This is the kind of life that millions of people live every day in Haiti.The main problems which have been spreading here are Education, famine, lack of medical care, and water.
Water has become a major problem across the country.The majority of homes don't have water pipe, and the water that they consume is not even pure.The availability of water depends on two ways: first, a walk of a couple of minutes or hours, second, we should pay for it.How can we image this fact? "buying of water" in this country however about 70% of the people live with less than $ 2 U.S by day.
The pictures above show how the situation is in my area, and it is the same for the whole country.Such problem makes life very difficult for the Haitian people.Life is getting more vulnerable.
On the other hand, the water that the population is consuming is not clean.Many children are dying by different diseases such as diarrhea cause of unclean water .
Until now i am thinking about the future of this country, the future of the children.I have hope, my country can become a country of opportunities, opportunities that do not bring boat people anymore but it requires HELPS.Poverty reigns every day in this country.A new Haiti is POSSIBLE!
I wished i could post a video image along with this post but unfortunately the Internet connection is very slow, and it even took me more than 30 minutes to upload those pictures.I am using internet connection at a cyber.
ReplyDeleteGood post, Frandy.
ReplyDeleteGood post. In the last picture we are seeing a bucket store I think. "TiBokit, GwoBokit.." are I'm guessing kreyol for small bucket, medium bucket ... and there seems to be a place for a price. What do they cost? Is the first picture a place that people fill them with water? People have to pay for that? How much do they pay?
ReplyDeleteIf you have a camera now but it's too hard to upload images and videos can you burn them to a cd or put them on a thumb drive and get it to someone with a faster connection who can upload them for you?
A few pictures like this can be enough for a lot of reporting about the subject.
Telling more about a subject like the problems with water that people have everyday is a great idea. Many readers may know nothing at all about it.
Tell us the stories of specific people and their problems with water. Is water selling a common business? Do people drink the same water or just wash with it? Do some people boil it or have purifying tablets? Do people collect rainwater in cisterns?
Try to set up a way to take donations.
Thank you Mark.That is a water tower we have around our block.But water is not available through it every day,indeed it is seldom.That one has the lowest price (1 gourde by bucket).Water does not have a normal price here.A bucket costs 1 gourde to 7 gourdes in my area.On the first picture, that's where all the buckets get filled.
ReplyDeleteThere are few people who has pipe in their homes.The problem affects everyone, the stories are common.People who have pipe sell it.We consume the same kind of water, we use it to wash, to take bath etc...The easiest way that people have to clean water is boiling it, and the mothers do it in order to protect their babies from bacteria.Rainwater helps us a lot.At home, we collect rainwater whenever it drops, and we catch it with some buckets.Some people use cisterns to capture rainwater.I have a big problem with rainwater, it gives me sore throat and skin allergy.
Thank you, Frandy. I don't want to ask too many dumb questions - but I may be typical of people in the US or Europe who don't know very much about Haiti.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a "water tower"? In the US it would mean a tall tower (50 m or more) that water is pumped up into to increase the water pressure in the system but I don't think that's the kind you mean. Where does the water come from? Is it pumped from wells? Is there a city water system that reaches the neighborhood?
If a neighborhood doesn't have enough water would it work to drill a well there usually?
Do people use tablets to kill bacteria in water?
Although the problem affects everyone and the stories are common - they are not at all common for many of the people who may read your blog or get interested in trying to help Haiti. Picking a person and telling about the everyday details of their life can tell readers of your blog things they would otherwise never know.
How far do they go for water? What do they pay and is it a problem? How do they use the water?
Is there anything that seems to you a clear project that would help quite a few people/ solve problems with water in your neighborhood?
The main word is water kiosk instead of saying water tower (translation from french "chateau d'eau'). Central Autonome Metropolitaine d'Eau Portable (CAMEP) is a state office which is managing the distribution of water.That water kiosk you see in the picture provides water to about 2000 homes.It's availability is scarce.The water is led by some pipes from a center of CAMEP in our city.I think it would work to drill a well if a neighborhood does not have enough water.After getting it from the hole, it supposed to be purified.Many people still maintain the traditional method which is boiling the water.The majority of the population don't use tablets to kill bacteria in water.
ReplyDeleteI have been talking some families in my area to get all the necessary details of the problems of our area.My readers will have all of those information soon.People in my area have to walk about an hour to get water, and it is the same way for many zones in Haiti.There are people who walk through several kilometers to find water.I remember two years ago,i went to my grand mother's funeral in Code-de-fer (Southeast Haiti).I walked for two hours to get two gallons of water.
It does not have a right price,a bucket of water costs 1 gourde (Haitian currency) at the water kiosk but it does not work every day and we oblige to pay 7 gourdes to get it somewhere else.It's normally a problem because a lots of Haitians sometimes can not afford to buy enough water for their needs.Water is used to do many things.
I'd like to start a project on water kiosk in my area in order to make it gets near to the people in my neighborhood.I'd like also to put a cleaning water machine there too.The condition is venerable.
What would your project be? Are there other water cleaning machines you've seen in use?
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be some cheap reliable ways of sterilizing water using UV light from fluorescent tubes. They require a power source but don't use much electricity.Google "UV tube". I couldn't find any of these for sale ready assembled but there are projects already in Haiti using them. I wonder why somebody doesn't install a system like this at the CAMEP source so they stop sending out contaminated water.
ReplyDeleteI'd like that water comes near to the people in my area.The project would be a construction of water kiosk.I've seen some water cleaning machines that selling clean water, but it's very expensive to buy it ($5 HT a gallon).I am sure that a lot of people can not afford to buy that water.I've not heard about the UV tube system in Haiti.
ReplyDeletehttp://uvtube.berkeley.edu/node/4u
ReplyDeletehttp://web.mit.edu/ideas/www/past%20proposals/uv.pdf
References for UVtube.
I assume $5 HT is 5 Haitian dollars/25 gourdes or about .60 US which would be almost 4X as much as the high price (7 gourdes) you mentioned that people sometimes have to pay for a bucket - so I understand that is much too expensive.
I think a UV tube system would be cheap enough that you would not have to charge anything. It does not filter out sediment or make the water clear, it just kills bacteria,viruses,parasites and such. It also does not remove chemical contaminants. Still it might make a big difference because it does the same thing that boiling water does but faster and cheaper.
How would you get CAMEP to build a water kiosk in the neighborhood?
I saw somewhere that sell pure water but it's pretty expensive, 25 gourdes a gallon but in my area people walk a lot to get a bucket of unclean water that is for 7 gourdes.CAMEP does not really have enough possibility to get water near the people, i've talked about that to someone who works at the CAMEP office here in Carrefour.What i really want to do in my area is taking water near to everybody who lives in as well as making it affordable, and pure to the people.I need aid to build a water kiosk in the neighborhood.Water is life!
ReplyDeleteIf CAMEP can't do it are you thinking of drilling a well? Are there local companies that do that?
ReplyDeleteI am thinking of taking water to the neighborhood.I need help to get this project done.Actually, i don't see any local company drilling any well.
ReplyDeleteIt will from a big pipe of CAMEP down the hill.Todo this work, we need money and a survey of an engineer.I don't know who to contact in order to do this project.
ReplyDeleteMark, we live on the mountain.I need people for this work.