Tales from Rohan

Lots of people have asked me what it is like here in Haiti and at my “post” at the University of Fondwa.

Where’s Fondwa?

Fondwa (Fonds d’Oie in French or “Goose Bottom” in English) is the 10th section of the commune of Leogane in the “Oueste” (West) department. The University main campus is in the mountain village of Tonmgato (Tombe Gâteau in French) on the road between Leogane and Jacmel at 18°22′15″N 72°34′59″W.

Where are you living?

I am in a house in Tomgato right on the main mountain road between Leogane and Jacmel. It is definitely cooler up here at 800m than on the coast. I am sharing a large room with 2 other volunteers (one from Iowa and one from Malaysia) and up to 3 Haitian professors at a time. While the house lacks water, electricity, and privacy, it has a great view (you can see the ocean when it isn’t too foggy).

What are you doing?

I am working at the University of Fondwa—Haiti’s only rural university. When I signed up I thought I would be giving computer classes, but the students don’t have more computer classes in their curriculum until 3rd year, and we only have 1st and 4th year students. Instead, I’ve been working on Internet access (which now works when we have power), arranging for a more reliable source of power, working on the University website, translating stuff to and from French and Creole, and trying to salvage some of the computers that were partially crushed when the university building collapsed on them. (The 34 students went back to class on May 5th in a temporary building with no doors or windows.)

How is the cleanup and recovery going in Haiti?

There is still a lot of rubble and a lot of crushed buildings. In Port-au-Prince, Leogane, Jacmel, and even in Tonmgato, there are still plenty of cement buildings that are sitting in the same position since Jan 12th.

The earthquake cut across rich and poor here. In some cases the more affluent Haitians lost a good deal more but in some cases the more affluent were lucky to build in locations with a lot of solid rock instead of foundation and some of them had the foresight to spend more to build well (they call it anti-seismic and anti-cyclonic here).

Multistory cement buildings built on sand did the worst. This covers a lot of the city center and port of Port-au-Prince, everything near the river in Jacmel, and most of Leogane. In Jacmel, there was a tsunami that took out a lot of houses near the river mouth. Amazingly while a lot of beautiful colonial buildings were badly damanged, many of the very oldest buildings are still standing because they are made of wood and used cross bracing. The construction problems in cement buildings here are numerous, for example scrimping on rebar and not pouring a deep enough foundation. A very common problem is not extending rebar far enough in lintels and using columns that can barely hold up the cement floor or roof above them. There are plenty of completely collapsed 3 story buildings that just look like 4 slabs, one on top of the next with no evidence that there was anything inside.

What is the international aid community doing and how well are they doing it?

The international aid community seems to be doing a good job providing medical care and water in the hardest hit cities and the UN is also improving some of the roads. After that it is really hard to tell. It looks like most people are living in their neighborhoods, staying in a partially damaged house (unsafe and scary) or sleeping in tents and other improvised shelters just outside their old house on the sidewalk or part in the street or on the roof. Some of the groups are working on rubble removal and while you see a lot of good work going on in that department, it is hard to imagine that rubble removal is going fast enough. There are still enormous mountains of rubble and thousands of buildings which need demolitions and rubble clearing. I heard that 5% of the rubble in PaP has been cleared.

In some places, international organizations are starting to build solid temporary housing that can withstand earthquakes and hurricanes. The UN and the largest international NGOs got together for a weekend and decided they should provide a smallish, two room, earthquake-safe and hurricane-safe house for folks who lost their homes. The idea is that everyone gets the same sized house whether rich or poor. Unfortunately there is not much consideration to site size, family size, or if the family is just going to try to add on in an unsafe way, undermining the whole goal in the first place. Much of this new construction uses materials (wood or prefab structurally integrated panels) which need to be imported, and building techniques which are not well understood in Haiti.

More about wood vs. cement

Wood housing has a long history in Haiti. Haiti suffered very large quakes in the early 1700s. After the second quake, the government banned buildings that weren’t made of wood citing earthquake safety concerns. If that ban was still in effect, it would have saved a lot of lives. Unfortunately the deforestation problem in Haiti would be even worse than it is now. Still in most villages there are plenty of traditional wood houses, or houses made with a wood frame filled in with stones (the technique is called columbrage) which also did pretty well in the quake.

Unfortunately, most people that can afford it want to show status and they do that by building in cement. Even many tombs here are built in cement to show status. While it is possible to build a cement house safely here, most people mix in the local limestone as filler and the resulting cement is very weak and practically crumbles at the touch. The worst thing is that many people are rebuilding the same house using exactly the same poor techniques and materials that caused their previous house to collapse.

How safe is it?

I think wandering around and taking public transportation during the day in Port-au-Prince, Leogane, Jacmel, and of course the area where I am living is safe. However at night, even locals seem to retreat to the relative safety of their neighborhoods. Driving adds an additional dimension. If you are driving a car, you are automatically more wealthy and are treated differently. While getting around on a motorcycle has distinct advantages here, it can start raining very hard, very suddenly here and the roads are steep, hilly, slick, and prone to mudslides. As with a lot of places, the most dangerous thing here is the traffic.

I heard Port-au-Prince was really dirty and chaotic. Is that true?

The extremes of good and bad in PaP are tremendous. The worst area of PaP that I’ve seen is a market area on the road toward Leogane. Apparently it was disgusting before the earthquake. Rivers of storm drain runoff and raw sewage, head-high mounds of trash with foraging pigs and goats, and long lines of trucks and tap-taps belching fumes and spraying dirty water mingle with people sitting on the ground selling charcoal, raw meat, and produce.

The Champ de Mars used to be a beautiful park and a place of pride for ordinary Haitians to escape the noise and chaos of downtown PaP. Now there is a massive tent city in the park. However, the streets immediately around the tents are clean and orderly, and there are toilets and clean water available. While the residents lost a lot of privacy and dignity, it is much tidier than some other parts of the city.

Tents facing the street sport small businesses of all kinds: cold drinks, books, food, shoe shining, hair cutting, etc. In general the rest of the city is likewise going about its business as best it can. People living in tents go to work and school dressed in freshly ironed business clothes and school uniforms. Small businesses operate where they can. I saw a barber shop with 6 stools working outside in the front courtyard of their condemned building. There is something wonderful about the spirit that keeps people going after such amazing loses.

Finally, the houses in the hills just south of PaP are enormous and luxurious. These houses usually have parking for several cars, an armed guard, multiple stories, servants’ quarters, cool breezes courtesy of the higher altitude, and multiple balconies looking out over the steep canyon. Most of these homes were built on harder rock with better materials and construction techniques, so they suffered less damage than average. Sadly, because of the shortage of affordable midrange housing, the NGOs are almost all driving around in their SUVs and living in these opulent homes, very much apart from the average Haitian they are supposed to be helping.

In early March, I went on a bike tour with 11 other Peace Corps volunteers in Northwestern Benin (the “Atacora triangle”) to raise awareness of hand washing and water sterilization techniques. We gave our talk in French which was translated into Baatonum (Bariba in French) by a community translator. During the 4 days of the bike tour, we stopped at 14 villages and saw some really isolated parts of the country. This was one of the physically hardest, most rewarding, and most interesting things I did during my service.

Why do I think it is important to give awareness raising sessions on water sterilization? At one village, everyone was drinking untreated well water that was especially bad (middle bucket below). Even if a handful of families start drinking only treated water it can make a big difference in the health of lives of a few people:

We were not the only ones getting around on bikes in the area.

us on the same road.

In village, most community meetings and education happen outdoors under a big tree.

This village has an especially nice baobab tree:

At one stop, the chef de village gave us two pentades (guinea fowl) to take along to our next stop. They were delicious!

This village was especially responsive and interested.

We pretended to leave town as evening was falling so we could have a bit of privacy having dinner and getting ready for bed. The kids ran after us for several kilometers before giving up the chase.

At this village we had a mixture of Baatonum and Fulani people.

demonstrating proper hand washing techniques. Just using water doesn’t kill the germs.

It is customary in Benin to look very serious when your photo is taken:

The bike tour was organized (very well) by Karina and Kristin. Bon travaille!

all done. on the way to the waterfalls outside Kuande now!

In February I went on Safari in Park Penjari in Northwestern Benin with my friends Nia, Christine, Naima and Naima’s dad who was visiting. The dry season is the best time to go because the animals are near water and the grasses are not too tall to see the animals.

red monkeys

warthogs

Jaibaru of Senegal

A hippocamp. These guys are big. They look like giraffes leaning over to eat something on the ground.

It’s lonely at the top, or maybe not.

Hippos! A whole family of them! (By the way, this is the most dangerous animal in Africa)

Here kitty, kitty…

The University got some new computers and moved some of the older computers from the student cyber to a new location—in traditionally Beninese fashion:

It is almost cashew season here. This is a nice tree at the University with several low accessible clumps. Apparently the cashew fruits are also really tasty. I bought some cashew jam at a monastery North of Parakou so I should find out pretty quickly if this is a new favorite.

Happy Holidays!

This is my end of year letter for 2009. This year I managed to start two new jobs. From January till June, I consulted for Skype while waiting for time to leave for the Peace Corps in Bénin in West Africa. Skype is a great company and I really enjoyed working for its widely distributed crew, and the opportunity to go to Austria, Taiwan, Tallinn (Estonia) and Stockholm (Sweden) a few times to work with colleagues there.

Tallinn in winter and spring

I also spent a lot of my spare time working on my acrobatics. I attended several workshops including a four day seminar in Oakland with the founders of AcroYoga. I made some great friendships with my acrobatic partners. Yes Mom, I stayed home and joined the circus.

Before I left for Peace Corps, I packed up and rented out my house and find a home for Tyler with my tenants Ian and Christine. Alex came back from Evergreen and a week-long kayak school just long enough to help me get things packed up and ready for visits with my Mom, and my Dad and Jill.

Near the end of July I went to Philadelphia for two days or orientation and then got on an airplane for Benin with 55 other stagiaires (trainees). After 9 weeks in country, living with our host families in Porto Novo, 50 of us swore in as volunteers and went to our posts. My post is at the University of Parakou.

My host family; the new SED/ICT (business + me) volunteers just before and after swear in

Parakou is the third largest city and is about mid-way along the main North-South highway, however, like the American “Midwest” starting in Ohio. The “North” of Benin seems to be anything north of Bohicon. The comparison is a good one. The North is (like the Great Plains) a scrubby savannah with wide open spaces and occasional beautiful thunderstorms. Where the comparison ends is that our “cold season” just finished with temperatures dipping as low as 55º (brrrr!). Now I am bracing for the chaleur which should bring temperatures upwards of 100º everyday. One major consolation is that mango season coincides with the chaleur. There are mango trees everywhere which provide welcome shade and even more welcome mangos.

I am here:

Being in good sized city, life in Peace Corps is far more luxurious than I expected. I have running water and electricity (most of the time) and access to lots of variety in terms of food (fruit, vegetables, cheese, live poultry, lamb, fresh beef, frozen fish, even yoghurt). The University even has an Internet connection that is very good by local standards.

Pass the papaya please…

As part of my primary project, I am teaching three computer classes in French. Because most of the professors in my school come up from the other public University in Benin (Abomey-Calavie near Cotonou), the classes at my college are usually taught in one or two weeks as a single 45 hour or 60 hour sequence. My 60 hour Linux class for example runs 0900-1200 and 1530-1830 every day for two weeks. The students here are used to classes consisting almost entirely of theory. They are starved for practical instruction and seem to thrive on it.

The rest of my primary project includes managing the school’s teaching lab of about 20 computers (a time consuming but necessary evil) and a seminar series on entrepreneurism. In addition, I am working on lots of secondary projects in my community and providing tech support for other Peace Corps volunteers and for a variety of Beninese nationals. I am also finishing up the installation of a database and web front end written by a previous volunteer for a national “planned savings” bank.
One of the groups in Parakou that I’ve been doing some work with is the Corps de Volontaires Beninois (CDV). This is a group of a little over 20 university and “high school” students who do projects in health, the environment, and social concerns . As far as they know they are the first Beninese-only volunteerism group in the country. I recently attended one of their hand-washing awareness seminars (sensibilisations in French) at a primary school, and another awareness session on volunteerism. When I first arrived in Benin, CDV was in the process of distributing the balance of two community savings and loan groups. One of these groups of women (mostly street vendors) managed to save an impressive 1.5 million CFA (Central African Francs) over the course of the project.

In addition to making Beninese friends like my neighbor François (a young plumber) and Ibrahim (president of the CDV), I see lots of other volunteers who come to Parakou for banking, shopping, and official Peace Corps events. For Christmas, I am going to the northern city of Kandi where a lot of friends will be gathering.

François and Ibrahim

Meanwhile, Alex is doing well as a sophomore at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He is very excited that he was just accepted for a spring quarter program in Peru as part of the course “Andean Roots”. He spent Thanksgiving in Santa Cruz with Lisa and will be in Pennsylvania with his mom for Christmas and New Years.

Alex with Carmen at Lisa’s house

I wish you all a very happy, safe, and joyous holiday season and good luck for 2010.
Du Courage!
Love,
-rohan

Around this time of year in Benin, groups of men go through fields of tall dry grasses or stalks of corn and hunt rats. I managed to catch a few shots of some of these chasseurs. Compared to the domestic animals here, the rats look remarkably healthy. They are medium sized, filled out and have healthy coats. I’m not sure exactly how they are cooked, but according to locals and volunteers alike they taste pretty good.

This particular group had already collected around 20 rats in a rice bag. The weapon of choice is a stick with a loop snare near the end.

Here in the North of Benin there are a lot of mango trees. There is also a type of spider here called the mango spider that like to spin their sturdy yellowish webs from mango trees. They eat a variety of insects including mosquitos and also a type of pest that causes some kind of blight on mango trees. In short, they are a very good thing. They also happen to look like some machine invented for a sci fi movie. There are usually several around a tree and sometimes I have seen more than 100 in the same spot.

I’ve been trying to get some good pictures of the mango spiders, but it is difficult since they are usually backlit against the sky and there is rarely anything to provide a sense of scale. Then I found this medium sized specimen below, conveniently at head height in a small mango tree on the University of Parakou campus. The largest ones are roughly twice the size.

Here is Africa, as in many parts of the world, most trash is just thrown out onto the road, the street, or wherever. My neighborhood is no exception, but most people here actually carry their garbage around the block and dump it in the ditch in front of a vacant lot (conveniently located across from a primary school). There are a lot of animals wandering around, so goats, chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, guinea fowl, and all manner of lizards and insects eat the organic material. However, the rest of the garbage either gets burned periodically or just sits there. Paper and metal will decompose within a few years here, but plastics last a long time.

Fortunately, people here are big on reusing things. For example, yesterday I bought baking soda packaged in cardboard boxes originally used to sell lantern wicks. So the relatively few glass and plastic bottles tend to get reused over and over. Of course you still have to be careful that you are not buying cooking supplies out of a container recently used to hold insecticide or drain cleaner. Beer and soda in bottles are much cheaper, because the bottles are used over and over. For example, the contents of a glass bottle of soda is 250F, but a smaller plastic bottle is 450F.

Unfortunately, one of the most ubiquitous and obnoxious forms of trash here is the black plastic sachet (bag). Everyone uses these, and it is hard to go the market without using at least half a dozen of them (I bring mine with me to reuse, but most people do not). The owner will then (usually the same day) jeter the sachet which will be blown away, dumped in a ditch, filled with something gross, or swept into a pile of other trash. There may be many kinds of trash in the trash pile, but the things that accumulate are plastic bags.

As I puttered around this morning, I wondered what will happen to all this material as it eventually photo-degrades. Plastic bags exposed to sun and wind will eventually turn into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. In many respects this stuff resembles some perverse kind of man-made sand—another ubiquitous biologically inert material.

What would an alien geologist think of the current period of Earth history in a few million years? Maybe the geologist will treat the disposable use of plastics over 100 years or 500 years as a pseudo-geologic event, like a volcanic eruption or a tsunami. It distributes a layer of this stuff all over the world, much like a layer of ash, but more permanently.

These are some pictures of my friend Elizabeth “Biff” McGee, who passed away a few days ago. She was one of the happiest people I have ever known. She could light up a whole room with her enthusiasm.

I met her in 1990. She introduced me that year to several of my best friends. She helped me get what I consider my first real professional job as a network administrator for NASA; I returned the favor by helping her get her job at Cisco; we worked in the same team; then I worked for her. We’ve seen each other married and divorced, happy and sad, professional and silly. She was a fireball of energy and optimism. Throughout her fight with breast cancer, her therapy, her remission, and her relapse she showed more grace and determination to keep going than anyone else I have ever seen.

We will miss her more than words can express. We love you E.