and see looming vehicles materialise in our path, barely avoiding serious injury as they choose collision over potholes, and we swerve wildly away. Passing over the river going into the harbour, I was amazed by the colour, and contents of it. I had grown adjusted to pollution in Africa, but nothing quite like this. The filthy black sludge teemed with debris, and the stench forced itself into your nostrils. Looking out I could see that the rest of the harbour was not in a much better state, this was not the Caribbean sea I had been expecting. Gradually we work our way out of the city, and onto a beautiful tarmac road that had apparently been laid by Italian contractors (paid direct, to avoid the certain “commission” that would be taken by every government official that it passed through).
5 miles out and we have arrived at the compound. It’s a reasonable size, has some fruit trees in the garden, and is surrounded by a cacti hedge. I finally get the chance to relax, and flop into bed early. Though not for the peaceful night’s sleep I had hoped for. At approximately 2am, the roosters start - the egotistic, insomniac, roosters. One crow sets off a nuclear reaction, each hateful bird feeding from the crow of the one previous, continuously reverberating around my home. I bury my head under a pile of pillows, and finally drift away into oblivion.
My boss, Jim, had taken pity on me over the festive season, also wanting to meet and do some training, he flies me to Michigan a few days after I arrive in Cap. Having no money to visit my family, the Mohneys kindly take me into their home, and allow me to share in their Christmas. A little snow and bitterly cold weather provided a big change from my previous environment, but their niece managed to get me a free pass to her gym, and I have to say I greatly enjoyed my time with them. Sadly it wasn’t all fun and games though, most of the weeks I spent there were in the office, accounting and doing reports training. Remind me to never, ever take an office job. Ten minutes in and I was already going mad.
So eventually I had to relinquish my gym pass and head back to Haiti, to what will be a very challenging number of weeks! The night I am at the hotel before leaving on the plane the next day, I get a call from Jim, telling me that, yes, I will need to drive down to Port au Prince, load up the truck with the contents of the recently released container and drive back. I will have to make this trip the moment I get into Cap, merely dropping off my bags then jumping into the truck for that heart racing drive to PAP, load the truck the next day, and leave. This is due to the fact that in 4 days the first American team arrives, giving me just 2 days to set up everything they have sent in the container (an abundance of flat packed furniture, washing machine, fridge, water heater, mattresses, cutlery, dishes and various other supplies), find a cook for them and set up the internet connection. Needless to say, those four days were completely and utterly insane.
Somehow, much to my incredulity, I managed to get most of the list sorted before my team arrived. Everything went reasonably well, and I really enjoyed being able to interact with a team. Luckily, they had been to Haiti before, and were ready for some of the difficulties that arose, so I didn’t have much whining to put up with! Though two of the lads were endlessly amused by my accent and some phrases I used! The week ended as a resounding success, with 13 wells repaired, and nearly 20,000 provided with clean water. The team left on Saturday, a week after arriving, and I spent that day cleaning up after them, playing music very loudly, and enjoying the chance to have some privacy.
Sunday. I took one of the 200cc Hondas out over the mountains to the beach. A brilliant ride, scrambling up a terrible mountain dirt track, spitting gravel and rocks behind me, I reached the top. And stopped. The sight drew me in, I stared in wonder. I can look west along the coast and the water is a clear, gorgeous turquoise that defies belief. I sat on my bike and just gazed, slack-jawed. Incredible. I started down the mountain, and eventually came to a small beach where I rented a boat for $5 and moved round to a slightly larger one. I swam, sunbathed, and after a few bananas it was back on the bike. Definitely the best way to spend your day off.
So the next day I went scouting for broken pumps in the mountains, another good excuse to get on the bike, I was more than happy to do so. I had a quick lunch of rice and beans, making friends with the locals I met at a small village.
Somehow mosquitoes had still been managing to find a way under my net, and I had been repeatedly bitten, this, combined with me forgetting my malaria medicine once or twice, ended up with me not feeling too well. If you’ve ever had malaria you’ll know how horrific it is. For those of you that haven’t, an intense fever, quickly changing from unstoppable sweating, to uncontrollable chills racing through your body, nausea and a destructive headache, all combine to make you feel pretty darn awful. I was silly enough to tell my mother how bad I felt. At which point, being the lovely, caring, affectionate, slightly neurotic mother she is, she decides to inform the nearby hospital on my condition, and that she’s worried I may die and need urgent medical attention. 10 minutes later I get a call, “Hello, is this Dan? We’ve sent an ambulance, they’ll be there in 5 minutes”. I was not particularly pleased at this point. The idea of getting out of bed, let alone having to now make my way to the hospital late at night was not on my list of things to do. I had informed my mum that I would go first thing in the morning, but as I heard sirens approaching (yes, sirens.) I realized I was not going to have much choice in the matter. So 15 minutes later I am sat in an emergency room, having my blood pressure and temperature taken. They lie me under a bright fluorescent lamp and I wait half an hour until they tell me to come back in the morning for tests. Great. Happy to be back in my own bed eventually, I sweat and shiver through the night, and am taken back early the next day. Going for the blood test I have to suddenly evacuate, just as I sit to have my sample taken, to stumble outside, fall to my knees and vomit, unwittingly, after attempting to find a private space, in front of a large crowd. Eventually I managed to get back inside, where they stole some blood, and informed me they needed faecal and urine samples too. I am given a cup with no lid and told that I have to buy my own container for the faecal sample. Being too weak to walk any distance I send Gelin to buy me something to use. He returns, matchbox in hand, and I look at him dismayed, “It’s the only thing I could find!” he exclaims. So, we then go in search of a bathroom, at which point I end up collapsing in the middle of the courtyard. Bit embarrassing, but at the time I wasn’t particularly worried about who saw me sprawled on the ground. Eventually, with the help of Gelin and some security, I am helped to my feet, and put on a bench to lie down. After an hour or two, it’s determined I have malaria, I get some medication and stumble back to the truck, holding onto Gelin.
Finally recovering on Thursday, I pick up the next team from the airport on Saturday. I have had to move out of my room, to allow the ladies a separate place to sleep, and am sleeping in a communal room with the rest of the guys. That afternoon, we go to fix a pump in the centre of Cap Haitian, and manage to get the submersible pump stuck in the well. Time and time again we try to fish it out, but it’s somehow locked solid in there. We end up leaving it until we can come back on Monday. I am informed on Sunday morning about how entertaining I was, even in my sleep, due to the profuse amount of conversations I had in my dreams. By Monday we have decided that the submersible will be just that, and declare it a casualty of the USA, forcing it to the bottom and leaving it there forever! The rest of the week was littered with problems, involving blocked wells, broken generators, and the second submersible malfunctioning. I had a brilliant time with the team though, who had never been to Haiti before, and enjoyed being able to share in their awe of a new foreign land.
Saturday was spent cleaning up after the team again, and Sunday I took the bike out to the beach nearby, riding up and down the coast, where at one point I stopped to help fishermen pull in what must have been a 200ft crescent of netting, amounting to a catch of about 20 tiny fish, some crayfish and a little puffer fish. An epic amount of work – and torn hands – for a depressingly small catch. On the way home I spotted some rocky hills nearby and set off towards them, discovering a quarry, having played on the slopes, and bounced off the rocks, I stopped and joined the men in smashing away at the walls of these hillsides, which amused them highly!
So now I am working with the Haitian team doing more pump repairs, I have just been informed that apparently it’s dangerous here, so the next American team won’t be coming. Which is very depressing, it’s nice to meet the new people, and it also means I get an awesome cook for a week, so I am a little down about that. I have been informed that Living Water will probably be able to let me go by the 12th of March, as they have found a couple who will be used as the permanent staff for my job.
Today’s events were slightly disturbing. I hear loud squeals and grunts, turning around to see a big pig chased by a pack of smaller pigs. I then notice this pig is snapping its head violently, shaking something small and white in its mouth. Turns out to be the now limp, lifeless body of a baby goat that the pig snatched, and as I watch, they charge round the field, fighting over the corpse of this creature. Eventually they stop and devour it. Never seen that before.
So if you’ve managed to get to this point in the blog, you must have been either very bored or skiving off work! I hope to make my contributions to this a bit more often, but I’m very busy with the reports these days, and it’s difficult to find the time, I hope you appreciate the update though. Please pray that I find out what I want to do after Haiti, having a bit of trouble knowing which direction to go at the moment.
I bid you adieu, I’m famished and need some tea!