Crossing the Universe

Eight miles up here above the earth under the diamond studded ebony shroud that constitutes the night sky, I find myself in a good place for healthful introspection. The interior lights have been dimmed, allowing weary passengers to sleep off their journey to another reality. Platinum light from a full moon casts sharp shadows across the silver wing. Six or seven miles below us a cloud deck conceals the world beneath. To our great relief, several days ago the atmosphere shook off its intense fury, dissipating the last of its violent hurricanes for the season. Today the air has been like glass, making a long flying day serene and fertile for thought.

There is much to think about when going from one galaxy to another. In a certain sense I have traversed realities that are perhaps as great as those one might experiencing jumping from one star system to another. In the span of a day it has been possible to leave one of the very poorest regions of our world, one devoid of most of those things many consider necessities and return to a world of nearly unbounded abundance and options. The reality in which I ate my breakfast did not include paved roads, mail service, safe water, TV, parks, theaters, private cars, flush toilets, health care, or a thousand other things considered necessities for those living there. Even from this great height, I can occasionally see cities through breaks in the cloud cover. These cities are brilliant with light; criss-crossed with paved highways dotted with private cars, studded with emerald parks and athletic fields, ablaze with the neon of night life.

I wonder if any of the people below realize that they not only live on the only planet in our solar system capable of supporting life, but also on a very privileged and small part of this sapphire orb that allows them to chase dreams and live out many of their fantasies. A number of people have written me in recent days telling me they could not comprehend or relate to the mountainous tropical reality I was living in. I wonder if they comprehend how truly extraordinary their own reality is – far more so than the one I just left.

It is easy to succumb to the seduction of development work that says solutions can always be had by throwing money at problems. What we have been finding in the mountains of Haiti is that throwing hope and empowerment at problems always yields solutions with long-term consequences. In the darkness of the reality of poverty and oppression that exists in Cange, there is an emerging band of hope on the horizon. Disenfranchised people are finding dignity, the opportunity to learn and do meaningful work, to drink safe water, to learn how to read and discover the worlds within the covers of a book. They are finding spiritual meaning in their lives. They are finding that they don’t have to climb on one of these metallic silver denizens of the sky to chase dreams. They can do it right there in the beautiful mountains of their own land with their own people and their own families. The ultimate measure of our success in Haiti will be when no one living there wants to leave.

I am told of a cowhand that lived on a vast hacienda in South America. He had never been off the spread. He was asked if this bothered him very much. With some surprise, he asked why anyone would want to leave paradise. His land had become paradise for him. Perhaps it will one day be so for those millions Haitians who will never see the inside of one of these turbine-driven catapults. We will tell them of a Kingdom they can live in and experience abundant life that does not require them to buy passage up here. We will also give them a cup of water as part of the deal.

It is time to land.

Highland Dreams

The Sevane, Haiti

The air has turned torrid once again, challenging us with intense humidity and a complete lack of breezes. Our morning was given over to making a survey hike of the Cange Valley. We all were in a state of dehydration by the time we got down to the bottom of the mountain valley. Our goal was to determine the best route for six thousand feet of high pressure waterline. We had several options to consider and we had nearly decided on laying high pressure polyethylene pipe down the valley until we learned that slash and burn agriculture is common here. Fire and polyethylene pipe don’t mix. We are now looking at putting down galvanized pipe some distance from the existing dirt path that the current pipe follows. A national highway is supposed to be put through here in the next eighteen months and its construction is slated to destroy four hundred houses along with our current water line. Engineering issues make for a lot of uncertainties that need to be carefully weighed before we drag twenty tons of pipe into the valley. Fortunately, we have good people working on the logistics. We hope that a pipe routing can be flagged in December and laying of pipe done before the next rainy season starts.

We were astounded to find that a large crew of men has been working two days on the second wall of the dam and has made great progress. There is a profoundly satisfying sense in seeing much concrete and rock work on the dam and knowing that local men are earning good salaries for honest hard work. We had a deep awareness that this was the way development should be done - empowering the local members of the community with meaningful work and a sense of ownership of the infrastructure that will make such a great contribution to the quality of their lives. For me seeing this work was the high point of the week. We then again climbed that epic staircase of 1,500 steps to find our way back to the compound for cold water and a big meal that would replenish strength and electrolytes.

During the afternoon we climbed over 1,200 feet about Cange to a highland savannah known locally as the Sevane. The setting of the high grassland is spectacular and a cool breeze greatly refreshed our wilted beings. The mountain and lake views would easily command $400 a night if there was a good hotel sited here. Alas, the leadership of this struggling country has kept the people from benefitting from their beautiful natural resources.

We are interested in determining the feasibility of getting water to this region. The flat rich soil is quite promising for agriculture, except for the lack of irrigation water. We made a survey of plants that have medicinal value. It was quite inspiring to see just how many plants have been found useful as natural remedies. We found a small number of people living in the highlands. Most migrated down the mountain years ago to live near the water system installed in the mid 1980s. It is this system we are in process of replacing.

On the return I found a fifteen foot flower stalk on a yucca-like plant. It was adorned with intense gold flowers similar in size to sunflowers. I later learned that this rare variety blooms but once a year. It was a magnificent specimen that one would expect to find in the Lost World.

During the evening we returned to the compound where it seemed the United Nations was convening once again. It has been a great joy to have this international exchange.

Valve Replacement

Bas Cange, Haiti

The dense oppressive humid tropical air spawned by Hurricane Paloma has dissipated and late last evening we were blessed with much drier air that actually was moving. Breezes make such a grand difference!

During the night a heavy truck arrived in the compound with the four newly fabricated 700-pound valves needed for the new dam penstocks. These penstocks (short large bore pipes) are like the coronary arteries that give life to the heart. These penstocks and their valves will bring life-giving water to the new pump house and hydraulic turbines working without electricity will carry it up to four storage tanks above the town. Water will then be available at community fountains for 12,000 residents. I’m told those valves had to be hauled across the river by canoe.

As I write, a crew is hauling those 700 pound valves down the 1,500 stairs to the dam site on the valley floor. Those five men will have climbed 12,000 steps, half of them while carrying a 140 pound share of the load. We feel like our mission here has been highly successful with getting the valves made and hauled to the dam site. If a valve can be successfully installed today under the supervision of our engineers, then the other three can be put in during the next several weeks under the supervision of a local engineer.

I managed to avoid doing heavy lifting and was instead hunched over my monitors and computers at 6 AM to record yet another one of the many singing groups here in Cange. It still amazes me that twelve teenage singers and six musicians would be enthusiastic about coming to sing for two hours at 6 AM. I have a break for eight hours and will then record another women’s group. A Haitian fellow just stopped by where I am working and brought me group rosters, music listings with composers and arrangers, and digital files of the groups in their performance garb. How splendid!!

Several of us are doing photo work during the day. A group of pooled our images yesterday and had our resident computer genius enhance them overnight with image processing software. We all look like Ansell Adams now. As we write, our photo directories are uploading by satellite dish to a public access web site. Technology can be grand.

Tonight we party!! The big town party was moved from last night until tonight. We enjoyed a quiet time last evening on a nearby patio with one’s beverage of choice and good company. The moon was quite fine in a clear dry tropical sky.

Touching the Pulse of Community

Bas Cange, Haiti

Several times in my life I have been granted the great opportunity to experience esprit des corps; that wonderful sense of belonging with others joined in doing something that really matters. I never thought that I would get to do this again. This wondrous form of community has come my way once again. There is something important that is forged and refined by the combination of difficult circumstances, challenge and shared purpose.

Today the seven of us did a field survey of the water projects that were laid down twenty six years ago. The journey down to the existing dam and pump house required a descent down into a steep valley. We were stunned to find that since a summer survey in July that some 1,500 concrete steps have been built down the cliffs above the natural spring that feeds the water supply for 12,000 people. These steps were astounding in their scale and quality of construction. We felt like were climbing on one of the engineering wonders of the ancient world. As we descended we collected quite a large entourage of village people, who must have been figuring seven Americans in this remote area must be up to something important.

I would be hard pressed to pull up from memory a more impressive or beautiful view than those we were immersed in on that staircase to a new life for these people. I can’t imagine any all-inclusive resort in Mexico, Southeast Asia, or other tropical setting holding a candle to the emerald realm we found ourselves in. One can only hope that the leadership of this country will one day learn to care for its people and its land.

The last part of the descent required climbing down rocky faces with tree roots. I reached out to grab a tree for balance. As I touched it I felt a strong pulse. The 3.5 inch above-ground galvanized pipe that is the life line for 12,000 people was touching the tree. It was a bit like having an epiphany. Suddenly, I realized that this pulsing metal pipe was the aorta of life for the thousands of people living on the edge of survival in these mountains. I literally was able to feel the pulse of this community. I felt like I was on a open heart team, privileged to be touching someone’s beating heart. Twenty- five years ago men of vision decided to pull these people away from the brink and revascularized the dreams of people who long ago forgot how to dream in their struggles for survival.

We surveyed and photographed the existing dam, pipelines, and pump house. We were most heartened to see the beginning work of a new dam. We are hopeful that tomorrow we can see the beginning of work to install four new valves in the new dam for the vascular system of the several towns and hospitals that depend on it. Like cardiac surgeons, our work will have to take place while the system is in use. People go on bypass during cardiac surgery. This water system will be on bypass as well. A new pump house, hydraulic turbines, high pressure pipes, and public water taps will assure another fifty years of safe drinking water. Women will no longer have to climb down slippery cliff faces and then climb back up with 5 gallon buckets of water in tow. Days long lost to carrying unsafe water will be freed for other life tasks. Safe water will be a few steps from every house.

How grand it is to be working with others to build the infrastructure that so many of us take for granted. I don’t think I will ever view plumbing quite the same again. I think I have gained a greater understanding of the scripture that exhorts us to give a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus. What a privilege.

Night Sounds

Cange, Haiti

I am with the chief of the medical staff of Anmed (our big county hospital), a pharmacist, and two other engineers and their wives. We are a little grass roots effort to re-engineer a water system for a mountain town. There are about 8,000 people living here and the dam here is near failure. None of us are doing our ‘normal’ things in life. The doc is doing hydraulic engineering. The pharmacist is doing computer engineering. I am doing sound engineering. One of the others is doing civil engineering on the dam and lift stations. I think the others are working in the craft center. The hospitals and clinics are doing just fine without us at present. We obtained completed field surveys yesterday and hope to order several miles of high pressure pipe from Mexico and have it here by year’s end. Our goal is to have the dam, pump stations, waterlines, mains, and waste treatment on line in eighteen months.

We are about fifty miles to the east from the La Promesse church school that just collapsed. Sadly, the school had a partial collapse eight years ago and was poorly rebuilt. I don't think people here understand that concrete has infinite compression strength and zero tensile strength, excepting for the re-bar put in it. People living down from the school abandoned their properties years ago for fear of a complete collapse, which came to pass yesterday. At least 75 have been pulled out dead. There were perhaps 500 children and teachers in the building. The building is very much like the three story cement school a hundred feet from where I sit. We can only hope there are not any structural monsters lurking in our buildings here.

There is a category 4 hurricane due west of here that is expected to slam Cuba later today. We had some mild rain bands last night but don’t expect to get anything else here, if it stays on its current projected path. Four nasty hurricanes are more than a fair share for one place to have to endure. A number of towns here are cut off because of major bridge washouts. On Thursday we only made it to an engineering firm after hiring dug out canoes to cross the river and then getting a pickup on the other side. The washouts added nearly a day’s time to our task lists.

I have now had four recording sessions with three different choirs. I think singing is the national sport here. It is simply amazing how large and enthusiastic these choirs are. People here in Haiti consider it a great honor to be admitted to a choir. It is amazing that more than fifty adolescents would show up in a church at 6 AM on Saturday to rehearsal and record for several hours. The last two nights I had recording sessions with an adult chorale consisting of about 55 mixed voices. In the mornings I have worked with a 23 member men’s chorus. These guys are really good! As I write this, there are dozens of adolescents in the church singing lush melodies to fine instrumental accompaniment.

My project for this week and next is to successfully record six choral groups and create a CD for each group. My little portable studio seems to work fine. The whole thing easily fits under an airplane seat. Telling these groups they will have their own CD had the same effect as if I had told them they just won the Powerball lottery. After breakfast with Marion, I went off to do photo work to create artwork for the five 5 CD covers while she went off to do surgery. When I get back state side I will explore the mysteries of cleaning audio wav files - eliminating coughs, barking dogs, thunder claps, torrential rain cement mixers, tropical night bugs, and all the things that show up when recording in live environments with sensitive microphones. I can hardly ask for the compound to shut down so I can record. Recording night bugs may actually be an interesting aspect of this work. I might even try to record some tropical frogs.

I expect a hundred kids this afternoon for three hours of work. I can’t imagine a hundred kids at home wanting to sing on a Saturday afternoon. It is a different world here. A little seven-year old boy just showed up and told me to appear an hour early so that more work can be done. At least that is what I think he told me.

A couple of very high profile rock stars are supposed to be here in the compound tonight for a big party. A Boston physician, who has done development work for decades, is bringing them here as part of an effort to garner millions in donations. The physician will probably be nominated for the Nobel Peace prize before this is all done. He was instrumental in developing the hospitals and clinics here.

We are told the archbishop of Canterbury is showing up next week. This compound is not on the way to anywhere but this remote outpost is like a United Nations gathering place. It is a privilege to be part of such an effort. Perhaps the work here will be my focus for the foreseeable future. It is a good thing I have accumulated a lot of frequent flyer miles.

I may need to make language a priority. I can’t even ask where the bathroom is - knowing no French or Creole. I guess between Habitat houses, play productions, and CDs I need to learn how to talk to other people. Spanish and German are of no help here.

Powerlessness

Miriablais, Haiti

This morning we loaded up a Toyota land cruiser to traverse the treacherous rut that is otherwise known as the national highway and go to another city to check on 24” valves being manufactured for the dam project. After some time on the road I felt like the meals of the last few days wanted to make a violent emergence once again into the light of day. I have not often been car sick but this is not your normal road. An hour and a half down mountain we found the bridge across the river had been washed out by recent hurricanes. A thrombosis of trucks and masses of humanity clogged up the amputated highway on both sides of a river. The fallen piers of the bridge marked the place where the swollen river washed out access to numerous cities. A decision was ultimately made after standing in the tropical sun for an hour or more that the other six in the group would go on across the river in dug-out canoes and then ride in the back of a pickup truck for four hours to check on the valves. I decided to abandon this further journey and return to Cange. I knew I would never be back to the compound in time to do my scheduled sound recording sessions with the choirs. I felt I needed to be about the business I came down here to do. I can do drives at another time when rivers, times, and priorities allow.

I found myself doing that which I had been strongly warned to not do - traveling alone away from the group. I had a local driver take me back up the mountains. I never have felt as powerless as I did being in one of the most notoriously dangerous places on earth, unable to speak a word of the language, being without any money, and without the ability or technology to communicate with anyone at all. I could only hope that the driver would take me where I wanted to go and not to some unscheduled stop on an unmarked part of the world. I have never felt such a full force of powerlessness in my life. I thought of how Mortenson must have felt when in Afghanistan and unable to get free of his captors for eight days. He was powerless. He eventually made it to his destination. I made it to mine. I had the bonus of being able to stop many times and get some really fine photos for documentary work.

Fifty people were waiting for me at the appointed time of our first recording session. The newly calibrated recording studio I brought down on the plane worked perfectly and I was able to create about 45 minutes of good material from working with the Grand Chorale - an adult choir of fifty mixed voices with accompaniment by six musicians. It is quite a challenge to record choral groups when one does not know a syllable of the language and is new to recording anything. The spirit of the group is splendid and these recordings will greatly assist in sharing the miracles that are taking place here in the mountains. I am quite relieved to have my own project successfully launched and underway. Many others here are quite relieved that I am now having success with this. It is apparently a very big deal to many people here that these choral groups be successfully recorded.

Meal time is amazing. About ten of us share opulent dinners late in the evening and a hearty breakfast after devotions. It feels a little bit like a United Nations gathering, with discussions of everything about how to engineer a water system to how to train hospital personnel to maintain diagnostic technologies. It is certainly different than conversations about “who done someone wrong” that seems to capture so much conversation. There is no taking of people’s inventory here. People are spoken of in very positive ways. We are having conversation on federal policy, information engineering, theology, even telling off-color jokes. Meals are grand adventures when shared. Good food is a bonus.

Transitions

Cange, Haiti

Transitions

Yesterday I was outside in a blizzard of gold, orange, and crimson; raking up the leaves of autumn blowing down in cool November breezes. Today I am in the humid closeness of warm tropical evening air. All of my plants are now sheltered the garage and house against the encroaching cold of winter, their blooms long lost. Trees here are verdant green with full canopies. Here vibrant tropical blooms are fresh and full. Winter does not come here.

Morning dawned with brilliant red and crimson, only as it can be seen from nearly eight miles up. The adamantine walls of Florida’s gold coast reached up into the clouds, much liked the fabled city of Chiron. The opulence of the world’s richest country was startling in its image from miles above the morning mists. Even more compelling was the image of another world from twenty feet above the ground. Standing at the top of a stair case on the Port Au Prince tarmac I saw metaphors of failed dreams and ambitions. In my travels to forty one nations I have not often been startled as much by what I saw today. There was a profound sense of barely contained desperation and chaos. I have not before experienced a whole culture in fervent bids for survival. It seems everyone was trying to stay alive. There is not much left for being nice or sharing.

Yet, here in this place I have found profound proof that one or two people can make a huge difference, even in one of the poorest places on earth where nothing makes sense and no one is really in charge. Up here in the mountains at the end of a fifty mile rut, one finds an oasis of hope where people find employment, possibilities, community, and shared dreams. In a short few hours I have met priests, students, engineers, physicians, nurses, laborers, and children trying to build a better world for each other. To be in a place where people are so completely outside of themselves is stunning and rich beyond words or money. Out of nothing but dreams and visions a hospital, schools, libraries, churches, communities, water systems and hope are being created.

Only in Gods’ economy are the greatest riches to be found in one of the poorest places on earth.