After four days in Bayonnais, John Dickey and I visit AMURT, an NGO working in the Anse Rouge region of the north. Demeter Russafov is one of the principals at AMURT, working out of the Haiti office in Sources Chaudes. AMURT is a “professional volunteer NGO active in community empowerment and sustainable development programs. AMURT focuses on facilitating community development projects in the areas of health, education, environment, cooperative economics, and water resource management in close cooperation with the management committees of 50 villages.” (© 2007 amurthaiti.org)
Source Chaudes, is a community of about 15,000 people located about 2 hours north of Gonaieves. We arrive there after a nearly two-hour drive on about 30 km of National Highway 2. The name highway is misleading. It is really a nearly impassable wide rocky path. AMURT’s diesel Toyota pick-up reigned supreme suffering only one flat tire. The vehicle of choice as a bus is a Mack dump truck with people standing in the bed! Motorcycles are preferred but are more dangerous. Wrecked vehicles litter the side of the road. As we wait for one of our crew to hitch a ride back about a half a kilometer to repair the flat tire, we watch people walk back and forth past us collecting water from the only sweet source within miles. The time spent in this simple task consumes a significant portion of each day. This task is usually conducted by women or girls, and often keeps them from attending school. We sit and watch the same woman walk past us several times. Behind her are “mountains beyond mountains”, of desert scrubland. Opposite the mountains is the azure ocean. No telephone lines, electric transmission lines, or airliners pollute the view. However this also indicates isolation and a dearth of development. The area is very beautiful. It's hard to believe that there is such suffering and deprivation of simple resources.
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