Site Plans

The amazing Patti Stouter just finished some beautiful site plans for The Children of Hope sustainable school. The land that is shown below is the piece of property that was purchased for the school. It is divided down the middle, almost exactly in half. On the right half, you are looking at the school campus, which will include 10 classrooms (4 are finished), a cafeteria/large group meeting area (finished-the shade canopy), a basketball/mini futbol court (cement), a playground, kitchen, larger soccer field (grass), 4 composting toilets, an office (finished- on the end of the shade canopy), and a kitchen.

On the left hand side of the picture you are looking at the agricultural area that will be used to teach the students self reliance. It will also be a means to help make the school sustainable. The structures that you see are the trade school, the guest house, and caretaker's house (domes).

We'll be trying our hand at a few different things to help make the school sustainable, including raising two different types of chickens for meat and eggs, tilapia ponds, a tree nursery, rocket stoves, alternative fuel briquettes, oyster mushrooms, and beekeeping. We'll have three fenced areas (upper left) that will serve as both garden areas and livestock corrals. We'll plant each area four months apart so that we are getting more consistent yields year round. After an area has been harvested, the animals will be rotated to that area for a few months to fertilize it.

The middle section of the agricultural area will be left open for about a year so that we can determine what will be the best use of that part of the land, based on the results from our first year of operations.

We'll be collecting and filtering the greywater from the kitchen and showers and storing it in a cistern along with the rainwater collected from each of our buildings. We'd like to get a solar well and need about 16 solar panels to meet our energy needs.

There will be a short wall dividing the school from the agricultural area and another dividing the school from the children's home (orphanage) which lies to the south, or the bottom of the picture. This is to keep the children more secure at the orphanage, as other children and people from the community will use the school. There will be a taller security wall around the outside edge of the entire property (including the orphanage not pictured here) to keep everyone safe.

Here are some more detailed illustrations of what things might look like when finished.

Beach

After the teacher training, Jean Marc let Katie and Watson take nine of the older children to the beach. These kids almost never get to leave and this was a rare treat for them.

Teacher Training

After just one week of classroom observations, it was obvious that we were going to need to put in place a teacher training program. The education system in Haiti is really hurting. The children that are lucky enough to go to school have to sit and endure hours of rote memorization and repetition. They are rarely challenged to think for themselves or use problem solving skills. On Saturday, we held our first workshop. Thanks for translating, Watson!

Bebe

All of the children call this boy "Bebe" (Baby) because he can't hear or speak. He's a very smart kid and I think that he just can't hear. He tries so hard to fit in with whatever the other kids are doing. He wants so badly to communicate and he tries so hard, I hope that someday we can get him the medical attention that he needs to be able to.

I'd also like to get a dentist out for a visit someday. It seems that all of the children have visible cavities. (But they are all brushing their teeth every day now!) One little girl cried herself to sleep the other night because her tooth was hurting so bad (and these kids almost never cry.) So if you know of any dentists that would like to come and volunteer, we could sure keep them busy while they're here.

One Dream Came True This Week...

Here is Overda ready and waiting about two hours early before school started on the first day. He and the other kids were already up and dressed by when I woke up at 5:15am. Overda was one of the first children that I talked to when I first came across the children living in the field tents almost four months ago.

I interviewed Jean Marc, some of the children, and community members to find out everything that I could to assess the situation of the children so that I could determine whether or not we would be getting involved. I remember part of a conversation that I had with Overda (through a translator):

Me: What is it that you and the other children need the most? (Keep in mind that these kids were eating one meal a day at this time, had no toilet, were fetching water, and were either orphaned or abandoned by their parents.)

Overda: I would like to go to school.

Wish granted. Although he's a few years behind for his age, he's smart and a hard worker and I think he'll be caught up by the end of the year.

Building Progress

This is where we were with the second building. If it weren't for our little delay we'd have the walls up on the second building, but oh well.

Katie also proved to be a big help on the construction crew as well. She was showing up a lot of the workers and it really lit a fire under their feet because they didn't want to be outdone by the white girl.

Two courses of barbed wire are placed between each layer of bags. A line is run about six inches above each row of bags for a guide to tamp the bags level and to the appropriate height.

It's nice to see our facilities being used by the local community for meetings and we're happy to cooperate and help in any way that we can.

A Little Delay...

We had an interesting visit last Friday, although it didn't really come as a surprise here in Haiti. A judge and a bunch of policemen showed up and started looking around and told us that we needed to stop working. We have all of the necessary permits to be building, but since they had the guns we thought we'd better do what they said. They were out of their jurisdiction and had no right to be there, so it was obvious what they were looking for. A big fat bribe. Since we weren't willing to pay them off, we had to postpone work for about five days until we could get the necessary documents from a higher court override their order for us to stop work. Unfortunately these situations are pretty common here, the corruption runs deep.

Mark (Pye Mayas)

Mark Harmsen came down for a few days to get some footage and help us put together a little video telling the story of these children so that we can try to raise the money to finish the school. He was a lot of fun to have around and the kids loved him. They still ask me "Kikote pie mayas?" Which means "Where's stinky feet?"

Katie

This is Katie Baldwin. She's an extremely creative and dedicated teacher that I worked with in Ogden six years ago. She just happens to be taking the year off to work on the family farm in New York and write curriculum. She is here in Haiti all month, getting to know the children that she'll be designing the curriculum for. She is already off to a great start on the English and computer literacy program that she'll be working along side Sustain Haiti to implement when they come back next May. She's also doing teacher workshops and training sessions for our teachers at The Hope of Haiti School on Saturdays while she's here. The children love her to pieces and will be so happy to see her when she comes back next May. She brought a different game or craft to teach and play with the children for almost every day that she's here.

Bath Time

Bath time in the morning. My favorite was when one lady spanked four bare bums in about 5 seconds flat when the boys kept wrestling and messing around. After a little slap on the butt they shaped up and got back in line...

French Toast

I try to make one meal a week for the kids so that they can experience new foods and try new things. Katie and I made french toast for them one evening (with peanut butter on it) and they loved it.

After cooking over the fire, I had a new appreciation for the cooks here and a renewed drive to get some rocket stoves in operation here.

Desks

Dromond (the guy that did the shipping container school) is making the benches/desks for our school. He's been working long hours to get them done for the children as soon as possible. He also did a great job on the bumpers and lumber rack on the truck. We got the reinforced bumper on just in time because Jean Marc got in a little fender bender with a motorcycle the next day that would have been a lot worse without it. He's still fine tuning his driving skills :)

These kids were happy to split a coconut with me while I was waiting for the desks.

It's not uncommon to see these homemade cars being pulled around by the little boys. I love the bottle cap wheels.

Part of the O.E.E. Family

I've been staying at the orphanage for the last couple of weeks and this has made my stay here so much more enjoyable. I really feel like part of the family now and love getting to know each of these children individually and spending nearly every waking moment with them. There's nothing like waking up to their beautiful voices singing to me at 5:15 in the morning outside my tent.

This is Louisnis, Jean Marc's wife. She's usually with her two children taking care of their home about a mile away, but the kids love it when she's around.

The kids sleep don't seem to mind sleeping on the floor. It's a big step up from what they were used to in the tents. Last night we had a big rain storm set in and my air mattress was almost floating on all of the water inside my tent.

I don't know who enjoys this more.

Meals are usually the same each day- spaghetti noodles for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch and thick drink they call “le bwi” for dinner which is blended spaghetti, rice, or cornmeal.

Jessica says my name every time I walk by now and puts her hands out for me to pick her up. So hard to turn her down.

Gregory is a new addition to the orphanage. He is very kind-hearted, always eager to help out and is as strong as an ox. One night he was off by himself and a little solemn. When I walked up to him I could see that he had tears running down his cheeks. I asked him if everything was OK and he said that he was just missing his mom. I asked if she was alive and he said that she had died in the earthquake. I asked about his dad and he said he died when he was young. He says that he's very happy to be at O.E.E. and feels like he's needed and loved.

Vladimir is another new addition. He loves to joke around and is always positive. His father died and his mother couldn't afford to feed him so she sent him away to work at a mechanic shop in Leogane at the age of 14. He was working long hours there and they weren't paying him anything and he wasn't going to school when Jean Marc took him in last month.

Jackenson, Overda, and Isaac are really into this playfighting/karate stuff. It looks kind of like Brazilian kapoeira. I want to get them a kapoeira or karate dvd for them to practice.

Composting Toilets

We found another composting toilet near us in Leogane, being built by Hands On. We were very excited to make the connection and to see other people using this great idea to solve two of Haiti's biggest problems: 1) Lack of sewage treatment and 2) Depleted soil that's not fit to grow food.

The poop cycle. You probably won't believe it until you've seen/used one, but these toilets do not smell at all. So much more pleasant to use than most toilets here in Haiti.

Dlo (Water) Problem

Our well is broken :( The PVC hand pump is broken and what you can manage to get up is always murky. We need to get a new well drilled. We've been loading up every water holding container we can get our hands on into the back of the truck to the Korean UN to fill them up. This process takes about an hour each day and the containers are usually about half full by the time we make our way back to the orphanage on the crappy road.

A Cool Idea

This school was built entirely by shipping containers and it is a beautiful campus. The classrooms are well ventilated and surprisingly comfortable. We just so happen to be getting two shipping containers in the future, so we might as well put them to great use and make a guest house or workshop out of them. The crew that converted these over will be building our roof on the second school building.

Rocket Stoves

I took four ladies from the surrounding community into a rocket stove workshop in Port au Prince for two days where they learned about these efficient, resource saving stoves. Most people in the tent city next to the orphanage use firewood that they spend a lot of time gathering to cook their food. The lucky ones that have a little money buy charcoal. These two practices are largely responsible for the deforestation of 98% of Haiti's native forests as people fight to survive. The smoke inhalation created by these fires is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide each year. Simple rocket stoves, which double cooking efficiency and reduce smoke production by 80%, have done so much good in the world since their introduction, but so many people still don't know about them and waste time and money and fuel with the current inefficient systems.

Here are some alternative fuel briquettes made out of paper, sawdust, and bagass (a sugar cane waste product). All of these ingredients are abundant and free here in Haiti. We'd like to start up a production facility of both simple rocket stoves and briquettes at The Hope of Haiti school to distribute in the community and help make us sustainable. One briquette cooks food for three people.

It only took about 8-10 sticks to get a pot with enough rice and beans to feed 100 boiling. The Paradigm Project is donating one of these industrial rocket stoves to us for our participation in the workshop. The ladies loved the stoves. Who wouldn't if it enables you to stand closer to the food without feeling the heat of the fire, don't get smoke in your eyes and lungs, and cook your food faster with less fuel.

This is Moussahin, from Morrocco. He is a scientist that has been developing and distributing rocket stoves for many years all over the world. Since he has already been on assignment in 9 different poverty stricken countries this year alone, I asked him which is the worst off. Without hesitation he said that Haiti is the worst place to be right now. This surprised me, but his explanation made sense. He said that many other countries have an average daily income similar to or worse than Haiti's, but that $1 or $2 a day will go a lot farther in those countries. Everything is so expensive here. It's hard to find anything that doesn't cost more than it would in the states. I don't understand it. I'm used to traveling the third world and spending next to nothing, but that's not the case here. Very few products are produced here in Haiti and tariffs are so outrageous. Everything is marked up when it comes into the country. The only thing that's cheap in Haiti is labor, which makes getting by extremely difficult.