I’ve been in Gonaives, Haiti for a week now and I have seen a lot of mud. A LOT. The entire town is covered in it. I’m not sure exactly what happened after the area was hit with four hurricaines but the result is serious amounts of mud in people’s homes, piled in the streets, covering schools and just everywhere. Having volunteered with Hands On in Bangladesh, I had a good idea of what the setup would be like and I know quite a few people from there too. I wasn’t at all sure what Haiti woud be like, though. I’d heard about kidnappings, food riots, revolts againsts the government and all sorts of things so I was kind of apprehensive about the whole thing, to be honest.
Well, I’m a week into this adventure and I really couldn’t have asked for more here. True, the situation in the city is pretty dire and the poverty isn’t something that’s easy to look past, but the work here has been really rewarding. There are a lot of local Haitian volunteers involved in this deloyment and working side by side with them is really what’s made this first week so great.
- Day One – Arrival. Went out to a job site for a couple of hours in the afternoon and witnessed a man sort of attack one of the local volunteers for dumping mud in front of his house. We regrouped and continued the work after finding a new mud dumping site but it was a bit of a harsh introduction to the area. The volunteer was ok but a bit shaken.
- Day Two – Oxfam tool distribution. This was an interesting day consisting mostly of waiting around with a few hours of furious activity in between. Hands On teamed up with Oxfam Spain to distribute sets of tools to fifty families with the idea being that they would work together with other families in the neighbourhood to clear mud from their homes. The distribution went well after a bit of chaos at the beginning and it was very interesting to see a major international organisation like Oxfam at work. Besides sending wheelbarrows out unassabled to people who probably don’t own the tools to put them together, it all went smoothly. We later found out that people in this area didn’t actually have nearly as much mud to clear as the homes we were helping and learned that the Oxfam people didn’t even know about the extreme need in the areas we’d been in.
- Day Three – Day off. I attempted to sort out my stuff by building a shelf out of plywood but mostly took it easy and let my sore bones rest. There are lots of really nice, funny people here and finding someone to chat with each night is definitely so problem.
- Day Four – Clearing an easy house. Worked on a house that was totally empty of furniture and filled with pretty good mud. There are many classifications of mud here (mostly made up by the volunteers) ranging from sticky to heavy to dry to wet and everything in between. The mud in this house was heavy and sticky but, because it broke off into chunks, it was easy to handle. I spent the day shovelling and can safely say I have never worked so hard or sweated so much, not even when I was picking fruit in Australia. We finished the house in one day and it was really satisfying to know that we all worked hard and got someone back into their house faster than expected.
- Day Five – Clearing a difficult house. Went to a home that had been under mud over six feet high. Hands On have been working at this place for over a week now but, because of the amount of mud and lack of space to use wheelbarrows (buckets are passed between people instead) things have been very slow going. I ended up getting water in my rubber boots so it was kind of a miserable day but even the bad days are never that bad.
- Day Six – Painting a school. Spent the day painting windows and doors at a school that Hands On have been working on since they started the project on October 10th. When the work began, the courtyard and all of the classroms were under several feet of mud and now everything is mud free and in need of some coats of paint. Even though I wasn’t here to see the school at its worst, I can completely imagine what it was like and seeing it cleared up and having the painters moving in is a cool thing. Pretty tedious work but it was a relaxing day and there was a bit of a leaving party at night for a few people so beers were drunk.
- Day Seven – Clearing Happy Lady’s house. Worked on clearing a foot of sticky mud and lots of furniture from a lovely lady’s home who thanked us with kisses at the end of the job. She was very thankful that we were doing this work for free and it was great to see that she understood this point because, often, our people think our local volunteers are getting paid and it’s nice to see them get credit for being volunteers.
So it’s day seven and, after watching an awesome sunrise from the roof of the house here and eating a yummy dinner made up entirely of mystery dishes, I’m surfing on a super fast net connection and attempting to get caught up on emails.
I really think this is going to be an amazing experience and I’m really looking forward to seeing what the next two months have in store. If things continue to be as good as the first week then I’m in for an awesome time!
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