Two months after the quake: Plans change

Today marks two months after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Hundreds of thousands are still homeless and camping out on the streets of the capitol. Andre is spending his fourth night in a tent in Port-au-Prince and is growing weary already. He's been great about staying in touch via iPhone, emailing lots of photos: of the land we wanted to buy, the cracks in his family's house in Port-au-Prince, and family members with their tents. I'm joining him next Wednesday morning after 26-hours of travel and two stopovers. We have reservations to return April 7, but Andre doesn't know how we can stay that long. When he went downtown he saw a man bleeding to death in the street from a bullet wound. I don't know if I'm ready for this.

Today was a productive day for me. I bought a solar backpack off craigslist, which will supposedly recharge cell phones and iPods. Because of lack of electricity it's been challenging for Andre to keep the iPhone charged; he even had to pay one time for recharging service. The city sometimes turns on the electricity in the houses, but you never know when or for how long, which is how it always was, even before the quake.

A friend who went to the same high school with me in Chula Vista, back in the 1970s, surprised with a generous cash donation, plus two suitcases, one filled with toiletries, first aid kit, tiny sleeping bags, and mosquito netting.

I spent half of her donation on assorted flashlights: mini-Mag lights, wind-up flashlights, key chain mini-lights, and rechargeable batteries and charger. The Haitians always need flashlights in Port-au-Prince, even before the quake, because they rarely have electricity. Whenever we visited, they let us use the kerosene lamp. I could read for a while, but not too long because the light is so dim. Soon I'd just give up and go to sleep. You can't do anything in the dark and you can't leave the house because the whole neighborhood is pitch black. Only some hotels and businesses used to be powered by noisy gasoline generators. This was before the quake. I don't think there are any hotels and only few businesses left.

I spent a lot of time today on the internet, connecting with a carpenter/EMT who has enough frequent flyer miles for a round-trip ticket. He said he'd love to go work with Andre's stepfather, depending on what happens with his business. I also hooked up with John Calvert, an expert on perma-culture. He suggested a variety of ways to get water to the land...assuming we could buy the land. It seems all that's changed.

Andre and his stepfather had a meeting with the owner of the land in Athis that they wanted to buy. Now he's changed his mind and doesn't want to sell. I don't understand why he would string Andre's stepfather along for a month if he didn't want to sell. Mathieu must have gone back and forth between the capitol and the mountains at least a dozen or 20 times while investigating this deal. I could hear the frustration and discouragement in Andre's voice when he told me the news.

But there's good news too: damage to the Port-au-Prince house doesn't look that bad, at least not from the photos Andre sent me. I'm not an engineer and I'm not seeing it in person, but as a Californian, I'm used to cracked buildings. Often it's just cosmetic damage. Even after the 6.9 earthquake in Santa Cruz many buildings were saved by retrofit seismic repairs.

In a way, it makes more sense to repair the house in Port-au-Prince first. The land and building project can't finished before the rains, and tent living will get old fast. I love camping, but when it starts raining hard, I'm ready to pack it in and look for a hotel. Andre's family's house is about 1000 square feet on the main floor, has two smaller apartments in the basement, and a new two-room apartment for his sister, her husband and their kids on the third floor. So there's plenty of space for extended family members to squeeze in.

I'm also a little relieved that the land deal is on hold because I've worried that Andre's siblings wouldn't be happy in such a remote, rural location. His parents, aunts and uncles, and grandma all grew up in the mountains, but not the siblings and cousins. Andre is the only one of his generation who did because he spent his childhood with his grandparents. He knows the country life and enjoys it. As an American, I like the mountain village also because it's cooler, cleaner, healthier and has a nice view. But it seems the initial panic to get out of the capitol is fading now that the aftershocks are dying down and the rains are coming soon.

It happened here in Santa Cruz as well in 1989. They evacuated our neighborhood because the Victorian house next door to my grandma's house fell on her gas line. I was in Italy at the time, but my housemates and my grandma were instructed to camp out on the Santa Cruz High School football field, as aftershocks rattled their nerves. On the third night it started to rain, so everyone went back into their houses. I'm guessing the Haitians will do the same.

One of the 14' dome tents that Andre brought was for a friend's family. They are extremely grateful for their new home. But in the camping area that Andre's family shares with about 70 families, there's nowhere to set up such a big dome tent, and I'm bringing another one soon. Andre's family is sleeping in a borrowed tent, which may be reclaimed if Andre's sister and her in-laws return to the capitol. Even though many of his relatives are sleeping under tarps, Andre is afraid to let anyone borrow the dome because they might not want to give it back when we need it. I was hoping we could use them on the land while we're building, but since that might not be happening, and since his family might be able to repair and move back into their house, I'm not sure what we'll do with the dome tents. They cost $350 for the tent, $50 shipping from Georgia, $50 for the floor tarps, and $100 for excess baggage charge -- that's $550 times three -- so I don't want to just give them away. Everyone wants one, but who can afford to buy them?

Well, it's always good to be flexible and open minded. There's definitely no script for a disaster like the Haitian earthquake. We're two months into this thing and the end is nowhere in sight.

Andre sent me photos with an iPhone

Andre arrived in Haiti on Tuesday, March 9 at noon. His brothers Reginald and Johnny were there to pick him up, along with his five 50-pound bags, 40-pound carry-on and day pack. We were really lucky to get all that on the flight because American Airlines tightened their baggage restrictions on all flights to Haiti. Normally, on international flights they allow two 50-pound bags for free, plus up to three more for $100 each. At the last minute we found out we could only take one extra for $100. We already had them all packed, so we decided to get to the airport three hours early and act like we didn't know about the change. Our plan worked.

Upon arrival in Port-au-Prince, Andre was upset to see that his bags had been opened, especially the two relief tents which we had wrapped so carefully and sealed with packing tape, mummy-style. He had to pay off the customs officers with shampoos, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste. But the rest got through: two 14-foot dome tents, two smaller tents, three air mattresses and foot pump, three 16' x 20' tarps for the floors of the dome tents, flashlights, hand tools, soccer balls and cleats, some clothes, jump ropes, nuts, canned tuna, packaged foods, more toiletries, medications, band-aids...plus even more stuff I can't remember now.

Before Andre left, I called our cell phone companies. Verizon has no service in Haiti. My iPhone with AT&T service would work, plus they have a special plan because of the relief workers. For $20 per month pro-rated, we have an international plan for Haiti and the Dominican Republic: phone calls anywhere in the world for 25 cents a minute (instead of $1.99), data (internet and email) for 50 cents a MB instead of $20, and text messages for 10 cents each. They couldn't tell me exactly how many emails you get for one MB of data, but it's roughly 300. About half that many if there are attachments. So he took my iPhone and I have his Verizon phone.

Andre's been busy since he arrived. He handed out the stuff he brought. The finger flashlights that someone from Minorsan donated were a big hit. He also went up to the village of Athis with his stepfather and brother. They're ready to buy the land, but the escrow office is destroyed. So he got a meeting with the seller on Friday to talk about making a deposit on the land through a lawyer, to guarantee the price, and hopefully to allow them to start building.

Andre also sent me photos of his friend "Coach", his Aunt Miche and sister Beatrice in front of the tent that a friend donated. This friend's sister works for Eureka Tents, so she was able to get a returned tent for $20, regularly $150 new. Miche is sharing it with four others. Andre's family hasn't been able to put up the dome tent because there's no space for it. They're staying in a campsite with about 70 families not too far from their house. They can't go anywhere else because they wouldn't be able to keep an eye on their house and their possessions. Another dome tent went to a friend's family and they've been able to set it up. Andre didn't send me any pictures of that yet.

He did send me pictures of the Hotel Villa Imperial where we used to pay $5 a day to go swimming, use their wi-fi, and recharge cell phones and my laptop. The owner of the hotel died in the earthquake. I was glad to hear that the manager survived. Fortunately, he was out in the parking lot when the earthquake hit. Andre sent another picture of a destroyed building just a few blocks from his folks' house.

Andre thinks his family's house might be repairable. That would be the best short term solution to get them safe from the rainy season that's coming up soon. I asked him to see if he can find a seismic engineer to inspect it -- preferably from California or another place that gets earthquakes frequently.

I'm leaving on Tuesday, changing planes in Miami and Santo Domingo. I have an overnight layover in Santo Domingo. I was joking that I should set up the dome tent and air mattress for myself in the airport. My own little refugee camp. Andre and I are booked on the same return flight on April 7, overnighting in Miami with some Haitian friends.

Our new dome tents from Shelter Systems

We ordered three 14-foot dome relief tents from Shelter Systems, a Santa Cruz company. Soon after the earthquake rocked Haiti, the U.N. ordered 3000 tents from Shelter Systems, their biggest order ever. Several mission groups have ordered 100 or 200 to go to Haiti also. Up until now, these dome tents were most popular at Burning Man gatherings.

Jeff, who works at their westside warehouse, was super nice and showed Andre how to assemble one in just 25 minutes. You don't need any tools, and they go together like tinker toys. The finished product is strong, light, durable, comfy, private, well ventilated, etc. etc. They don't have any seams or zippers to rip.

Eleanor Hamner, the company's business manager, spent 13 years of her childhood living in a dome tent in Aptos, CA. Needless to say, her parents who started Shelter Systems, were hippies. Her dad still sports long gray hair and beard. "But we all live in houses now," says Eleanor, even though she says she loved living in the dome tent.

The bad news is we just found out on American Airlines website that they have new restrictions for flights to Haiti. Originally, when we bought Andre's ticket for March 8, we were told he could take two 50-pound bags, one 40-pound carry-on and a day pack for free, plus a maximum of three more 50-pound bags for $100 each. We were preparing to take the max. Now we find out he can only take one 50-pound extra bag. We're also concerned about the bulk of the relief tents, even though they only weigh 43 pounds each.

Our plan is to get to the airport three hours early on March 8 and bring three extra bags. I will use all my chutzpah to try to get them on the plane. If not, I bring two back home until I fly over to Haiti in a week or 10 days. I decided to wait until Andre gets in touch with me from Haiti about the situation over there before I make my reservation. A friend who has lots of frequent flyer miles has offered to let me have them, but I'm going to pay her half the price of a ticket. That's really generous of her.

Andre's family has been trying to discourage us from coming. His brother asked him if he's really ready to see his country in ruins. It sounds like such a desperate situation. Maybe we won't stay a month after all. We'll see once we get there.

Google Earth Images of the house, campsite, and mountains

Just for fun, I decided to look up the address of Andre's family in Delmas, Port-au-Prince, never expecting to find it.

How surprised I was not only to find their neighborhood and their house, but to realize that these satellite images were taken on Jan. 25, 2010, nearly two weeks after the earthquake.

I painted the roof of their house in red in Photoshop so you can find it easier on the map. It's pretty distinct anyway because of the way it's positioned on the lot, at an angle to the stairway that separates it from a walled-in empty lot.

It's hard to see the destruction from these photographs, but it does give us some idea. At least we can tell that the roof of Andre's family's house is intact. We heard that three houses on their street collapsed completely, killing people inside.
I was also surprised to find their campsite. The colorful tents really stand out from the concrete buildings and rubble around them. Tony Hoffman, who is working for children's rights for the American Refugee Committee in the Delmas area, estimated that about 70 families live in this campsite. Seventeen people are living in the big blue tent with Andre's family, probably extended family members.

Andre's family inherited this tent from his sister's in-laws when they went back to Jeremie where they're originally from. It was brought to Haiti by the Chinese. Andre's brother-in-law had connections with someone at the airport in order to get it.

In the third picture, again I painted the rooftop in red. You can see the tents in the middle of the picture. And I wrote the name "Route de Delmas" on the main street in the bottom of the picture. This road runs from downtown through Delmas and up to Petion Ville.

Now I have a clearer idea of how far away from the house they are camping. This makes security of their possessions a bit tricky. We hear that the men stay awake at night to guard everything. Tony said they are safe sleeping in this campsite because all the buildings around them have already fallen.

This last picture is a big overview of Port-au-Prince and the mountain villages above it. Andre's family lives about halfway between Port-au-Prince and Petion Ville. The Route de Kenscoff winds from Petion Ville through Fermath and onto Kenscoff, whose cool weather is enjoyed by the wealthy residents of Port-au-Prince on weekends and vacations.

To arrive at the village where Andre's family wants to buy land you turn off at Fermath. From there, you need a 4-wheel drive vehicle, motorcycle, or strong legs to make the four mile hike over a rough, rocky road past Fort Jacques. Duval, the village where Andre grew up with his grandparents if farther off this map, beyond Athis.

First post-earthquake photos of Andre's family

Tony Hoffman, PhD, a lecturer at UCSC and specialist on children's rights in the third world, is now in Port-au-Prince and today he visited with Andre's family. He sent us back this report and two photos.

I was really impressed to see this wonderful tent that the family inherited from Andre's sister Marjorie and her in-laws when they left Port-au-Prince for Jeremie, a 7-hour trip by boat. Somehow Marjorie's husband had connections to get this 20-person tent from the Chinese at the airport. Andre and I will stay here when we go to Haiti in March, so we're hoping someone will donate an air mattress.

I was also excited to hear that Tony thinks the house in Port-au-Prince might be salvageable in the future. Of course they will need to get a seismic engineer to look at it and decide how to make it safe. It's so sad to hear that four or five of Andre's neighbors were killed when their houses collapsed completely and their bodies are still under the rubble. I originally got in touch with Tony a few days ago, through a UCSC writer named Guy Lasnier who's doing a story on him. Here's Tony's email:



Hello chelsea and andre:

I met with your family today. They are safe, no one is hurt, and their house
has cracks in it - but I think it is repairable. It is in a crowded and
unstable area, but the house seems somewhat intact. Just up the street are
three collapsed homes in which four or five people died.

Your stepfather seems concerned and worried that little aid has come their
way. Your mother is cautious but optimistic. [Brother] Reginald is looking for a
driving job.

The family is living in a tent in a front yard about 100 meters from the house.
It is very cramped, perhaps 70 families are in the two or three "camp" yards
right there. But they do have water and are using one or two functional
toilets.

So their situation is bad, but not desperate. They are living by buying and
carrying water and food - no food or water aid has arrived, because there
are much worse situations with no money or shelter.

They DO need water filtration - so bring that when you come. I am not sure
what they should be doing to get their toilet and bathroom working - you
should plan on that. They mainly need money, because they are buying water
and food at rising prices...

I will visit them again. The biggest problem is the 70 families they are
with - no services at all, and some are in worse conditions with no home,
family or money.

Tony

TV interview and new contacts in Haiti

Erica Argueta from KION TV 46 in Salinas, California came to interview Andre about how his family's doing one month after the earthquake. The interview went well, and Andre looks great, even though I don't like how I look on camera.

Today is President's Day, so U.S. banks are closed. Andre called his stepfather, but the wire transfer I made on Feb. 4 from Bank of America to Unibank still hasn't arrived. If I had known it would take this long I would have borrowed all the money we need for the land and sent it at once. It costs $45 every time you send money, but Andre and his stepfather thought I should do a test first before sending the bulk of it.

We were thinking to send a few thousand via Western Union, but as of Friday (the one month anniversary of the quake) they no longer wire money fee free to Haiti. So now we're stuck. Tomorrow when Bank of America is open I will go there and see if we can trace the 2/4/10 transfer. We're afraid of someone else buying the land we want, or the seller raising the price.

A co-worker at UCSC sent me this great article by Guy Lasnier about UCSC grad Starry Sprenkle, She lives two hours from the capitol with her Haitian husband and their baby girl, but she was driving to Port-au-Prince on the day of the earthquake. Guy helped me get in touch with Starry, who has added some insight into the situation. We were also surprised to learn that her husband's family is from Athis, the same village where Andre's family wants to buy land. Starry agrees that it's a nice place to live, but they'll probably want a truck to get back and forth to Port-au-Prince in the future.

Guy also put us in touch with Dr. Tony Hoffman, a lecturer at UCSC, who will be working in Haiti on children's rights. Andre and I spoke with him today via Skype in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He was on his laptop at the same hotel where I would use the wi-fi. Unless his sore throat gets worse, Tony is scheduled to fly in a UN plane to Port-au-Prince tomorrow. He speaks Spanish and an African language, but no French or Creole. He encouraged Andre to come to Haiti sooner as an interpreter for him. The interpreter he was assigned speaks French, but the average Haitian speaks only Creole and a little French.

Tony will be working in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, which is where Andre's family is. He'll try to look them up and get photos for us. That would be so great. We're very anxious to see everything now, how the family is holding up, what kind of tent they have, the damage to the house and the neighborhood. It's tempting to go sooner, but we're busy trying to raise funds, and Andre doesn't want to fly into the D.R. and cross the border, especially with 300 pounds of luggage. It's not practical and could be unsafe. Many people have been attacked because everyone is so desperate.

One month after the quake

Today marks the one-month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. When Andre called his family in the morning they were unable to talk to him because of the National Day of Mourning and Prayer in Haiti. When he called in the evening they were still praying. Now they say they'll be praying for five days, then on Wednesday they will have a Celebration of Life, with music and dancing.

That also means the banks will be closed for five days. We been waiting more than a week already for the $2,500 I transferred from Bank of America to arrive in Andre's stepfather's account in Unibank. He won't even be able to check again until Wednesday or Thursday. I'm afraid we could lose the land that he picked out because they need 75% of the sales price to do the contract, another 10% for escrow and closing costs, and then the final 25% during construction. It's not like here where you put 10-20% down and have 30 years to pay the rest.

We also found out that the price of the land went up from $10,000 to $12,500. Actually, the price difference was probably a misunderstanding. Haiti has three different currencies: Gourde (the official money which is printed on the bills), Haitian dollars (1/5 of a Gourde, which is the price most Haitians talk about even though they don't exist in reality), and U.S. dollars (which are used for big prices, like houses, cars, computers). The U.S. Dept. of State -- see "Special Circumstances" has a great explanation of the three currencies in Haiti. They also warn you that ATM machines are incompatible with U.S. credit cards and generally out-of-order anyway.

I think Andre must have heard his stepfather say the price was $10,000 per centieme and the seller has 10 centieme that he won't subdivide. So Andre told me the price was $10,000 U.S., but the real price is $100,000 Haitian dollars. You have to multiple that by 5 to get the price in Gourde. Then you divide by 42 or whatever the current exchange rate is to the U.S. dollar. If the rate doesn't fluctuate too much, we'll be paying about $12,000 for the land, plus $1,200 for escrow and closing costs. The seller pays the same for closing costs.

I had a very pleasant surprise today. I got an email from Ronnie, the EMT from New Jersey who was on vacation in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake happened. The small hotel in Delmas (very near Andre's family) where he was staying was mostly destroyed in the earthquake, but they had a generator and some gasoline so he was able to get on the internet a little, even right after the earthquake. He was the first person in Haiti who I made contact with. I had hoped he could put us in touch with Andre's family. But he warned me he had to go back to Santo Domingo since he had no money or food, and the banks and stores were destroyed or closed.

Here's an amazing video that Ronnie shot on January 17, just five days after the earthquake, as he and some friends drove around the ruins of downtown Port-au-Prince:

youtube.com/watch?v=erZ2xShZaJo&feature=email