"Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou" is a Haitian Creole proverb that means, "Many Hands Make The Load Lighter." I have been wearing a t-shirt with this phrase on it for a while now, both because I liked the sentiment in general, and because when I bought it from Threadless some money somehow went to rebuilding efforts in Haiti. The phrase became the title of my fundraising appeal as I began to prepare for this trip a few months ago because I thought it was rather appropriate. Was it ever...
After 2 days of working in Haiti, I am overwhelmed with the power of these words in action here on the Habitat for Humanity "Santo" community. This is a phenomenal example of many, many hands working together to make a catastrophic load a little bit lighter. Lighter not because the traumatic tragedy that this country endured will ever be forgotten, but lighter because the people of Santo are feeling hope as their dreams of a permanent housing solution takes shape in front of them.
We have seen, heard, and learned so much in the past couple days, I will not possibly be able to convey everything before I fall asleep from exhaustion. I will try to summarize for now, though, because this is just such a phenomenal project that y'all need to hear about it. We have heard stories from a variety of sources - Habitat personnel who have been on the ground in Haiti since days after the earthquake, as well as Haitian families who we have had the privilege of meeting and hearing from. The collaboration between the two parties is a truly remarkable story.
So we are working outside of the city of Leogane, the epicenter of the earthquake. In the days and weeks following the earthquake, hundreds of people left homeless congregated on a field that had once been farmland. They formed a tent city with tarps and tents from various humanitarian aid organizations, and hoped for a better solution. They live in tents that are brutally hot when the sun is out, and unbearably wet when it rains. They get water from a well and carry it in jugs and buckets to their small plot of land. The families received a variety of promises of houses from different information sources, but these did not come to fruition. Meanwhile, Habitat found this tent city, and negotiated with the mayor until he donated the land to them for a Habitat housing development. In a collaboration with Architects for Humanity, as well as what they determined was an essential link - community leaders - Habitat began making plans for a community of 500 houses to be completed over the next few years, 150 of which will be built this year. The cooperation of the community leaders has been remarkable - we heard today from several leaders of committees - the "committee of old people," the "committee of women," and the "committee of young people." They repeatedly expressed their profound appreciation for Habitat for Humanity and Margarit, a local who was hired by Habitat to manage the community involvement aspect of this project. There were a series of community meetings, or "charettes," where they got input from community members on house design, land management, and public spaces. The first phase of construction will include the 2011 Jimmy and Roslyn Carter work project, when 100 houses will be finished in a week. 50 other houses will be built this year, some by Global Village groups, of which we are the first. It's amazing to be a part of this initial phase, and to hear the reflections of the community members - today many people said they have been dreaming about this for a long time, and they are extremely happy and grateful to see it begin to become real. We are literally building their dream homes.
We are working on 2 houses as a "test build," to practice the building the houses that will be built during the JRCWP in November. The homes are half concrete and half wood, and we are building the latter half. Check out pictures of our work in progress!
This project in Santo is just a small part of the scope of work that Habitat is doing in Haiti. I will write more about that later, for now I need to sleep! More work to do tomorrow!
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