January 16, 2004

Dear Everybody:

Today my mailing list tripled in size. From now on I will include all of Clean Water for Haiti’s supporters in addition to those on my personal list. You can expect to hear from me about once a month with updates about me, Haiti and the mission. If you want to find out a little about me and what I am doing at Clean Water for Haiti there is some information on my website: www.chrisrolling.com.

Very soon, the name Clean Water for Haiti will be heard across Canada! A reporter from CBC Radio came to do a multi-segment on Haiti and Canadians’ role in Haiti. I was disappointed not to be here during the reporter’s visit, but Tal and Loulou and our workers were interviewed extensively. There will most likely be a half hour segment on Clean Water for Haiti airing in about a month, and we will let you know when it will be on. There will also be a link on CBC radio’s website so the Americans on this list can find the story too. I’m very excited about the promotion the story will provide for the mission and the awareness it will provide for Haiti in general. In addition to CBC radio, the Florida Sun Sentinel has done a very good in depth report on Haiti and its problems. The entire story can be seen here with amazing photography, sound clips and even interactive educational materials. You can get a better idea of the problems we face here from the Sun Sentinel’s article than anything else I have seen.

I week ago I returned from Christmas vacation to find Haiti in a great deal of turmoil. As Tal was on his way to pick me up, he heard a great deal of gunfire from both handguns and automatic weapons. During that particular protest there were two deaths and many wounded but the protests (known as “manifestations” here) occur constantly now. Additionally, there are nationwide business shutdowns occurring on a regular basis to try to force President Aristide’s resignation. Another unfortunate development is the destruction of many radio stations around the country. According to what I heard yesterday (which may or may not be accurate) the police just smashed hundred of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in several pro-resignation radio stations in Port au Prince. In November, the police closed down a radio station in nearby Saint Marc only to have an angry mob burn down a pro-Aristide radio station in retaliation. Today I took a trip into Saint Mark to run errands but the town was completely blocked by burning tires and groups of people with various primitive weapons. I thought of my dear mother telling me not to take any chances but I lingered too long anyway and by the time I was ready to leave town, the burning roadblocks had multiplied in number so I ended up hiring a motorcyclist to run me through them. It ended up being simple to pass through, but I don’t intend to take such a chance again if I can avoid it. Before I left town I spoke at some length with a shop owner and he asked me when I thought the Americans were going to come in and I had to tell him sorry, but Haiti would have to harbor terrorists before the U.S. would be likely to come clean things up. It is hard to say what is going to happen here politically in the near future. Unfortunately, it is likely to get worse before it will get better. Here at our facility in Pierre Payen, I often forget that there is unrest in Haiti. Up until now it has only been an issue for our weekly trips into Port au Prince and we can often find out in advance if there will be trouble on a particular day and take appropriate precautions.

I am very happy to be back here from my vacation. God has blessed us hugely with the property we rent here, it is truly paradise. This time of year the weather couldn’t be nicer. It is the dry season now, so we don’t expect any rain until April or so, and it is nice and cool. I seem to have a smile on my face all the time and as I work on various projects in the yard I can watch the Mangoes ripening on the trees which will be ready in a few months time. Tal received a bread maker for Christmas and I received a short wave radio, so lately we have spent evenings eating fresh baked bread and listening to the CBC. Life is good. The only frustration I can think of at the moment is trying to keep the neighbors’ goats out of the garden. I have been trying to train our dog Jabez to chase the goats away but yesterday she became discouraged in her endeavors when a large mamma goat fought back with a substantial head butt.

Since my father returned from his visit, he has been a huge proponent of Clean Water for Haiti. He bought a printer/scanner/copier for the mission which I brought back with me from the states and it has made our work a lot easier. We have begun to produce promotional materials for our filter technicians who don’t have computers or computer skills. Much of our work lately has been focused on how to better support and train our technicians. Our biggest step has been to start a small business training class to go along with the filter technician training. The first class has already been held and we consider it a success. A missionary who runs an orphanage in Port au Prince took his vacation time to come teach our first business class, and a recently retired man named John will teach the next two business classes while he is here on short term outreach. It is always good to have visitors here, and John is no exception. I enjoy his keen interest in Haiti and its happenings and his willingness to go and interact with people in the community in spite of the language barrier.

We are planning two more filter technician training classes for the near future, one at the end of January and one in February, God willing. Each one will include the business class immediately following the filter class. Future classes that we schedule will no longer be paid for on a per item basis as they have in the past: purchasing the class tuition and filter mold separately. Instead, a flat rate will pay for class tuition, business class tuition, all tools necessary to commence business, sample promotional materials and a starter supply of diffusion plates to aid in filter manufacture. We believe this added cost may reduce our numbers of trainees but in the long term we will have more successful filter technicians coming out of the program.

Also in our plans is to improve the well drilling program we manage for the Cup of Cold Water project. Our biggest problem lately has been that only about one in 3 drilling attempts has been successful with our rig – a miserable performance record. The way we turn failed drilling attempts into successful wells is we hire a crew to dig the well by hand and then cap it off with a cement pad and install a hand pump. The problems with this method are many, but the biggest problem is the danger involved. One crew we hired recently consisted of 3 men because at one point a rock fell down a well with their fourth man at the bottom and it cracked his head open and killed him. Fortunately, they were not digging one of our wells when it happened, but they could have been. It is very dangerous work, and we would rather just drill all wells with the rig alone. The problem is rock. Our rig is not sufficient to drill through any but the very softest rock. To solve this problem, we have purchased a roller bit which has the ability to drill through much harder rock. In the attached picture, Timark is holding the bit with its teeth showing. To make the bit work, we need to put a lot of force on it which will require us to build a heavy base to bolt the rig to whenever we drill. I plan to start building the base immediately, and with luck our success rate could climb to 3 out of 4 attempts or better. I will keep you updated on our progress.

Many of you have shown interest in the paper briquette press. (New readers will have to refer to the archived letters on www.chrisrolling.com) We haven’t received any new orders for presses yet, but the organization which originally began promotion of fuel production with waste material heard about the new machine we build and paid us a visit last week. They flattered me by saying it was the best machine they had seen yet, and would they be able to order them from us when they are ready. Waste paper briquettes are now being sold in our area for the equivalent of 25 cents/dozen, but it has yet to take off.

Haiti has many things going on that I don’t understand. Lately I have been noticing something I hadn’t noticed before: little patties of clay with a little bit of butter, salt and spices mixed in and dried in the sun. I often see them for sale on the side of the road. You can see them yourself in the Sun Sentinel presentation I mentioned above. Haitians are actually eating clay. I asked Loulou about the clay patties and why people eat them and he said that only women eat them and they just like them for snacks. It has me very confused, because I can’t help but think you would only eat clay if you really desperately wanted something to fill your belly. That is the take the Sun Sentinel has on eating clay. I recently learned that Haiti has the highest rate of hunger in the world after Somalia and Afghanistan so it would seem like a logical conclusion. I once spoke with a man who lived in Cambodia when the Khymer Rouge came to power and he talked about being so hungry that he ate not only the snake he killed, but the rat the snake had eaten earlier that day. It seems to me that while a second hand rat may be more disgusting than clay, at least it has some nutritional value.

Our needs, as always, include money. We have made a good deal of progress on paying off the debt incurred when purchasing a new truck and paying Tonie’s medical bills, but we still need about another $5000. Right now though, we would like everybody to be aware that we are recruiting missionaries. Clean Water for Haiti is very well set up for people to come and work for a month or so and find out if they are called into missions. Please put out the word. Feel free to pass out my e-mail address or write me yourself if you have any questions. More missionaries are going to be necessary for further growth of the mission and improvement of our work.

Please continue to pray for the things we need, and especially remember our need for new missionaries.

A la proshen (on the next time around), Chris Rolling