Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
This One Square Mile in Haiti Can Turn Haiti Around
Alain Armand
Xaragua Management, LLC
Managing Director
www.thehaitian.com
@thehaitian
www.linkedin.com/in/thehaitian
US: 954-903-7873
HAITI: 011-509-3600-2640
HAITI: 011-509-3424-1090
SKYPE ID: xaraguacapital
Monday, April 26, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Next Haitian Revolution Has Been Cancelled. You can all go home.
While Haiti might be responsible for one of the most far reaching revolution of ideas in 1804, it missed out on both the industrial and information revolutions. Fortunately, leapfrogging by implementing those ideas now is easier than ever. Why isn't Haiti doing it?
Both the industrial and, more recently, the information revolution had as its engine the availability and creation of energy to drive innovation and productivity. This is basic history.
Haiti is now in the grips of gas shortage that is strangling the economy. Meetings are being cancelled, programs are being pushed back, business's are losing inventory that require fuel for generators to keep them cool. The people of Haiti are so used to managing misery, we call it "jere mise" in creole, that this may be considered just something else to handle. That’s probably why the people are not in the streets protesting. The truth is the gas shortage hurts. Getting a tap tap to get to work is expensive. Lack of fuel means fewer are on the road. I stayed w/ a friend who lives walking distance to my morning destination to save the money of tap tap and insure use of my feet as transportation. Gas stations, which are primary distributors of propane, aren't receiving propane because the trucks run on diesel/gas. That means more demand for charcoal made from Haiti's trees--a dwindling resource.
We have neither steam power, coal power, or oxen enough to support the energy needs of the Haitian economy, now or in the future. It would seem that Haiti's energy policy to deal with these problems is non-existent. The official government report for reconstruction, The Haiti Action Plan, found here http://www.haiticonference.org/Haiti_Action_Plan_ENG.pdf, literally has the word "energy" in it only five times in 55 pages (not to mention internet just once). Two of those times it appears in parentheses. The plan specifically notes that buying fossil fuel and importing energy from the Dominican Republic will be expensive and we need to consider that in building out the grid. That is, that’s where they will get the energy Haiti needs to be productive!! Yet the action plan set out by the government of Haiti does nothing to address this systemic problem. It concedes the point that Haiti will forever be an energy importer when there is no reason for her to be.
Where are all the Haitian engineers? I went to a conference organized by the Haitian League in Hollywood, FL last August. I sat in a session in which a slew of Haitian-American, big corporation engineers explained all the various ways Haiti can have cheap, domestically produced power. The talked about hyrdo-electric, ocean heat pumps, geo thermal, coal which Haiti has in abundance. Domestic energy means not sending US$200 million a year of badly needed funds overseas. That means Haiti becoming and incubator for green and alternative energy technology. That means Haiti becomes a key player in the coming energy revolution as it was a leader in the freedom revolution.
Where are the Haitian-American lobbyists in Washington, DC insisting that first and foremost, Haiti should have green and/or domestically produced energy? No reasonable leader can envision the future of Haiti without a secure, locally produced, source of energy. Right now, on the street, gas is being sold on the black market at elevated rates. There are rumors of large private reservoirs being built for fuel to be sold when shortages arise. Certain people will profit. Haiti's people will suffer.
Where are the demands for country-wide information infrastructure like universal wifi and fiber optic lines and the energy to support it to help people get in on the global economy and have a voice? A reconstruction without a successful local energy generation program will be a failure for people of Haiti and a success for fuel arbitragers in Haiti. Haitians can do revolution. She needs one now.
Alain ArmandXaragua Management, LLC
Managing Director
www.thehaitian.com
@thehaitian
Mom goes home to #Haiti to see what's left (A private letter to her aunt)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Margaret Mitchell Armand <margaretarmand@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Subject: Carrefour feuille actually
To: Maman Mondesir
Dear tante Tètè.It took time to send you those photos. The first one is the gate facing the house of Manninnin (Grandma). You can see on top that my father's house no longer exist.Then you can see me on that floor after I climb the rubbles and I am holding 2 pieces of bricks that were my bedroom and the living room. I took those pieces with me to the U.S. as a final reminder of a time gone.When you continue to look at the photo you will see the HUGE almond tree that was planted by my grandmother when I was a little girl still standing tall as a reminder that we are still alive and as a recorder of our past lives.You can see a car, someone in the neighborhood parked a car there after some removal of debris.There were some dead people under the rubble, the children of Ti Lamè, Tante Lucienne's family that could not be removed and I still I could smell the dead bodies. Unfortunately, noone came to help anybody in Carrefour Feuille and the disaster is still obvious and the Haitians were left alone to fend for themselves until the time I was there in the beginning of April.This is a sad memory, it is the end. But I hope that it is a new beginning for Haiti and we are the witness and the bearer of those times.Love you tante Tètè, you were and are the only one always talking, explaining and keeping alive the story and the hope for our native land, please keep the faith because we need you to give us hope.I have cried so many nights after I saw those scenes, I cried for Manninnin that is my grandmother and my godmother, for my father, for all of us. But in the ashes the phoenix is reborn.Love you tante Tètè,
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Haiti Made Me Do It
Sunday, April 11, 2010
A wasted opportunity for enviromental groups in #Haiti
Right now, in camps spread across Port-Au-Prince, NGO's are providing services to people displaced by the January 12th earthquake. Food is being distributed, health care provided, even schools are poping up in the camps. US Navy Seebies, the engineers of the Navy, alongside JP Haiti Relief Org., Sean Penn's upstart and potent NGO, are running around in a controlled frenzy building infrastructure to protect against flooding and landslides in the camp at Petion-Ville Club. They are trying to beat the coming rains and have built roads, walkways, retention walls, and have even moved people out of would be death pools (places where the water coming down the mountain would rush and eventually collect).
I could not help but notice how the people in the camps were still using the charcoal made from the few trees left in Haiti to cook their meals. You have got 70,000 people in one place feeding themselves everyday and cooking with the single most disasterous fuel for Haiti and her enviroment. Some group should come and educate this captive market about why this is bad. Give away grills and ovens that use gas. Give small gas containers away that can be refilled on a daily basis that are inexpensive to refill and are easily portable. Haiti without it trees is hopeless. Somebody tell somebody to get here and use this opportunity.
Alain Armand
Haiti Mental Games - How Do You Get Item in First Pic into Second Pic w/out importing?
Believe it or not, the item in first picture is imported mango juice in Haiti. In the second pic are mangos that will sell for $.10 each in #haiti. I suppose in decades of mango production in Haiti no one decided to transform mangos into the higher value product shown in the picture.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Economics of a Tap Tap driver in #haiti
This snapshot is for an owner operated tap tap. Taptap's are local buses in Haiti. Many are rented by driver on a daily basis whcih would reduce revenue.
$100 daily operating revenue.
$30 Fuel for the day.
$5 Meals
$65 Net revenue w/out considering an escrow for repairs, loan service (if applicable), taxes and maintenance.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Kinko's in #Haiti
This would be the street version. There are other's that you might say are better organized. This is the street version.
Effects of lack of stable power in #haiti
These pics show a juice vendor throwing away his stock after power outages spoiled them. This is why we need locally produced steady affordable and green power. Rue Capois 9:35AM 4/6/2010
TapTap Teamwork in #Haiti Part 2
This is the tap tap I'm in right now. These are the passengers getting out to push when it stalled out. Gotta love the teamwork.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
#Haiti's Declaration of Independence
[Declaration of Independence, Hayti, 1 January 1804]
Liberty or Death.
==============================
Indigenous[1] Army.
------------------------------------------------
TODAY the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred four, the General in Chief of the Indigenous army, accompanied by the Generals, Chiefs of the army, convened in order to take measures that are to extend happiness to the country.
After having made acquainted the assembled Generals, his true intentions, guarantee forever to the Indigenous people of Hayti, a stable Government, object of his deepest concern; which he’s made in a speech to make known to the Foreign Powers, the resolution to pronounce the country independent, and to treasure a freedom consecrated with the blood of the people of this island; and after having received their opinion, requested that each of the assembled generals take the oath of never to give up to France, to die rather than live under its domination, and to fight until the last breath for independence.
(2)
The Generals, imbued with these sacred principles, after having unanimously committed to the well-defined project of independence, all swear to posterity, to the entire world, never to give up to France, and to rather die than to live under its domination.
Made in Gonaïves, this 1st. January 1804 and the 1st. day of the independence of Hayti.
Signed, DESSALINES, General in chief[2]; Christophe, Pétion, Clervaux, Geffrard, Vernet, Gabart, Division Commanders; P. Romain, E. Gerin, F. Capoix, Daut, Jean-Louis-Francois, Ferou, Cangé, L. Bazelais, Magloire Ambroise, J. Jques. Herne, Toussaint Brave, Yayou, Brigadier Generals; Bonnet, F. Papalier, Morelly, Chevalier, Marion, Assistant-Generals[3]; Magny, Roux, Chiefs of Brigadier; Chareron, B. Loret, Quené, Makajoux, Dupuy, Carbonne, Diaquoi aîné, Raphaël, Malot, Derenoncourt, Officers of the army, and Boisrond Tonnerre, Secretary.
_____________________________
Translated from French to English by: Figaro Joseph
April 1, 2010, Denver, Colorado, USA
[1] The term ‘Native’ can also be used. The authors of the document were referring to Black and mulato Haytians.
[2] The French “General en chef” can also be translated as Commander in Chief.
[3] The French version of “Adjudans-Generaux” could be translated to Warrant Officers, which is an unlikely term that they would use or task they would have given the context.