Deployment diary day 33: Saturday 20th February

Unlike yesterday - no famous visitors to report! We had some important ones at the camp, though. A team from USAID responded to our invitation to conduct a rapid assessment of our camp and its environmental impact. Bringing 20,000 people together into an informal and unstructured 'village' creates a huge number of environmental challenges. I've already highlighted the problem of lack of latrines. Toilet update: we now have about 170 with another 100 being assembled - but that's not many for such a large number of people.
What happens to the pit latrines when the rainy season comes and the ground floods - essential questions we need to consider and prepare for. I learned today that even before the earthquake Haiti did not have a single sewage processing plant. One of our partners is working to develop a solid waste bio gas project which might help. These are things I never stop to think about at home but important matters here.

The amount of rubbish generated each day has to go somewhere. The canal running through the camp is already an obvious health hazard with garbage clogging it up. But without a formal bin collection service what happens to the trash that every family produces in their 'disposable' age? As I drove my successors around today on their orientation visit to Petit Goave and Jacmel it was good to see so many teams cleaning gutters and drainage channels as part of the many 'cash for work' programmes.

We try to do something good while we are here but today's assessment was a way to help ensure that in our attempts to help people we do it without causing harm either!

In my home country there are regular complaints because we have to sort our trash into different coloured bins for collection and recycling. I wish I could bring those complainers here to see what becomes of all the plastic waste when there is no service to collect and process it. We take so many of our blessings for granted.

I have something good to report -today we had cake for dessert. Cake is reserved for special days - and this evening's meal was celebrated as special as it was my last meal with the team. Tomorrow I leave Port au Prince and start my journey home. It will take a couple of days to get there but the first step starts in just a few hours. I know it must be time to go home - my bottle of hand sanitiser ran out today and I have just one more edition of CSI New York to watch on the iPod!