Gathering Up Team

In 103 days, on Saturday, May 12th, more than 20,000 people will gather for the 35th running of the Fifth Third River Bank Run, the largest run of its kind in the nation.

I will be there.

And, you know, I was thinking that it might be really cool if a whole bunch of my friends would meet up with me that morning in downtown Grand Rapids.  Not so much to cheer me on but to join me in raising awareness for Starfysh’s vision of transforming an island.

The event has multiple categories for folks to participate in:  25K, 10K, and 5K runs, as well as a 5K walk, and Junior events. Some people are serious runners.  Some, not so.  Lots of groups do it together as teams (school classes, businesses, clubs, teams, church groups, families) with their own unique team names.

I’m going to promote it hard and am hoping you, my friends will help me promote it in your circles.  In the very near future we’ll have a special page on our Starfysh website, as well as a Facebook event page. We'll provide all the information and tools you'll need to plug in.

For now, just mark the calendar... Saturday, May 12th and start gathering up your own team.  It has the makings of a very fun... and significant day.

Thanks all. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to start getting in shape.

The Suffering I See

I stop in at International Aid every so often, to see if they can help me with equipment or supplies or whatever.  Every time I go in there the first thing I see is this beautiful wall decor (I guess that's what you call it) on the wall behind the reception desk.  It's a simple yet beautiful depiction of sick and hurting people on their way to get help.  It reminds me so much of Haiti.  I can't tell you how many times this simple wall silhouette has taken on the dimensions of color and movement and smell.  Not to mention the awful sounds of suffering.

I am frustrated when I try to describe the suffering I see. I try hard, but when I'm done with my description, I walk away feeling like I've left people with a silhouette, some wall-decor-ish, stick-figure rendition of what it's really like. It's hard to depict mourning and tears on a stick figure drawing.

Part of me wants to be discrete and unoffensive to those who read this stuff.  I don't want to appear exploitive or voyeuristic even. I don't want to be Geraldo, some first-on-the-scene, report-it-and-boogie-to-the-next-story journalist.

On the other hand, I must journal-it.  Haiti's story needs to be told, and if, in hearing and seeing Haiti's story of mourning and suffering, people are squeamish, oh well.

A little mourning sickness might just get our attention.

Blessings,
Steve

PS  I would love to find out where we could find this wall decor to put up in our guesthouse.  If anyone knows how to go about finding it, let me know.

Superheroes Incognito

I ran across Spider-Man the other day (I didn't know superheroes lived on La Gonave!).

Over time I have trained my eye to spot them.  They don't exactly wear capes nor do they scale tall buildings.  Superheroes incognito.

Take Joseph Yves. On any given day he can be found working with village leaders in villages all over the island, teaching and encouraging them that better days could be ahead.  And, while he's a pretty humble superhero, he's a superhero, nonetheless. Because he is probably responsible for saving more lives than most anyone else around.  Consider this past year... under Met Yves' watch, some 500 family households now have a family latrine.  Significant, when you figure that fewer than 10% of households on the island have a latrine, and that cholera has already snuffed out some 7,000 lives.

Joseph Yves (on the right)... a true action hero.

Met Yves doesn't need to wear a cape or drive a batmobile to prove anything.  Real heroes don't need that stuff.  He's just plain getting it done.

If anyone runs across Joseph Yves' rookie card please let me know.  I'd love to take it off your hands.

Blessings,
Steve

Sidenote:  just today we transfered funds to Met Yves for another 100 family latrines.

Starfysh Publishes Haitian Creole Early Reader

After nearly a year of preparation, translating, and illustrating, Starfysh is excited to announce the release of our first book, An Nou Li (Let’s Read!), an early childhood reader.  Written by Stacy and Kristin Oldenburg, the book is really a compilation of four smaller books:  Kò Nou (Our Bodies), Santiman (Feelings), Kontrè (Opposites), and Bondye fè Koulè (God Made Colors). Each page is professionally illustrated with vivid pictures young Haitian children will love.  “Our vision,” says Stacy, “is not only to provide tools to Haitian teachers to help them teach reading, but to instill in Haitian children a passion for learning that will follow them for their entire lives.”  A second book, a 2nd/3rd grade level reader, is currently in the translation phase and should be out in the Fall.

From Supermarket to Tomb

And We All Cried

"The Caribbean," a large, very nice supermarket in Port-au-Prince crumbled into small pieces under the sheer power of the earthquake. I suspect many lives were lost right here.  The rubble was so massive and deep that those bodies were likely never recovered.

I climbed through the rubble pile, even up on top of it.  As I explored a bit, I ran across this ironic scene: a couple of Caribbean Supermarket job applications.  Hope met despair that January day.

And we all cried.

Two Years Ago Today

I woke up this morning thinking about Haiti.

I suppose, now, that every January 12th will be the same for me.  I'll get out my pictures and re-live the events of those days, when a quarter million people perished.

Every script I write today... when I put down the date, January 12... I think about the events of two years ago.

I conclude that this will be my annual, January 12th pilgrimmage, one day a year when I'll get out my pictures and reminisce about the great earthquake.

It has started already this morning, the reminiscing.  I've thumbed through hundreds of photos and videos taken with my teeny-weeny Canon digital camera while there in the days that followed, the vast majority which I have never shared with anyone.

I think I'll take the next few days to pass some of them along for those of you who might be interested. They're not as great as those AP photographer shots you'll see in the magazines, but they're impactful and meaningful, nonetheless.

Pictures (and a few videos) to follow...

A Solar Hospital: This is the Vision. This is the Goal.

The final architectural drawings have been completed for a sorely-needed hospital for La Gonave. It will have 44 inpatient beds, a 4-bed emergency room, and two surgery suites.  The Scottish charity, Lemon Aid, founded by my good friend and partner-in-charity, Justin Dowds, has come up with the the money for the hospital, enough to say it's a go.  We'll be breaking ground this Spring!

But let me take this one step farther.  I've been gathering some information...

I have learned that the costs of running the beastly diesel generators to provide power for the hospital is over $50,000 PER YEAR.  (The fuel alone cost $39,498 last year!).

Knowing that the cost of solar energy systems have improved over the past years, we have consulted with an electrical engineer who has vast experience with remote, third world hospitals.  And we have learned that, in fact, a SOLAR-POWERED hospital is feasible.

Friends, I have spent much time crunching the numbers and can tell you that not only is going solar feasible, it's the right thing to do.  It will move our hospital toward full sustainability, which is an important feature Starfysh looks for in considering project worthiness.  Our goal is to develop La Gonave in ways that do not require them to be indefinitely propped up from the outside.

Long story short... the up front capital investment needed for a solar energy system that will provide all the electrical needs of the hospital and take it totally "off grid":  $140,000.

May sound like alot, but consider this:  current energy needs are currently costing $50,000 per year.  So solar will pay for itself in just 3 years.  The total yearly cost of running on sun-power is $5,800 ($3,600 maintenace labor + $2,200 depreciation expense).

The pictures you see here are the behemoth diesel-guzzling, smoke-coughing, generators currently powering our hospital.  I say it's time to euthanize them.

We are developing fact-sheets for the solar project.  If anyone wants a copy let me know.  I could use help raising money for this.

A hospital powered by sunshine. This is the vision. This is the goal.

We can do this.
Steve

Who Last Held It

I was hanging out with my friend, Dede, not too long ago, just talking about different things. The conversation was all over the place, and for some reason we started talking about the very early history of the island of La Gonave.


Most folks probably don't know that Haiti was one of Christopher Columbus's stops in the New World.  The Spanish explorers of the 1500's caused all kinds of problems for Haiti's indigenous "Indians" who, if they didn't die from the smallpox that the Spanish unwittingly imported, they were captured and sent back to Europe as slaves.  Many of these Arawak Indians escaped from Hispaniola's mainland out to the island of La Gonave.  La Gonave was the last refuge for many as the native population of Hispaniola was rapidly wiped out.

I asked Dede if he knew if there existed any relics of the Arawak civilization. He said they did exist and that, in fact, he had found a few.  He showed me this one (pictured). I don't know exactly what it was but I think it must have been part of large cup or something like that. (Though for the life of me I can't think of why you would want this strange fellow creeping you out when you sip on your hot cocoa).

Just holding this shard (of whatever it was) is intensely interesting to me.  I cannot help but wonder what the person was like who made it, and who last held it.