As I’m sure everyone is aware, October 15 is World Handwashing Day. I’m a devout handwasher and so I decided to travel with our team to Jacmel where we are conducting several events to commemorate good hygiene.
The trip from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel consisted of waiting around at the office for two hours, waiting for our driver to show up and then to refuel and then an hour drive. The actual driving part consisted of gridlock traffic across Port-au-Prince, a flat bit along the coast, and then hairpin turns going up and then down the mountains. Driving is a nice way to see the country, but so many of the most interesting things I see are in flashes through the dirty windows of our vehicles.
Once in Jacmel, we set up for a screening of our handwashing film (it’s really good!) in a camp run by Save the Children. The tents are semi-permanent with cinderblock bases and the latrines are plywood, rather than pot-a-potties. There’s a station for potable water from a giant bladder with an excellent diagram on handwashing. No soap to be seen, but I was assured that not only is soap distributed to families, but there is a working group to discuss how to get families to buy their own soap instead of relying upon free distribution. I’m skeptical.
I’m glad we don’t usually work in camps – it’s best to leave that work to people who know what they’re doing. Each camp has it’s own leadership structure according to which NGO (or other) is managing it. The politics can be complicated, as we found out this evening. We got permission from the president of the camp to do our film screening, but not from the advisor. Lots of words were expressed about this oversight. Camps also have all sorts of NGOs coming in to do activities, give things away, and tell people what to do. This can create a dependency on outsiders and a sense of entitlement, as exemplified by a 10 year old boy who followed me around and asked me to give him my camera. Emmanuella gave him an earful instead.
Before our film screening, we had a sound truck come through the camp and blare our catchy jingle. The truck doubled as our AV equipment and as we were setting up for the film, the sound guy played snatches of dancehall type music. The place erupted into a mass of vibrating children of all sizes. With the flashes of lightning, the scene looked uncannily like a rave. Little girls that come up to my waist were gyrating in ways that would make Shakira blush. I even thought I saw some guys on stilts. Wait. I did see some guys on stilts. In the camp. What did they put in my water?
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