Latest Updates
Moving On
Today we share the news with you that SOIL co-founder Sarah Brownell and husband Kevin Foos officially resigned from SOIL in early January. Kevin had been struggling with malaria and dengue fever, and is now recovering slowly in New York. On a happier note, they found out they are also expecting a baby! We are laden with a conflicted heart, as we are sorry to see them go, yet excited for the next phase of their lives as a growing family. Thank you Sarah and Kevin for your commitment and partnership over the years. We wish you the best of luck in New York, and know that ...
New Project and New Employees!
SOIL has recently begun a new project in Port-au-Prince with OXFAM GB. Along with the new project have come new employees! SOIL is glad to welcome Nick Preneta and Amy Ross to the team in PAP. Be sure to check out their bios on the website, and check back soon for more information about the OXFAM project!
Breaking the Cycle of Disease by Closing the Nutrient Cycle: SOIL and the Sanitation Crisis in Port-au-Prince
Dear friends, I am sorry that I have been out of touch for the past several weeks. Every day is like a lifetime and at the end we just collapse into bed after a cold shower, and in the morning we sit up and look out at the camp spread before us and the whirlwind begins again. But most of us have managed to hold on to our sanity, tethering our minds to our work. As the weeks go by the city begins to look more familiar, the shattered buildings have become a part of my mindscape and there are moments when I barely notice them. People wind through the traffic jams and ...
Slightly Delayed Blog Entry From My Time in Port-au-Prince
Today marks the one-month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti and marks the beginning of a three day period of mourning and remembrance. The usually busy streets of Port au Prince are quiet while the churches are full of people praying and singing in unison. We spent most of the morning distributing water that we purchased to the church services going on in Cite Soleil, where aid has been slow to come. We then drove out to the municipal garbage site, where we saw human waste being mixed with medical waste and garbage. We saw puddles full of worms and used syringes ...
Jounen jèn — Days of remembrance: Letters from Port-au-Prince
Friday February 12, one month after the earthquake, the first day of Jounen jèn, the days of mourning and remembrance, and we walked through the twisted iron and dusty shards of glass of the shattered National Cathedral. As we crossed through the open door and stared down the length of the cathedral it was as though the world had ended and even the wind had disappeared into the silence of the rubble. Just blocks away, in front of the crumbling palace, thousands of people dressed in white were singing songs of grief and praise, but inside the National Cathedral, on this ...
Hope Rising from the Ashes — Letters from Port-au-Prince
Driving through the city with the sun beating down and the smoke and dust blurring my vision, I am soaked in sweat and still the goosebumps rise over my skin. It is as if the souls of those still buried under the rubble are coursing through my veins, reaching for the sun, yearning to be free. I carry them with me as I ride through this broken city, but I can’t let them out, I am so afraid that they will take me with them to a place where I will no longer be able to serve, my mind is numb but my skin is crawling with loss. This morning I returned to Mon Nazar for the ...
Fear Slows Relief Efforts in PAP
To our dear friends and supporters who have been so present through this difficult time. I feel like I have a wall of love and protection around me knowing that you are all holding Haiti in your thoughts and prayers. I apologize for not having written for the past few days, it is partly that life here is so hectic and fast paced and partly because I find that writing about the situation brings all my emotions to the surface and brings me to a vulnerable space that can be rather overwhelming. That said, I so want to be able to share with all of you what we are experie...
Phone Calls to Haiti
Dear Friends, I apologize for my silence over the last week or so. I am just too devastated to be able to write anything coherent. Kevin is recovering from malaria and is now able to spend more of a day off the couch than on it. We are trying to keep in touch and do what we can from the US. I finally got through to Haiti by phone last night for the first time. Estimable Francius Dauphin, aka Jhonny, the mayor of Borgne, reports that people from Borgne who had been living in Port au Prince are starting to return to their families in the countryside. The ...
Kouraj Cheri: Update from PAP
This afternoon, feeling helpless, we decided to take a van down to Champs de Mars (the area around the palace) to look for people needing medical care to bring to Matthew 25, the guesthouse where we are staying which has been transformed into a field hospital. Since we arrived in Port-au-Prince everyone has told us that you cannot go into the area around the palace because of violence and insecurity. I was in awe as we walked into downtown, among the flattened buildings, in the shadow of the fallen palace, amongst the swarms of displaced people there was calm and ...
Earthquake Update
Apologies if these upcoming posts seem unpolished…that is because they are…we barely have time to write and internet is patchy so I will do what I can to get out information but I don’t promise eloquence. Love to you all and know that we are safe and taking precautions. Last night we (myself, Cat Laine, Paul Namphy, Wisnel Jolissaint, Lisius Orel and Baudeler Magloire) arrived in Port-au-Prince just before sunset. As we came into the city with our truck piled full of water, gas, shovels and food we got a flat tire. The news reports of looting have been so ...