Dear Everybody: 

The last half of May in Haiti becomes very hot here. However, I will stick it out until the month of August when I will fly back for the hottest month before returning again. 

Last time I wrote Tal was back in the states and I was keeping the mission going. Tal is back now which is a great relief. However, things are very busy at the moment. We imported a well drilling rig and it finally cleared customs (after 4 months, a typical wait in Haiti) and we drilled our first water well last week. In addition to that we are teaching two filter technician training courses back to back starting on Monday. Both of the classes are for World Vision. They want to install Biosand filters in all of their schools and various other places around Haiti. I will be teaching the science portion of the class and Tal will be teaching the practical sessions. Thats fine with me because the sun is hot enough to cause great suffering and I don't enjoy mixing cement by hand in such weather. I think I may have already mentioned how hot the sun is&

In my introduction for the class I decided to include some statistics on Haiti because many Haitians aren't sure what problems they are actually facing, having never been to a healthy, industrialized country. I did some research. Perhaps the most surprising statistic for me is that greater than 1 in 19 Haitians is HIV positive. Only about 1 in 164 are in the United States. Unfortunately, no Haitian can obtain HIV medication for economic reasons. We have learned to read between the lines when we hear that someone has died of a coughor a fever. Shockingly, life expectancy has decreased in Haiti in recent years. A few weeks ago all of Haiti freaked out about SARS. A navy vessel arrived from Taiwan and nobody wanted to let the sailors come on land. The reaction was kind of extreme, but radio commentators pointed out that unlike other countries, Haiti doesn't have the means to stop an outbreak and a huge amount of people would die. 

We get electricity here about two days a month, normally for 3-6 hour stretches. There are a number of reasons we don't have power, but the main one is that that all the power is provided by the government and the government is corrupt and incompetent. Last week the locals blocked the road in several places with burning tires and car bodies to protest the lack of electricity. The government response was to send some police in and fire rounds into the air until everyone went home. After that they turned the power on for 2 days about 12 hours each time. The message was burn stuff and we will give you what you want. I don't really like having the road blocked but what really bothers me is that a guy was hit in the neck with a rock and bled to death. It isn't worth killing a man to get a little bit of electricity, but I'm not sure if people see it that way. I do sympathize a little bit: Haiti is a democracy in name only, and people who don't feel like they have any means of improving their situation or even having a voice will do desperate things. 

In my last update letter I mentioned that I was building a Hydraulic Briquette Press. I have finished the machine and it is being tested this week by the staff at a local orphanage. Apparently it works quite well. This week I am helping to teach a filter technician class. I am teaching the science section, and part of what I am covering is the water cycle which most of us learned in junior high. Rain clouds are made up of roughly 30% evaporation (from the ocean) and 70% transpiration (evaporation from leaves). In Haiti there are virtually no trees left, so it is actually raining less. When it does rain, it serves to wash the soil into the ocean in huge quantities. However, places that are left alone do start to recover. There is a large walled monastery up in the mountains that you can see on the road to Port au Prince which is a mini forest. The people who scour the hillsides for cooking fuel cant collect on the other side of the wall, so the trees have been able to grow back. My great hope is that my briquette press will become popular and Haitians wont have to continue destroying their land. So far I have been complemented on the machine and it looks like it will be cheaper to build than a wooden one, more durable and make better briquettes. The press uses a manually operated piston to compress soggy paper, cardboard or rice chaff into compact bricks which are dried in the sun and later burned on a little stove. I will include a picture of the machine if I can. 

I am coming back for the month of August and I would like to spend time having fun with my friends. However, I would also like to speak in front of groups to raise awareness of what we are doing and hopefully encourage people to donate some money. I would be excited to speak to any group, whether it is half a dozen college students, an elementary school class or a rotary meeting so long as it is within about 200 miles of Seattle. If you would like me to come to your group, please contact me and we can arrange it before I fly back. 

Just for fun, here are a few Haitian proverbs. There are hundreds and hundreds. 

Sak vid, pa kompe. 

(An empty sack cannot stand.)
One must eat before he can work.

Leur ou gen, zanm konnay ou. 
(When you have, your friends know you.)

Blessings, Chris Rolling