Crazy Cat Lady: Haiti, Day 10

Today we headed to Clean Water for Haiti. I forget the name of the town, but it was about a two hour drive. Clean Water for Haiti is a small NGO run by a young Canadian company, Chris and Leslie. They create simple biosand filters for people in Haiti. They have been here since 2001 and have continued to sell them after the earthquake. Each biosand filter is made of a cement rectangular box with a small tube inside. The bottom is filled with sand and in the sand a biological layer is built up after having water run through it each day. A pretty simple idea, but it removes between 95-99% of bacteria from the water. They cost about $55 to make but CWH sells them to locals for only $5. When they first began creating these water filters, they gave them away for free. However, they found that when given a filter, most people did not take care of them and some even stopped using them. Now that they sell them for $5 people take care of them and are more likely to use them. Also, CWH visits each filter after 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year. This way they can check in with people to see how the filter is working for them and if there are any problems. If they find a problem or a filter needs to be changed, they will send a worker out in the next week or so to fix it. Their program was pretty impressive, I must say.

After leaving CWH, we headed back to HHH to meet Carla and Ron. If you recall, we drove up to their place last Saturday but had to cut our visit short. They were nice enough to stop by and speak to us about development here in Haiti. It was pretty interesting. Basically, Ron believes that most foreigners need to leave and let Haiti fix Haiti. After they left, we ate dinner, and hung out. We were planning to go to a concert of sorts nearby at 10pm, but I got sick right before we left. I got hit with a wave of nausea and couldn’t get myself to go. So I stayed home, dry heaved in the bathroom for about an hour (too much information?), and now I am off to bed. My stomach is still pretty unhappy, but hopefully it will settle down. Plus, I think I am starting to get a sore throat. Lame!