On the Road - My First Post

Photos: Top - Terrain Acra, settlement of 7500+ people. There is garbage everywhere. In the middle of the photo is a mass of garbage we drive over everyday in order to get to our clinic tents (blue tarps on the right). Bottom: Terrain Acra from the hill above it.

The traffic in Port-au-Prince is not second to what I used to be familiar with: Rome.The only difference is that rush hour here seems never ending: it is at any given time between the moment I get into the car in the morning to go to the camp and the moment I get out of the car at the end of the day.

That is why I started traveling with my laptop and get all the typing that I need to during the hours I spend in traffic. So, you can picture me writing most of my posts stuck in Port-au-Prince traffic. :)

It's almost 7 pm, the sky turned black, the sun hasn’t been around much today and the wind is building up: it's going to be a night of intense rain.

Work in progress: It has been now exactly three weeks since I have requested machinery to clean up the Terrain Acra site. It is filled with years and years of rubbish dumped on this land that is now hosting a community of about 7,500 people - ten times bigger than the village I live in back home but concentrated in an infinitively smaller surface.

I am expecting a call tomorrow morning, and I hope I won’t be disappointed again. The vaccination campaign at Terrain Acra, run by the International Federation of the Red Cross, continued for the second day in a row, with people of all ages going around holding on to their arms in the point where the injection happened. I should have asked the kids to pose for me, in line, showing me their arms.

I am sure there will be more tomorrow.

Most exciting news of the day: A new NGO is planning on starting activities at our site, they will offer psychological support and emergency nutrition awareness for children under 1 year old and their mothers. They will employ people in this community and may at a later date reach out to mothers outside the camp boundaries.

The rain has started. So true that when it rains, it pours! It won’t be an easy day at the camp tomorrow, nor an easy night for the people who live there.

New ARC Blogger

Thank you so much to Leora for sharing with all of us what she and the team have been doing for the last several weeks. You guys are doing great work, Leora!

But, alas, we need to give Leora a break. ARC Haiti Relief Team Member Simona Palenga will share her experiences and thoughts for the next couple weeks.

Simona Palenga, joined the team in Port-au-Prince at the end of January.
A natural born networker, she has worked in various sectors and is now managing the coordination of the activities in Terrain Acra camp. The settlement is currently home to about 8,000 people who lost their homes in the earthquake.

Welcome Simona!

Songs and Ice Cream

Pictures (top to bottom):
1) Animators created songs to teach kids about using the latrines. It makes the topic just a little more fun.
2) Tony Hoffman, a child psychologist and lecturer at UCSC, is volunteering with us. This week he taught Animators how to teach children to use the new latrines.

It’s now been four weeks since I first arrived in Haiti. Today was very exciting for me because we did our first training with the Animators in the child-friendly spaces. A professor and child psychologist from UCSC in California is here for a visit and to support the program. He helped do a training with the teachers and explain to them the standards we are trying to reach.

It was very well received and the Animators were happy to be a part of making the spaces better and more accessible for children. They also felt more valued by the organization. We gave them name tags, t-shirts, and some plastic sheeting to thank them for their commitment. Each and every one of them really appreciated the gesture and that we are trying to professionalize the team.

One activity that went over very well was when we showed them how to teach children to use a latrine. We put a slab on the floor and demonstrated how to correctly stand and aim in order not to miss the hole in the ground. Everyone found this very amusing and fun, so afterwards we asked the Animators to create songs for teaching children how to correctly go to the bathroom. By the end, each of the centers came up with their own jingle that they are going to teach to the children.

This will surely be an easy and quick way for them to learn about a very important issue in the camp, hygiene and sanitation. Today gave me a bit more energy and made me excited about the team that I am working with and all we have been able to accomplish.

Plus, I was able to get some ice cream this afternoon in celebration of our driver’s birthday. It was just what I needed to get me through the end of the week.