After neglecting this blog for years, I finally made a few posts with the intention of making one post per month. I wrote another post for June, but it ended up being way too long. It also wandered from point to point and had a lot of numbers and metrics in it that would cause most readers to lose interest. I love numbers and metrics, but most readers don’t! I’ll try to do better this time around.
Why is cost per filter important to us? Well, we have chosen to do a single thing and do it really, really well. We build and install biosand filters, and include an education and follow up program which ensures most filters get used and taken care of for many years. Since we only do one thing, we can take our total expenses, divide that by our number of filters installed, and see exactly how efficient we are. That’s important! It means something! And it should be something our donors care about.
For over a decade now, we have advertised that for $100, we can provide a filter to a family in Haiti. In reality, that number changes every year. Clean Water for Haiti, like Haiti itself, has good years and bad years. Here is the data for the past several years:
Year Total filters Admin Costs Cost Per Filter
2018 3033 9.6% $103.80
2019 3270 7.3% $106.53
2020 1974 N/A $134.57
2021 3308 N/A $77.20
2022 2311 9.3% $78.09 *Jan-Jun 2022 only
The cost per filter is found simply by dividing our total expenses (minus program-derived revenues such as co-pays) in any given year by the total number of filters installed. It includes all expenses, not just here in Haiti, but in the USA and Canada too. Since Clean Water for Haiti only has one program, it is relatively straightforward to work out the numbers.
Why is there so much variation? There are large, one-off expenses such as the purchase of a delivery truck that can significantly add to the cost per filter for a certain year. Also, some of our supplies are purchased in quantities that will last 12 months or more. That also involves large chunks of money, spent more in some years than others. Having to rebuild an engine or a transmission in a delivery truck can cost a lot of money, too. In 2020 we had a surprising amount of vehicle related expenses, for example.
Apart from one-off expenses, the biggest single thing that affects our cost per filter seems to be how many filters we install over time. Generally speaking, the years with high production are also the years with the lowest cost per filter. The best strategy for making Clean Water for Haiti run efficiently, then, is to push production and installation of filters and make sure there are no interruptions to the machine.
Lately more than usual, I’ve been trying to anticipate anything that might slow down our work and act in advance to have a solution ready. On the weekend, two delivery trucks full of cement were stolen by bandits and the drivers kidnapped. We quickly bought cement to fill up our own depot, thinking that there might be a shortage. For good measure we bought plenty of paint, too. Last year we started stockpiling fuel in containers for the times when there are fuel shortages due to Haiti’s various problems. It was a good decision – there has been a shortage for over a month now and we still haven’t had to halt deliveries.
This year we’re on track to exceed 4000 filters installed – much higher than our previous record set in 2021. If you consider inflation, we’re on track to have our lowest cost per filter, too! I hope that in the future, we will be able to exceed 5000, or even 6000 filters in a year. If the trend continues, we would become an even more efficient organization as we continue to increase production. For that, though, donations would have to increase substantially. We need to have more money available in order to save more money! The more we spend, the more we save.
My latest blog post may be a bit boring for the most people. So why am I writing about how Clean Water for Haiti is governed? Well, there are certain donors, who tend to be larger donors or people representing foundations or corporate entities, who realize just how important it is for an organization to be governed properly. This post is for them. It was a lot of work to set up Clean Water for Haiti’s solid foundation, so this is where I’m going to celebrate that and brag about Clean Water for Haiti’s Joint Charitable Activities Committee and the good governance they’re committed to.
Clean Water for Haiti uses something called Policy Governance, sometimes known as the Carver Model. The most simplified explanation of Policy Governance is that the board supplies the “ends” not the “means”. The board states what the goals of the organization are and the Executive Director is responsible for finding the means to achieve those goals. Here is Clean Water for Haiti’s “end” goal:
“Clean Water for Haiti US [Clean Water for Haiti Foundation, CWH Foundation Canada] exists so that the people of Haiti will have access to clean water at a high level of cost effectiveness.”
The end is very specific; the means are not specific at all. This provides two things which are absolutely key for the director to have: empowerment and responsibility. The director is empowered to get safe drinking water to the Haitian people, and has the responsibility to get it done. How is this important? Maybe someone who has never worked in the director’s role might not see what a big deal this is. To illustrate, here are two examples:
I’m talking with a friend – the director of another organization in Haiti. He has a problem that I’ve seen before. I say “Why don’t you talk to _____ and arrange for _____ and _____?” The response is “Yeah, that would make sense, but the board wants me to ______.” I have had this conversation, with different friends and different details, many times. In each case, they suffer from a lack of empowerment. The upside, if there is one, is that the director isn’t responsible for decisions since it’s actually the board coming up with plans and giving specific direction. The board is directly responsible, whether they will admit to that or not. This is a case of no responsibility on the part of the director.
But aren’t the people ultimately in charge the ones who should be making the decisions? Yes, I suppose so. But wouldn’t it be better to delegate those decisions to someone who has the knowledge and experience required to do the job properly?
Next, a director friend has a minor breakdown at his facility and needs a new widget to fix the problem. He calls the chair of his board to ask for authorization to buy the widget. The chair asks a large number of questions, long distance, while work is stopped, then states that they will have to get approval from the board. Two days later, nearly in tears, my friend gets authorization to buy the part. He was going to need the part anyway, no matter how many committees and sub-committees were put to work on the problem. This is a case of no empowerment of the director. For a talented individual who wants to take responsibility and get to work, lack of empowerment feels bad – suffocating. In this case (again, one I’ve seen multiple times) my friend decides it’s time to get another job, one where he can actually perform his job as director. This is a case of no empowerment of the director.
I LOVE my job. With Policy Governance, I have the freedom to use all of my experience and creative energy to achieve our mission. The responsibility that comes with it is sometimes (most of the time) a source of stress, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is a lot more involved in job satisfaction than just the salary and benefits. I think I would find it very hard to take a different Director’s position with an organization that runs in a similar way to what I’ve described above, even if it came with a massive salary.
So if the board isn’t telling the director what to do, what is the purpose of the board? Accountability, and clearly setting the limits. In addition to the “ends” that I mention earlier, we has a number of “shall not” policies. Here are a few examples from the top of the list:
Further, without limiting the scope of the foregoing with this enumeration, he or she shall not:
4.2.1 Allow assets to fall into an unreasonable amount of disrepair.
4.2.2 Expose himself or the organization to liability claims unless it is impossible to do so.
The board builds a “fence” by setting the limits down as policies. Once the “fence” is known, the executive director has the freedom to work within those boundaries in whatever way is most effective.
So how does the board ensure responsibility? The board requires regular reports from the director. Measuring success is key to policy governance, so we came up with key metrics that the board can use to determine success (or failure). At Clean Water for Haiti, it helps that we focus strongly on just one intervention: the biosand filter. The metrics we use are (1.) How many filters we install, (2.) How many filters continue to be in use after 1 year and 5 years and (3.) How much each filter costs us to build, deliver, install, provide user education, follow up with and repair if necessary. The board will analyze the results, ask questions, and decide what action to take. If the metrics and overall health of the organization are all looking good, I might even get a raise. If results are bad, or reports are incomplete or especially if one or more policies were to be broken by the director, then the board should consider looking for a new one.
That’s all I have to say about Policy Governance. Clean Water for Haiti’s situation is a little bit more complicated than what I’ve described because most of our work is done via our “Joint Charitable Activities Committee” which is a combination of the members of three different charities, the USA, Canadian, and Haitian organizations. In all the important ways, however, things work as I have described.
We would like to recruit more people to our board, especially folks who live on the Canadian side of the border. From our perspective, the best recruits are people who support Clean Water for Haiti already and would like to be actively involved in various things that need to be done in Canada and the USA, such as raising funds. Board members are required to support Clean Water for Haiti both financially and with their time. The Joint Charitable Activities Committee meets once per month via Zoom except in December, and we meet in person each January in Florida for the annual board retreat.
In my last post, I wrote about how well Clean Water for Haiti is doing. It’s true. We are absolutely killing it, and will continue to kill it barring unforeseen circumstances. However, much was left out of that post.
Several years ago we came up with an expansion plan. The filter project is modest; perhaps 25,000 of our filters are currently in use, providing water to perhaps 125,000 people. Of those people, many many of them are still alive because they drink safe water that they get from their filter and never caught a deadly disease. 125,000 people represents just over 1% of Haiti’s population. Why can’t Clean Water for Haiti reach the rest of Haiti’s population, too? Of course, we could. The solution we use is thoroughly proven to be effective and we have an implementation model that works well in Haiti. Importantly, it’s cost effective – the most cost effective and appropriate solution I know of in Haiti. Looking at it that way, it would be criminal NOT to expand until we reach every corner of the country.
When we came up with our expansion plan, the biggest sticking point was fundraising. A lot of Clean Water for Haiti supporters don’t realize this, but nearly all of our fundraising is done by Leslie and me, or by volunteer CWH supporters who set up fundraisers of their own. There is no fundraising staff. Our fundraising budget is mostly for postage and printer ink! In a way, it’s a small miracle that we have reached 1% of Haiti’s population when we’ve done almost all of our fundraising from right here in our office in Haiti. With rare exceptions, any organization that wants to grow beyond a certain size needs a professional fundraiser to make that happen. Of course, as soon as you hire a fundraising professional (most often called a Development Director) overhead goes up substantially. To put it in perspective, Clean Water for Haiti’s annual expenditures have been averaging just under $300,000 in recent years. A Development Director who knows what they’re doing demands $80,000+ per year. With medical and taxes, CWH would be spending over $100k per year without a single dime of that money actually helping our beneficiaries. Overhead would go from almost nothing to some 30% or more. This doesn’t sit well with me. However, we decided that the project was too important and we would have to live with the higher overhead in order to reach more people. The hope was that within two years, our income would exceed $600,000 so that our overhead would at least drop below 25%. At the same time, we could increase production here to 4800+ filters/year and make plans to open a second facility somewhere else in the country.
In order to implement this plan, we would need enough reserves in the bank to cover the first year’s salary of our new development director, in addition to the normal reserves we need to carry. This plan was approved by the CWH Joint Charitable Activities Committee and over a period of three years even while increasing production, we managed to reach the reserve level we needed to hire our first ever Development Director.
Well…… things have changed over the past three years. MINUSTAH, the U.N. mission to stabilize Haiti, left the country in spite of things not really being stable. Gangs grew in power and influence, pushing the police out of large sections of the country. Travel on the roads became much more dangerous as kidnapping became shockingly common. The president was assassinated and his killers still roam at large. Many organizations have left the country and, oddly, the Haitian government has increasingly made it more difficult for the remaining international organizations to operate. It’s easiest to blame foreigners when things aren’t going well, I suppose. Fuel shortages have become more common and last for a longer duration each time. As of writing this, there is no diesel or gasoline available in any of the stations within reach of us.
If we had substantially more funds available, would we be able convert those funds into filters? Yes, but there is a limit. At this point, we can still expand our work here in Camp Marie. As the country gets worse demand for filters just keeps increasing and we still have plenty of room to expand capacity here. The problem comes when we need to expand to a second facility. With the way things are in Haiti right now, the obstacles we would have to overcome to establish a second facility are so many and so high, it seems inconceivable. It’s not safe for foreigners to be out and about on the roads right now. How do we get around that particular problem, for example? I can’t see a reasonable solution to that problem, or many others. Sadly, I don’t see things getting better any time soon. There are many scenarios where things get quite a lot worse.
Our plans to hire a Development Director are now on hold, indefinitely. In a way it’s a relief that we’re not moving ahead since I’ve always been adamant that the vast majority of donated funds needs to be spent on our work in Haiti. However, it also feels like a surrender. If anyone is able to bring potable water to the large part of Haiti that doesn’t have it yet, it probably won’t be Clean Water for Haiti, and it probably won’t happen in my lifetime.
So what does this mean for the future of the filter project? In the short term, I don’t need to be afraid that we’re going to run out of money, because we have somewhat more reserves than usual and they need to be spent down. As I mentioned in our last post, we’re killing it, with 24 workers employed as of today, and a record 452 filters installed last month. So will we be able to reach 4800 filters/year? What about 6000? 8000? I don’t know, but I really want to try and find out. In the longer term money will certainly present a problem, as always, but perhaps more of the right people will support the project and then tell their friends about what we’re doing. In the end we won’t reach all of Haiti, but if we can turn that 1% into 2%, and then 3%+, I’ll be feeling pretty good.
Life for a foreigner living in Haiti isn’t what it used to be. Foreigners inevitably end up hanging out with each other because it’s easier to relate when you have a common background and it’s nice to be able to talk about the aspects of day to day living in a country which is not your own with someone who can understand. Well, most of the foreigners have left the country or are making plans to leave. In practical terms, that means for us that our social interactions have largely moved online, as was the case for so many others during the pandemic.
I’m not terribly excited about interacting with people online, so I need to make an effort. I noticed that the last time I made a blog post was November 2019, so it’s about time I made a new post! I’m going to try to write in the old-school, stream-of-consciousness type of blog writing.
I’m going to write what I’m excited about. Clean Water for Haiti is, at this moment in time, killing it. I love the work we do, and in the absence of any kind of normal social life outside of my own family, my work is the center of my existence. I really want to tell people (brag) about it!
In January 2019 one of our delivery trucks got into a terrible accident. It was a complete and utter nightmare. All 6 guys in the truck had to go to the hospital, and one of them was really very badly injured indeed. The truck was totaled, but we didn’t realize just how badly damaged it was at the time. Worse than all of that though, a woman, the passenger on the back of a motorcycle, was killed. She left 5 children, including a 3-month-old, behind. Even now it’s hard to think about those children and how their lives changed forever.
I knew immediately that this is the kind of event that could end our work altogether if things weren’t handled very carefully. Fortunately, we all went into crisis mode and dealt with one thing after another as best we could. There’s a lot I could write about all of the craziness which ensued, but I don’t want to focus on that today. The long and short of it is that we dealt with various aspects of the aftermath of the accident right through 2019 and most of 2020 and kept Clean Water for Haiti alive. The financial cost was huge, and it set back our work substantially.
Later in 2019 and into 2020 I discovered one worker after another who had been committing small-scale fraud and needed to be fired. Now for me, if someone steals from Clean Water for Haiti I take it personally. You’re going to compromise my life’s work? NO. My outlook on life, already pretty dark, became darker. At one point, I told Leslie I wanted to go ahead and fire the entire follow-up crew and start over. We had a long conversation in which she reminded me that I had never fired someone before without proof of wrongdoing, and that while I can do whatever I think is best, it would have an effect on morale. Well, I didn’t fire the whole follow-up crew. Not right then. I waited until I caught each one of them committing fraud first. It ended up not taking all that long. All told, 2020 was a terrible year. And our filter deliveries were down 40%!
At the end of 2020, I had a good think as I was hiking up the mountain behind our house. Although I care about Clean Water for Haiti and the work we do very much, why should the workers? In a community as poor as ours, charity work for others probably isn’t going to be a priority. I tried to think of a way we could improve morale with the workers, and really form a team instead of just all working in the same place. Starting January 2021 we announced bonuses. In each month that we installed 250+ filters, each worker would take home an extra day’s pay. 300+ would mean 2 days extra pay, 350+ 3 days, etcetera. In 2020, we didn’t exceed 250 filters in even a single month. Things changed very quickly. The first month, over 300 filters were installed and we had a small party to celebrate. On 9 out of 12 months last year, the workers got some kind of bonus, ending up with our most productive year ever, for a total of 3308 filters! Then, this January, 402 filters were installed! That’s 4 day’s pay – a full 19% extra pay for each of the workers! It feels good to be able to give out bonuses. (From an administrative perspective, the added drain this puts on our payroll isn’t that big a deal. The increased productivity and efficiency more than makes up for it.)
One year to the next, morale went from rock bottom to sky high – definitely for the workers but just as importantly, for me.
I made another decision at the end of 2020. I was going to do everything in my power to avoid giving revocation pay in cases of fraud. I want Clean Water for Haiti to be respected, and I want people to know that we’ll go to extreme lengths to protect it from fraud, theft, or whatever else.
In 2021, I only had to fire one person. I was able to think it through ahead of time and I recorded the conversation where laid out the situation clearly and that unlike in the past, there would not be any revocation pay. I explained that he could take us to court, but since we had him dead to rights, whatever he paid a lawyer would be money wasted. I said something along the lines of “When you steal from Clean Water for Haiti, you’re stealing from the Haitian people, and the Haitian people have had too much stolen from them already. I won’t accept that. You won’t be getting anther Gourde, and it’s time for you to leave.” I think that perhaps that one interaction was another huge step toward improving my own morale.
So where are we at now? As I stated earlier, we’re killing it. It’s not just the day-to-day activities what are going well. Clean Water for Haiti has money in the bank. Somehow last year, in spite of record production, our reserves increased. I hired two more workers in January, two more yesterday, and we’ll likely take on another two in April or May! Looking at our numbers, I can already tell we’re headed for a record year, and we’re going to DESTROY last year’s record, not just knock it over. It’s exciting!
In the past few days we’ve had a lot of people reach out to us as more and more of you are hearing news out of Haiti. I thought it would be easiest, and give me more room, to write a blog post rather than a shorter update on social media so I could address some of the key concerns that have come up.
Embassies advising foreigners leave?
In the process of checking on us, many have asked us if we’ve seen the news stories and advisories and were aware of the Embassies urging citizens to leave? We so appreciate that you’ve wanted to check on us and make us aware of things. I do want to let you know that we are registered with the Embassy, and as Wardens (more on that below) we will also periodically receive extra information. Along with that we’re also part of several social networks specific to foreigners living in Haiti here in country where information and security updates are shared on a daily/hourly basis. So again, when you’re see this stuff hit the news, we’ve already been aware of it for most likely several days before it gets to that point, maybe even weeks.
We don’t always comment on it or post about it on social media right away, mostly because we want to have a better understanding of what’s going on so we don’t sensationalize things and cause people to panic unnecessarily. It would be so easy to share every crazy thing that happens here, but so much of it requires context, and can cause people to develop a mindset about Haitians and Haiti that we don’t want to be part of perpetuating. So, as we DO share, we try to be calculated about the information we communicate, and how we do that. We want to be respectful of culture while also trying to stick to factual information. Hopefully that leads to you being able to have confidence in the things we share with you.
What does it mean?
In the later part of last week news agencies were reporting that the American and Canadian Embassies were advising non-essential foreigners leave Haiti. This is true. However, it’s not new news for us here, just for you there. They’ve been making this recommendation for several weeks. The reasoning behind it is that a) there has been an increase in kidnappings in recent months, foreigners included, and b) due to gangs controlling the fuel, there have been wide-spread shortages that are affecting all sectors, so resources are limited.
Please know that in times of crisis this is a standard Embassy advisory. We’ve seen it many times over the 15+ years that we’ve lived here. Many foreigners are often confused about what the Embassy can and can’t do for them in country, and often that includes coming to rescue them in times of trouble. This isn’t actually the role of the Embassy, so when there are security threats or resources are limited or difficult to access, the Embassy will typically advise non-essential people to leave. The Embassy is essentially saying that during these times, they cannot guarantee they can assist citizens in country in the ways that may be needed, so they advise that citizens leave if they absolutely do not need to be present, so they don’t get stuck without resources.
Chris and I have been Wardens, who are volunteers with the Canadian Embassy, for years. Our role is to be an emergency contact for other citizens in country and essentially a liaison between citizens and the Embassy. Like an extra set of hands. We’ve had Embassy staff come by our house/mission to see what facilities we have available if there’s an emergency where people need to be housed, etc. We’ve attended Wardens conferences over the years, and have been able to get to know some of the Vice Consuls over the years, so we’ve had a lot of conversations about what the actual role of the Embassy is, what they can do in a crisis, etc. One of the things we’ve heard repeatedly is that during emergencies, while Embassy staff is already trying to manage a lot, citizens they didn’t know about in country will come out of the woodwork wanting help with things like emergency paper work, evacuation, and other things that might come up in a crisis. It’s taxing on their resources and people and they may not be able to guarantee the help people might need. So it’s a protective measure for all involved.
In regards to kidnappings or anything that might involve local authorities, the Embassy still has to work within the confines of local law. It’s a misconception that a foreign government can swoop in and “rescue” people with their own military or forces. IF there is any kind of effort from a foreign government with something like this, it’ll be done with someone in the local government being aware of and supporting the efforts. While we would all love to see assistance from outside sources in helping stop the gang violence and kidnappings right now, Haiti, like the US and Canada and many other countries, is a sovereign nation and foreign governments and parties need to work with Haitian government and authorities on these efforts. That’s just the way it is.
Airlines cutting flights!
I’ve seen and had people ask about this too. Yes, flights in and out of Haiti have been reduced, and there were specific announcements made about this at the end of last week. It’s important to know that airlines will first adjust their routes based on demand. If the demand isn’t there, they reduce the number of times they fly to a certain location each day, or each week. These flight reductions in Haiti have been based on a lack of demand due to the security situation, but they didn’t just go into effect over the weekend. American Airlines had already started reducing it’s flights to and from Haiti weeks ago. I know this because we have tickets for a trip a couple months out and our flights got moved around (good times!). American airlines typically flies from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and New York into Haiti. At really busy times I think they’ve even added a Boston route. There were typically a couple flights a day goin into each city, maybe even 3-4 depending on how much demand there was. Right now that demand is not there and they aren’t sending in empty planes, only to fly back empty planes. Spirit Airlines and Jet Blue are still flying in and out right now, so there are still options for air travel.
It’s just important to know that these shifts and changes happen based on need. As long as the Port au Prince airport is open and functioning, airlines will fly in to meet the demand of passengers. Sometimes it’s seasonal, and sometimes it’s due to things happening in country. Yes, there are times where Haitian authorities have closed the airport, either because people haven’t been able to get to work from unrest, or because of natural disasters like the 2010 earthquake where the airport itself sustained damage and they needed to clear the runway for humanitarian aid cargo flights. When the airport has been closed by Haitian authorities it has typically only been for a few days. The longest stretch was post earthquake when passenger flights were stopped so humanitarian flights could happen and the airport staff set up a new area to process passengers.
How is the security situation in our area?
Clean Water for Haiti is located about 2 hours north of Port au Prince. We’re in a very quiet, rural community that’s basically farmer’s fields. We’re literally surrounded by crops. And while we might only be a few minutes off of the main national highway running through the country (don’t get excited, it’s only two lanes), it can feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere at times. Our community has a reputation throughout the greater area of being a good community where things are pretty peaceful and people don’t get involved in the politics and other stuff that goes on. It’s one of the main reasons we chose to relocate here, and we’ve seen that ring true in the past 8 years that we’ve owned the land.
Because of all these things, we’ve felt safe here. And we feel safe in our general area. Yes, at times there are issues in St. Marc and Montrouis, the two bigger communities north and south of us, but when we hear of those things, we just stay home and the guys don’t go in that direction for work related things. This has always been the way it is here, not just in recent months or years. It’s the way it is in Haiti. You listen to the word on the street, and adjust accordingly. For the most part, our larger area has remained fairly quiet through the bulk of this in the past almost two years since we went through “peyi lok” (locked country) back in the fall of 2019. People in our area will tell you that if no one is paying people to start a manifestation, where people will block roads, then it won’t typically happen.
So we feel safe in our area, and are in a position where we can choose when to go into Port au Prince to take care of mission business. And lately that has been hardly ever. Not only are Chris and I choosing not to travel in unless we absolutely need to, we are also only sending staff in when we absolutely need to. Things like purchasing supplies that we cannot get out our way, or to take care of paperwork that must be done. Other than that, we don’t go. That’s our number one way of staying safe right now. If we do NEED to go, we consult with a friend who works with the mission and who is based in Port au Prince, who also happens to be a retired Haitian police officer, about what things are like and if we should or shouldn’t come on a particular day. We’re thankful for this resource as it’s made navigating things so much easier for us, and safer!
What’s happening with fuel shortages?
Again, one of the big questions we’ve gotten lately, and for good reason. It’s important to understand the context of Haiti in order to understand how much this is affecting life for most people right now. For starters, Haiti does not have a country wide power grid that reaches all communities and people. Yes, there is the Electricite d’Haiti, but it doesn’t reach the rural communities, and in those areas that it does reach, it is not 24/7 power. It may be a certain number of hours per day, or certain days of the week. Where we live/work now, there is no EDH. When we were based in Pierre Payen we were connected to the grid there, but only got power from Friday nights to around noon on Sundays – IF we got power at all. There were times where we went for over 6 months without having anything come through the grid. And if there is power coming through the grid, it’s often irregular and will surge, so it can damage appliances and electronics.
Due to the inconsistencies and the damage that can be caused, many people that have means choose to not be connected to the grid at all, and rely on a generator and battery system, or solar/battery system. Because of this, if people can’t get fuel, they can’t power their homes or vehicles. It means not being able to have lights, or a fridge to preserve food. At a higher level, not having fuel means institutions like government offices, banks, and hospitals will not be able to operate, because they’re all relying on generator fuel too.
In recent weeks we’ve seen many hospitals close their doors because they can’t operate their facilities. Schools haven’t been open, though most don’t rely on power to function as they’re typically open air buildings that only house students during the day, so no lights or A/C. Banks through the country, and most major businesses through Port au Prince announced reduced hours because of lack of fuel. We heard that grocery store shelves were emptying out because transport trucks couldn’t move goods (no gas) and stores were at risk of not being able to power coolers. Cell service providers (how we all have phones and internet here) announced that service would become patchy and possibly cease all together if they didn’t get fuel. We did in fact experience bad service for about a week.
Another major area that has been affected by the fuel shortages is the public transit system. Don’t be thinking city busses or anything like that. Here most people get around by tap tap, a small pickup truck with benches in the back, motorcycle taxi, or larger busses that run between cities or bigger parts of town. In our local area the cost of a tap tap ride doubled overnight a couple weeks ago. The average salary here is about $5 US/day in our local area (higher and lower through the country). It now costs about $0.95 to take a tap tap from one community to another – one direction. You can do the math on how that is affecting families right now. Add to that a steep increase in the cost of goods because of the fuel shortages, and it’s making things really difficult for people.
There are places where you can get fuel, but it’s black market and is coming with a hefty price tag. It’s also often cut with other things, so can damage vehicles and equipment. As a principle, we don’t want to encourage the black market, so we won’t purchase the fuel. We also don’t want to risk damaging vehicles or equipment.
On Friday, the gang leader known as Barbecue (Jimmy Cherizer), whose people are responsible for blocking the flow of fuel from the ports, announced that to ease the tension in the country they were going to allow fuel to move freely until the 18th, which is a national holiday here. Over the weekend we saw very little coming through the security groups we’re in, and our staff said this morning that they’ve heard stations in our area might start pumping fuel as early as today.
How has the fuel shortage affected CWH?
While we were in Pierre Payen we were on a generator/battery system, and eventually got some solar panels to help reduce our fuel expenses to run the generator. After getting the solar panels we still spent about $600/month on generator fuel.
When we purchased the new property in Camp Marie, we planned for a full solar set up in our build plan, and did it. The system cost us about $35,000. That’s a lot of money, but we knew based on what we had paid previously for monthly fuel expenses without solar that it would pay for itself in the first 3 years. And it did. But we also had no idea what was coming.
With the fuel shortages, which actually started back in 2018, our solar system has been one of the main reasons Clean Water for Haiti has been able to keep its doors open. We have a backup generator for those times where it’s overcast and our batteries need a boost, but we really only run it a handful of times each year. So the bulk of our power comes from the sun, and it means we aren’t reliant on purchasing fuel to keep the work and life happening here – and we’re so thankful for that!
To give you some perspective, our solar system is big enough that daily we can run everything in the mission residences – three fridges (between two buildings), an upright freezer, two water coolers, ceiling fans in every room, lights in every room, 2 air conditioners, small appliances, computers, printers and other small electronics. In the work yard, along with all of the other stuff running in the office/residences, we also run overhead fans and lights, power concrete vibrators, a mortar mixer, our sand washing machine, weld, use power tools, and the biggest thing – we run several water pumps in tandem for about 8 hours a day. We can also run a washing machine and on the weekends when the work yard isn’t functioning, we can actually run a dryer!
So yes, even with the fuel shortages we’ve been able to keep working and living. It is crazy to realize that it’s less expensive for us to use electricity than it is to use other things, like propane for cooking. So many of us foreigners have to go through the opposite adjustment when moving here. I was cooking supper the other night and as I mixed things in the Instant Pot I realized that even if we ran out of and weren’t able to get propane I could still cook, and I was really thankful for that.
Fuel and working/going off-site.
While our solar system has meant that we can keep working full-time, the fuel shortage has affected our work in other areas.
While we can use our solar to power the work yard, and have been able to keep building filters and preparing everything for filter deliveries, in order to go off-site for anything we need either diesel or gas, and that’s where the struggle has been.
All of our work trucks are diesel, and thankfully we were able to stock up on diesel about a month ago and store it. We’ve been using that reserve to fill the truck tanks, and have basically only been using the trucks to do filter deliveries or buy supplies about once a week. We’ve put off doing any repair trips and promotion days where they trucks are out in the communities connecting with people and servicing filters.
Our motorcycles and passenger vehicles are gas powered. Gas has been the harder fuel to come by in the past 6 weeks. Because of that, our motorcycles have been sitting, which means we haven’t been able to do filter follow up visits. That’s frustrating because those visits are SO important to filter adoption and people using them correctly. We’re very eager to get back to doing these visits.
For our passenger vehicles, we’re just hanging out at home and not going anywhere. We had one vehicle with 3/4 of a tank in it, and basically didn’t touch it so it could make a trip into Port au Prince when Chris returned from a trip a couple weeks ago, and it’s sat since then. Our other car is empty and has been for weeks. Everyone in our area is in the same boat, so no-one has been going out for social things. In the past couple years our family has gotten really good at staying home.
For supplies, like I said, we’ve been able to send a truck or get deliveries when we’ve needed them. For example, last week when Daniel went into St. Marc to get cement, paint, and other work yard needs, we also had him pick up dog food and some other stuff from one of the grocery stores. Marthe, our housekeeper, has still been able to go to the market once a week and get produce, dry goods and other stuff we need. And most of all, we just adjust. If we can’t get all the things we want, we appreciate the things we CAN get, and we adjust our diet and other things accordingly. So far we haven’t gone without. I was even excited when Daniel came back with 4 fresh loaves of bread because it meant that a delivery truck had made it out from Port au Prince, and I didn’t have to bake bread :) But I still have a stash of flour in case I need to!
We’re still here.
Every organization and individual that’s here needs to make decisions, often daily, about their presence here. In the past two years, because of the unrest, political issues, kidnappings, and fuel shortages, many organizations have chosen to pull foreign staff out of the country. In recent weeks we’ve seen that happen even more, largely because the lack of fuel has meant that facilities can’t function and staff may not be able to access resources. Again, this is a decision that each org/family needs to make for themselves.
At Clean Water for Haiti, we have not felt this to be a necessary move. As I said previously, our community is removed from much of what’s going on, with the exception of access to fuel. That lack of access has impacted some of what we’re doing, but not all. We can still work full time, and we have safe facilities in a safe community to do so. Yes, it has meant adjusting how we do things in many ways, but we still have the means to do the bulk of our day to day things.
Our staff, while sometimes being late for work due to having a hard time getting transport in the morning, have still been showing up for work and working full time. We’ve still been doing filter deliveries. In fact, we’ve been doing more filter deliveries in recent weeks than we might typically do. Last week the guys did 4 delivery days, back to back, installing over 110 filters in one week!
We have always worked from the mindset of having Clean Water for Haiti be a reliable resource for the Haitian people. In a time of crisis, where families are struggling to do life every day, we’re seeing an increase in demand for filters. And that’s why we’re here. As an organization we exist so families can be more independent. Right now that freedom to treat whatever water they have, while treated water may not be available and hospitals might be closed, is more important than ever. We have people counting on us to be here, both in the communities we serve, and when we open our gates in the morning so our staff can work and provide for their families. So, we aren’t planning on going anywhere.
We’ve been in Haiti through a lot of really hard things, and for now we have everything we need. We can be flexible, we can still work and support our staff, and we feel safe where we are. That may change going forward, but we aren’t going to rush to make changes where changes aren’t necessary for us at the moment. Our many years here have taught us that things in Haiti can change quickly, so what’s happening right now may not be the case next week, or next month, or a few months from now. Only time will tell. Until then, we’re just going to keep working and doing what we’re called to do. If you want to help us meet the demand we’re seeing for filters, we’d love it if you’d donate. Just go to our Donate page and choose your country. Your gifts are needed now, more than ever, and they’ll be a big part of helping Haitian families have some stability in the midst of a chaotic time.
~Leslie
Welcome To the Blog!
This is a place where you can come and read about the day to day happenings around Clean Water for Haiti. Our hope is that it will be a way for you to connect in a personal way with our staff, the work we're doing, and the people of Haiti. Enjoy!