pwrdfblog

Many of you may not know, but when I was a teen (back in the dark ages) I used to do a lot of improv at Theatresports in Toronto.  In my 20s and early 30s, I worked at St. John's York Mills, and had the privilege of working tangentially with the drama program there-- again, with plenty of improv in my time with the youth I was working with.

So I wasn't all that worried last week when, after a lovely Christmas lunch here at the office, we moved into our staff meeting and discovered that we would be playing theatre games.  Before you ask, no-- this is *not* what a typical staff meeting looks like.

Adele Finney, our Executive Director, led us through an unorthodox visioning exercise involving theatre games.  The culmination of the time was playing the game "machines".  If you already know this game, skip the next paragraph.  But if you're not an improv junkie, you might want to learn how the game works: read on.

Machines begins with one person moving to the centre of the stage and beginning and repeating a simple action and noise.  It could be something as simple as miming pressing a car horn and saying "beep beep".  They continue to do that motion and sound until the game ends.  A second person then joins in and adds their own motion and sound- possibly directly interacting with the first person, perhaps just nearby.  Then another person joins.  And another, until the machine is complete.  The goal of the game is for a machine to organically be created with some purpose.  In some versions of the game, a final actor comes on the stage and describes how the machine works.  In other versions, the machine is named either before it starts or as part of the description of its function.

We didn't have anyone explaining the machines, but Adele gave us the kind of machines we were to make.  They started off fairly easy: "Make a food machine", but moved into more cerebral and philosophical territory.  Our culminating machine was "Make a machine that shows what PWRDF will be like in 3 years."

The machine I wanted to talk briefly about (after all this introduction) was one called a "responding to HIV and AIDS machine."  The machine began fairly conventionally with a couple of people moving onto the stage and moving around, miming giving out food and medicine.  

I stood on the sidelines, watching.

Then Zaida, one of our development staff, stepped into the middle and began to flap her hand against her chest and breathe in a raspy, wheezy voice.  She was clearly not part of the machine, but was someone suffering from AIDS.   Her breathing was incredibly poignant, and her simple action and sound moved us all.

I couldn't stand on the sidelines anymore.

I stepped in and became a "comforting" part of the machine: patting her shoulder and breaking a rule of the game by using actual words ("We're here") as part of my response.  The people who were already in the machine moved over to Zaida and began giving the food and medicine to her (another breaking of a rule- you're not supposed to change your action at all during machines).  Others joined in, all focused on easing her suffering.

It was an incredible moment- not one that could be scripted.  Not one that could even happen within the rules of the game.  But one that touched us all.  

It reminded us that our work is not the work of machines, but is work with people.  People who are in difficult circumstances.  People who are suffering.  People who crave human contact, and to live with dignity, love, and hope- the same things we all want.

It also reminded us that sometimes we have to break the "rules" in order to do what we do in the best manner possible.  Sometimes it's not enough to sit back and wait for things to happen: sometimes you have to go out and *make* them happen.

This game might not have given us our vision for PWRDF in 2015, but it reinforced for us all why we were there.  Hmm.  Maybe it *did* give us a vision, after all!

As soon as I heard it, I knew I’d arrived.

It wasn’t the sound I thought it would be.  In fact, I didn’t even
know I thought it would be a sound at all, or that I knew that I wasn’t
“there” yet.

But, this afternoon, I heard a domino get slammed down on a playing
table.  And I knew.  I knew that I had arrived in the Haiti of the
Haitians.

Last year when I was in the Dominican Republic with my family, I
learned how passionate the Dominicans are for their dominos.  They slam
each piece down on the board as they play them, and when I heard the
same thing in a Haitian village, I knew I was there.

Trips like this one involve a lot of being driven from project to
project, meeting to meeting, compound to compound.  For the most part,
the inhabitants of the villages we pass through are faces staring
curiously at the convoy of vehicles bumping along the road, or are
people I am asking questions of and taking photos of as I prepare
stories about our work.

Rarely do we get to climb down from the vehicles and walk through a village.  But it happened today.

We had to walk in about 15 minutes up some very steep hills in the
community of Rivier Froid, a part of Carrefour, a suburb of
Port-au-Prince.  So, we got out of the car and crossed a footbridge over
the cold river, hearing the sounds of laughter from below.

Curious, I glanced down to see dozens of children playing in the
water as they washed themselves, throwing water at each other, and
generally having a good time in (what we were told) was cold water.  Of
course, *my* kids played in Lake Huron at Thanksgiving, so I know how
oblivious they can be to the temperature!

After we crossed the river, we walked through a village comprised of
small buildings, huts, emergency shelters- pretty much anything that
would put a roof over someone’s head.  We saw people shelling peas,
playing dominos, drinking rum, washing clothes, laughing with friends.

Because we were traveling with Father Cole, the local priest, there
were calls of “Mon pere!” following him through the village, and he
stopped regularly to talk with people who had been at church that
morning and those who hadn’t, with children, men, and women, with anyone
who wanted to pass the time of day for a few moments.  It’s one of the
things I appreciate about traveling with partners is that they KNOW the
people they serve.

And for me, walking through the village was a fantastic experience.  I
didn’t have to stop and take pictures or interview people, I could just
move along, enjoying the ambiance, enjoying the first real exercise
I’ve had all week.

Today, Naba and I visited the parish of St. Matthieu with Father
Cole, the Coordinator of CEDDISEC (the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s
development arm) and Father Phanord, the priest of the 7-point parish of
St. Matthieu.  PWRDF has been heavily involved in the area since the
earthquake, and we visited the permanent school we have helped to
construct with Fin Church Aid, and also several of the 70 transitional
shelters (houses designed to last about 7 years) that we have funded in
the parish.

But I don’t really want to get into the technical specs of what we’ve
done, nor do I want to write up the stories of the people we met today-
they will come in due time.

Today, I want to get all theological and share something Father Cole
said as we were sitting at Father Phanord’s house with a cold drink and
some cashews after our visits.  During this wind-down to our day, we
talked about the overall work in the parish, about the challenges faced
by people in the region before the earthquake, and how the Church could
be involved in addressing those issues.

One thing that is important to note before I tell you what Father
Cole said is that the parish has put all its efforts since the
earthquake into re-building the school and into building housing for the
most vulnerable people in the community. The church itself was damaged
so badly in the quake, they haven’t been able to worship in it since.

Father Cole thanked us for our partnership with CEDDISEC, and said
that we were helping the Church to make the Word of God real for the
people in St. Matthieu.  “We need to provide not just the promise of a
better life, but the ways to achieve it.  After all, the Kingdom of God
is not just in the sky but here on earth, too.”

I think he summed up in two sentences the mission of PWRDF here in
Haiti.  We are here as the Canadian Anglican response to the devastating
earthquake that struck almost two years ago.  We are here sharing the
generosity of so many thousands of people in Canada who gave so
generously to our relief efforts.  We are here to work not just to
rebuild lives, but to rebuild better- to offer a better life.

That work is taking place in the work of a Canadian engineer who has
been here for over a year helping to construct schools that exceed the
earthquake and hurricane strengths that Haiti faces.  It is taking place
in the offering of meals to children so they can go to school.  It is
taking place in the work with families living in the heart of Carre Four
who are learning to cultivate small gardens in the centre of their
urban sprawl.  It is taking place in the cooperation of all the agencies
of the ACT Alliance working here.  And it is taking place in the work
of St. Matthieu as they focus on the needs of the community, but also on
the needs of the church- they want to rebuild their house of worship
soon, as the church building will be able to continue to act as the glue
holding the community together, and as a beacon to that better life we
are promised in the Gospel.

I’ve talked on and off over the last year and change about being part
of the ACT Alliance.  “PWRDF is a member of the ACT Alliance, a global
coalition of 125 churches and agencies involved in relief, development,
and advocacy work around the world” is a stock sentence I use in stories
about our work.  (I use the word *our* here deliberately, as PWRD and
all the other members ARE the ACT Alliance).

Last fall, I had the pleasure to visit the ACT offices in Geneva when
I attended a gathering of communications professionals from various ACT
agencies.  While I was there, I came to understand much better what ACT
was about and the strengths that the alliance brings: 125 member
agencies working in over 140 countries doing $1.6 billion of work each
year.

But it is since I have come to Haiti that I have really come to
understand what it means to be part of the ACT family.  Since landing in
Haiti, we’ve visited with staff from the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF), NCA (Norwegian Church Aid), FCA (Fin Church Aid), and the ACT
coordinator in Haiti.

As members of the family, we’ve been able to visit the offices of
LWF, which they share with FCA, have dinner with staff from different
agencies, visit projects we jointly work on, and discuss future options
for relief and development work in Haiti.

There are 10 ACT members who are “operational” here in Haiti.  That
means they have staff here overseeing projects.  PWRDF is not
operational- we support the projects with funding and visit to monitor
them.

The 10 members who are operational here meet every two weeks to talk
about the work, about joint projects, etc.  They used to meet every week
right after the quake, and soon will drop to one meeting a month as the
projects become more long-term and less immediate.

The collaboration between the different agencies has been great to
see.  They share office space, ideas, local partners, expertise,
vehicles- anything and everything that others might need.  They’ve been
incredibly welcoming to us, and have helped us to visit several projects
in our first few days here.

On Wednesday night, we went out to dinner with staff from LWF and
NCA, and it was great to be able to swap stories with people who are
doing the same kind of work as us, to talk about potential projects here
in Haiti, and to share expertise in areas ranging from the production
of biogas (pigs = good, cows = bad: if you want to know why, ask me and
I’ll tell you!) to why no one wants to drive to Macaya (7 hours of
unpaved roads in the mountains that will make you wish your tailbone had
divorced you years ago!)

I’ve been a supporter of PWRDF’s involvement in ACT for quite a while
now, but I’ve got to say that now that I’ve experienced what the ACT
family can do together in responding to a devastating experience like
the earthquake, I’m an even more fervent supporter of this alliance!

15 hours after getting ready to leave this morning, I’m back in
my room to type up this quick blog before declaring today OVER.  It’s
been a long day but a great one!

Naba and I traveled with Jaana from Fin Church Aid (FCA) out into the
hill country near Leogane to visit one of the schools that PWRDF and
FCA are supporting with the hot lunch program.  While at the school in
the village of Trouin, we met the Canadian Foodgrains Bank food study
tour that was at the school that day.  You’d almost think that was
deliberate!

I will be writing more formally about the school canteen program, as
it’s called by those involved.  But I wanted to share the story of one
young man we met at the school today- the Comedian.

Delmut Evans was introduced to us as a comedian who wanted to say
“thank you”.  We weren’t sure what to expect when a young man bounced
into the room wearing a much-too-large sports coat, a necklace of
leaves, and a fedora with white greasepaint making a beard and elderly
looking eyebrows on his youthful face.

He had the other 477 students at l’Ecole Nationale Trouin laughing
with his entrance, and his schtick kept them giggling every time he so
much as moved.

In addition to being a comedy act looking for a network, he also had
more English than any other student I talked to at the school.  He
tossed comments at us throughout the day, and his favourite thing to say
to me was, “I am good!”

Needless to say, I taught him to say “I am awesome!”  I showed him a
relative level of good, great, and awesome to help him understand the
superlative.  But I think he deserved it!

Meeting him was such a pleasure, and it was great to visit a project
and know that we are helping young people like Delmut to be able to go
to school and to have enough to eat that they can focus on their studies
and not fall asleep in class!

More tomorrow when I’ve had some sleep myself.

I’m sitting in the offices of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
after spending most of the day driving to and from Leogane.  I’m not
sure my spine will ever forgive me, but such is the price I pay for my
awesome job .

While in Leogane, we visited the LWF field office, where- among other
things- we saw food stored for the school feeding program we’ll be
visiting later this week.  It was great to see Canadian Foodgrains Bank
logos on many of the bags of rice awaiting distribution at the program!

The main reason we were there, though, was to visit some transitional shelters and see how they’re made.

What, you may ask, is a transitional shelter?  Excellent question!

Immediately after a disaster, those who lost their homes generally
are provided with tents to live in.  While the tents are great for the
short-term, they’re not really something you want to live in for years
(a reality for over 600,000 Haitians, who are approaching the second
anniversary of the quake and are still living in tents.  Over 2 million
were displaced by the earthquake, so about 2/3 are now in other homes.)

Enter the transitional house.  We saw two types: ones made of wood
and ones made with steel frames and plywood.  These homes are 3m X 6m
(10′ X 20′) and house a family of 5-8 people.  Transitional homes are
designed to last about 5-7 years.  The goal, of course, is that by then
permanent housing has been built.

The cool thing about this project is that not only are almost 500
homes being built (200 wooden ones and 275 steel frame ones), but the
work is all being done by people from the IDP (internally displaced
people) camps.  LWF trains people in the camps on how to put together
the steel frames and then build the houses around them.  The people who
are thus trained then recruit another 9 people each and train *them*-
building capacity both in construction and education skills.

These teams of 10 (the one person trained by LWF and their 9
trainees) are then hired for 3 week stints of building transitional
housing.  They are paid $213 for each transitional house that is built. 
It takes 2 half-days to build a house, meaning that each member of the
team is making at least $10 a day.

$10 a day may not sound like much, but in a country where the majority of people earn less than $1 a day, it’s a huge deal!

Naba and I landed in Port-au-Prince a couple of hours ago, and are
now safely ensconced in our room at the ACT Alliance’s Guest House
here.  The cool breeze from the oscillating fan is occasionally on me,
which feels nice in the heat here.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you my first impressions
of Haiti and Port-au-Prince.  Keep in mind, this is all before we have
talked to any of the organizations we’re here to visit, or seen any of
our projects.  These impressions are all from flying over the country,
spending some time at the airport, and then driving to the Guest House.

My first impression was one I mostly expected when flying over Haiti-
there isn’t much forest left in this country.  My understanding is that
this is due to mega-agricultural multi-nationals that have come in and
razed the forests for plantations, but I can’t cite it right now.

As we flew in over the hills and ocean, there was certainly a lot of
beauty.  Flying over Port-au-Prince gave a sense of the crowded
buildings and sprawling mass of the city, but not so much of the damage
from the earthquake.  We got to see more of that driving through town,
which I’ll talk about later.

The airport was interesting.  There were 4 lines at immigration,
which went fairly smoothly.  Perhaps this was to lull us into a false
sense of security as we got into the scrum to retrieve our luggage.

The less said about this experience the better, but suffice it to say
it was an interesting one, and one I’m not all that anxious to repeat.

We eventually reclaimed our luggage, with almost all the things still
inside that we had brought with us and almost all the zippers still
working.

The drive through Port-au-Prince was interesting to me.  As we left
the airport and began to work our way through the heavy traffic, over
the roads that in some areas were great and in some were bone-jarringly
awful, I started to compare and contrast.

Haiti is the fifth country I’ve visited for PWRDF (well, technically
the 7th if you count visits in Canada and a trip to Geneva, but I’m
thinking about developing nations rather than developed ones).  I’m
starting to see many similarities in the countries I visit.

For one, there are generally compounds- houses with walls and gates
and guards- all over the city.  Another is the lack of chain stores.  We
passed many businesses with hand-painted exteriors and not a single
Starbucks, McDonald’s, or similar chain.

When I was in Burundi a couple of years ago, a significant portion of
the vehicles on the road belonged to Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGOs) including the UN, various church groups, etc.  Here in Haiti
there is a huge UN presence with 90+% of the NGO vehicles carrying UN
staff and troops.

The other interesting thing I’ve seen in each country I’ve visited is
unique forms of taxicab or small bus.  In Burundi, they were short
buses with colourful paint jobs and lights to draw attention.  In India
and Sri Lanka, they were auto-rickshaws: 3-wheeled vehicles that could
hold a surprising number of people in them.

Here in Haiti, they are modified pickup trucks with colourful tops on
them and a step on the back to let people climb aboard.  I saw upwards
of 20 people in the back of some of these pickups.

The other kind of vehicle we saw a lot of was dump trucks.  Even
though the earthquake was almost 2 years ago, there is still a lot of
rubble to clear and buildings to reconstruct.  We drove past many a
worksite on our way to the Guest House.

I can’t wait to start meeting our partners and learning about the
work that is being done here.  But, for now, those are my initial
thoughts.  I am currently uploading photos to Flickr and will add them
here when the upload finishes.