Good News & Bad News

I am continuing to split my time between assessing structures and homes through a local church and assessing structures for a UN organization here. Both organizations try to organize trips to buildings located in a particular area because travel time can be long. The main streets that are wide and are in relatively good shape are jammed with traffic. One can try to go around the main streets, but the streets are in such poor shape that 4 wheel vehicles are required to travel on them. The photo at right shows a common street. Not only is the road rough but people are clearing rubble out of their homes and pushing it into the streets. There is not enough labor and equipment to move this debris from the streets. I will occasionally see a backhoe or a front loader, but they are few and far between.

I assessed the buildings at the Asscotiated Christian Women in Action (AFCA) campus in Port-au-Prince. Thier Chapel was under construction and did well. Their three-story building looked quite good. However, the basement of the building had only wall (severely damaged) that would resist earthquake forces. I told them to fix the wall and add several new walls before they allow anyone one in the school for any length of time.

Girls were digging trenches next to their tents as I walked to the other side of the compound. The night before had been the first significant rain since the earthquake. The water runoff became a huge problem to the hundreds of thousands of people living in tents.

At the other side of the campus young orphan girls were sleeping in tents and trying to walk around the mud outside. I evaluated their building and found it quite safe. I was given the opportunity to tell the girls, via a Kreyol translator, that they could move back into their home, if they would help clean things up.