Peter Costantini Hangs with Iowa Global Health Studies in Haiti
The group of students from the University of Iowa Global Health Studies Program has returned from Haiti and Blog for Iowa provides this report on what Haiti was like during their visit.
Dr. Maureen McCue, team leadersaid, “one of our strange observations in all of this was that while the
two areas are swimming with “aid” workers, we saw no beggars. The
locals are all now too poor (an unusual kind of equality) and they must
have realized the aid workers were already there doing what they could.
The absence of beggars in light of such extreme poverty was in fact a
bit odd–a first in my travels abroad!”
While in Haiti, Peter Costantini, an investigative journalist from Oregon, hung out with the University of Iowa group for several days. In the past week he posted about life in Haiti as it relates to solar power, agriculture and the lives of children during the time of their visit. The photos in this article and links to Costantini’s writing are reprinted with his permission.
The Sun Lights Up the Night in Haiti
By Peter Costantini
PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 17 (Tierramérica).- There are shortages of lots of things in Haiti: clean water, arable land, trees, living-wage jobs, houses, schools, fuel, reliable sources of electricity and Internet access. But one thing Haiti has in abundance is sunny days.
The sun radiates relentlessly over Port-au-Prince: on the tin and plastic roofs of the shacks in the neighborhood of Cité Soleil (not without reason named “Sun City”) and on the red tiles of the mansions in the hills in the suburb of Pétionville.
Even when clouds roll in from the Caribbean, the sun heats the water droplets and turns Haiti into an
enormous sauna.
Haiti's solar potential is an estimated six sun-hours in the dry season, about the same as that of Phoenix, Arizona, the sunniest U.S. city. Even in the rainy season it's not much less.
For the poorest country of the Americas, one with no oil, a crippling dependency on imports, and a landscape denuded in part by charcoal production, harnessing an abundant and free resource to generate power would seem a no-brainer.
To read the entire article, click here.
Agrarian Reform Is Indispensible for Haiti
Peter Costantini interviews VOLNY PAULTRE, chief agronomist for the FAO
CYVADIER, Haiti, May 26, 2010 (IPS) – In the wake of unimaginable death and destruction, Haitian farmers continue to work hard to wring food for their country out of a depleted land. But now they have company.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated in February that since the Jan. 12 earthquake, 500,000 people had migrated to rural areas and smaller urban centers.
With the exception of some rural districts to the west and south of Port-au-Prince, the earthquake did not damage most agricultural areas directly. This mass migration, however, has put heavy pressure on many already impoverished rural communities, who now are trying to house, feed and employ the returnees and newcomers.
To read the entire article, click here.
Rebecca and Alea
By Peter Costantini
One little boy of maybe two escaped from his mother and toddled up the hill, beaming and excited to get away, until she came and picked him up. Then two girls came out of the group to near where I was sitting. They were a big sister and little sister: Rebecca, 12, was taking care of Alea, 1 1/2 (not sure about the spellings).
Rebecca played with Alea, blew some bubbles for her with a bubble toy, hugged her, let her run away, caught her and hugged her again. Rebecca smiled at me, and Alea wandered over and gave me a wide-eyed baby once-over.
To read the entire article, click here.
~To learn more about the University of Iowa's Global Health Studies Program, click here.
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