Day 12: Thoughts On Returning

I've not much time to write this morning, but I do feel the tug I sometimes feel when I get up, make my way downstairs, and sit on my computer sipping my coffee, reading the news or browsing emails or simply zoning out. Something wants to be said.

Haiti. This country continues to be one that inspires me and motivates me in the work I want to do. It also, as it did before, has a way of breaking my heart. I'm attached to this place now. A short stroll down the street to Little Venice or Jackson Bar to grab an egg sandwich or a Coke inevitably results in many of the locals calling out to me, "La Loz!", "Qwen!". It happened from Day 1. No reacquainting required. They remembered. La Loz is the name of a short Haitian song and dance I learned last year. I don't remember where I picked it up, I think from Berlyne, one of our translators who has an affinity for dancing. But once I did learn it, it was an immediate source of interest and enthusiasm from the many Haitians in the neighborhood, and indeed just about everywhere I've been in Haiti. It is one of those little cultural things that every Haitian knows, but doesn't expect any blans (foreigners) to know. I do, and because I do it results in immediate acceptance of sorts, and has become my nickname among many of the locals. Anyway, I digress. The point is, when I'm walking down the street, I'm reminded that I'm part of this community now. It makes me happy, but it also hurts. I'm distinctly aware of the options I have that many of these people never will. Having been gone for four months, which found me bouncing around as I pleased - New York, England, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Mexico - and then returning here to find everything exactly the same for the majority of the people that live here, well, it's a stark reminder of the lack of choice people in Haiti have. Most simply look to find something that works - something that allows them food on the table and enough money to stay off the streets - and once they have, they stick with it. If making egg sandwiches all day, every day makes that possible, do it. If selling cold sodas and beer all day, every day makes that possible, do it. Indeed, the old lady who sold cigarettes, popcorn and marinade (fried dough balls in a red onion sauce that I used to get for breakfast a lot) right outside the gate of Joe's Bar (attached to our base) spent all day, every day in her little lean-to stand until the day she died, which was just over a week ago. I didn't get to see her this time around. I wish I had. She and I had a fun rapport with one another. She was always wanting juicy details about my love life. It made her laugh to watch me try and deflect questions in my broken Creole. She had a great laugh. Full of spirit.

Paddy, James and I went to the local Red Cross base near our base yesterday, invited over by a group of pretty Haitian nurses. It was a fun little shindig - music, a Haitian MC, a bunch of different kinds of food. We lingered for a bit, had a smoothie and some local grub, then decided to head back. The path to the Red Cross base goes through a small IDP camp (internally displaced persons). As James and I walked ahead, Paddy stopped and looked around silently. Doubling back I called out to him, "You OK mate?". I stopped to stand next to him, looking around at the dilapidated shacks - tarp-covered tin boxes baking in the heat and dust. "It's been a year and a half." He said it, but it must be something anyone paying attention here has to think about eventually. A year and a half. Yes, it has. A year and a half, and still so many people in this place live interrupted lives. It can be disheartening. We took a bit of time, just looking at the families - women with their small children gathered near, scrubbing away at clothes in front of their once thought temporary but now proving to be more permanent homes. "Blan!" "Hey you!" The kids call out. They always do. There's something wonderful in that. You don't see the same fatigue on the face of the young ones. They're more adaptable. It's the adults that carry the weight.

So yes, coming back is hard, because while I know progress continues, it sometimes seems to crawl, if not all together stop. So much seems as it was before. The variety of my experiences since I left Haiti are humbled by the necessarily repetitive grind of the people who call this place home. It feels indulgent. I can because I want to. They must because they have to. Choice. A key difference. It reminds me time and again that, as ingrained in this community as I sometimes feel, with my nicknames and friendships with the vendors and popularity with the kids, I also know I'll never truly be part of it. I'm here until I decide I want to leave. That alone sets me far apart.

Day 9: Anpil Travay! (A Lot Of Work!)

No, I didn't die this second time around to Haiti, rowdy place that it is. On the flipside, I've actually been doing something most American workers can relate to at some point in their careers - sitting in front of my computer working on Word & Excel documents. Thrilling right? So thrilling.

Actually, it is pretty thrilling, because what I'm doing (along with Paddy) is putting the foundations of this new rebooted BSF program in place. After a few days of brainstorming, we've got our team structure in place, our budget down, our key numbers understood, our tools accounted for, our workflow coming together, and our job postings up and interviews scheduled. As of tomorrow our first two local Haitian staff members come onboard - a Community Supervisor and a Construction Supervisor. The Community Supervisor will be managing a team of other local staff (to be interviewed and hired next week) as they head out to our target communities to do assessments, community education, promotion and filter installation. It's a dynamic job, and one of the keys to success for this program. The Construction Supervisor will oversee a team of local hires that work here on base actually building and prepping the filters and installation materials the Community team will then take with them to install. Not quite as many moving parts on that end, but just as important. If the filters aren't built right, well, then we really don't have a successful biosand filter program do we?

I've been cracking away at designing the training program for the Supervisors, which kicks off Monday and I'll be leading, so yea, lots of PowerPoint fun. I'm really looking forward to getting to work with great people. Some of my friends, the local volunteers here, will be interviewing for our open positions, and to know that, should they be the right fit, I'll get to work with them, day in and day out, makes me really happy. They are an incredible group of people, and the energy created between me and them in our every day interactions is something that's always been special to me. I'd love to harness that to create a truly dynamic, motivated, and happy biosand filter team. Bon bagay! I'll go into more detail in a future post I'm sure, but as for right now I simply wanted to drop a quick update. That's done, so back to PowerPoint I go...

Day 3: Back In The Swing Of Things

Lunch time here at base. Just got back from a run down to Little Venice, the bar at the end of the road run by one of my favorite families in Haiti. Paddy and I were fiending a cold soda. It's not half as hot here as it was when I landed in Haiti the first time (July 1st of last year), partly because it's been grey and rainy for the last few days due to a tropical depression southwest of the island, but also probably because I'm able to acclimate a lot faster given my prior stay. Still, "not half as hot" still means hot here. And the humidity never quits. Cold soda indeed.

Being back has been great, and strange. The base is largely unchanged from before. Sure, some familiar tents are gone, and familiar faces absent, but other familiar faces remain, and the flow of life around here is as it was before. There are far fewer people on base than when I arrived last time, and the volunteers seem a little more mellow this time around, but that is nice in a lot of ways. I've been largely focused on the work I'm here to do, so, while I'll never be able to totally relinquish my social animal, I'm also not particularly indulging it this time around. It's different to come in knowing exactly what role I'm taking on, and where my attention needs to be. I like it. I'm invested. I was before, once I assumed the role of biosand team lead, but now, with the major investment All Hands is placing in the project, and working in tandem with Paddy, one of my oldest friends who also came back because of the biosand project (he's the official biosand project coordinator and the newest member of the All Hands staff), I feel we're going to be able to really accomplish things that I couldn't before.

Right out the gate we've seen some positive signs. Yesterday Paddy and I and a small team went out to the Masson community to follow up on biosand filters that my team installed there back in January. We didn't quite know what to expect in terms of long-term adoption of the technology, but, with a few exceptions, we were really happy to see that most families loved their filters and were using them every day. The filters were in good condition, and the recipients knew how to maintain them. They told us they felt their water was far better both in taste and quality, and that they had seen far fewer illnesses since the filters had been installed. That made me smile. They told us their neighbors would come over to drink the water, and that the community was very interested in getting more filters installed. Alrighty then, we can do that. It looks like Masson will likely be the first community we install filters into for this reboot of the project. It's a good choice - the community is aware of what biosand filters do, are familiar with All Hands (besides biosand filters we also built them a school), and seem to have taken to the technology. The pieces fit. But first, Paddy and I are working on getting a local Haitian staff put together, and then need to retrain ourselves and train them. We're getting the foundation solidly in place before we begin executing. The goal is 250 filters installed by end of year, starting fresh (not counting prior installs), which is totally doable (we have the capacity to produce four a day) so we have the time to make sure the machine is well oiled before we turn the key.

Going back to Masson was great. The kids were out in force, as they were last time, when I took this video:

The rowdy ones.

They remembered me, and once again followed us around. I think at one point we had about ten of them crammed into this little house with us while we were checking out one of the filters and talking to the owner. Here's a photo of a few of them from this time around:

Where we go, they follow. That works for me.

I feel I've clearly made the right choice in coming back here. I feel like I've unfinished business in Haiti, and with All Hands. As I've said before, if Haiti Round One was testing the water, Round Two is all about swimming as far and as fast as I can. This choice doesn't come without sacrifices. I miss my pup, and my brother and family and friends in LA and elsewhere, and I'm guaranteed to be flat broke once I leave here, but I'm OK with all of it. And even though it was many months ago now, the original choice I made not to follow someone I met here last time to London and pursue a relationship with her has been something on my mind constantly. I think being here is finally beginning to give me confidence I made the right choice, and put something in its proper place. Yes, coming back here is sometimes intense in regards to her because of the simple fact that the entirety of our relationship happened here - the memories are planted in all the nooks and crannies of this place. It goes almost without fail that the first question out of the mouths of my local friends after we've hugged and said our hellos is "Koman se Mathilde?" (How is Mathilde?) but I'm OK with that. I'll lie in my tent at night, and think about our prior time together for a while, then pick up my book, read, and drift to sleep. Morning comes and I'm up, hoping there's still some coffee left in the pot, hunting down a spoon for my cornflakes and powdered milk, and then it's off to do what I came here to do, and what more and more I'm feeling is exactly what I should and need to be doing right now.

Life affirms.

Day 1: Returned

So here it is, Day 1, again. I'm sitting in the All Hands office, after quiet hours, covered in mosquito repellent. Managed to find a decent plot on the roof. Tent is up and dry and full of my scattered belongings. Not the messiest tent I've ever seen, but it's in the running. It's been raining all day, and promises to continue for the next few days as Haiti's hurricane season begins.

Strange to be back, and wonderful. So many memories of this place. It's completely different now, and yet exactly the same. Saw some great friends I haven't seen since my trip to London or before, and am getting ready to soon retire to my sleeping mat, see if I can't perhaps get WiFi signal from the roof.

I love speaking my terrible Creole again. This time around, I really need to get around to improving it.

Day 1. A good one.

Day 0: Goodbye Los Angeles

Well, the day is here. 4:12PM now. 11:30PM and I'm on the runway en route to New York's JFK and then down to Port-au-Prince. Needless to say, I'm excited. And, as usual when it comes to my dog and my brother, there's some sadness too. I have to say goodbye to both of them soon, potentially for a while. My brother isn't so hard. He and I can still communicate when I'm away, but Mac (the pooch) is a different story. He obviously can't Skype me, or write me an email. He just gets sad, but he's got his Uncle Cort with him, and Cort does have the tendency to spoil Mac rotten, so I think he'll be OK.

Quite a few thoughts about my time here. It hasn't been the easiest stretch in the world, but a lot of that didn't really have to do with Los Angeles. Relationships are everything in life, and this time has largely been about accepting some of the realities that can surface when you let other people in, and then have to let them out again. Between wrapping my head around some of that and figuring out what my next move is, LA has been a largely internal adventure. But it has been an adventure, and one I'm glad I took. I feel focused now, in some ways more than I've ever been before. I am clear about what my goals are for the immediate future, and for the next few years. That has been the result of taking the time to let often uncomfortable feelings and thoughts just pass through, and see if there's anything of value to be gained. There was. There always is.

So then, thank you to my family, my friends, my pup, and this city for being there for me. Much appreciated. Thank you to those of you who have opted to help sponsor me for this return trip to Haiti. Your generosity makes the work I want to do there possible. I very much look forward to keeping all of you up to date on it all, and to keep sharing.

Tomorrow then. Day 0 ends today. Day 1 awaits. Again.