life in Haiti | Clean Water for Haiti

Trying to Figure it Out, Part 2

Aug 19, 2022

Sadly, when discussing the current state of affairs in Haiti, the assassination of the president looms larger than anything else.

The assassination:

I wrote a post about the state of Haiti back in November 2019: https://cleanwaterforhaiti.org/i-dont-know-whats-going-on-in-haiti-but-im-trying-to-figure-it-out/ I think I ended up giving a pretty good explanation of the state of affairs in Haiti at the time. I just reread the post, and funnily enough I mentioned assassination:

“I don’t believe a new leader coming along is going to fix everything. It’s wishful thinking. As far as I can see, there are no “good guys”. Worse than that, if a “good guy” did come along, I don’t see how he/she could make a difference while working within Haiti’s political system. There are currently no consequences for a wide range of evil behaviors if you are part of the political or elite social class. A well-intentioned leader, focused on eliminating corruption, would likely find themselves assassinated.”

Jovenel Moise was, in fact, assassinated by unknown forces in 2021. Perhaps he really was focused on eliminating corruption, which is what some people believe. Others believe he was threatening to use incriminating information on other political actors who became afraid and angered enough to have him eliminated.

Ariel Henry took on the position of acting president after the assassination. At the time, someone else also claimed to be the legitimate acting president, but he backed down.

It’s important to ask whether the same forces which organized the assassination are now in charge of Haiti. I don’t know. However, it’s remarkable just how badly the investigation into the assassination has proceeded. That could mean that the guilty parties are actively impeding the investigation, or it could mean that the Haitian justice system is incapable of carrying out a complex investigation and prosecution with any kind of competence.

What is the current state of affairs?

Insecurity is by far the greatest problem facing the country. Different forces in Haiti want to either hold elections immediately or postpone elections until the country is secure enough to hold elections that will be safe and fair.

Holding elections at the moment is wildly impractical. Haiti is a mess. Banditry is very widespread and gangs are active in more and more places. Whole trucks laden with goods are stolen and drivers kidnapped. Taptap drivers typically pay a protection fee to their local gang so that they can run their route. Guns have been coming in through the ports so the authorities have started to search every container thoroughly. It takes a lot of time and energy to remove every item from every container and then put it back again, so clearing customs and getting a container released has become extremely difficult. Shortages have become more common, especially for gasoline and diesel. As of this writing, not a single gas station within 30 miles of us is pumping fuel.

Improving security to the point where it is possible to have safe and fair elections also seems to be wildly impractical. A new police chief was appointed who seems to be making slow progress against the gangs. However, the main courthouse in Port au Prince was taken over by a gang two months ago and the police still haven’t taken it back. Perhaps progress is being made anyway, but I can’t see it. It’s certainly true that political actors will fund certain gangs at certain times for political ends, which makes policing much, much harder. A growing trend is for policemen to be hired by private parties to guard shipments and transportation around the country for businesses. This means fewer policemen are doing their jobs as they try to make money on the side.

How is the situation going to improve?

I have no idea. I don’t see any hope for the near future. It seems like people are waiting for another foreign intervention. I don’t think that this will happen any time soon, and I’m not even sure that it’s a good idea. The head of the Organization of American States (OAS) strongly believes an international intervention needs to happen. This statement was released August 8: https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-045/22 It’s full of good points, but there are a lot of points that aren’t addressed. I think it’s worth reading because the sum total of the international response now is little more than “thoughts and prayers” but the statement reads as an inspiring call to action.

Another solution would be a breaking of the political deadlock to create a plan to move ahead. That’s not going to happen. The assassination looms over everything, it’s not clear who is in charge anyway, and there are too many people, hungry for power, who are willing to use violence and threat of violence to get that power. I don’t really believe that the international community thinks this is going to happen even though they consistently say that this is what they want to work towards.

It’s possible that the international community, led by the USA, has decided that the 36 years of involvement in Haiti since Duvalier left has been a waste of resources, and that Haiti was better off with a strongman in charge. I have been consistently told by older Haitians that everything was fine under Duvalier, just so long as you didn’t say anything bad about the government. It might not be a stretch to say that many Haitians long for those days. It’s possible that Haiti, and the international community that watches, is waiting for a strongman to emerge along with the inevitable rise in extrajudicial killings to get the country back under control.

The Flip Side

Apr 27, 2022

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.

The Director Writes a Blog Post

Apr 29, 2019

Leslie and Kim are in charge of social media these days, so I rarely write any kind of update anymore. However, a few different people have called or written me in the past few months asking me if Clean Water for Haiti is still active. It turns out that it’s been a long time since the last blog update on our website, and work is a bit slow for me today, so I’m going to step outside my usual role and write to all y’all.

Visiting some people while out doing some video work for the mission. This lady gave me a chicken nesting basket to take home to Leslie and the kids for homeschooling stuff.

We are definitely still active, and we’re not going anywhere. For my part, Haiti has been my home since 2002. I’ve lived in Haiti longer than I have lived in any other country. In certain ways the United States and Canada feel foreign to me now. Leslie has been here almost as long as I have, and our kids only see the USA and Canada as places we go on vacation once a year. Kim is the newest addition to our Haiti office team, but she is working on almost two years with us and almost 4 years in Haiti so far.

It isn’t obvious on our website, but we don’t maintain an office in the USA or in Canada. We choose to focus on our work in Haiti and keep expenses as low as reasonably possible in the USA and Canada. We use a Skype number on our website that is set up to ring through to my cell phone here in Haiti, so I frequently end up talking to people who think I am stateside. Those calls can get expensive, so feel free to send me an email if you have questions – crolling@cleanwaterforhaiti.org.

The work is advancing by leaps and bounds. 2018 was our most productive year ever. We installed 3033 filters. We managed to buy a new delivery truck, hired some great new technicians (we’re up to 21 now) and increased our efficiency substantially. In addition to strong donations from our long-term supporters, some new groups have provided grants and some of them will turn into regular, annual support. Our biggest new donor, USLI, an insurance company, has made a large annual commitment for the next three years which has a huge implication: financial stability. Now that I know we will have at least a certain amount of funds available each year, I can hire the appropriate number of workers without worrying I will have to lay some of them off a year later.

For 2019, we looked at our financial and infrastructure situation and decided we could set an ambitious goal: 400 filters per month for a a total of 4800 filters. This would be more than a 50% increase over last year, our best year ever, but I think we can do it.

For the past 6-7 years, we were installing around 1000-1500 filters/year. Why are things moving so well after all those years of stagnation? Well, first off, those weren’t years of stagnation at all. From 2012-2015 we were working on relocating our facilities to a better (much, much better) location. We were also making major improvements to our education and follow up system. Our program developed a reputation for stability and sustainability, and we built into our staff. Funding was light, but we made the most of things, and when funding finally picked up last year we had all the pieces in place to make the most of it. Kim Snyder joined our office staff in late 2017 and she brought in skills that allowed us to focus more on grant writing and fundraising. The result is that as of early 2019, we are KILLING it! This is the level of productivity we have wanted to be doing for years now, and we’re finally doing it. We’ll reach the same amount of people in a single year that we used to reach in four years!

We had a very difficult February. The main cause was a terrible accident that happened on the way back from filter deliveries. As director, vehicle accidents are one of my greatest fears and the phone call I am always fearing finally came. Our driver lost control of the truck on the slippery, rainy highway and the truck hit a motorcycle before flipping over twice down into a ravine. A woman on the motorcycle was killed, and all 6 of our workers on the truck needed medical attention. One of them has a broken leg requiring a series of operations. Our drivers are all prudent, but accidents happen, and the roads here are very dangerous. In Haiti, unfortunately, much more is involved than simply handing over insurance cards and having the police make a report. Even before all the injured were hauled up from the ravine, people in the area were trying to find our driver so they could beat him. Some other workers put him on a moto-taxi so he could safely leave the area before that happened. After that, there was talk of setting fire to the wrecked truck. We ended up hiring security to guard the wreck but not before many items had been stolen from it.

The aftermath of the accident has been dealt with. Our workers are recovering, but the dead woman will never return to her family.
To add to the stress of this situation, Haiti was/has been going through a period of major political unrest. The day after the accident, I managed to go see the workers in the hospital in Port au Prince, but there were rocks and burning tires still in the road from the previous night’s protests against the government. I made it there and back in a narrow window before the highway was shut down again. For the next two weeks, it became nearly impossible to get into the capital, and supplies began to run out in the provinces. Fuel ran out, which didn’t matter because the roads were blocked anyway. Getting medical attention for our workers and dealing with the security and legal aspects of the accident became much more complicated. This isn’t something I could have dealt with myself. We have a good friend and retired policeman on retainer who dealt with all of the most difficult aspects. He has a legal education, so we managed to get through the whole thing without hiring a lawyer. He is even managing the repair of the wrecked truck, which won’t be nearly as expensive as we had feared.

Accidents happen, political unrest happens, and natural disasters happen, but whatever happens we will still be here, working. When families have safe water, people don’t get sick and lives are saved. Clean Water for Haiti is doing it’s part to make Haiti a happier and healthier place, and even with the kind of trouble we had in February, I’m glad that I’m here to be a part of it.

~Chris

The Mechanical Side Of Things

Jan 27, 2017

If you’ve been following along with Clean Water for Haiti for any length of time, you’ve probably heard or seen us refer to the need for a new truck. Our trucks work hard every day, to the extent that it can be difficult to explain what that looks like.

This post isn’t going to be an appeal for a new truck. I’ve already done that and we’re on our way to the halfway point of having the funds to purchase one. We’re hoping to do that sometime this year, and crossing our fingers that we don’t have any issues before then that would mean a lot of down time and people not getting filters.

No, today I’m not going to talk about that. Instead, I’m going to try and give you a little window into how hard these beasts work, and what goes into maintaining them.

Yesterday Richard, one of our drivers, went out to buy a load of cinder blocks for the walls in the new guest house/training center. Most of the drive was on the highway, with the exception of the few minutes on our road getting out to the highway, and going from the highway up to the block yard – about 5 minutes on a gravel road.

Mid-way through the morning I got a call to say that he had a flat tire and he was going to be late coming back because of having to change over to the spare, etc. Typically, if we get a flat and time allows, we go right to the next tire repair boss, a guy on the side of the road with an air compressor and a small fire in a piston that he uses to heat patches on the tire tubes. It’s really fascinating to watch them do the whole thing by hand.

Because of the nature of what we do and the roads we have to drive on, we always make sure that every vehicle has a full size, good condition spare on it so we can swap it out and keep going, then get the flat fixed as soon as possible. Very rarely do we let a vehicle off site without a good spare that’s ready to go. Sometimes, but rarely, a spare has lost air from sitting so long, but that’s usually easily remedied.

Richard eventually got back and everyone went about their day as usual.

This morning Chris asked me if I knew that Richard had a blow out yesterday. I told him I was just told the tire was “ampan”, which means “broken down” or not working or flat. Creole has a variety of meanings for a single word, so you just sort of pick the best one for the context. The other day the car overheated and while I waited for it to cool down so I could put more coolant in it many people came by asking me if the car was “ampan”.

When Chris said “blow out” i just thought that a part of the tire had, you know, blown out. And then the whole thing had gone flat, the spare had to be put on, etc.

Well, I was wrong…

When Preval, another of our staff, went to put it in the car this morning so Chris could have it taken off the rim, and get another spare mounted on it, this is what he was moving:

Yep, a complete blow out.

Many times we like to talk about businesses, and how there’s a “cost to doing business”. Very rarely do we apply that to the non-profit setting. But, whether we apply it or not, it is there. When we have to do the math to figure out what our cost per filter is, one of the things we have to factor into that is maintenance on our work trucks. They’re a vital part to our program. We can’t deliver or do repair visits on filters without them, and each full load of filters we take out is about 5 tonnes of weight. Many of the roads that take our staff into the communities we serve are nothing more than a dirt track. Sometimes they’re crossing rivers. Sometimes they get stuck up to the axels in mud, and have to unload everything to get unstuck, then reload it again.

When we talk about “the cost of doing” business in relation to our trucks, one of those maintenance items/expenses is tires. I had a car when I lived back in Canada before moving to Haiti and I cringed when I had to replace tires. My dad is a truck driver, and when he owned his own trucks, I remember many an hour passed in the waiting area of the tire shop while things got changed out. When it comes time to change out a set of tires on one of the trucks we’re always aware of the expense, but it doesn’t ever make the sticker shock any less.

You see, each of our work trucks has 6 wheels. And we need to put good quality, beefy treaded tires on them to get where we need to go. All in, when it’s time to replace the tires we have to buy at least 6 new ones, usually at the tune of about $1600 US. If we need to replace a spare, that’s one more tire. Typically we’ll take one of the best condition old tires and use it as a spare, and probably keep a few of the others for that purpose if we can.

I share this just as a way of expanding your view of what’s involved in what we do here. We often say “it’s not just about filters” because there are so many things that need to work together to make the filters possible. When we do fundraising, and you hear us talking about “cost per filter” now you know more of what’s involved in getting to that number, and some of the things we have to stay on top of doing this thing we do.

~Leslie