18375: (Chamberlain) Haiti's Never-Ending Thirst (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Washington Post, 10 Feb 04)


Haiti's Never-Ending Thirst

Lack of Potable Water Is Chief Among Woes

By DeNeen L. Brown



PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- It was the end of the day and the water was almost
gone. The six faucets at this public trough were dry. Still, Noel Zilice
sat pouring what was left from bucket, to pan, to bowl. With her dirty rag,
she washed her dishes. When she was done, she dipped her hands into the
dirty water and wiped her son's face. Next she poured the water onto her
feet and legs.

Three times a day, Zilice leaves her youngest children at her house on top
of a crumbled hill in a neighborhood called Nan Siko Pwolonje to descend
into the belly of the slum to fetch water from spigots at a government
water site.

And three times a day, she fills a five-gallon tub, balances it on her head
and walks steadily and gracefully back up to her one-room house, careful
not to spill a drop. The water may not be safe to drink, but it is
precious.

She said she has no alternative to drinking tainted water, which kills
thousands of people in Haiti every year. This is her test for the daily
water: "If it is clean, nothing will happen. When the water is not clean,
my children get diarrhea."

It is a risk that millions of Haitians must take each day. Although there
has been a public campaign to teach people how to drop a small quantity of
bleach into their buckets to purify the water by chlorinating it, no one
has been able to instruct families on what to do if they have no money to
buy the bleach. So some Haitians decide on their own. "Sometimes," Zilice
said, "I use lemon."

"When we see the doctor, the doctor will say, 'Take precautions for the
water. Put Clorox so you can drink it,' " she said. But when there is no
bleach, she said her children sometimes become sick with fever. That is
when she boils the water if she can. Boiling water is a luxury for the
rich. "I don't always have money to buy charcoal or gas to boil the water,"
she said. "I know it is a risk but I have no choice."

Clean water is only one of the life-threatening problems facing Haiti, the
poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where the life expectancy is 51
years and 80 percent of people live below the poverty line. Sixty percent
of Haiti's 8 million people do not have safe drinking water, according to
the government statistics, and most do not have access to basic medical
care. Dirty water, which can cause skin ailments, dysentery and lead to
dehydration, is everywhere. The child mortality rate is about 110 per
1,000, more than 13 times the U.S. rate, and more than 10 percent of infant
deaths are attributed to dehydration, according to government statistics.
Half of adults here are illiterate. Most Haitians live in a cesspool of
poverty.

There is a rumbling political crisis in Haiti between President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and those calling for his ouster. Aristide, a former
priest in the slums, was voted into office in 1990 after decades of
dictatorial rule by the Duvalier family, whose corrupt government allowed
the advance of poverty and the progressive collapse of Haiti's
infrastructure.

Aristide was deposed by a military coup in 1991, and was escorted back to
Haiti by the U.S. military in 1994. But after being reelected president in
2000, he has been unable to raise living conditions. He does not have the
support of the Bush administration, which accuses him of corruption and a
lack of commitment to democracy.

According to a U.N. report, Haiti's social and economic conditions
deteriorated severely after the 1991 coup. "Sanitation conditions have
reached a deplorable state," the report said. "Gathering and disposal of
solid waste is very erratic, particularly in Port-au-Prince and
Cap-Haitien."

Some Haitians and human rights groups have said that a U.S.-led freeze on
international loans to Aristide's government has hurt the country's already
fragile infrastructure. A delayed package of $500 million in international
loans to Haiti included a package aimed at improving health care,
education, transportation and clean water. As a result of the delayed aid,
"Haitians' access to potable water has decreased significantly,
particularly in Port-au-Prince," said a recent report by the Haiti Action
Committee, a nonprofit advocacy group. "Infectious diseases are on the
rise, as the diminished public health care system struggles to respond.
Blocking humanitarian aide in this manner has clearly been a crime against
the people of Haiti."

In rural areas, only 25 percent of Haitians have access to clean water,
said Leslie Voltaire, government minister of Haitians living abroad. "They
go and walk two or three kilometers for a fountain," Voltaire said.
"Sometimes you see small children go at 5 in the morning to get water
before classes. If they do not walk for clean water, they die."

In another Port-au-Prince slum, Wilbert Jhon walked down a steep hill made
even more slippery by loose gravel. The local public water hole was at the
bottom of the slope, close to a river. On this afternoon, 200 people were
bathing, washing clothes and filling buckets. "The water situation is so
bad, some time people have to fight here because it is so crowded. After a
certain time, the water stops," said Jhon, 17. He said he didn't know
whether the water was clean, but drank it anyway. "This is the only source
of water my family has," he said.

Elmina Timet, 18, , was doing her best to bathe even though she was
surrounded by strangers. She used a black cup as she poured water on her
legs and ankles, and with soap, scrubbed herself beneath her clothes. She
said she had been there for nine hours, since 7 a.m. She washed clothes for
her mother, brother and three sisters, bathed after that and then prepared
to carry water home. "It is not easy," she said. "The water is too far from
my house," an hour's walk each way.

At the water company in downtown Port-au-Prince, the office was busy with
lines of people waiting with crumpled gourdes -- the Haitian currency -- to
pay taxes, but there was no one available to explain why the city has
inadequate public sewage collection and treatment and why the main water
sources are contaminated.

At the general hospital downtown, which has been virtually shut down since
doctors were ordered by the opposition to go on strike two months ago, men
were lying alone in empty corridors and blood was splattered on the walls
and floors. A doctor who had slipped in to treat patients with nowhere else
to go, said the lack of safe water makes matters worse and that typhoid is
on the rise. "They get internal parasites from drinking dirty water," the
doctor said, not giving his name for fear he would be killed by government
opponents for defying the strike. "They get every parasite you can get
through the water," the doctor said. "There is also an education problem.
People should know not to build latrines close to the water source. The
typhoid bacteria can infect the water supply from outdoor latrines."

But touring Port-au-Prince's poorest neighborhoods, it was evident that
many people have little ability to deal with the basics of hygiene. Lionel
Elie, a local resident, looked out over the hills of Haiti, where peasants
have built their houses. He points to the rivets in between. "The toilet
water runs downhill," he said. "The good water runs down the hill. The bad
water makes the good water bad," Elie said. "There are two waters, the bad
runs into the good."

After she finished her chores at the watering place, Zilice crossed the
street to buy a small bag of rice and beans to feed her children. She then
fetched her dishes, put the water tub on her head and climbed the hill.
Along the way, she saw a rooster tied with a string, old refrigerators
turned on their sides and boys playing soccer with a plastic ball.

She kept walking, near where pigs and goats stood in a ravine, and water
mixed with trash and human waste.

Her back was hurting and her neck swayed a bit, but she did not stop.

"I'm not tired," she said, licking her parched lips. "I go through this
every day."

Along the narrow, crooked path was a faded sign in Creole that read FANM
BEZWEN TI GOUT DLO POU CHANGE LAVI -- Women need a little bit of water so
life can change. The saying advertised a clean water project, including six
fountains to be built in Zilice's neighborhood between April 2003 and
January 2004. But the deadline had passed and there was still no clean
water closer to home.

She passed tiny stores lit by candles and children tugging at a drainpipe.
She did not stop to catch her breath as she proceeded up the crumbling
stone steps. The sweat dripped from beneath the rag cushioning the water
tub. After a 28-minute walk, she arrived at her house, which had no doors,
and where maroon curtains might shield some of the night air, but were no
protection from thieves. Her six youngest children gathered around her. Two
had no clothes.

Zilice said borrowed 500 gourdes, less than $20, from a loan shark to pay
someone to dig a hole for a toilet. She said some people came to the house
not long ago asking for money, promising to bring water closer. "They said,
'Give me 10 or 20 gourdes,' Zilice said. She gave them 14 gourdes, less
than 50 cents, but she said she hadn't heard anything more. "The people
lived in the neighborhood but they disappeared."

She tried to nurse her 5-month-old baby, who wore a dress but no diaper.
She shook her chest to release the milk. But the milk would not come. The
baby was thirsty.

Evening was approaching. A wall separated her house from the room of the
family next door. Sounds spilled from underneath the tin roof. Next door a
child was getting a beating. On a table by the door, sat a brown bucket of
water preserved for her children to drink until morning.