24 Hours in Baradères – Sister Denise, the Electrician, The Mayor, and the Agronomist

     We needed to get out of town. Meer has been here since January 6. Khan has been here almost as long. Kirk just needs to get out. Besides, Kirk has never been out west to the mountains. So I planned a quick road trip up to Baradères. I had three reasons for the trip. I wanted Kirk to inspect the lab space that Sister Denise had set aside for me and the existing electrical supply at the clinic. The trip would also give Kirk a chance to see another part of Haiti. The second reason for the trip was to take some of my supplies out to Baradères. And, finally, I wanted to maintain my relationship with Sister Denise. I wanted to reassure her of my commitment to doing the sexually transmitted infections surveillance that has been taking so long to get underway. And I wanted to start talking with Sister Denise about long-term plans for the lab.

     I had arranged with Sister Denise for her driver to meet us in Cavaillon and drive us up to Baradères. This way we would not have to use the Everest to make the brutal trip up the mountain. We would stay at the convent. Fr. Jacques is in the United States on vacation and there are two sisters staying at his house. It is sort of ironic that we would be staying with the sisters because some sisters are staying at the priest’s house. Friday night we packed up the back of the Everest with some of my stuff for the lab: the microscope, small incubator, specimen cups, OSOM test kits, 4-in-1 printer with cartridges. Ready to go.

     Saturday morning, our weekend driver, Gesner was ready to go before we were. We pulled out of C’ville at 8:15 am and reached the meeting point in Cavaillon, the gas station/hotel on Route Nationale #2, at 10:45 am. We made good time.

Meer, Kirk, and Khan in Cavaillon

Meer, Tony, and Khan in Cavaillon

While we waited for Kenol, Sister Denise’s driver, to arrive from Les Cayes to pick us up, we checked Gesner into the hotel. He would stay over Saturday night while we were in Baradères and be there to drive us back to C’ville the next day. Kenol pulled into the gas station and we loaded up the Land Cruiser with my lab stuff. We were on the road to Baradères at 12 noon. But before we left Cavaillon, Kenol stopped at a store and picked up a couple of large, empty containers from the owner. “Tafia?” I asked. Kenol smiled, yes, tafia (see 3-22-14 post). He was bringing back the empty containers to be filled with tafia and delivered on the next trip down the mountain. The road was as bad as ever. Kirk said he had been on worse roads but not for as long as the Baradères road. One and a half hours later, we arrived at the convent. Sister Denise greeted us and showed us our rooms and then we sat down to lunch.

     After lunch we headed over to the clinic. It was Saturday. There were no patients in the waiting area and only two pregnant women in the maternity rooms. Sister Denise took us around to the back of the clinic and introduced us to her electrician, a young man named Michel. Actually Michel is installing the electrical on the new vocational school that Sister Denise is building. Michel is from PauP but he graduated from the College St. John Baptiste in Baradères. His parents sent him to school here because they believed he would get a better education than in PauP. Michel’s aunt is also a sister in the same congregation as Sister Denise. Michel took us to see the generator and then the battery/inverter room. Kirk looked things over and then made some suggestions to Michel about the battery

Meer, Michel, and Khan watch as Kirk inspects the regulator

arrangement and the regulators, what was working and what was not working and why.  A new fuse was needed for the regulator to charge the batteries from the solar panels more efficiently. Kirk also looked at the pump for the well. It was not working and Yves, the clinic handyman, was busy hauling water out with a bucket. It turns out that the pump needed to be wired into the generator. It was not connected. Kirk told Michel what kind of wire and how much was needed and how to wire the pump back to the generator. It did not seem that hard to do. Then Michel asked the question. Where would he get the money to buy the wire in PauP? He would have to see with Sister Denise.

     We walked down the road to the vocational school under construction. The electrical was going in. That was Michel’s work. There was still a lot to be done but Sister Denise has no money yet to finish the building. Kirk asked Michel about the electricity in Baradères and wondered where the electrical lines on the poles led. Michel said that there was a generator in town but that was broken. That immediately got Kirk’s attention. Could we see the generator? It was a long walk into town and Kenol, the driver, was not around. So we walked into Baradères. The afternoon was hot. As we walked along the road, the poles were still there with wires on them. Every so often, a line dropped off the wire to connect to a house. But we saw no transformers. Finally after about 30 minutes, we reached the priest’s house and the beginning of the new concrete pavement that ran through town and out to where the road would eventually run north to connect Baradères with Petit Trou de Nippes. There were few people on the street. We passed a large house that had a sign outside inviting people to watch the broadcast of the Real Madrid vs. Valencia soccer match the next day for 15 gourdes.

     We reached the church square and still no generator. Michel told us to wait in front of the church while he went to find someone who would open the generator building. We bought some bottled fruit drinks from a vendor on the square. About 15 minutes later, Michel returned – with the mayor. Louis Sabé introduced himself as one of three mayors of Baradères. I introduced myself and Kirk, Meer, and Khan and explained why we were in Baradères and our interest in the generator. We walked with the mayor across the bridge and up the road to a building with a transformer sitting out in front and three thick cables leading through a window to the power pole.

Home of the Baradères generator

This was the home of Baradères’ 150 KV generator. And it was a good one according to Kirk. The mayor explained that Electricité de Haiti (EDH), the national power company, installed the generator and they also put up the poles and the wires. When does the generator run? The mayor decides that. The generator runs a few times per week for about four hours, between 7 and 11 pm. He also runs it for special occasions like Carnival, Easter, the end of the school year, etc. The diesel fuel comes from PauP, when EDH sends it. The town does not pay for the diesel and the people do not pay for the electricity, which seems mostly used to power the streetlights. We did not see very many homes connected to the grid. As we walked back through town, I asked the mayor if he planned to run the generator for the World Cup games. Yes, he would. Then I asked him which team was his favorite. “Brazil”, he replied. Meer is also a fan of Brazil, I told the mayor. Louis turned and gave Meer a hearty handshake. So here I was in a remote part of Haiti with two men from different countries, different religions and different cultures, who live thousands of miles apart but are drawn together by sport and a common passion – they would both be rooting for Brazil in the World Cup.

     After dinner that night, as we sought refuge from the heat on the roof of the convent, we saw that the street light in front of the convent was lit. It went out at 10:30 pm. Maybe Baradères had some electricity that night because we were in town. Maybe it was just a coincidence.

     Sunday morning I was awoken before 6 by singing coming from the small chapel down the hall from my room in the convent. The sisters were at morning prayers. I got dressed and joined Sister Denise for breakfast at 6:30 and then we got in the Land Cruiser with the other sisters and drove to church for Mass. We arrived at church at a little before 7 am and left church at 9:15, a little longer than what I’m used to back home but about right for Sunday church in Haiti.

     After lunch, as we said our goodbyes to Sister Denise, Kirk gave her some gourdes and told her to give it to Michel to buy the wire he needed to re-wire the pump for the well. No vehicle leaves Baradères unless it is full so when we left Baradères, there were nine people in the Land Cruiser: Meer, Khan, Kirk, two sisters, a priest, Kenol, myself, and Jean-Claude, the agronomist/distiller (see 3-22-14 post). As luck would have it, Jean-Claude was going to Les Cayes on his way back to the U.S. to visit his family. I greeted Jean-Claude and told him that I had been in contact with the people from Project Gaia about the alcohol-powered cook stoves. They were still interested in a future demonstration project in Baradères. I also explained to Jean-Claude the need for 90% ethanol for the stoves. Jean-Claude told me he was also still interested.  So we are definitely going to follow up on the idea and try and get the Project Gaia people to visit Baradères after Jean-Claude returns. I hope it happens.

     The Land Cruiser headed across the mountains, Kenol with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand pushing buttons on the radio to try and capture the broadcast of the Real Madrid-Valencia game. We finally reached Cavaillon where Gesner was waiting for us with the Everest. We grabbed our backpacks, said goodbye to our Haitian friends and climbed into the air-conditioned (ahhhh!) Everest. Kenol turned the Land Cruiser west towards Les Cayes and Gesner turned east on Route Nationale #2 towards Gressier. I stared out the window as we drove along the south coast, the beautiful waters of the Caribbean Sea on the right and the mountains we had just descended on the left. As I looked at the mountains, I could count at least seven ridgelines. Haiti truly is a land of mountains within mountains. It is beautiful out here. The sun was setting behind us when we arrived at C’ville. Back home again.