A rare moment to breathe and catch up on things like blogs today. After 6 weeks of 18 hour days, 7 days a week, most aid agency staff seem to be laying low today on a Sunday, trying to catch their breath. I’m with CRS now, still in Port au Prince, and have switched from pics of disease surveillnace as I was taking with the CDC last week to water and sanitation pictures, as CRS gears up for large scale water programming. Visually it may not be that exciting – latrines and water tanks – but the work is vitally important in the camps, which remian crowded. No one is going home yet, and it may be years before some do.
It’s raining here now fairly often – every night, or two of the last three I think now. That makes it hard to camp, as many of us are here, with computer and camera equipment constantly in damp weather. Btu it’s far worse for the people living in the camps, many of them under just thin shelters of plastic tarp, with dirt floors.
Though I used to do emergency work often, it’s been awhile now since I was in one this big. It is a strange and quirky atmosphere, difficult to describe for those who have never been to such a place, at such times. People from all over the world coming together to work on any number of disaster related issues – logistics, communications, security, camp management and HR. They gather at the few hotels available each nigh to drink beer and discuss the day. You can just as easily hear English as French or sometimes Spanish in any given circle at any given time. Many know each other from other disasters from other parts of the world – I’ve met 6 or 8 people here I knew from my days at CRS, some of whom I haven’t seen in many years. Everyone is disheveled – a day spent sweating in 90 degree weather in a warehouse or a displaced camp doesn’t leave you looking fresh and ready for a dinner date. People are sunburned and whiskered and spending inordinate amounts of time on their phones, trying to make plans for the next day or sorting out problems from today. Often things don’t go to plan – I’d be OK saying usually. Trucks break down, partners don’t or can’t do what they promise to do, some staff just drop the ball in the midst of the crazy pass. Beneficiaries in cash for work programs quit, saying they want more money. Sometimes things go really wrong and trucks carrying supplies get looted – spontaneous distributions as they are euphemistically called. Things fall apart for no reason at all sometimes.
But in general, eventually, things get done. Shelter kits get distributed, water trucks arrive, and latrines are built. People eventually recover. Aid workers fly off to France or the US or England and get ready for the next disaster. And today, it is so nice to have a few minutes to catch up to myself. And I have only been here a week.
February 28th, 2010 | by David in Travel
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All Material © 2008 David Snyder
