Red Cross Blogs

A snapshot of Haiti: from toilets and tarpaulins to pride amidst poverty

By Sarah Oughton
February 12, 2010 at 5:14 pm

Alastair Burnett, our recovery manger, just sent this candid account of what he’s been seeing in Haiti:

So it is 0530 and I am in my tent in the Red Cross base camp close to the airport in Port au Prince. I wouldn’t ideally be up at this time, but the noises of the aircraft taking off, the noises from others within the tent and the heat means that once you are awake at this time, there is no going back to sleep.

I arrived here from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Flying over Port-au-Prince was fascinating. In must have been a very striking looking city even before the earthquake, with hills to the back and the sea to the front, but flying in what strikes you is the clearly massive destruction many parts of this city has experienced. This was further compounded over the course of my first day as I visited camp after camp of internally displaced people (IDP). Discussing with colleagues, and many of us have seen a lot of areas of destruction whether that be in Africa, Asia or Europe, we all agreed that none of us have seen anything like this. The only way to really describe it is to think back to old black and white footage of cities like Berlin and Dresden at the end of the Second World War. This city looks as though it has had a war fought through it.

The Red Cross has a camp, in the grounds of what was destined to be the Hilton Hotel, close to the airport. The shell of the Hilton building is now our offices. Don’t get me wrong, there is no breakfast in bed here – it is a concrete shell with no windows or proper floors, functioning sanitation, water or power. However, people have done a great job getting this area operational and it is now home to over 250 Red Cross staff from across the world, ranging from doctors and nurses to logisticians and water engineers. There are two canteens, toilet and shower blocks and wireless internet access.  Scores of tents are neatly arranged around the concrete structure. It is far from 5 star but it provides safe and secure location for people to work from, which of course is so important in these situations. The camp empties out during the day but begins to fill up again from 1800 as it begins to get dark and the curfew that we apply to staff comes into force.

I spent yesterday with one of the sanitation engineers the British Red Cross has provided to the relief operation. He was carrying out a survey of some of the camps in which people have gathered, there are about 800 of them now ranging in size from a few hundred people to tens of thousands.  The situation in these camps is terrible. People lack adequate materials for shelter and for some people their shelter consists of little more than a bed sheet strung over a piece of string. Some of the lucky few have received some tarpaulin, which provides greater protection from the sun and the rain, as well as a better degree of privacy, and an even smaller minority a tent, although these are relatively few and far between, for a range of reasons.

The work of the Red Cross is largely evident in the water it is providing to these camps, a huge amount has clearly been done in this area. We are currently trucking in large amounts of water on a daily basis and, through the emergency water facilities we have brought into the country, providing about a million litres of water a day to these camps. We have also provided some basic household items for people (cooking sets, soap etc) as well as some sanitation facilities.

The sanitation situation is very poor.  In many places people simply have no where to go to the toilet. Some camps have a small hole in the ground that needs to be shared by hundreds of people.  Other camps, some in the grounds of schools or colleges, may have one toilet but these rapidly become blocked and unusable. Piles of rubbish can be seen around these camps, as well as growing amounts of standing water.

The rainy season will start in a couple of months, and we have to see how we can do more to address some of these immediate issues. I came here with shelter in mind as a priority. In fact I was wrong, it is the sanitation needs that are the greatest, although everything here at the moment is urgent.

Without improved sanitation there is a high risk of the outbreak of disease in the densely packed camps people are living in. Cholera in particular could spread very quickly. One camp I went to today had eight toilets for 2,000 people. But of course for many people those facilities are inaccessible as they are located on just one side of the camp. There are many issues to consider in regard to location of toilets – not just health and hygiene, but also protection for women and children if such facilities are not easily available. People have a good understanding of basic hygiene issues – you can see that around you when you walk around – but lack the hardware to be able to put that into practice, and again, you can see that when you walk around. So – toilets, and lots more of them, as soon as possible.

Waste management also needs to be addressed – piles of waste attract rats. Rats spread disease.  We have to look at how peoples waste can be better managed and work with the communities to help them on that. Again, many people understand that and have asked us for the tools to enable them to improve their current squalid living environments.

Vector control is also an issue – ensuring there are no pools of standing water is pretty much the number one thing in this to stop mosquitoes breeding. In a country where malaria and dengue fever is endemic we have to work with the communities to minimise the risk of major outbreaks.

Shelter here will be a nightmare. People are displaced in a number of different ways. I went to one location where many houses are still standing but there are just thousands of people camped in the road outside their homes as they do not want to return inside. Others are camped by the ruins of their homes in small groups. Others, gathering in their hundreds, in the grounds of churches or schools. The big camps, containing up to 10,000 people are located in former parks or other public spaces. Some people who fled the city in search of work are now returning and new camps of people are springing up all the time. People’s shelters are very basic and back to back – there is no security, there is no privacy and there is no dignity for the occupants. The risk of fire is huge and the space so cramped it is hard to think of ways to improve the conditions. For people who have endured years of political and social unrest, as well as in many cases chronic poverty I personally feel they deserve better. Despite the challenges this country has faced, and its poor image to the outside world, many of these people still maintain a level of pride in themselves that they should not be allowed to lose. It may be one of the most important things to help them through the years to come, and rebuilding their lives will take years.

Well, it is getting light and I have things to do. I will write more when I get a chance later.

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, latrines, poverty, sanitation, shelter, toilets, water and sanitation

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Emergencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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