WITNESSING TRANSFORMATION

The day started with finishing the last leg of our trip to Haiti Outreach in Pignon.  We made this trip in small, single engine airplanes over mountains into the elevated Central Plateau region.  It was our first trip at a low altitude in the country and provided new perspectives.  We took off in Port-au-Prince and landed in the well maintained landing strip right next to the Haiti Outreach Guest House at the edge of Pignon.

Video - Take Off To Pignon                                      Video - Landing in Pignon

It is amazing to see how, especially since the earthquake, the footprint of Port-au-Prince has spread further away from the central city.  This new sprawl is surely goin
g to make it more difficult to develop the services and amenities of urban life that require density -- things like a public transportation system, sewer and water delivery systems, police and fire.

Another striking view from the top down is mountains without trees.  Mountains that are washing soil away down gullies and draws exposing chalky soil on which nothing grows.  The mountains are a big divide separating the coastal region from the central regions.  They constitute two very different worlds in one country.

A Community Meeting On Establishing A Water System

After a very substantial country dinner at noon, we traveled about 30 minutes on utterly treacherous roads to a tiny village of about 125 people.   There we witnessed a demonstration of community transformation -- the very thing we need to know about Haiti Outreach and its community development work.  The community is in the process of fulfilling its preparation for managing the well being built there.  The well should be operational in two months.

Video -- Building a well house
                                                       


After formally asking Haiti Outreach for a community managed well to be built in the village, the community must undertake a process of learning how to operate a clean water well system.  The process starts with a census of all households and the selection by the community of 5 - 7 people to be the well management committee.  That group of leaders then go through several months of training on how to make rules to manage a system for maintaining the water system -- rules for financial matters, subscribers, billing, cleanliness and other details.  They adopt an operating budget based on monthly water bills.  In this meeting the community members were being tested by the community organizers (called animators) and the committee on how well they know the rules established by the committee for the community.

We were given the privilege of asking questions through an interpreter.  Among the things we learned was that already the new skills of the well management committee had led to an increase in the number of households with latrines.  Within two months, they told us, all households will have them. They said that was possible because the committee members were no able to organize community projects and without outside help.  They also declared that the money for a well was important, but that the development of the community's ability to act for itself with its own resources was the most lasting gift.  It will stay with the community forever, they asserted.

Everyone in our group was absolutely elated to witness this evidence of transformation of a people in this remote and isolated village who thirsted for safe water.  Water turned out to be the means to an empowerment they had not known, an ability to act for themselves for a better life.  One compelling image was a woman expecting her first child in a couple of weeks who was one of the leaders on the committee.  There is much more we all will want to share when we return.

This day was one of the best days ever in my entire experience in Haiti!  What an exciting day!!