Before I start on what we have done in town and my initial thoughts and impressions, I think it will be useful to situate you all geographically and to give you some basic information about Gros Morne. The town is in the north of Haiti, as you can see from the map below. We are very close to the convergence of three rivers, which provide townspeople with water as well as a place to wash clothes, themselves and even their motorcycles. Gros Morne, or "Gwo Mòn" in Creole, means "Big Mountain". We are in somewhat of valley and there are many mountains and hills surrounding us, which you will be able to see in a future post. "Downtown" has around 30,000 inhabitants while the entire area of Gros Morne has over 150,000 people.
When I first found out that there were 30,000 people living here, I was incredibly surprised. In my mind, there is no way for so many people to be crammed in such a small area. I would not consider Gros Morne to be a large town. It is easy to walk through and it does not take more than 10 or 15 minutes to be out of town and on the road toward another village. As I walk around more and more, I am beginning to understand the population density - given the number of alley-ways and side streets, the proximity of the houses as well as the fact there are likely many people living in one house. We have seen a variety of different houses. Most are made of cement and are only one story. Almost all the houses have some kind of wall or gate around the outside. As you move away from the city center, the buildings get a little more haphazard in terms of construction materials, fence materials and the general confidence of structural stability decreases. In the Fon Ibo area, we have been to several houses. These are typically one or two room buildings made out of stone or cement. They have small dirt yards and woven reed or cactus fences surrounding the property.
Electricity is a big problem here. We are fortunate to have solar panels on top of our house, but almost no one has as many lights as we do. After night falls, the only lights in town are the solar street lamps that are spread out around the town and a handful of other lightbulbs in people’s houses. People often congregate under the street lights, socializing and cooking. Electricity is expensive and spotty at best. Some people buy or steal wires and tap into other people's electricity without paying for it. This has caused the electricity company to hesitate to expand their network because people are not paying for the electricity and they are losing money.
One of the main problems that I have noticed throughout town, (as well as in poorer and rural towns in South Africa and Malawi), is trash. Because there is no municipal trash collection, roads, rivers, back alleys, everywhere essentially, is a garbage dump. While some trash is burned, (we burn a lot of paper products and some plastic), most is just tossed outside without any second thought.
The condition of the roads is another problem that I have observed. Although there have been improvements over the past few years and some of the main roads have been or are in the process of being paved with cement, most of the roads remain dirt. Some of these dirt roads however, are more rocks than dirt and are easily washed away with the rain. It is interesting to walk around after it rains and see the huge channels that have been carved out as the water rushes through. Erosion, not only of roads, but of mountainsides and people's yards is another problem. A current problem some of the people in Gros Morne are facing is water rushing down the side of the mountain and flooding their homes and yards after heavy rains. There has been some organizing of homeowners and local farmers/gardeners who are affected by this to figure out the best intervention to prevent this from happening in the future.
In towns in the US, we are used to having the streets lined with different shops and restaurants or bars that one can go in and out of. Here in Gros Morne, while there are several small shops and a restaurant/bar or two, most of the buying and selling is done directly on the street. Mostly woman and children will set up stalls along the streets to sell clothes, food, books, backpacks, etc. There is a designated market area with market days where vendors crowd together to sell all kinds of goods. We went to the market the first Friday we were here and it was incredibly interesting, but overwhelming. You had to wind through tiny pathways between vendors who were selling everything from avocados, tomatoes, and okra to unmarked pills, piles of shoes, soaps and questionable looking meat products. All of the produce and basic staples, (rice, corn, etc), that we eat here comes from this market, but other groceries like milk and canned foods come from occasional trips to Port-au-Prince.
It has been interesting to walk around and see more and more of the town. It is so different than any other town I have been in and I am really looking forward to not only figuring out how to get to more than two or three places, but also seeing more beyond the main streets. I don't have very many pictures, and the ones that I do have do not really do it justice. If I have the chance, I will take more photos and post them at a later date, but right now, these will have to do.
This is a good overview of the town. You can see the pale green strip which is one of the rivers. The large blue building in the lower right corner is the local public high school.
I originally wanted this picture to be of the bird, but after I went through my photos, I realized that this was one of the only pictures I have of houses. Although it is still not an ideal photo, you can get an idea of the construction materials, the proximity, etc.
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