super-adobe in haiti

house in bigones

Shelter is a big issue in Haiti these days.  Homes are a status symbol here, and one’s class may be determined by their roof: straw/thatch= lower class, tin/zinc=middle class, concrete=upper class.  For this reason, concrete block houses have been considered most desirable and folks will stretch their resources to the limit to have 4 concrete walls and a roof.  In most cases, this has resulted in very weak structures, the cement to sand ration way off.  

This error was exposed to the world all too blatantly on January 12^th of last year, when the majority of concrete homes came crumbling down in and around Port-au-Prince and Leogane, leaving an estimated 316,000 dead, 300,000 injured and about 1.8 million homeless.  A year and a half after that 7.0 earthquake, the cracked, collapsed and piled up remains of these once “high class” structures can still be seen and about 1.5 million people are still living in idp camps. 

building process

Needless to say, Haitians are now generally frightened of concrete buildings.  In most cases, the rubble where they once stood has been cleared to make way for humble shacks of sheet metal or plastic tarps, where people feel safer.  Who knows how long it may take to rebuild this country but, on the positive side, this is a golden opportunity to do it right.
  

What might be the right way?  I would say, one that is affordable, that uses local materials, which withstands hurricanes and earthquakes and that which is appropriate for a hot, tropical climate.  Hmmmm….    There is a lot of experimentation going on here at the moment w/ various building methods but one that I find most interesting is super-adobe.

bamboo air vents

Super-adobe is a building technique using long (uncut) rice sacks filled with a mixture of earth, sand and a little cement (optional), which are stacked upon each other (held together with barbed wire) in a circular pattern and tamped down, eventually forming a dome structure with ventilation at the top.  Such structures have a lot of thermal mass and the ones that I’ve visited in Haiti were surprisingly cool inside.  And, although not traditional in Haitian culture, they are simply beautiful, even by local standards.  What’s perhaps most important is that they are virtually disaster-proof and all of the materials can be obtained locally at a reasonable cost.

I had the opportunity to help build one of these structures during a permaculture design course at the GrassRoots United base in Port-au-Prince last month.  It was definitely a labor intensive process but, with a good group of people and a little organization, it can actually be pretty fun.  Perhaps the best part, though, is sitting back and admiring such a collective work of art as it progresses with each day of hard work.   I hope to see more and more super-adobe homes popping up throughout Haiti over the years to come.  I might just build my own.  ;)

natural light and air flow

Groups working w/ super-adobe in Haiti:

Love & Haiti Project

Konbit Shelter

community center in bigones

Twoutye: The Bottom of Haiti

I’m pretty sure I’ve now officially seen the worst that it gets in Haiti. The dump. Although I know that there is plenty of dumping going on throughout this island nation, I had no idea that an official dumpsite actually existed. In fact, It does… in an area called Twoutye, which is in part of Cite Soleil, where I now live. My friend, Sabina, was accompanying a photographer who is interested in third-world sanitation out there, so I took the opportunity to go along for a visit.

the only water source in twoutye

 This dump is where they throw anything and everything, including human waste and, I wouldn’t doubt, bodies that have perished under cholera, bullets or otherwise. It’s anything but sanitary; not at all contained. And right alongside this putrid mess is a population of about 320 people, living in ramshackle homes of scrap metal and plastic tarps. There are no toilet facilities to be found and there is one well that serves as the only water source for the community. Some of these people are said to have lived there before the site became a dump and others have come afterwards. Regardless of origin, the dump is everybody’s business.

The meager houses appear to be floating in a sea of both muck and plastic bottles of which the families collect and sort for a refund from a recycling company. I asked one of the young boys who had been digging around in the trash heaps how long he and his family had lived there. He replied, “About one year” and then explained that they had come to make some money. He said that they used to live in 19, an area in Cite Soleil with some of the worst gang violence. These people are at the bottom of the bottom. Recycling is great and all, but nobody should have to live in such severely wretched conditions. They receive about 3 gourdes per pound of sorted plastic bottles.

a makeshift house & plastic collection

The Rising Sun Project

Quite a bit has happened this past month.  I spent the first two weeks of May translating for a permaculture design course, which was hosted by Grassroots United in Port-au-Prince.  I went into that gig expecting to fly home to Ohio right afterwards but it’s now June and I’m still here.  And for who knows how long.  So much came out of that course that I find it hard to even begin to explain but, in a nutshell: new lifelong friends & working partners, a new permaculture guru, a second permaculture certificate, a crash-course on super-adobe construction and, to top it off, a new life project [or two]. 

To make a long story short, I was inspired by one of the projects presented at the end of the course and I’ve kinda made myself a part of it.  The project is taking place in Cité Soleil, which is a part of Port-au-Prince that has a global reputation for its level of poverty and gang violence.  And although violence indeed exists in certain avoidable areas here, in actuality, it’s a beautiful place to be.  The people are at least as friendly and beautiful as in other parts of Haiti and the sense of community is unparalleled.  The big idea of the project is to transform one of the “worst places in the world” into a functional, autonomous ecosystem by working with leaders in the community to break the cycle of misery by applying the basic permaculture principles.  What that basically means is to start seeing the problems as solutions and to start valuing each and every thing, animal and person as a resource.  One underlying principal of the project is to do everything without money and just START SOMETHING POSITIVE with what you have.  The other pieces will fall into place. 

That said, it’s no simple task to change the mentality of a community.   However, it makes so much sense with the way it is presented that people are getting it.  We’ve got a solid group of guys that have taken it upon themselves to change the image and reputation of their neighborhood.  After all, it’s the people who make a community, not the other way around.  This group of guys is going out each and every morning to clean the street.  They’re cleaning up the market place.  They’re planting trees and gardens.  And they’re spreading the word.  The project is catching on like wildfire and has already created quite a buzz throughout the city and we’ve been approached by several folks/orgs that want to help.

So, needless to say, I’ve moved right into the zone; a section called Bwa Nèf.  I’m living in one of the temporary shelters with walls of shiny blue tarps, provided by Samaritan’s Purse.  I’ve set up my tent inside and, though I still need to work out a way to poop & shower, it’s not so bad.  I also bought a purple bicycle.  I must say, I’ve never lived quite like this before but I’m excited about where this is all going.  There are a lot of details that I fail to mention but the possibilities are limitless. 

As for a project name, it has been a challenge but we realize that we do need one.  We’re working in Cité Soleil, which means “Sun City”, so the name “Rising Sun Project” came up and we all agreed that it could work.  So, there it is:  Pwoje Soley Leve (in Creole), or “The Rising Sun Project”.  Give some feedback, please.   

Cité Soleil.  That’s where you’ll find me… I think at least until August.  Woohoo!  :)