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14th July, 2010
By Simon Brown, GOAL Haiti
" It had been a while since I had any interaction with our
beneficiaries but today I was helping out on our cash for work programme
in the Turgeau district of Port-au-Prince. With so much of the city
still in ruins, removing rubble and debris to allow for the construction
of shelter to accommodate those people who lost their homes in the
earthquake is of paramount importance now.
By working through the local community, we
are able to pay people a basic wage to help us clear the waste,
which, in turn, helps to generate income for families.
I worked at two sites today. The first had
reasonable road access so we rented a small digger to transfer the
rubble. Sometimes we are able to use diggers to transfer the debris
to the trucks but they are very expensive and we cannot afford to
hire them everyday. As well as that, some communities are so difficult
to access that the diggers do not have room to manoeuvre. In these
instances the rubble has to be manually loaded onto the dumper trucks
which, as you could imagine, is a painstaking process.
Then there are other problems that can surface
unexpectedly. As we were on our way to the site this morning for
example, we got a call that the digger had no fuel, despite the
fact that our transport manager had reminded the rental company
three times yesterday to ensure that there was. Thankfully, we had
a fuel container with us and we stopped off at a nearby station
to buy some diesel. We cut the bottom off a small plastic jerry
can to act as a funnel and were able to fill the tank with about
60 litres of fuel when we arrived.
The dumper trucks were waiting for us so
we were able to start loading them up straightaway. Unfortunately,
the road was quite narrow so the trucks had to gingerly reverse
for a distance of about 300 metres to get to the collection points.
We loaded the first truck with about 15 cubic metres of rubble and
general waste in about 15 minutes.
Once they are full, the trucks are then driven
to the port where the rubble is being used in an attempt to reclaim
some of the land lost in the earthquake. Part of the port collapsed
into the sea on January 12th. It’s good that so much of the
waste is being put to good use.
I left the operation in the very capable
hands of Roudy, one of GOAL’s cash for work program field
supervisors.
I then moved on to the second site. This
was one of those cases where we just didn’t have enough space
for a digger to move around, even a small one. The guys worked their
socks off loading the trucks manually. It was tough work. For the
large pieces of rubble, they picked them up and threw them in the
back of the truck. For smaller debris, they used shovels.
It was a laborious process and it took about
two and half hours to fill the first truck. When I returned to the
first site I found that they had loaded seven more trucks in that
time.
It was encouraging to see the people working
together with such a positive spirit. They toiled exceptionally
hard, without complaint, in the hot sun. They are glad to be able
to help their own communities recover from the damage of the earthquake
and the salary that we pay them will help them to feed, clothe and
school members of their family.
I was particularly touched today when one
woman kept repeating the word ‘merci’ over and over
again. She was also speaking in Creyol, the native language, which
I do not fully understand. Roudy told me that she wanted to thank
GOAL for clearing the debris from her street.
As she said it again, all I could think of
to say was ‘de rien’ (‘you’re welcome’)."
©
2010 Belfast Telegraph
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