Toronto Haiti Action Committee (THAC)

Almost 500 bodies have been found in the port city of Gonaives, Haiti, after floodwaters caused by recent storms receded, according to reports. Police commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille said 495 bodies had been found and the toll could get higher.

— 'Hundreds' Killed by Haiti Storm

When I was in Gonayiv last summer, they still hadn't recovered from Hurricane Jean in 2004.

Darren Ell: What message would you like to pass on to Canadian and American readers? In your view, what should they be thinking about if they want to help Haiti?

Patrick Elie: Become citizens in your own countries. You're nothing but consumers. You've lost control of your governments. Open up your eyes and ears to the lies you're being fed about other countries.

— Interview between Darren Ell and Patrick Elie

On my last trip to Haiti, the guest house where I stayed had some copies of Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. I took some notes of some of my favourite passages when I read it:

I'm staying in a guest house in Haiti, and yesterday morning, the person who runs the house was telling me that one of the initiatives that Cuba has here is an initiative to save electricity. Cuba hired people to go door to door and take people's incandescent bulbs and replace them with fluorescent "green" bulbs. They figure that the reduction in energy consumption might be enough to enable big cities to have 24-hour electricity.

Cuba's projects, here, are always simple, down-to-earth programmes.

(This post was originally written on August 16th, 2007.)

On Monday, we began travelling to Pòdepè. That morning, we'd attended a funeral for Father Ednea Devaloin, and we piled up into an SUV; seven of us delegates, plus our luggage. It was a tight squeeze, and not without some complaining. We hit the road around ten or ten thirty, and five hours later, we were leaving Gonaives. It was around that time that we saw one of the (very few) road signs that announced that Port-de-Paix (Pòdepè, en kreyòl; the street signs are all in French) was 150km ahead of us.

I hadn't met my traveling companion, Roger, until a day before we were set to fly here. For me, this is my fourth trip to Haiti, and to some extent, I've been able to convey to Roger some logistical facts.

• Take US dollars and exchange them for Gourdes in Haiti; don't try to exchange Canadian money

• You can't drink the tap water; don't even brush your teeth with it. Use bottled water for anything that goes in your mouth
• Give yourself a lot of room around flight times; those flights are prone to delays
• and so forth.