Giving Thanks & Counting Blessings from My Work in Haiti

Happy Thanksgiving to all who read this.  Growing up Thanksgiving Day meant family trips to visit my grandparents.  Everyone came, my cousins, aunts, uncles, and the special not-really-family members like Miss Jean and a hippy named John Fowler who were adopted by our family.  My grandmother cooked, and our family enjoyed a few days together.  I did not appreciate the reality of all I had to give thanks for, it was simply my life.

I have been working in Haiti for three years now, and for three years my Thanksgiving is completely transformed from those before.  I am humbled by my blessings, and see my life as filled with relative abundance.  I am deeply grateful and appreciate things more than ever.  My health, my home, my family, and the simple fact that we have food to eat and water to drink every day without question.

Many people ask me if it makes me sad to work in Haiti, to see grinding poverty and it's effects.  Isn't it depressing?  A great number of people believe that I and others like me that work in Haiti deserve high praise for our work.  I would love to address both of those points here, today, on Thanksgiving.

First, no, it does not make me sad to work in Haiti, and if you know Haiti you would know why.  I am not blind to the poverty, but when I think about Haitians I think of them as my friend Clay describes them, Haitians smile with intention.  I am more interested in the positive attitude that our partners have, and excited by the possibilities for change.  Haiti is moving forward and it is an exciting time to work there.  I am amazed by the myriad of solutions Haitians find for the issues they face daily.  When something breaks it is repaired with unrivaled ingenuity.  When problems arise communities gather to solve them.  With 80% unemployment every day involves the chore of finding a way to bring economic value to ones life, and as with repairs, the ingenuity is inspiring.  I have never been anywhere in my life where a courteous hello is the expected norm all day, every day, to every stranger you meet.  "Tap-taps" are converted pickups that carry loads of people daily, and it is rude to board a tap-tap without greeting every rider on board with either "Bonjou" or "Salut".

Children walk arm in arm to school.  Beautiful ribbons adorn the complex braids on the heads of little girls.  Uniforms of every color line the side of every road, in the city and in the villages.  Women walk with grace skillfully balancing inconceivably large parcels on their heads.  Haitians have incredible posture.  If poverty is all you see in Haiti you are missing the point.  The culture is complex and the people are warm, they love to laugh.  Celebration is constant as every hurdle of life is conquered.

To the second point, whether people like myself deserve praise for working in a place like Haiti, for myself I will say that I do not.  If you love something, like I love creating sustainable solutions for rural Haitians, the joy of the work fills you, and thanks are unnecessary.  If I could bottle and sell the incredible feeling I get from this work I would have at my disposal the most addictive drug ever made.  I speak for many friends when I say this, the secret is out: we love what we do, we love Haiti, and we don't deserve special attention for what we're doing. 

In giving thanks today I will mention my special blessing, like Miss Jean and John the hippy I am blessed to have been adopted as a not-really-a-family-member by Haiti.  I am greatly enjoying the forward progress of our IEEE/Sirona Haiti Rural Electricity Program and thrilled by the government's adoption of our program as the method for providing energy to rural homes.  I am incredibly proud of our Jatropha farmers who have planted more than 100,000 trees this year.  I am excited, and thankful, and again I wish all who have made it to the end of this post a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Latest from Haiti: Reliable Energy Becoming a Reality for Haitians

Energy Week in Haiti was a great event. It was held at the Historical Sugarcane Park in Tabarre which was a beautiful site. Every day of the three day conference was so well attended that there was not enough seating for the attendees in the conference room. It was great to meet so many people that are making huge strides to bring alternative energy to Haiti. As always, the IEEE/Sirona Rural Electricity Program was well received. Even the President of the utility asked us to place a unit in his home town.

The new Secretary of Energy, Dr. Rene Jean Jumeau, arranged the conference. Haiti has established its strategic plan for energy throughout the country. The larger cities will be handled by the national utility, the towns will utilize micro grids, and the villages will be lit by Sirona's model (solar-based generating stations that recharge home kits for customers). Quite literally, this country is going to be lit and a great amount of the energy supplied will be from alternative energy sources.

We are actively engaged in organizing Haitian assembly and local suppliers of our equipment, the next step will be hiring and training a work force and get our units rolling out to villages. The IEEE has donated an additional nine units, so we have a lot to do. I am thrilled and amazed by the rapid progress that the Haitian administration is making in this area.

President Martelly set energy as a very high priority for his administration and the speed with which this is coming together is exciting. I spent the morning looking at assembly facilities and met great suppliers at the conference. It is all truly coming together.

As if that isn't enough exciting news, Sirona has applied for an Intel Foundation grant to fund equipment for tele-education and tele-medicine in the villages where our units are co-located with schools. We won't know before the end of the year, but it is a very exciting proposal. We have created the very unique situation by placing reliable energy in these remote villages. Perhaps the children there will be learning on computers, and the adults gaining access to training and information. Like everything we do, the element of sustainablility is built into the model. The facilities can also generate revenue by operating at certain hours as a cyber cafe or providing entertainment like broadcasts of soccer games or movies. Exciting things, life changing things, become possible with energy.

CARICOM Energy Week: Sirona Participating in Haiti's Event

Sirona has been invited back for another presentation in Haiti of our IEEE/Sirona Haiti Rural Electricity Program.  The Caribbean Community (CARICOM)  is an organization of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies. CARICOM's main purposes are to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy.  Renewable energy is one sector in which CARICOM works to support its member nations, and next week is CARICOM Energy Awareness Week.

Haiti is participating as are many other CARICOM member countries, with it's own program entitled: Energy: Cornerstone of Haiti's Reconstruction.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, after participating in the strategic planning process of the Haitian energy sector I am excited by Haiti's committment to exploration and implementation of alternative energy solutions.

If you happen to be in Haiti, I will be at the event Monday-Wednesday in Tabarre at the Parc Historique de la Canne a Sucre which is across from the American Embassy.  On Tuesday at 11:15 I am scheduled to speak about our innovative Sunblazer program which brings both energy and economic development to communities unreached by Haiti's grid.  We are borrowing our Sunblazer unit from St. Etienne for display.  The event will be attended by government officials, the media and the general public.

We are receiving very positive attention in Haiti and I am very excited about next year.