Day 8: Wednesday 14 September - first look at Delmas

Time is quickly passing by here in Haiti with so much to do and people to see. The Haitian Red Cross are still blocking us access to the field until the security issues in Delmas 19 are sorted. I'm assured that this will happen by the start of next week. It feels strange having studied and talked about Delmas 19 for so long now without having actually been there.

The past two days have been very hectic with constant meetings, requests for analysis, mapping and training - so this morning I try and find a quiet spot where I can update and organise my rapidly expanding notes. This lasts about 30 minutes until I am discovered by the Water and Sanitation delegate who asks me to look over their survey form and analysis for the extended area. They have a report to send to London and need some number-crunching to be done for them.

I then leave to meet James Bellamy, head of the Red Cross Federations Shelter team. The Red Cross Federation are overseeing and provide support to all National Red Cross Societies working in the country. In addition, the federation also have their own projects including the provision of transitional shelters; they are also one of the lead agencies in La Piste Camp - the largest camp in Haiti containing many tens of thousands of people.

I talk to James about how GIS and remote sensing has been used to support the British Red Cross project. In particular as a rapid assessment tool and also as a platform to host cadastral and enumeration datasets during the planning phase and monitoring data during the implementation of the projects. He introduces me to his team who are currently using GoogleEarth as a tool to visualise the Red Cross projects across Port-au-Prince. Each point in their database contains a photograph and a small piece of information about the project. It's exciting to see the Red Cross adopting spatial means to store and visualise their projects. I explain that ideally the data would be stored in a GIS so it could also be used to analyse the state of the built environment and to analyse the spatial distribution of socio-economic indicators. We agree to share notes and to stay in touch.

In the early afternoon I am offered the opportunity to join a colleague for a a tour around the city. As I haven't seen much of Haiti (except for the drive from Base Camp to home) I jump at the chance but as soon as we leave the gates of the Red Cross camp we are informed of large demonstrations taking place against the UN-Minustah. Many Haitian people view the UN as an occupying force, especially after its mandate was increased after the earthquake. The protests were sparked by the alleged rape of a Haitian man by UN troops. After an hour, reports come through that the protests have turned violent outside the Presidential Palace and that police are using tear gas to control the crowds. As a result we head north, back towards Petionville. Martin (first aid trainer) is leaving tomorrow for the UK so he wants to pick up a few souvenirs and grab some food.

We drive back to base camp through Delmas so I get to see a part of Port-au-Prince I hadn't seen before. Delmas 60 and 44 appear to be a very vibrant areas. We pass many brightly-painted Loto shops and the occasional electrical store with crowds of people watching the Barcelona football game.
There are also lots of signs of reconstruction and still many building left derelict and damaged. The image below shows a double pancake collapse where the concrete slabs have collapsed onto each other. Surprisingly, this sort of damage state can be notoriously difficult to identify in satellite imagery analysis alone as the building can appear intact from the air apart from maybe the presence of rubble surrounding the structure.
I hope to talk more about the building damage and reconstruction when we start the building-by-building survey in Delmas 19 next week. Work-wise, we have now finalised the building plot map and enumeration survey, so next we must get the community to sign-off the various maps. In the field we will also tag each building with its unique identification code and take a photograph of the building which will be included in the database and used as baseline material. Below are some photos from our drive through Delmas.

Round-stones line the street ready to be used for construction:

The earthquake has led to a boom in construction materials and tools (Materiaux de Construction). Due to demand the price for such items has increased dramatically since the earthquake.