June 2011

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June was a month of mixed success for Noramise. Our report to the Orcas Island Community, June 2nd, drew a small group of loyal supporters and enabled some good exchanges. However, a printing mix-up yielded no flyers to advertise the event which, when coupled with other community activities, meant many of our friends did not join us. Also, the promise of a video presentation fell through leaving Rosedanie to attempt putting something together in the wee hours. Finally, there was a reluctance on the part of the board to ask the community for contributions, knowing that so many are struggling. Lessons learned, and we carry on.

The primary focus for the rest of the month was on organizing volunteers for the July 18th trip to Limbé. Three Northwest residents, Jen Nichol, Dave Parish, and Nicole Vulcan, will join with in-country volunteer, Olivia Jeanne, in conducting an intensive three-week English as a Second Language (ESL) workshop for the Noramise Haiti Committee and other members of our Limbe’ family. Our efforts at obtaining at least three laptop computers for the workshop, and beyond, are ongoing. Both the ability to speak English and the access to computers will help to end the isolation of so many Haitians.

Rosedanie has been traveling to Seattle and Portland helping organize fund-raising events in support of the volunteers’ trip and also to sell the art of Tambour Creole. One of the goals of these travels has been to connect with other Haitians living in the area and to engage them in our mission. Each step is a building block toward an ever widening circle of community support.

We were so happy to welcome a visit to Limbé by Bill and Dorie Mebane. Bill is the superintendent of Aquaculture Engineering at the Woods Hole Institute in Massachusetts and has been providing us with assistance in moving forward on the project we are supporting in conjunction with the Masabiel Farmers’ Association. This visit resulted in specifics as to equipment and supplies needed. The HHN Center will be the location for incubator ponds for the Tilapia fry. We’ll soon be posting on the site a report from Bill including the list of what we need to take the next steps on this project. Go to: www.tedxwoodshole.org for more information.

A second welcome visitor was Patrick Cummings of World Water Partners who was in Limbé to determine suitability of water purifications units he and his organization had committed to donating to two local clinics. Sadly, he concluded that there is neither adequate power nor sufficient water pressure to accommodate these high capacity units so has instead recommended our pursuing the wider use of ceramic filters.

We are so grateful to these visitors for their time and their commitment to the people of Haiti.

“The sound of extreme poverty is an overwhelming silence, for the world’s very poor are unable to speak for themselves. They are unaware that their situation is even the subject of ongoing discussion. Their lives are so different from ours that a behavioral scientist might be tempted to ask whether we are all members of the same species. Our diets, reproductive rates and methods of transportation are entirely diverse. For the absolute poor, education is an unfamiliar abstraction. Their thoughts circle around survival, not of the human species in the future, but of the individual in the next hour. Somehow they have become passive objects of fate, awaiting the next blow: a killer cyclone, a flood, drought, or the advance of this or that army. Those who do endure will flow into cities, filling the spaces between buildings, trying somehow to stay out of harm’s way. Watching, waiting, in silence.” Jim Cousteau – Calypso Log 1992

Here is a link to a piece written by Olivia Jeanne, a research volunteer with Helping Hands Noramise. Olivia has been working with our Haiti Committee as both an observer and a helper, as you will see below. Hers is one of the wonderful connections Rosedanie has made which are gradually forming an intricate web of like-minded people who, with us, are determined to help turn the tide for the people of the Limbé region of Haiti.