June 2010- Grand Goâve Blog 1

So far, most of our assessment has been in the field of Water and Sanitation. The status of water availability and accessibility is much better than what we have observed in Port-au-Prince. Non-Profit organizations such as OXFAM and Samaritan’s Purse have made water stations available on 2 of the tent cities here in Grand Goâve. The first tent city is pretty close to the house in which we are staying and is in a local neighborhood park.


OXFAM and Samaritan’s Purse collaborated to establish this system:

The pumping system is pumping water from a nearby well. The well which is approximately 30 feet was built by hand and while the Samaritan’s Purse apparatus pumps the water out of the well where it filters and chlorinates it (with chlorine tablets- that are pretty expensive), the water is stored in a ‘bladder’ (yellow equipment on floor) which provides water to a nearby pipe system which is available to the residents of the tent city to retrieve water.

While this particular system is supposed to provide water to just the residents of this particular tent city, other residents of Grand Goave, commonly retrieve water from this source.  We spoke with the individual in charge of operating the system at this location. He did not live in the tent city, but was given this responsibility as the brother of the mayor’s wife. He was gracious enough to turn on the system so we could see exactly how it worked…

He told us that the system is turned on to ensure that the water bladder is filled twice a day, but every time it is filled it empties in approximately an hour due the large volume of people using this as their primary source of water. 

Another tent city we visited was located approximately a block away and was comprised of military styled tents. This tent city was run/ supported by the Venezuelan government.

Some of the Venezuelan military lived in a house next to the tent city and was a common sight to see these military members interacting and exchanging casual pleasantries with the residents of this particular tent city. The personnel are responsible for maintaining the operations of the tent city day to day and every 20 days provided its residents with food. An official from the Venezuelan military advised us that out of approximately 2000 residents, only 50 have actually moved out to more permanent housing since the earthquake. Many of the residents in this tent city have decided to stay based on the promise of the Venezuelan government to provide a little over 300 homes to residents who were land owners prior to the earthquake.  The Venezuelan tent city was perhaps one of the most well run and clean tent cities I have seen here in Grand Goâve and Port-au-Prince…