Finally! Pictures!!!!
(and how fortunate that I uploaded all my pictures to my computer when I did, cos two days later my camera was stolen.. !)



So here's the lovely Port-au-Prince from above, misty morning but you can get a feel of its gorgeous surroundings, the mountains, the sea...

Up close, a different kind of beauty, not so much coming from the crumbled concrete buildings, beeping horns and roads that are worse to drive on than off-road, but rather from the positive resilience and warmth of the people’s smiles.







Some examples of the destruction wrecked by the earthquake now 5 months back..






not even the presidential palace was spared...



Over 1 million people are currently living in more or less organized tent/shack camps or squatter settlements that can vary from thousands of families on public or private lands to 50 or so living on a public square, like this one:
(how many people lived in similar or worse conditions in slums etc even before the earthquake is another discussion..)




that was one of the prettier ones.

I just got back from a quick day trip to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. I went to accompany Sarita, who is an awesome young lady as well as being the Educational Director of AMURT’s Child Friendly Spaces, emergency schools set up to serve 4000 children in different camps in Port-au-Prince. Anyway, she had to go for a meeting so the two of us made use of the flights that the UN provides for humanitarian workers to go to Santo Domingo for a day, and the stark difference after a flight of barely 50 minutes is mind-blowing. I’d gone to Santo Domingo a couple of weeks back, and was again impressed by the great difference in wealth and living standards there on the other side of the island of Hispaniola. Although next door neighbors, the two countries’ cultures seem so different, having been the … of different colonial powers, and it is fascinating how their histories of suppression and exploitation have diverged and at times converged, only to diverge again and create completely different outcomes. I’d have to say I prefer Haiti though, despite it’s lack of clean and paved roads, landscaping, fine restaurants and swimming pools. I can’t quite put my finger on why that is, other than that Haiti has Haitians.

Back in Port-au-Prince, the work continues. I am at the UN base now on my way to a meeting with the food cluster to get more info about Cash for Work programs and how we can get some supplementary feeding programs for the children in our camps, because it has been 4 months now since the earthquake and we are beginning to see the signs of under and malnourishment..
Also, we are trying to find a way of helping the people improve their shelters, with the rains falling more heavily every night and the hurricane season rapidly approaching. It is tricky though, because issues of land ownership and the high risk status of most of the camps we work with mean that few of them will be eligible for getting other organizations to build strong transitional shelters for people. But I’m working on it, just made some good contacts, and we’re also looking into how we can get materials such as wood, metal sheeting and additional tarps donated to allow the communities to improve their living structures themselves where transitional shelters are not an option. Now, this is another example of how, since we’re a small organization with limited funds, our role throughout this relief effort has been to act as the middle-women between the communities we serve and bigger agencies, and sometimes these agencies are just looking for people to take things off their hands and distribute, and other times you have to look and push harder.. We of course also have funds from private donations from AMURT chapters around the world, some of which will be earmarked for specific purposes, or not, and then not necessarily of a big enough volume for the task at hand.. so it’s an interesting puzzle to work out.
Other than that, I want to tell you about the most inspiring work that we are doing in the camps, which is actually programs to support and empower the women to work together and find solutions for themselves and their communities….

..so more on that next time :)

Yes, I'm still alive.

So. It’s been a while. I apologize, it’s just when things get crazy, I’m not the kind of person who’s immediate compulsion is to write about it, but instead, rather unfortunately, writing becomes a chore that isn’t the first choice of action whenever I get a spare moment.
That being said, I am happy to be writing now, but as always when it’s been a while, the question is - where to start???
I feel like so much has happened, but when thinking about it, most of it has probably been in terms of internal struggles, questions and battles that get brought up when living and working closely with a small team in a place of extremes, where there is no shortage of needs and opportunities for service.
The rains have become more regular now, as it will pour down almost every night, turning the little trickle that runs by our house into a raging river full of rattling bottles and other trash. Haiti didn’t have much of a waste management system before the earthquake, let alone now, so people just throw their garbage in the river beds or in piles on the street that then in some cases will get burnt at night.
The camps in which we work are all along the river bed in the Bourdon valley, and many, or parts of them, were identified as the most high risk zones of the city in danger of flash flooding of the river and landslides as soon as it rains heavily. And as a matter of fact, a man was killed last week when his shack on the river was crushed by the hill side above coming down on top of him.
For this reason, they were amongst the first to be considered for a relocation process to a new camp site on the outskirts of town, so for about a month there was a lot of commotion going, meetings with the camp committees to inform people of their options, trying to identify the most vulnerable, get people registered etc , and then finally moving those that were interested and managed to get a place. In the end 500 out of maybe 3000 people got to go, and whether they were really the most vulnerable is highly questionable.
Now, although this is an area the government wants to clear out entirely, it is unclear how long these people will have to wait before they get any other options presented to them. To give you a bigger picture, there are some 1,300 IDP camps in Port au Prince, with populations varying from 50-45000, that is an estimated 1,5 million people without proper homes, and for now the government has identified one more site for.
It is all going so very slowly, in terms of finding more long term solutions and places for people to relocate and rebuild their lives, both from the side of the government as well as the UN agencies and partners such as the IOM. You want a reality check on how the international community and well esteemed humanitarian agencies fail on a massive scale? Come to Haiti.
Okay, on to more cheerful things. The house I am staying in is a lively place. It is a children’s home, with 6 small kids and 3 teenagers, out of which the two youngest babies came to us malnourished and orphaned after the earthquake and are now thriving, beautiful and cheerful little beings!
It is also a school/child friendly space during the day, a center for collective meditation and seminars in the weekend, a sort of go to point for any needs of the community, and AMURTEL’s headquarters all in one. During the first emergency relief efforts, as well as throughout the relocation process mentioned above, when there would constantly be meetings with the IOM, community committees, individuals seeking information etc it was pretty hectic around the house, but luckily now things have calmed down.
Now, another thing about living in a house with 9 little munchkins, is that things get lost. It was only a matter of weeks before I lost the cable for uploading pictures from my camera, so I’m afraid I don’t have any images to share with y’all. Sorry. I’ll be getting a memory card reader sent over from home in a couple of weeks though, but hopefully I’ll have sorted something out even before then, it would be such a nice addition and different way to transmit my experience beyond these words.

But for now, beyond the words, I send you all my loving thoughts.

So, I’ve been in Haiti for two weeks now. Two weeks. It seems like a long time, but I have to keep reminding myself that it really isn’t, that I can’t expect myself to know everything, and be able to do everything, instantaneously. Frustrating though. But booooy am I ever sure now that this is going to be (and already is!) an ego shattering and growing experience.

For the time being I have been exploring and learning about our different projects, learning the ropes, figuring out how things work at the UN compound where the different agencies and NGOs meet in their so-called “cluster” meetings to network, coordinate and discuss on-going action and strategies, to demand or offer funds, services, goods. Although I find it extremely interesting and there are some good things going on and good connections to be made, it is also striking to me that although the common website is called One Response, the over-riding feeling and culture is corporate and kind of competitive rather than giving a feeling of cooperative collective action.. A shame, but oh well.

My job is to be the liaison between AMURTEL (and also to a certain extent AMURT) and the UN clusters that deal with issues relevant to our work in the camps, and with the children, and to our plans for developing ecovillage-type sustainable community models outside of Port-au-Prince (e.g. the food cluster, shelter cluster, agriculture, child protection, camp management etc) It’s been a bit of a bumpy ride so far since my contact persons on both the AMURT and AMURTEL side have been out of town for a week, and a lot of work is needed now within AMURTEL, now that the immediate emergency phase is over, to rethink, identify and clarify our medium to long-term strategy, our resources, areas of assistance and each person’s role. And because representing the organization requires good knowledge of everything we are doing, ensuring a good flow of information is important and facilitating communication within the AMURTEL team has proven a bit of a challenge. But things keep getting better, so I’m positive. Although I have to come to terms with and accept the fact that total clarity on what is going on will perhaps never occur.. Oh the joy of working with people! People of all sorts, with their own styles and alternate universes they seem to inhabit haha

Also, because the UN provides free helicopter flights for NGO as well as UN staff within Haiti and to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and because I spend a lot of time at the UN log-base anyway, I have become a sort of travel agent dealing with the bureaucracy of fixing flights for both AMURTEL and AMURT … Fun, fun! Haha. Nah, although it can be tedious, it is actually cool because it is one of the few areas in which you get little tangible results rather quickly, hehe.

Ok, I feel like I maybe ought to write more concretely about what AMURTEL has done since the earthquake, and what we are planning now going into the post-emergency phase, but that’ll have to be next time. Also in the “coming soon” category you should hopefully soon be getting some pictures and descriptions of this quite extraordinary place and people…

Looking out of the airplane window as we fly past the mountains over the bay and over and into Port-au-Prince, it's easy to spot the sometimes colorful sometimes plain white or blue tent camps all over the city, occupying any free public space, from a cluster of 10 tents in a neighborhood park to the hundreds or thousands occupying larger spaces such as sportsgrounds. It was not until later, on the ground, that I could clearly see the piles of ruble and decrepid houses barely still standing, reasons why millions have been forced to leave their homes for these tents, and thousands now stay in life-threatening situations as their houses could collapse on top of them at any moment.
After a slightly chaotic first welcome at the Port-au-Prince airport - the conveyor belt being broken meaning all luggage was laid out more or less in a big heap with everyone crowding in to get to theirs first - my reception in Haiti has been one of great peace, love, hope and celebration!
I was picked up by Dada Unmantrananda, a Danish monk who is one of the administrators at AMURT, who soon told me that at the school and children's home also functioning as the AMURTEL base where I was going to stay, there was a big meditation retreat going on with about 100 people attending!
It turned out to be a great introduction to the place and to this ever smiling people of Haiti. As well as singing, dancing and meditating together, the Haitians also had the opportunity to share with everyone their experiences of the earthquake, an important part of their individual and collective healing. Several expressed how their faith and spiritual strength helped them cope and in turn help their families and friends.

In terms of AMURTEL work, we had a good long meeting yesterday, their first real debriefing of all the emergency relief efforts since the earthquake, and a chance to touch base and check in with all the members of this small team who has achieved an incredible amount of amazing work for our surrounding communities here. Although things are naturally still a bit unclear to me, it seems like things will start kicking off for me more today, so you'll get to hear more about what I'll be getting up to next time...