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February 19, 2011
Rafael Smith: A Note from Haiti
I am passing along a few updates from Uber Shelter. I am writing you from Port-au-Prince Haiti where we are beginning our first pilot tests of Uber Shelters in the field. This fall we built a prototype of our newest shelter design and sent it to Haiti for evaluation and demonstration. You can see images of the new design on our site.
I have been in Haiti for 2 weeks now and one of my partners Armand and I have toured camps and neighborhoods and met with many Haitians and aid workers in an attempt to understand Haiti better and find the right location to set up the Uber Shelter for evaluation. Last night, Armand and I sat down and discussed the pros and cons of each site where we can set up the shelter. We both independently ranked a three person family who we met that lives in Delma 33 Adoken camp as our number one choice to receive the shelter. The husband, Genesis, is the elected president of one section in this large camp. Delma 33 Adoken is the second largest camp in Haiti with over 30 thousand people and is in central Port-au-Prince. It is an unplanned settlement with no NGO officially taking responsibility over it. Attached is a photo of Delma 33.
Genesis currently lives in wood frame structure made of scrap wood wrapped in a tarp with a corrugated tin roof. He lives with his wife and 12 month old baby boy. Genesis hustles different jobs in and out of the camp. He has set up a cyber cafe under a tarp in the camp and his wife runs a beauty salon (under a tarp) in the camp. The amount of entrepreneurship and ingenuity here would impress you. He and his family can not afford to pay for the shelter and we will be giving it to them in exchange for Genesis writing one blog post every week about the shelter and about what is happening in the camp....good or bad, we want him to blog about his experience in the shelter and daily life in the camp. He has Internet access and speaks English fairly well. With this communication through Internet, phone, and future visits, we hope to understand how the shelter performs (example: what the interior temperature is in different seasons, how the floor-plan works with this families lifestyle, what happens in heavy rain, wind, how this family adapts/changes the shelter to fit their needs, what they like and dislike, and what their hopes are for housing in the future, etc)
One potentially negative that could arise is that we don't know how his neighbors and others in the camp will react to him receiving a transitional shelter while everyone else is living under tarps. Will they be jealous? Will there be any tension? There will be huge contrast with the Uber Shelter being set up in a sea of tarps. Armand and I have wrestled with the idea or whether or not giving this shelter away in a camp is a responsible thing to do. I think that Genesis being the elected president/ community leader will make it understandable why he is getting a nicer place to live. I could be completely wrong, but i feel ok about giving this a shot. He is well respected by his peers and has done a lot for the community when the government and NGO's have chosen not to step in.
We have a second shelter in Haitian customs (the first uber prototype) and are hoping to have it delivered this week. Armand and I decided that the second shelter will be given to a woman we met through our translator who currently lives in a camp in urban Port-au-Prince. She wants to move out of the city center and onto a plot of land that her sister owns in Croix de Bouquet, a part of Port-au-Prince away from the city, but she needs a shelter to put on the land. She currently lives in a tent camp with her child and mother and feels very unsafe. Imagine living in a dangerous area with nothing but a tarp between you and the outside.
I am having a great time and meeting some incredible people. I have been hiring a local Haitian kid named Val to help us get around the city and translate for us when Armand's french doesn't work. He is super cool, humble and has been through more than i can imagine. He is 20 years old and lost his whole family in the earthquake...literally everyone, he has no family. He lived in a camp for a while and saved up enough to rent a one roomed place with 3 other friends. He is with us almost every day and then goes to school from 4pm-8pm. On Sunday he invited Armand and I over to his house for dinner. We walked in his place and he and his friends had prepared a feast for us. We had a blast. His friend brought a guitar and there were twelve of us jamming and singing at the top of our lungs. Super super cool day.
Take care. I will post pictures on our blog when we set up the shelter! You can also see some posts from the last few weeks.
Rafa
Editor's note: Rafael Smith is an advisor to the $3oo House,
