Anyway, it has been a while since I last updated. These past few months have been filled with excitement and slow slow days. Below are only samplings…
-A whirlwind of random white people, engineers, doctors, soldiers, LCS alumni, reporters, and other people of note have been filtering in and out of campus. Some of the most entertaining have been the visits by a platoon of the 82nd Airborne of the USA Military. Calling LCS “the oasis,” they would stop by campus during their routine patrols in the Santo region. Most of the soldiers have already served in Iraq and are going to be shipped off to Afghanistan within months.
The first time they came to campus, it was pretty ridiculous. Mr. Moynihan, the president of the project had been driving through Santo and saw the USA military on patrol. Doing the natural thing, he jumped out of the car, found the commander, and invited them all to visit LCS. They arrived to campus with the commander flanking Mr. Moynihan with the rest following on foot, packing their full component of gear. After a few minutes some of the troops noticed some basketballs lying about, set down their very large guns and large backpacks, and began to shoot around. Thinking quickly, I gathered some of our best basketball players at the school and soon enough we had a 5-5 basketball game between our Philo students and 5 of the soldiers. Even with the soldiers using multiple subs, they were clearly outmatched and lost in a rout, 38-15.
Apparently dissatisfied with this result, the soldiers have returned time and time again, sometimes playing basketball while other times playing with some of the timoun (children) from the neighborhood or simply talking with students. During a few of the visits I was able to get in and play, which was pretty enjoyable. They were so young! The commander was a ripe old age of 24 and he was the oldest in the group. Many were in the 18-21 year old range. Craziness….
Through our budding relationship, the military has been able to support LCS in a variety of ways. We have received several shipments of rice from USAID, a steady supply of military MREs (Meals Read to Eat), and they have helped provide logistical support for some of our many work projects throughout the city. Fascinatingly, this is the most interaction I’ve ever had with the USA military. And in Haiti!
-The other major visitor of note (among the hordes) was when Cardinal O’Malley, the Cardinal of Boston, visited LCS on March 2nd. He arrived among an entourage of bishops, priests, and press. It was a hectic morning as one of the volunteers wowed him by making cinnamon rolls from scratch and he took a quick tour of campus, meeting some of our Philo students.
-Outside of visitors, school has been moving closer and closer to normal. LCS never closed following the earthquake, and within a week we were holding educational “classes” for the students at the school. Our numbers have steadily grown as the school day expanded and teachers began returning to teach. We now are teaching almost a full schedule as 300 of the 350 students were on campus during the past week. Now, we are just waiting for the ministry of education to give the green light to reopen schools. The thought is that this will happen soon after Easter, but no one really knows.
My lessons have included a mini-unit on the Rwandan genocide where my class watched Hotel Rwanda to supplement my history lectures. Following these classes, we’ve had some pretty excellent class discussions on the important themes, moments, or ideas presented by this tragic situation. Drawing parallels to Haiti’s history (role of the UN/International community, tensions between ethnic and social groups) these discussions have been enlightening and remarkably intelligent. While not as engrossing, in my Rheto class we have been reading a short story, The Most Dangerous Game, one of my favorites from high school.
-In addition to teaching we have restarted our trash collection/burning program, taking LCS students out on Route National 3 to collect and burn trash. We take plastic bottles and aluminum cans back to campus for our recycling program as well as dig multiple large holes (think 7 feet deep) to bury the unburnable metal, glass, and ash). Reminds me of the good ole days…
I also helped set up six large tents (donated from the Italian military) as temporary classrooms to replace the building we are repairing. While none of our buildings collapsed during the earthquake, two did receive significant damage, damage enough to require major repairs. This has resulted in lost dorm and classroom space. We are converting other buildings to dorm space and we have set up tents on the soccer field as temporary classrooms. Aptly named ‘Europe’, ‘Africa’, ‘Americas’, ect…These tents are an added joy to the craziness of teaching post-earthquake. And as you can imagine, these tents get quite hot around 2:00 pm.
-When I’m not teaching (or burning), outside work projects have been a major part of my life these past few months. These include short projects that last a few hours (burning trash) to week long projects (searching for documents at the Cathedral/Archbishop’s Residency). Here is a smattering:
-Demolition and removal of the Saint Louis de Gonzague wall (February 27-28).
One of the oldest Catholic schools in Haiti, Saint Louis de Gonzague was home to nearly 2,000 students before the earthquake. On January 12th, the school was rocked pretty hard, losing a significant portion of its exterior walls as well as severe damage to multiple buildings on their campus. Located in Delmas, one of the areas most devastated by the earthquake, refugees flocked to the property and it quickly became a refugee camp for over 10,000 people from the surrounding neighborhoods.
Here lies one of the biggest tensions existing in Haiti…What is to be done about the refugee camps? It is true that many many people in Haiti lost their homes and are in need of temporary and eventually permanent places to live. It is also true that many people are simply terrified of buildings, that their homes suffered superficial but not structural damage and that they could safely live in their homes but simply choose not to. Finally, it is true that the situation in Haiti was dire before the earthquake. The living conditions in regions like the sprawling urban slum, Cite Soleil, were atrocious before January 12th. Today, residents are living in “camps” where there is food, shelter, and daily medical services provided by countless NGOs – things they have never had consistent access to in their lives. The final question is: why would anyone leave such a camp?
Refugee camps are not the answer, they are only a temporary solution. And the longer people stay in the camps, the more difficult rebuilding becomes. Saint Louis de Gonzague cannot re-open as a school as long as there are 10,000 people using its grounds as a home. Many Haitians are understandably terrified to go into buildings. We can see this in our students, our teachers, even our staff. Importantly, the longer we go between aftershocks, the better it becomes. Time also helps. But the fear lingers.
Anyways, why do I mention this school? Because LCS has decided to make it a priority to help schools throughout the Port-au-Prince region work towards reopening. Beginning with something tangible and necessary, LCS choose to provide support to the school by fixing one of its exterior walls, securing its property. Without walls, masses of people flow back and forth over property. Sometimes, walls are less for “safety” and more for marking territory (as property rights can be a bit iffy at times here in Haiti…)
Anyway, over a two day period a team from LCS dismantled a 100 yard stretch of fallen concrete wall, loaded the rubble into large trucks, and built a semi-permanent wall of wood and sheet metal. Almost the entire 8 foot high wall had caved in, but it mostly remained intact as a giant slab of concrete. Using our good friend the sledgehammer, we broke the concrete into smaller pieces, chucked those pieces towards the street, and then shoveled and tossed these pieces into the trucks.
It was pretty hard work. Check that. It was extremely hard work. I was as tired as I have been probably since running track (the time I collapsed at the finish line) or playing soccer (pick any number of games/days of conditioning) during high school. By the end of the second day, I could hardly pick up a sledgehammer let alone attack a huge slab of concrete.
Beyond the physical exhaustion, it was extremely satisfying work, partly because it was so tangible. Crushing concrete, shoveling, lifting, building. It all has such a clear beginning and a clear ending. And by the end, it felt like we actually accomplished something. Here was a 100 yard stretch of wall where 48 hours ago there was only rubble…
Also, it gave me a new appreciation for just how much work lies ahead for Haiti, even if we only focus on the task of clearing rubble. Without machines, it took 20 people two full days to complete this task. Craziness…
-Another short, random activity has been burning medical waste at a hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince. This activity occurred only in February, closer to the earthquake when things were still completely ridiculous, as opposed to the usual ridiculousness that exists today. During the earthquake, the hospital (Saint Francois) sustained major damage, with an entire section of the hospital collapsing (its infant ward) with patients and staff still inside. Walking by this rubble was extremely disturbing because it was 3-4 weeks later and the rubble had still not been cleared and the bodies remained inside. It was more a tomb than a functioning hospital.
The hospital was being used as a field hospital with the medical equipment set up outside under make-shift tarps. It was here that LCS helped doctors from numerous medical mission teams (USA volunteers) to serve patients. Current Rheto and Philo students as well as alumni have served for weeks as translators for these doctors. Speaking four languages and being comfortable around white people are two pretty essential skills here in Haiti today.
Another important fact was that the incinerator of the hospital was destroyed during the earthquake and as a result, medical waste began piling up. Rats the size of small puppies were feasting and it was truly a sickening sight. The horrible death toll of the earthquake fights the imagination, but a possible second wave of deaths due to earthquake-related-diseases poses an extremely challenging problem. During these weeks of chaos, LCS was trying to do what it could, and while burning trash is not ideal environmentally, there is no better option available. So, I was part of a group of people (mostly volunteers from LCS) who would come to the hospital and burn medical waste as other organizations were pursuing more long-term solutions (CRS was trying to get a new incinerator, but it was going to take a month…)
I’ve always loved fire, and honestly burning trash is incredibly satisfying. You go to an area that is disgusting and full of trash, you start a fire and you can literally watch as you can physically remove the unwanted items from the environment. (As they say in kreyol: n’ap boule.)
Fun stuff. I just try not to think about all the cancerous fumes I’m inhaling…
-A shorter wall/debris project included clearing rubble from the street leading to the Missionaries of Charity. Mother’s Teresa’s organization has had a presence in Haiti well before the earthquake (LCS students often volunteered at the site before January 12th) and they have continued to serve the poorest of the poor during this crisis. Near the entrance of the compound a wall had fallen and was partially covering the road. A 2-3 lane road had become ¾ of a lane. Cars could pass, but barely. We worked at breaking up the large chunks of block and then sat down and watched as a large Caterpillar machine arrived (A loader) and filled over ten trucks with the materials. I think I prefer those machines to hand shovels…
I really enjoy these outside projects. They give me an opportunity to interact with the Haiti that everyone reads about in the news. Life on the campus of LCS just doesn’t match this reality.
-Another important set of projects has been rebuilding houses in our neighborhood. As part of LCS’ relief effort, we are rebuilding and repairing homes for people in our surrounding neighborhood as well as those in nearby neighborhoods that are affiliated with the project. As a result, I have helped in this process at random, whether it was helping to set up the foundation of a temporary tent shelter, or helping to distribute donations from the Colombian Red Cross. (Trust me, there were jokes about the farine, the flour, tasting extra good…) More than participating, it has been fun just to be an observer in this entire process.
-Finally, the most intense outside project by far was the week I spent working at the Cathedral and Archbishop’s residency. Beginning a little less than three weeks after the earthquake, this project is difficult to describe. Looking like a war zone, the residency (a four story building) was reduced to an incoherent pile of rubble. The Cathedral, with its four exterior walls still standing, had its entire roof cave in. It looked like a destroyed Cathedral in Europe post World War II…
It was probably one of the most challenging, frustrating and rewarding experiences of my time in Haiti. To properly understand the situation, some context is needed:
First, the earthquake devastated the Catholic Church in Haiti. The top four Haitian church officials perished during the quake (including the archbishop) in four separate locations. Churches throughout the country, particularly in the downtown were destroyed. The Cathedral as well as the residency of the Archbishop were in ruins, with the other nearby buildings being completely unusable. Knowing this conceptually is very different from being there physically amongst the ruins.
Our work was concentrated on the Archbishop’s residency, searching for items that were of practical and historical importance to the church. The Catholic Church is the largest land owner in Haiti, so we were looking for title deeds, marriage records, and financial transaction papers. We were also looking for the personal effects of the bishop and other items relevant to the history of the church in Haiti. Our role expanded as we spent more time at the site as we helped to shift rubble, save paintings from the Cathedral, and completely clean out the destroyed/ransacked sacristy. I’ve never had an experience like it in my life.
I was worried that pictures would never do justice to the sight and experiences of the cathedral but fortunately I was wrong. Betsy (another volunteer) is an expert photographer and during her short visit to the site she was able to capture some great shots. I have more photos, but perhaps this gives you a taste of the experience…
-Just so you know that it has not been all work and no play, there have been some breaks. The week of carnival is generally an important party week in Haiti. This year it was not celebrated as usual, but the volunteers were able to spend 3 days in the mountains south of Port-au-Prince relaxing and taking some time to reflect on our experiences. It was incredible and very much needed. Beautiful mountains, delicious food, a relaxing atmosphere. It was an incredible reliever of stress in the aftermath of the earthquake. Though Belo was closer to the epicenter of the quake, there was significantly less damage up in the mountains. I imagine it has to do with a larger vertical distance from the quake, but I don’t really fully understand the science. Would anyone care to explain?
-Also, I have had more free time this semester. When I am working off campus I am very busy. However, the majority of my time is spent on campus as a teacher. And because we are doing “para-curricular activities” and the fact that we have not yet divided Rheto or Philo back into two sections (I usually teach 4 sections 5x a week, but I’ve only been teaching 2 5x), I have a bit of time. I was able to finish War and Peace, which was one of my major non-academic goals this semester. Crime and Punishment is the next classic within my sights…
-Finally, it is nearly spring break! Soon we will be traveling to the “other” side of the island, La Republica Dominicana for our week of break. Besides enjoying myself, I am trying to mentally prepare for the “culture shock” of traveling to a country that shares the same island as Haiti but was over 6 times as wealthy before the earthquake. Digging deeper will be fascinating as I sit on a beach for the first time in the Caribbean…
-Before I go, I want to leave you with a happy note: It’s Mango season! Delicious fruit just falls from the sky (sometimes with a little help…) Did you know that there are many different kinds of mangoes? Some the students love (they almost battle for them), others they basically hate (they won’t touch the mangos from a certain tree). It’s a fascinating and delicious feast.
That’s all for now. I hope you enjoy these photos…
*beautiful picture of Belo
*Me outside the Cathedral carrying documents
*Cathedral
*Me inside the cathedral saving a painting.
*Inside the Cathedral.
