April 2012
22 posts
Mapping Haiti
How often do you look at a map? Use google maps to identify where you are going or use your smartphone to get from one location to another? Imagine if you looked up the city you were going to and found this:
That is a map from the last time the French mapped St. Louis du Sud, Haiti in 1743. That’s more than 200 years ago. Cars didn’t exist and thus neither did roads. Much of Haiti was still...
March 2012
17 posts
Elie Dubois
One of the projects Angela and I are working on is a school downtown called Elie Dubois. It’s on a little campus downtown that includes of one 1913 school building that survived the earthquake largely intact. It’s of the Gingerbread style, a vernacular style here in Port-au-Prince. You can read more about these...
WatchToday we barely beat the rain home!
A Bipolar World
It’s now been 11 days since our arrival, which seems like a pretty short period for all that has happened. We’re knee-deep into our projects; today Niko and Kristen were out in the countryside on a mapping mission while the rest of us held it down in Petionville at the AfH office. Occasionally people head out for site visits or other work-related excursions, but mostly it’s the...
Haiti vs Modernism
while looking for photos to put on the blog, I noticed that yesterday was the first day I didn’t have a folder for - in other words, every day here I’ve found something worth photographing. Granted it’s my first week here and I’m taking photos of everything - from tap taps (jerry-rigged pickup truck busses) to lizards (more common than squirrels in MN), but I’m...
Watcha clip from the drive to Santo reveals the conditions in which many Haitians commute, life, and work…
out of the office and into the field
With a week under our belts, each group has slowly started to branch out of the office and into the streets. As has been mentioned, we got out to see a bit more of Haiti outside of our commute to and from the office by going down in to Port Au Prince to wrap our heads around a little bit of its beauty, history, and tragedy.
Most have headed off on site visits and it just so happens, another site...
Villa Rosa
Last week we found out which projects we will be working on, I will be working on Villa Rosa along with Niko. Last friday we went on our first visit to the site for a meeting with community leaders focusing on creating more regular and continuous paths in the community. After discussing issues and priorities community leaders and neighborhood residents marked where they felt the boundaries of...
Port-au-Prince
As our first week in the office concluded, we were left with a relatively free weekend. It is an anomaly for us to not have hours upon hours of studio work to do over the weekend, and don’t get me wrong, we all did work of some kind or another, but there were also moments to just enjoy being here. For some of us that meant a run around Petionville, reading a book, a first trip to the local Deli...
Villa Rosa Site Visit
Jessica and I embarked on our first site visit to the Villa Rosa project on Friday. Villa Rosa is an informal settlement (similar to a favela) located between downtown Port-au-Prince and Petionville, on the side of a steep hill. The area was one of those most affected by the earthquake, and the cheaply constructed and unplanned hillside houses were particularly devastated. AFH is engaging the...
Our First Open Office
Today we headed in to the office with our assignments getting clearer in our minds and our tasks and goals for while we are here solidifying. As we get deeper into our work I get more and more excited about our opportunities here. The morning was industrious, mostly spent at our computers in the office. Niko and Jessica made an inaugural trip to the hardware store and art supply store - the...
More Than Buildings
Amongst Architecture for Humanity’s (AfH) enormous task to “build back better” in Haiti lies the challenge of managing the activities of our lives beyond work. We couldn’t be more grateful for all of the staff who keep us fed, transported and less-confused. However, life here at the Maison (our house) only works through the coordination and cooperation of all the...
Rainbows and Group Assignments
We woke up before dawn this morning to the last few drops of a departing rainstorm. It left a rainbow in its wake, in full view of our back porch.
At 7:30 we crammed into the land cruisers for the commute down to Petionville. We are starting to get used to the stop-and-go traffic down the mountain switchbacks, accompanied by weaving motorcycles and walking school children. Unemployment numbers...
new hUMINNs in the AFH office
The great adventure began with five students, their luggage, a husband, and a golden retriever in a minivan. We pointed toward Chicago where we met our sixth. Graciously welcomed by beer and deep dish, we were hosted for the night and delivered to the airport before the sun came up.
Traveling could not have gone smoother and one stop and a half day later we arrived in sunny Haiti to await Jim...
