Monday, December 30, 2013

Happy New Year 2014

A quick little message to wish you all a wonderful new year 2014.
May this year be a source of inspiration to us all.
May this year be the year when we'll look inside ourselves and find the wisdom.
The wisdom to look at the world with the eyes of a child and to remember to appreciate these beautiful little moments that make life so special.

Best wishes to all.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Joyeux Noël

Merry Christmas to all.

It is interesting to see Christmas lights on some of the balconies or in some bushes surrounding houses with 25*C in the shade. I'm not use to it but I have to admit that I appreciate a little break from the Canadian winter. I spent Christmas eve with a Norwegian, an American and a Canadian sitting outside only wearing a t-shirt ;-) We had a nice little dinner but we didn't party too long. Working 7 days a week, we have to adopt a fairly sober living style in order to keep up with the pace or we get burn quickly.

Few pictures from the helico on my way back to PAP (Port-Au-Prince)










Monday, December 9, 2013

Back to work

After a good break home, here I am again.
It was nice to spend time with the family, however it was starting to be too cold for me. The Haitian weather is definitely much better in the winter time. I'll get a warm Christmas for a change ;-)
I returned to Haiti on the 26th of November and was expected to go to PAP (Port-Au-Prince) on the 29th, however, due to protest by the population, the UN Security issued a restriction of movement to all personnel which means that I could not take off. Same story occurred again on the 02nd of December but I finally made it on the 06th. Again, unpacking everything and starting from scratch. That certainly keeps me busy and away from what I should be doing. I hardly believe that almost 4 months went by already (on the 19th) but I feel I didn't accomplished much yet.
I started my new job 2 days ago so I'll need few weeks to get really into it and to be able to actively participate. I am located to one of the bases in PAP and for security reasons we are strongly encourage to stay within our compound after work. That is a drastic change from what I used to live in the region. It will basically be home to base and base to home 7 days a week. At least the job seems to be interesting so that's a plus. I'll miss the contact with the locals and the local police members but if I can participate to Haiti reconstruction and stabilization through my work I'll be happy with that.
My role will be to monitor quick projects that are on-going or completed and report to the donor countries how their monies were spent in order to get more participation from these donors in the future. I'll have to liaise on a regular basis with several embassies from different countries and have a meting time to time with the biggest players and show them concretely what was accomplished. Some much money has been spent for such a long time in Haiti, donors (either governments or enterprises) from all around the globe want to see hard evidences that the Haitian cause is not just a lost cause. And I agree with that, that should have been implemented long ago.
Anyway, in my next post I'll publish few pictures taken while on the helicopter flying over the Haitian mountains on my way to PAP.