Monday, December 6, 2010

Day 159: The Wheels Keep Turning

And life in Haiti chugs along.

In terms of the day-in-day-out situation here, I've nothing all that new to report. Had a rather debaucherous weekend celebrating my friend Michael's birthday. He had a big party, brought in DJs and a nice stack of speakers, and we all spent the night dancing in the pool and enjoying many a bottle of cold Prestige. All said and done, a good time. It's nice to unwind. We need it.

Monday afternoon now, 11:30. Lunch will be served shortly. I'm willing to place money on the fact that it will include rice and beans. With the cholera outbreak, we're no longer eating anything from the ocean, so the fish stew we used to have is no longer on the menu, nor is lambi (conch). I miss it. Every single day it's the same thing - rice & beans, a piece of fried chicken, some red onion sauce, lettuce and tomato. Needless to say, variety would be nice. Every now and again they spice it up w/ a spaghetti entrĂ©e. Slather it up with mayonnaise and ketchup and call it a day. Fancy! Only the best 'round these parts.

The biosand project is getting ever more interesting. I'm bummed I'll likely be leaving right when it could significantly ramp up due to interest from other, much larger (and much better funded) NGOs. I'm not going to drop any names as nothing is set in stone yet, but suffice to say, some of the larger players in the NGO world have swung by the All Hands base and seem to always stop and want to ask questions when they see the BSF workspace. I talked to a gentleman from one of them at length at the end of last week, told him what we were doing, what the project is all about. He seemed interested. With the kind of funding those NGOs can provide, our little four-per-day-maximum biosand filter project could turn into something much bigger. I'm game. It will require a lot of planning and I'm sure there'd be some growing pains, but the need in Haiti is seemingly endless - half the population here doesn't have access to clean water - so if we can get more filters out faster, that's really the most important thing.

Actually, I think instead of writing the remainder of this entry, I'll go grab lunch quickly then do a video tour of the BSF area and you all can see what it's all about in a much more interactive way. To be posted soon...

No comments:

Post a Comment