CHF-Haiti Blog Update - March 5: CHF to Restore Key Drainage Canal

From David Humphries, Communications Manager for CHF International in Port au Prince

PHOTO: The Grand Canal at Solino , is a biological safety hazard. CHF is going to clear it this week.

In my job, I see countless photographs of the terrible conditions in which people live. But until you have been there and seen it, smelled it, and felt it, those photographs might as well be some shiny National Geographic photo feature.

The main drainage systems in Haiti are canals, big and small, and the main canal in Solino is the Grand Canal. CHF is going to clear it this week. But it will take heavy machinery as well as rubble removal teams.

The smell of the canal is overwhelming. The water is grey with raw sewage and the ground is coated in solid waste, human waste, garbage, discarded plastic, biological waste. Flies leap across the trash, feasting on its rich goodness, then leap on us and the people around us. The entire area is a massive biohazard. And yet thousands of people live there and children play there. The canal is full to the brim with concrete from destroyed buildings and trash. The canal runs alongside the camp with its thousands of residents.

PHOTO: A child, carrying some concrete from a rubble pile for her family’s shelter, walks alongside the canal.

We already have heavy rain most days and it will only get heavier. If this canal floods, all this hazardous waste will flood the streets and the camps. An average Haitian has an immune system ten times stronger than mine, and a tolerance for living in conditions I can’t even begin to imagine. But no one should ever have to live in those conditions.

I think of the kids smiling, and the rubble removal teams who were laughing with camaraderie and I know there are some very strong people in the world.