We Race Madsen up to Mirebalais, April 28, 2014

     Road trip.

     Meer and I decided to head out to the central plateau, an area north of PauP which neither of us had yet visited. Madsen was in town (again) for a meeting with the Carter Center at the University Hospital in Mirebalais and he thought it would be a good opportunity for us to visit the region, the new hospital and gather some water samples. We got into the Everest with Makendy and left Christianville at 7:45 am. The traffic was heavy getting through Carrefour and into PauP. We finally made it to the Avis rental agency lot near the airport around 9:15. It was bigger than the Hertz lot that I had seen on a previous trip. There were several UNOPS vehicles in the Avis lot as well (for maintenance?). Madsen was already there and had just gotten his rental car, a brand new Toyota Terios, a mini-SUV 4x4. We greeted each other and then we jumped back into the Everest to follow Madsen’s car up to Mirebalais.

     To get to Mirebalais, you have to drive through PauP and out to Croix des Bouquets. There you turn north on Route Nationale #3 into a flat, desolate, sparsely populated countryside. There wasn’t much traffic. After about 20 minutes, we drove past a strange site that I had heard someone talk about back in November: a veritable ghost town in the middle of the desert-like landscape. Here, miles from anything, is a new town: Lumane Casimir Village, at the foot of Morne à Cabri, about 25 kilometers northeast of PauP. I thought it was built for the internally displaced Haitians after the earthquake. But no, not really. Apparently, anyone “affected by the earthquake” is eligible to live here. They just have to have a job and show that they have the income to pay the rent, which is between US$163 and US$233 per month. The project costs US$49 million, is being paid for from the Petro-Caribe fund, and is under the supervision of the Unité de Construction de Logements et de Bâtiments Publics, the Haitian Division of Housing Construction and Public Buildings (http://uclbp.gouv.ht/pages/41-village-lumane-casimir.php).

Lumane Casimir Village

Over 1000 units of the planned 3000 units are built, and are largely still uninhabited. The project was inaugurated in May 2013 but few people moved in until October and even now when we passed Lumane Casimir, it looked empty. To me it was stunning to see this large housing project in such an isolated area, far from markets, schools, and churches. Who would want to move out here, I wondered. Although the project plans to have its own police station, market, and school, who knows when they will be built. Meanwhile, many of the buildings have been vandalized. I shook my head. All this money spent and no one lives here.

View from the road to Mirebalais

     Madsen’s driver must have been on loan from a Formula One race team. He sped along the flat road through the desert, the Terios passing slower moving cars, trucks and tap taps like they were standing still. Soon we were climbing up the winding mountain road and he was still racing. The road wound back and forth through one tortuous switch back curve after another. Up we climbed and still the Terios sped ahead. But Makendy stayed right with him. Maybe Madsen told his driver that Makendy was our best driver and bet him that he could not lose Makendy on the mountain. I stared out the window over the precipice. The view of the flat sun-baked landscape we had just crossed was as breathtaking as our speed. I must be here too long. Six months ago I would have had my heart in my throat as Makendy braked hard and down-shifted into the tight curves and then accelerated out of each turn to catch up with the Terios. Not now. I shrugged and remarked that there was nothing more than a low stone wall separating the road from the edge of the cliff. I saw a speed limit sign: 40 kph (25 mph). I glanced at the speedometer. We were going over 70 kph (45 mph). It was really a race in the mountains.

     Just before we entered the town of Mirebalais, we passed a UN base camp of Uruguayan forces. Meer reminded us that a UN camp near Mirebalais, occupied by Nepalese soldiers at the time, was the source of the cholera epidemic in October 2010. The epidemic soon spread throughout Haiti and for almost four years now has alternately raged and waned with the changes of the seasons.

Uruguayan UN camp near Mirebalais

In front of the Emergency Department of
the University Hospital of Mirebalais

     The Terios crossed a temporary bridge across the La Them river and up an incline to a plateau.

We followed and there in front of us was the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, the University Hospital of Mirebalais. It is an impressive single story complex topped off with 1800 solar panels that provide all of the electricity needs of the hospital (http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-7032-haiti-health-all-about-the-university-hospital-of-mirebalais.html). The 300 bed University Hospital is a partnership between the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) and Partners in Health (PIH). We received a quick tour of the hospital. You can find details of what we saw at the PIH website (http://www.pih.org/pages/mirebalais). It is a remarkable place in the middle of the central plateau, probably the finest, most modern hospital in Haiti. Graduates from the state medical school in PauP will come here to Mirebalais to do their residencies. This way MSPP hopes that the doctors who are trained in Haiti stay and practice medicine in Haiti.

     After our tour, we got back into the Everest and drove down the road to the Mirebalais Cholera Treatment Center (CTC).

Mirebalais Cholera Treatment Center

As we stood in the courtyard, Madsen and Meer talked with the doctor about the number of cases they get and whether it would be possible to obtain stool samples. We walked over to the clinic building. There were at least two dozen cholera cots in the room. It was strange to be standing in this CTC at the heart of the epidemic yet it was so quiet. There were only two patients this day.

Mirebalais Cholera Treatment Center

Leaving the Mirebalais Cholera Treatment Center
A  bleach-soaked mat to disinfect our shoes

     We left the CTC, bid Madsen goodbye, and he went off to his meeting with the Carter Center. We got back in the Everest and went in search of water samples. Meer wanted to collect some samples from the famous Artibonite River. This river is where the cholera outbreak started from a UN base of Nepalese soldiers whose wastewater went untreated into the Artibonite River. We drove down a road and Makendy asked for directions to the river. After a couple of bad directions (how hard can it be to

The Artibonite River at Mirebalais

Makendy collects a water sample from the Artibonite

direct someone to a river?), a local resident offered to show us how to get to the river. We parked the Everest and walked behind our guide down a path between some houses. There was the Artibonite. We walked along the river for a bit and Makendy scrambled down the bank to collect a sample. The Artibonite ran fast and muddy. The rainy reason is starting and I imagine the river will soon get higher and flow faster.

     Before we headed back to C’ville, we decided to eat lunch in Mirebalais. In the town square, Makendy asked someone where we could eat. They pointed to the building behind us. A restaurant. How could we miss it? We walked in. No one was there. No customers. No one behind the counter. No one in the kitchen. We left and walked up the street. A restaurant called Le Gouter was on the left and there were two customers sitting at a table. We went in. The menu was pretty typical of other restaurants we had been in before: chicken, goat, fish, all served with rice and some red beans. We ordered the chicken.

     After lunch, Makendy drove the Everest back down the mountain, but a lot slower this time. I could see the ghost town of Lumane Casimir Village. From the mountain road the houses looked neatly lined up, a symmetrical, planned community.

Lumane Casimir Village viewed from the mountain road

We drove past the project. All the houses, little boxes, all in rows. Empty. Meer pointed out some cars and people in the village. So, I was wrong, the town was not totally deserted. A handful of people are living in Lumane Casimir Village. Will others come and join them to live here? Only time will tell if this huge investment in housing will succeed or if it will end up as another failed attempt to help Haitians.

A resident of Lumane Casimir Village