Author: Helen Hawkings

Helen Hawkings continues her diary from Haiti, where she is working as a health advisor for Oxfam as part of a team helping to re-establish basic water and sanitation services for people displaced by the recent earthquake.

9 Feburary

Today a colleague went to visit her old friend in Carrefour – a commune where we are working – and found her sitting on the flat roof of her house. At night she stays with her nephew but during the day she sits on the rubble left from her house. She says she can’t leave because people will steal her possessions. I feel sad as there is not really anything left to take. People have lost the small things that mean the most, things like old photos and personal documents. The street where she lives is part of a deserted ghost town where there once used to be a constant stream of people moving around.

10 February

Building latrines for sanitation is one of Oxfam’s priorities in Haiti now to prevent the spread of diseases. Credit: Oxfam.

As well as providing latrines and water, we also distribute hygiene kits, buckets, basins, soap, sanitary towels and underwear so that people can maintain at least a basic level of personal hygiene. We are starting our distribution in one of the first camps we visited. Security at distributions takes a lot of organising so our strategy is to concentrate on distributing our kits to the smaller camps and communities where there are less people to manage who are less likely to receive aid from other organisations.

This morning we are having a meeting on the roof of the half of our building that survived the earthquake. Looking across to where the other half once stood, it seems miraculous to me that more people weren’t killed. I quietly thank whoever is up there looking out for me. Not being able to open the door to my room may have saved my life as the wall above my office collapsed. My colleague in the office opposite was not so lucky.

11 February

Sometime after 4.00am, a strange sound woke me up. Not the mosquitoes that somehow manage to get through my net to dine on me every night, nor, thankfully, the roar of another earthquake. It was torrential rain. Haiti is not ready for the rainy season, which is still several weeks away. It was raining hard though. Large tent and plastic sheeting distributions have already taken place but many people are still going to get very wet indeed. With the rain also comes more risks from bacteria, thriving in the rubbish and excreta, which could end up being washed directly into the water sources people are drinking from, causing an outbreak of diarrhoea.

Our 45,000 litre water tank is hooked up to the golf club’s sprinkler system to distribute water around the camp. Credit: Oxfam

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last visited the golf course. This was the first camp I visited where we immediately started work. It has continued to grow and is now the biggest camp that we support, with an estimated 45,000 people sleeping here.

My colleague Karine and her team have installed a T45 big water tank, which holds 45,000 litres of water. This is being distributed around the camp using the existing sprinkler system, previously used to keep the golfing green fresh. But following this morning’s rain, the golf course is far from green. I leave with my shoes weighed down with thick, muddy clay. Once the rains really begin, this camp will become a mud bath.

Many people here are unfamiliar with latrine use. I am taking a couple of days’ rest but before I go I need to take photos that can be used to promote hygiene, explaining how to make best use of the latrines we have installed.

12 February

Today is one month since the earthquake struck Haiti. The President has declared a day of mourning across the country. This weekend there will be three days of fasting and praying to honour the thousands of people Haiti lost in the earthquake.

When I look back over the past month, I remember that when we first visited these camps they had not yet received any help whatsoever. In many cases I was often one of the first foreigners to arrive. I am not an especially technically-minded person but as part of a two-person team we did everything we could to get our water project running so that we could start helping people. Now Oxfam has a team of national and international staff in place and Haiti is receiving a huge amount of support for this region and beyond. There is still an enormous number of un-met needs, particularly concerning shelter, sanitation and psychological support but in the past month we have helped nearly 100,000 people. I hope that we can help 100,000 more this month.

Donate now and find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response

Oxfam health advisor Helen Hawkings gives us an insight into her experiences overseeing new water and sanitation projects in a steadily recovering Port-au-Prince.

At 5.10am I woke to what I thought was someone kicking my bed. It wasn’t, but it did feel like it. I leapt up with a start. These strong aftershocks continue to get me jumping around. Afterwards I lay outside watching the bright night stars fade into the daylight, I did not want to be inside the house.

By 6.45am the first members of the team are ready to drive down to the office. We currently have over 40 people who have come to work on the response, sleeping in our house and garden, so organisin

Digging latrines, Oxfam’s cash-for-work program, Petionville Club, Delmas 48, Port-au-Prince. Photo: Coco McCabe/Oxfam

g transport for everyone is a huge task.

The public health team usually splits up into three groups, with two groups going out to the camps we work in to manage the water points, latrine digging and construction of bathing areas, while my team heads out to new sites to assess people’s needs and make recommendations for possible interventions.

Sleeping in the middle of the road

Today we visited a site which appears to be filling up with people who have had enough of the noise and discomfort that accompanies sleeping in the middle of the road. Other families said they had come down from the outlying hilly areas looking for help.

As we walk around the camp, I explain that we can provide the materials to make emergency toilets, that we can install a big storage container for the water trucks to fill up from every day and that we can give people the tools they need to keep their site clean.

Our next stop is a small, closely-knit fishing community down the road. A robust young woman greets us and shows me around. Several people pull me into their houses to show me the cracks the earthquake has left in the walls.

They, like most Haitians who have stayed in Port-au-Prince, are too afraid to sleep in their homes. They show me the collapsed houses that killed their neighbours and the damaged buildings they fear will fall on them. There are 105 families living here.

Treating water

Thankfully there is a functioning well so we can provide them with the means and know-how to treat water for the community to make it safe to drink. We can also give them plastic sheeting to protect them from the rain. It is such a relief that the earthquake did not hit Haiti during the hurricane season.

While I am particularly focused on water, sanitation and hygiene needs, other Oxfam colleagues are investigating other areas including food security and personal safety.

While some camps are reported to be relatively calm, in others we hear about domestic disputes and women being raped. I did not know that some here believe that old women suck babies blood at night – a couple of older women had been out in areas where they were not known and were beaten to death.

When I return to the office I see that the materials I requested that have been flown over from the UK have arrived. Some of these Oxfam buckets will be used tomorrow to clean the latrines we have built while others will be distributed as part of hygiene kits along with soap, water purification tablets and sanitary wear for women.

Pulled from the rubble

I love hearing about miraculous situations. Yesterday a teenager was pulled from the rubble alive over two weeks after the earthquake. Amazing! She had done what Rick our shelter advisor advised me to do in an earthquake. Go to the bathroom. If you get stuck, at least you have access to water.

Incidentally, there is no electricity right now so I’m writing this by moonlight listening to night sounds.

Donate now and find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response

Oxfam health promoter Helen Hawkings was working in Port-au-Prince when the devastating earthquake struck. In follow up to her first week blog, she describes the situation on the ground and the funeral service of a dear colleague.

Monday 18 January: Before we implement a programme, we first need to carry out a needs assessment to find out more about the people who have been affected so that we can best respond to both their most immediate and pressing needs and also help them to recover and to rebuild their lives. We ask them about their situation before the earthquake, what are their normal habits and their beliefs? How has the earthquake impacted on their daily lives?

A helicopter flies over one of the camps in Port-au-Prince where Oxfam is supplying clean water. Photo: Kenny Rae.

Everywhere we go people tell us about their basic needs of food, drinking water, tents, toilets, medicine and sanitary towels for women. Many women have to wash themselves in public and then keep their wet underwear on as they only have one pair. Today I have sent off a large sanitary towel and knicker order!

In a couple of the camps we visit we meet women who have given birth since the earthquake. I know of at least one maternity hospital that was hit.

Generally hospitals have either been destroyed or are full. Many injured people with serious injuries like apparent fractures who urgently need medical attention, have still not been seen. They are either unable to reach the hospitals or the health centres they do reach do not have the capacity to care for them. I hear about dehydrated children at the hospital getting treatment but, because of a shortage of drip stands have their friends and family members taking turns in holding up the drips for them.

A member of our team visits a hospital with 1,500 patients and no water. We plan to supply water and sanitation here. The medical teams make plaster casts with water from a tap that is far away and ask us for empty water bottles to clean patients’ wounds, as they have just one bucket full of water. At least they have bottles of drinking water. There are no toilets for patients or staff. A woman sits on a cooler of amputated body parts that she does not know what to do with.

One of the camps – The Petion Ville Club – where Oxfam in supplying water and sanitation. [Photo credit: Kenny Rae]

Talking to the people I get a real feeling of solidarity. They share their food rations, which they have brought from their homes, even though they do not have very much.

No one is sure how long we need to sleep outside for following an earthquake. Usually the after shocks are never as strong as the original quake but people here are afraid. They will not sleep in their homes and are also worried about the risks of getting sick from contamination from dead bodies and the water sources. I have not slept for more than four hours for over a week and I need a good nights sleep to function effectively. Tonight I opt to sleep in my bed. I wear a vest top and a light-skirt in case I have make a dash for the door in the middle of night.

Tuesday 19 January: It’s a week since the quake struck. The number of dead bodies on the road are down. I have not seen a corpse for a few days now, but the rubbish is piling up and bodies have been dumped at the municipal rubbish site. We pass the local school on the way to the office. It smells bad. The first couple of days, people were searching for survivors here, now I can not imagine that anyone still trapped will be rescued alive, too much time has passed.

Helen Hawkings and Coty Reinbold scoping out where to put the latrines in this camp. [Photo credit: Kenny Rae]

We want to start constructing latrines as there are no toilets in the camps. Some people are able to go back their homes to wash and go to the toilet but as I walk through the camps I see nearly naked women and children and adolescents washing themselves, they are very vulnerable. We will also set up screened off bathing areas to allow people a little dignity when they are washing.

The fuel issue for the water trucks has been resolved, at least for today. I received a message late last night telling me that the trucks would be starting at 6am and we needed to be ready to organise the distributions early. 17 trucks went to the biggest camp we are working in to distribute water to thousands of people this morning. The needs of the people still completely outweigh the nascent aid efforts, but everyday we are reaching more people.

It is raining tonight. An unthinkable number of families are going to get very wet.

We had internet at home for at least five minutes tonight. It is wonderful to know that you are reading about us. I hear that many people have been donating money to help Haiti. Thank you for your help.

An Oxfam water bladder at the camp at The Petion Ville Club. [Photo credit: Kenny Rae]

Wednesday 20 January: My mother was never able to get me out of bed as quickly as I leapt up in a panic this morning, fumbling with the door knob. I sprinted across the living room and out onto the balcony while others barely awake looked around slightly dazed. It was a strong after-shock that set my heart racing. Haiti is not a quiet country but every time I hear loud rumbling sounds I’m on edge, anticipating a shaking.

The national team installed a bladder at ‘Place Jeremy’ in the baking heat.  The nights may be cold, but the heat of the day converts many fresh-faced aid workers into a glowing lobsters.

As I walk around the latest camp we will be working in at Martine 54, looking at potential toilet sites there are signs that everyday life is returning to normal.  The ‘petit commercants’ mainly women selling small packets of food and drinks have set up on the side of the walk ways, there are small generators charging phones and other electrical appliances for a small fee; a man gets his hair shaved in a small barbers’ tent.

Haiti has a history of being reliant on international aid. There are now signs popping up everywhere, large ones on sheets, or a small card ones like our neighbours have placed on the street:  ”We need food, we need water, we need help”, all written in English.

I wonder if my mum will have seen the footage of me talking to the BBC about the challenges of this current disaster response. It’s ironic that she can see me on television but because of all the communication difficulties it’s impossible for me to phone her.

Thursday 21 January: I spent this morning in the sun strolling around the golf course with the owner. It was not as glamorous as it sounds. We walked around the perimeter of the spontaneous camp looking for possible sites to build latrines. The areas that we passed through were already ‘informal latrines’, we were practically wading in it. There is a huge need for toilets here. The population here has grown over the last few days with people drawn in by the food distributions. There is more rubbish, more chaos and more noise. Large sound systems are in place blaring out loud music. I was pleased to see people taking water from our water point as we passed.

People queue for water at the camp at The Petion Ville Club. [Photo credit: Kenny Rae]

Someone had given me the name of a site that has asked for help. Despite the fuel shortage, the traffic congestion in Port au Prince is still terrible so it took a while to get there. Fallen walls and buildings narrowing the through ways worsen the jams. When we arrived at the shelter the guard at the door would not let us in.

While I was out doing assessments, my colleague Karine was working all out to get a water bladder to the hospital that she had visited the other day. Now they can do laundry and wash patients. She seems satisfied with her day.

I asked a member of our team how long he was planning on sleeping in the street. He said he would be there for several months. Haiti is prone to flooding, not earthquakes so people are unaccustomed to coping with the aftermath of this disaster and have no real idea about how long aftershocks will continue.

Back home I feel like I’m on a boat the ground is moving so much. Another six people arrived at our place this evening. This brings the total to about 30 with no taps or flushing toilets in the house. I don’t think we would even qualify for a 1 star hotel rating!

Friday 22 January: This morning’s aftershock sent me diving under my desk like a seagull to their fish dinner. I was in a room of colleagues who have recently flown in and who appeared completely unconcerned by the movement. I need to be less jumpy.

Our team generally splits into three groups to get the most out of the day. Today we focused not on water but on two teams in separate camps working with wonderfully enthusiastic volunteers digging six trenches for pit latrines. Tomorrow we will have our first pit latrines up and ready for use. Meanwhile the third group was monitoring the water points to find out how much water is being delivered to the camps everyday.

We passed the camp where we were not able to get through the gate yesterday. It’s based in a religious complex. The third nun we spoke to got quite excited about putting in latrines and lead us to a great spot where we can organise digging.

Our final stop was at a smaller site in an area with few homes still standing, that sickly sweet smell of death caught in my throat. Once again we find a high concentration of people crammed into a small open space. This neighbourhood was poor before the earthquake struck, now the women who engage in petit commerce tell me that people have no money to buy their wares.

Saturday 23 January: I was trying to remember the last time I went to a funeral. Thankfully it has not been for a very long time. I have been dreading Amedee´s funeral this week mainly because of the love that the staff of Oxfam felt for him, and the pain that his burial would bring to them after all the recent trauma that they have been living through.

We were ready to go at 4am – after 3 hours sleep I was not at my best but I imagined we would be able to sleep on the bus. The bus that we had ordered to come for us at 6am did not turn up and the hire car rented to take Amedee´s family to the funeral broke down somewhere between Port au Prince and Jacmel.  Finally two hours late we piled into three Oxfam cars and were on our way.

It was amazing to leave the city and the dusty piles of rubble surrounding the capital. I had forgotten about the rest of the country that has been largely untouched by the earthquake. I wanted to sleep but my desire to lose myself in the natural beauty that we drove through kept me awake. We drove through lush green countryside, colourful, bustling Saturday markets and then there was the sea. The palm lined beach just a tantalising few metres away.

By the time we arrived at the funeral, the service had  already begun. I can only speak a very limited Creole but I understood most of our Country Programme Manager Yolette’s tearful, moving speech about what an inspirational Haitian Amedee had been. Then there was the heartbreaking letter written by his wife and four children, “Daddy I love you so much, please come home, we miss you, we want to be with you to be happy again”.

The tears flowed freely and it was not until the end of the service when it was time to carry Amedee’s body out of the church that I realised that there were two coffins coming out to be buried. One was Amedee and one was his father who had been staying at Amedee´s house just down the road from the office. While we were all standing in shock on the road after the earthquake, someone from Amedee´s house had come over with the news that Amedee’s father had died, only to see Amedee himself dying just metres away.

We stopped for a few minutes at the beach on the way home. It felt good to be out in the open looking at some of Haiti´s magnificence. Thank you Amedee. RIP.

Sunday 24 January: The news today claims that 150,000 people here have already been buried. Yesterday in the church at Amedee’s funeral I couldn´t help thinking about all those bodies I had seen on the streets in the days after the earthquake, some put there by their families, others just lying near where they had died. Most of these people will have been buried in mass graves with no decorative flowers or loved ones present.

I had a planning day in the office today, while other team members were out in the field organising latrine building. Thanks to all the people who have donated money to the emergency appeal, Oxfam is able to plan an ambitious emergency response and early recovery programme. We cannot bring back those Haiti has lost, but we are doing our best to help the survivors.

Donate now and find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response

Oxfam health promoter Helen Hawkings was working in Port-au-Prince when the devastating earthquake struck. As the relief and recovery effort unfolds, she describes the situation on the ground.

12 January: It had been an average day in the office: conference calls, report writing, fighting off the mosquitoes that plague us here. My clock showed just 10 minutes until it was time to leave for the day, when without any warning the ground made slight movements, which rapidly became violent. The earth shook harder than I have ever felt before, I ran to the door but could not get out. I hid under my desk, my hand pressed up against the surface protecting my head, hoping it would hold up to the pressure of two storeys falling on it. If I were buried under a tonne of debris, would I ever get rescued? Was this the end for me?

As quickly as the earthquake started, the violent tremor stopped, everything became still again. Covered in dust, I scrambled shaking over the rubble by the office and made it out to the safety of the street outside. People were coming out stunned, some crying, some injured, some silent. A count of heads to check everyone was present showed one member of the team was missing, stuck under the rubble. Companions brought him out and they carried him unconscious on a piece of the gate on their shoulders to the nearest hospital where he later died. Several of the hospitals had already collapsed. Home, schools, offices – the buildings we spend our lives in become our greatest danger.

Cars were left abandoned in the street, roads were impassable covered by collapsed walls, buildings, telegraph poles and crushed vehicles. We walked the long way home not saying much, amongst people praying, crying, hysterical. It was surreal. We made a large detour around the petrol station that had exploded but was still making uncomfortable noises. A couple of people were wailing outside a collapsed building, the broken sign on the wall showed it had been a university.

Communication in emergency situations is often not easy. The phone networks were either down or overloaded so it is impossible to find out if our friends were ok. I had no way of letting my family know that I had survived and just hoped that they wouldn’t hear about the earthquake until tomorrow. We have no idea where was worst hit or how the rest of the country is doing.

People wander the streets in front of the remains of a boarding school in the downtown area of Port-au-Prince on 13 January 2010. [Photo credit: Frederic Dupoux/Getty Images]

13 January – City in shock: Last night we walked home in the dark, slept, or tried to sleep in the space in the garden least likely to have a wall or building fall on it should the aftershocks cause more damage. I lay feeling the aftershocks through the night under a beautiful sky heavy with stars, kept awake by the loud singing, clapping and shouting at what must be a local church and by our local confused cockerel who spent the night letting us know he was still alive!

Today we walk back to the office in the stark light of day. We pass the collapsed hospital at the end of our street. We pass a man carrying his dead child, repeating out loud that he has his beloved dead child in his arms, not knowing where to go. We pass people being carried on all kind of makeshift stretchers, doors, blankets or whatever they can get their hands on to carry their loved ones to medical facilities for help.

We went up and down the main road six times today, each time more corpses appeared, some covered in sheets some just lying contorted and stiff and coated in the dust that covers the city. I wonder if their families know where they are? It is impossible to make even a wild estimate at the number of people who have died, are missing or affected by this earthquake, which measured 7.3 on the Richter scale.

In Canape Vert Park, hundreds of people are sitting on the street, in the small open space. The smell of urine and excreta is strong. As the days pass the corpses and waste will become increasingly pungent.

Supermarkets have either collapsed, been looted or are closed for fear of trapping people in collapses from the aftershocks. The only food we find for sale is some unappetising fruit that a group of women are selling on the side of the road. The cost of water has already gone up. Food and drinking water are scarce. I wonder how long we can last on the food we have at home, maybe two or three days. People are currently searching for family members or are in shock. I am concerned about the possibility of unrest related to the lack of food available in the coming days. Haiti is not exactly the breadbasket of the region.

We attend an Oxfam staff meeting, we are a small organisation yet seven people had their homes destroyed and several other homes were damaged. Haitians are heeding the advice that it is dangerous to sleep in their beds because of the aftershocks. Most people are sleeping on the street.

Teams are organised to go to different coordination meetings and collect information about the situation here in Haiti. We suggest that those members who are not coming into work this week help dig out people still alive trapped in the rubble.

We go to the WASH cluster meeting with a group of organisations who work in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene to coordinate the WASH response. In an emergency many organisations come to help so we need to work together and organise who does what and where.

Streams of people with suitcases are leaving the city to stay with friends and family in other parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The earth moves almost constantly this evening. I feel queasy. This evening is colder. Not like England in January cold, but chilly. Just before midnight a large noisy trail of people pass our house, they are worried by the rumour that a tsunami is coming and are seeking refuge higher up in the hills. Itis raining a little. Tonight Port-au-Prince is spending its second night sleeping under the stars.

A man carries an injured person along a destroyed area of Port-au-Prince on 14 January 2010. [Photo credit: REUTERS/Jorge Silva, courtesy of www.alertnet.org]

14 January 2010 – Day 3: Haiti is not known for having a good security record. We hear that all the inmates from the huge local penitentiary who were not killed by the earthquake have escaped.

Today we do a rapid appraisal of the communes where we have recently trained teams in emergency WASH (Water, sanitation and Hygiene) response. Visiting the open areas where displaced people are sleeping, the main needs we are told, not surprisingly are drinking water, food, medicines and latrines.

The WASH coordination meeting does not go as planned but in a good way. Several private water companies are offering their services to provide water to key locations in the city, which is wonderful news. These organisations will provide 80 trucks full of water. The international organisations including Oxfam need to organise storage and management of the water, which is an enormous task.

Unfortunately we also find out that our emergency stock, (the materials that we keep stored so that we came respond quickly when there´s an emergency) have become inaccessible following the quake. This is a huge setback as tomorrow we want to start distributing water. People are hungry and people are thirsty.

The most disturbing sights of today were not the piles of debris that just 2 days ago were homes and local schools. The sights that made me draw breath were the bodies. A neat row of 16 bodies carefully wrapped in sheets, the group of 20 at the Canape Vert roundabout some identified with ripped cardboard name tags, a pile with no sheet covering them, just thrown one on top of the other and the two bodies on the corner of a street, an adult motionless under a small dead child.

Today lots of people are covering their faces with scarves and face masks, they believe this will protect them from diseases spread by dead bodies. Red scarves are particularly popular. Red is believed to be the strongest colour and helps ward off disease. . It is true that dead bodies from cholera victims can spread disease, but just walking past the bodies of the ordinary healthy people that the quake has taken does not. But it is a link that people often make probably because of how traumatic it is to see the bodies.

We are told that a plane is sending emergency materials for us and it should arrive tomorrow! This is great news.

Oxfam staff set up a water bladder to distribute over 10,000 litres of water to those worst affected by the earthquake. [Photo credit: Oxfam]

15 January – Day 4: Today was spent preparing to distribute water. I visited a golf course, currently home to about 10, 000 people. There are a lot of sick and injured people sleeping out here. I was looking for an appropriate place to mount a portable water storage container (a bladder).

I am really curious about why people are walking around with thick white cream smeared under their noses. I imagine it must be something sweet smelling to counter the bad smells here. In fact it is toothpaste put there supposedly to stop them getting ill!

We are still sleeping outside and will continue to do so for a few days to come. I am not sure what I miss more, sleeping in my bed or eating cooked meals! Tomorrow we have a long but hopefully really productive day ahead of us. We will start installing the water points and distributing drinking water.

16 January – Day 5: Today we were back at the golf course, previously an exclusive area for the rich of Port au Prince, it is now home to an estimated 10 – 15, 000 people during the day and 50, 000 at night. Our mission for the day is to start distributing water.

People staying in the camps have organised committees to manage the site. There seem to be more committees than are absolutely necessary and they do not always agree on how things should be done. Unfortunately when the water distribution started there was a disagreement regarding which committee was in charge and the situation became rather heated.

Every day many people approach me asking me what can I give, what am I doing here, why am I only working in this camp when there are so many people still staying in the communities near their homes who need help? I am not God, I tell them that today we are starting with providing water here. There is a colossal amount of aid pouring into the country so I tell them that we are starting in areas with the biggest concentrations of people so that we can reach lots of people in a short space of time but that we have not forgotten them and that we are doing as much as we can.

This evening the team of Oxfam staff that we have been working with in Cap Haitien in the north of Haiti arrived at our door. We have been training them and working closely with them in emergency preparedness so that when disaster strikes they are ready to immediately respond. This was a wonderful end to the day.

While I would like to believe that the loud bangs that rang out near our house just before midnight last night were fireworks, I think that would be slightly naïve of me. Reports of pillaging are rife. This afternoon we passed 2 bodies on the road, which were left there uncared for. We were told that locals killed them as they were looting and stealing. An unofficial curfew of 10pm has been proposed

17 January – Day 6: Something that you can be sure about here is that your day will not go as you expect it to. After all the complications that we were dealing with yesterday, today we had planned a problem free day. It was an important day for us. We wanted to have the two bladders that we installed yesterday and the three that the teams prepared today full of water so that we could distribute 100, 000 litres of drinking water to people who really need it.

I arrived at the golf course at midday. The truck containing 5, 000 litres of water was filling the water storage container that we had constructed. After a quick final leak fix things were looking good, and we were ready to go. Our first recipient was a young boy looking slightly overwhelmed clutching a small white water container, which he quickly filled. Soon the people who had waited patiently in the queue were receiving fresh drinking water. It feels great when we can see our work is making an impact. I had ordered 10 more lorry loads of water to go to the sites we were working in. Our national WASH team had set up committees to manage each water point. We waited and waited for the trucks to come with the water. No one came. Drinking water is not the only scarce liquid in high demand. There is also an acute shortage of petrol. The water company was unable to come and distribute the water, of which they had plenty, because their lorries did not have enough petrol. I had to relay this hugely disappointing information to the committees and to the people waiting to receive water who took the news well considering the situation.

The number of people staying with us has risen from just the four of us on Tuesday night, to a respectable 21. Today Oxfam staff arrived from the Dominican Republic, England and Mexico. Together we will be able to achieve great things. In the meantime we have to cope with not having a functioning flushing toilet, no cooking facilities and a limited water supply. This makes entertaining at home a more creative challenge!

Tomorrow is a new day that I hope will be problem free and full of 100, 000 litres of fresh drinking water!

Donate now and find out more about Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake response