17335: Allouard: Re: 17333: Raber: Re: 17324: Lemieux: LA Times: Erosion in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Philippe Allouard <allouard@libertysurf.fr>

As for butane, I remember two things:

In spring 2000, President Preval announced government will subsidize butane
price in order to keep it low... Less than one week after this encouraging
annoucement, price of the butane refill went up  something like 10 or 20
percent.

The only system at this time, (there is now another one, but it is not yet
the main one), was a bad one as the rubber joint of the butane cans is
inside the metal hole and not accessible... But it is (the rubber) usually
in very bad shape and let butane flow out even when you don't use the gaz or
turn the tap off... Supervising food and cooking in the mission I lived in,
I had to inspect carefully every can I took at the gaz station, and was
nevertheless forced to go back there to exchange one can out of four because
leaking! Even with the mission car, it was a boresome task (still 100 meters
from the kitchen to the cars...) Imagine what that means for people :
1/ not used to butane
2/ not easily suspecting a system made by "Blan" can be bad
3/ having to walk miles and miles with their refill upon the head from the
last last point the public transportation can reach
4/ having to see the refill exhausted in less than a week!

To resume the point, the equipement is too fragile AND too sophisticated as
impossible to repair without disassembling the can, (contrarily to another
system used in France where rubber joint is external and be changed by
anyone more than 5 years old).

True what you say about the living day to day...
Many people cannot even afford charcoal and collect coconut shells and
refuses...
And main part of the people could not affort the price of the refill, even
largely subsidize... People rarely buy a charcaol bag but one "ti mamit" at
a time for 15 gourdes from a "machann chabon" who did bought a full or half
a bag...