It was a close call, but SAKALA was thankfully spared the full brunt of Hurricane Melissa. Flooding damaged SAKALA’s main gate and the combination of rain and wind tore at the roof over the cafeteria.
It is too early to tell the full impact on the community of Cité Soleil that surrounds SAKALA. Many of the homes are built lower to the ground than SAKALA and are more vulnerable to flooding.
You can see the surrounding community in this CNN video as SAKALA leader and co-founder Daniel Tillias (who was named a CNN Hero in 2019) walks along a manmade canal that is just over the wall from SAKALA.
The canal was built decades ago to prevent flooding.
Instead, its concrete walls are so stuffed with trash and waste — it is maybe five meters deep — that in addition to being a public health nightmare and eyesore, it actually greatly exacerbates flooding rather than preventing it. (To add insult to injury, most of the trash actually flows down from communities higher up in the hills, so it is not even Cité Soleil’s waste. They are just stuck living with it.)
Here is a picture I took a few years ago of the trash canal just over the wall from SAKALA. The trash is burned regularly because it is the only way available to the community to keep it from becoming a mountain. So they live with the near-constant toxic smoke as well as the frequent flooding because there are not a lot of great choices.
Except, just over the wall from that is this:
SAKALA’s community garden, called Jaden Tap Tap. A place full of cooling trees and vegetables and flowers. Birds and butterflies and bees. You would never know that it used to be a dump, looking much like the burning trash canal above.
SAKALA’s children take care of the garden as it takes care of them.
If it were not for this urban garden — the largest in Haiti — the increasingly frequent and heavy rains would cause more damage and flooding than they do now.
And so some of the first people back to SAKALA after this latest storm came to tend the garden.
That includes members of SAKALA’s Job Power crew, planting moringa seedlings. (The leaves from the moringa tree are incredibly nutritious — packed with Vitamin C and protein — and the tree itself is not only beautiful but grows under incredibly tough conditions. )
Members of the community also came out to help with the garden cleanup after the flooding, yet another sign of hope that no matter the storm we can roll up our sleeves and plant for a better future.
Thank you for being a part of that hope.
Wishing you much health, happiness and peace.