Day 9: Thursday 15 September - first visit to Delmas 19

This morning I finally get the chance to go to the target area in Delmas 19 where the BRC's integrated project is located. In this post I will describe with words and pictures the physical form that Delmas 19 takes today. The area is a small slum measuring only 200 m by 200 m but containing almost 500 building plots. Linked to those plots is an estimated 3,500 people (over 900 families).
The buildings there are predominantly concrete block masonry with corrugated iron roofs. The neighbourhood is split into four quarters: Cite 4, Romain, St Ange and Alou Lou. I didn't expect it to take long to cover the site, but the pathways meander and bend in such a way that it takes a good couple of hours in the 30-degree heat to cover the whole area. Cite 4 is by far the most densely-built part of the area with some buildings measuring not much more than 35m-2 and containing approximately 10 people each.
Access throughout the area is via a series of narrow un-named corridors - some less than a metre wide. It was almost impossible to identify all of these access-routes in my remote analysis using aerial imagery alone. Several channels of water run through these corridors from the north of the site to the south where it accumulates before leaching out onto the main highway. The corridors are full of people mainly washing, carrying water and listening to music.
Most of the larger roads and corridors were mapped correctly in my remote analysis but some of the smaller access routes had to be mapped based solely on the assumption that the buildings had to be accessible in one way or another. The accuracy of the rapid mapping of the road network will be measured as part of the validation exercise.
Some buildings in Delmas 19 have already been demolished but many appear not to have been disturbed at all since the earthquake. There are still piles of rubble and collapsed buildings present everywhere. Despite this, the area itself and the access ways mostly appear clean. Even so, the constant physical reminder of the earthquake on everybody's doorstep must be quite traumatic. The thought of being in the centre of Delmas 19 at the time of the earthquake fills me with dread as there would have been almost no-where to have escaped to.
As well as housing reconstruction, the BRC are also providing grants and training to support livelihoods. They are also improving the main drainage canal that runs through Delmas 19 and regularly floods houses. Despite being recently cleared the canal is still clogged with plastic and other garbage. The site has four skips at different exit-points which provide the only garbage collection service and these are seen to be overflowing into the road.
So far the BRC have constructed 5 model houses for residents which were useful for costing analysis and as a mechanism to begin training local constructors. The site is also covered in various - predominately wooden - transitional shelters provided by American Red Cross, UNOPS and USAID - they are designed to provide temporary shelter for 2 to 3 years whilst a permanent house is constructed. Apparently many agencies are still building transitional shelters 1.5 years of the earthquake as they need to use-up the material and money they have been given by donors. It seems a shame that this money and resources isn't being used to provide permanent and sustainable housing solutions to the people instead.

The technique of providing transitional shelters has been shown to work well in rural areas where there is space to build a shelter next to the main plot of land and where there is the capacity to erect a shelter fairly quickly (so it doesn't impede on the main reconstruction phase), but in high-density urban areas like this the shelters can provide further complications to the construction process. The shelters will need to be demolished and the occupants displaced again to allow construction and development of the site they are on.