Audacity of Soap

Moving On

2011-03-31T15:26:00.003-05:00

I have decided to resume blogging but will move on from The Audacity of Soap to (keeping the Obama soap theme) Dreams of My Lather.

Following my time in Haiti last year I realised that this was the sort of work I really wanted to do so I have left Oxford University and am now self-employed providing financial management and training to International NGOs and charities.

Please keep reading about adventures in Afghanistan on www.dreamsofmylather.blogspot.com

Day 35 Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

2010-04-22T09:13:00.000-05:00

Sorry about no Day 34: almost nothing to say.

Life is returning to normal here: the tired, poor and huddled masses are heading home, patiently, in turn. My 3 hour wait on Saturday Morning has made the difference and I am going home tonight. There will still be people returning next week.

So is this where it ends? In the reasonable room of a reasonable hotel near Newark-Liberty (NY) Airport?

Maybe.

But I'll just carry on for now.

So highlights of the past 5 weeks:

1. I guess making a go of it in Haiti. Not completely unexpectedly there was a lot of activity, but insufficient planning. So helping to complete the process of putting in the controls and the reporting and the training of the two frontline response offices that in Jacmel and Croix des Bouquets was a proper achievement. I guess it didn't really take that long to work out the problem and my part in the solution. The real time was taken in drawing up the procedures and the templates and the training course.

2. Professionally speaking I have had to do a lot of thinking about how financial controls operate in a very vulnerable environment. The trickiest part is to balance controls and effectiveness and to work out how to make good controls work quickly. And also how not to overlay so many controls that no-one feels responsible.

3. Meeting and working with some really kind, helpful and open people. People who look at the needs of the homeless and vulnerable children and put them over their own professional and personal convenience. Everyone just got stuck in and tried to make things happen: no real evidence of a silo mentality, lots of evidence of people working flat out to make a real difference.

I can't deny that these last few days in New York have been enjoyable too. I hoped to have a very short stopover in both directions but managed to make a serious dint into New York. A few more days and I might even have visited a museum or too (work better not read this)

I am returning much happier and more satisfied than I expected. I enjoyed being in Haiti despite the curfew, and the threat of kidnapping, and not being able to walk, and having to lock doors inside cars, and having to carry a whistle in case of an earthquake. With the bit of liberty I had - swimming in the sea at Jacmel, eating out in Port-au-Prince and visiting friends - I was satisfied. I think more than a month of sharing a house would drive me a bit nuts, so having 4 weeks and knowing it would definitely end was very good.

So now I am looking forward to going home, sleeping and being back with loved ones of all sizes.

Day 33 Socks and the City

2010-04-20T23:42:00.002-05:00

Finally, finally, finally did the New York tourist bit properly. Out for 12 hours and visited the UN, with an exhibition on malaria, Statten Island ferry, Wall St, World Trade Centre, china town, Greenwich Village, Empire State Building, followed by an evening bus tour and some present shopping

So tired, foot-achingly, sock-quenchingly tired. I get back at midnight to find that flights may indeed be on. I will try not to be too hopeful after more or less accepting that the chances of leaving on Thursday are low.

Day 32 The Audacity of Hope on the Ropes

2010-04-19T22:35:00.004-05:00

Spending 4 weeks in Haiti and not being allowed to walk anywhere for fear of being kidnapped is not the best preparation for spending yesterday walking round Manhattan. I don't think I have ever been as unfit.

So today has been a very quiet day fuelled by an extremely large late breakfast (3 large pancakes with dubious 'Heinz Pancake Syrup' (it has a picture of a maple leaf, but no maple in the title and no maple in the ingredients); 2 fried eggs; two sausages and coffee followed by an extremely large dinner. In between I did my laundry. I have never been in a hotel with its own coin-op laundrette, laundromat indeed. However it gave me the perfect opprtunity to read my guide book through cover to cover. So I have some inspiration for tomorrow.

I also made my first calls on Skype - hooray a technological first my account name is christopher.paul.fyfe if you are on it too.

Otherwise that was it. Move on folks, nothing to see here, nothing to see or hear.

Leaving here is a bit of a lottery. Or maybe roulette is a better comparison. If flights resume before or on Thursday I will be fine. If I can't leave on Thursday it means going back to the end of the ever increasing queue. Most people are still facing 10 day delays. I still have the occasional glimmers of mere audacity to occasionally hope that I will be leaving on Thursday, but the hope is looking a bit groggy and is falling onto the ropes. I don't really expect it, but don't have a clue what to do if it falls through.

I am generally not thinking about it, it is such a waste of mental energy. So forgive me for putting it in a diary. I guess diaries are for being more reflective, that's fine but it can make me appear more absorbed than I am.

Day 31 The Accidental Tourist

2010-04-18T22:14:00.004-05:00

After a morning remarkable only for my remarkable indecision I headed into New York in the late afternoon. This invoved getting the hotel bus to Newark Airport and then getting a coach to New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Being an accidental tourist I had no map, no guide book and no idea where anything was. I am probably the only person left over 25 who has never been to New York (if you don't count the suitcase hunt on Day 2) and really didn't have a clue. My plan, if such lack of planning could be called a plan, was just to wander around, then try to find a book shop to buy a guide book and a novel, then go and have a pizza and a beer and read the guide book.

Are there any bookshops in New York? It's a great place to buy headsets and microphones for laptops, which I did, so I can now use skype: it's also a great place to buy a replacement Swatch watchstrap that got soft, melted and eventually broke in the heat of Haiti. I wandered through Times Square, up 5th Avenue, through most of Central Park, down Broadway, through Little Korea and did not see a single bookshop. After 4 hours of an otherwise enjoyable walk in a very large circle I decided that the headset and watch strap were enough of an achievement, I should just return to base and I should be happy with that. Then I stumbled upon Border's outside Madison Square Gardens.

I bought a Lonely Planet guide and a novel: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin rather inevitably. And I then had pizza and a rolling rock (which I've not seen in Britain for years)

Thanks along the way must go to Geoff who works in Air Traffic Control at Prestwick and has promised to keep me updated if anything improves. It is really kind as I really don't want to pour over News bulletins or join in the collective huffing and tutting and speculation. Yes it is damn inconvenient, but after the last few weeks in Haiti where hundreds of thousands of people lost the little they had, it really isn't worth getting too stressed about an accidental holiday in New York.

Day 30 New Jersies

2010-04-17T19:35:00.003-05:00

Well this diary is about to fly off its expected course. This should have been the last entry, but I am going to be here for a bit longer. Although I expect that being one of thousands stranded in the wrong side of the Atlantic is not that big a deal.

I was shockingly tired last night. I was far too cold so switched the air conditioning off, it then got colder: I was too tired to realise that the AC was heating the room.

In the morning I went to see if my flight was still running. It wasn't cancelled yet. I then stumbled round looking for clothes, having my first bath in ages and brushing my teeth in tap water for the first time in a month. By the time I had done all this my flight was cancelled.

I tried various numbers for the airline, Continental, before heading to a 3-hour queue at the airport to get my flight changed. If I had known it was 3-hours I might have made more of an effort to eat breakfast. The queue was hellish, 3 of the 10 desks were staffed and, of course, everyone had complex needs. My needs were simple. When could I next get a flight to Britain? Once I knew that I could make a decision on what to do.

Lucklily as a solo traveller/ exotic adventurer / Johnny No Mates I was easy to place. The rumours in the queue had me expecting to wait 10 days. Others were seriously considering flying to Madrid or Lisbon and making their own way back to the UK. However I was offered a flight back this Thursday via Zurich, yes, Zurich. Now ash clouds may rule this out, but I think this might work.

It is a short enough wait for me to enjoy this break, and it is also too short to consider going back to Haiti. Although I will still help with the real time evaluation, which I can do over the phone.

I have of course not planned or dressed for the USA in spring. So after a very nice Jumbulaya in a Louisianan restaurant in Hoboken, New Jersey, recommended by Marion (who took me through Brooklyn back in Day 2) I headed for a clothes shop to get some pyjamas, tops and 2 new jersies.

Day 29 In Transit

2010-04-16T21:50:00.003-05:00

It's a bit like the opening scenes of Casablanca here. Stranded refugees from all corners of the globe staring at the sky, wondering if they can get a flight to Lisbon (or indeed Rome and Barcelona) and make their way home overland from there.

I am in New Jersey, back in Sopranos country. Nothing has actually gone wrong yet but I have no certainty of what tomorrow will bring. If my flight is on I will be back home on Sunday morning and very pleased. If it is off, all sorts of nightmares can unfold. Whilst queuing to ask about my flight I met a woman who was due to fly to Manchester tomorrow, who has been offered the alternative of a flight to Rome on Monday week. Which is ludicrous. I can hope that my flight might be diverted to Glasgow (way hay as they say) or I could look at going back to Haiti (i) if they can use me and (ii) if the University doesn't object too much. But as the alternative might be sitting in New York burning up hotel bills (did I tell you that the hotels are full?) not doing any work, I may not have much choice. Maybe I should call my uncle in Los Angeles!

I last wrote in Port-au-Prince having dashed around all day to various Cash for Work sites. This morning I finalised my report, copied all my files over so that my temporary employer owned the intellectual property (ie they own what I made) and then hurried off to the airport. Back in day three I told you what a nightmare the airport was on arrival. Today was the complete opposite - the journey to the airport was fraught and very slow. But I got through the airport very quickly. The departure terminal was still intact and I got to eat and have a last bottle of the fine Haitian beer called Prestige. Indeed the whole process was so quick that I had time for lots if I wanted, but I was more sensible than that. But only with a bit of will power.

The 4 hour flight was slow, I had nothing to read and the iPod was under-charged. I slept a bit and just fidgeted. I then arrived at JFK airport in New York and spent ages going through various checks. Before heading out in the pissing rain to the shuttle bus from JFK to Newark where my plane may leave from tomorrow.

This hotel is much nicer than the hotel I had on the way out, I rarely feel comfortable in American hotels: all dark wood and brown curtains and things not quite working the way they ought to or promise to. Not that the rooms are any better today, but the bar/restaurant was relaxed, people were friendly, there is a shop selling an odd mixture of gifts and the odds and ends a traveller might need: razors, ties, glasses repair kit. It feels relaxing, the sort of place where someone might forget a razor or drop their glasses or ladder their tights and just get on with it.

Tomorrow I will not know if my flight is on until mid-afternoon. With a bit of energy I can get into manhattan and try to squeeze in the sights before I hope to return. But I expect that I may be here for a bit longer.

Day 28 Closing Balance

2010-04-15T17:56:00.004-05:00

It's my last night in Haiti and I have been running up and down to Croix des Bouquets, doing more training and finally, finally getting to see some project work. The work was the essential but less than glamourous job of clearing drains and canals of rubbish and debris, and using rubble from collapsed houses to mend very large potholes in roads.

The rains are beginning to arrive, but the actual rainy season serious rains are not with us yet. So clearing canals to allow rainwater to run off is very important. Fixing roads is also important because potholes will very quickly become large ponds of muddy, stagnant water that will be excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes carrying malaria and dengue fever. And, as is obvious when you consider it, canals with flowing water are more hygienic that overflowing canals or stagnant canals.

I have begun to pack and am writing my final report. Looking back I see that I have done more than I realised. So it was very positive writing the report, and it was making me feel cheerful. I can also use the opportunity to say what I think needs to change at the centre, whereas my work here has been tactical given the constraints of organisational policy.

So my packing has started, although I am glad I didn't finish as I received a large beaten metal Angel as a thank you present, which will just about fit in my suitcase. It is a traditional Haitian artisan style.

I set up my skype account yesterday christopher.paul.fyfe but as I don't have a microphone, never mind earphones or a webcam it is not much use. But having spent £50 wishing Max happy birthday on an international mobile call, I need to be better prepared!

I fly tomorrow to New York and hope, yes, hope to fly to Birmingham on Saturday night. But reading the news that all flights to the UK are suspended due to the volcano in Iceland did make my heart sink. First of all, I don't expect my flight to be delayed, but it will be crowded again. I was looking forward to an aisle seat and a long sleep. I'll probably be stuck in a middle seat with neither a view nor the ability to stretch my legs. Sorry to be a whinger!

But I am so looking forward to going home again. I really don't want to countenance any delay. So I'll cross my fingers. I'll need to check flight details just in case. Wish me luck

Day 27 In Formation

2010-04-14T18:48:00.004-05:00

Collins College French Dictionary

Formation n. fem. Training

So I have been training today. I think my procedures have been agreed. And I enjoyed it. I was training two members of the Finance team in Port-au-Prince whose jobs will we transferred to Jacmel and Croix des Bouquets. The man going to Jacmel is from there and keen to return, however the woman going to Croix des Bouquets seemed more reluctant, even though it is not as far.

This was a real test of my French and their English. I think we got through it and by the end both seemed quite pleased. I will do some more tomorrow - my last full day at work. I will go to Croix des Bouquets tomorrow for the training and I hope to look at Cash for Work projects at last.

It is funny in all this time I have not seen any of the projects. Generally when you are doing support work like finance you need to find a way to squeeze in a project in some pretext. Cash for Work is my pretext, but it is complicated because the teams get paid to work on a two weeks on/two weeks off basis. And then they get paid on the following Thursday. More patience than I would have! So it is not obvious when I should do a visit to examine financial controls in the short time I have. So I may get something done tomorrow, but I wouldn't bet on it.

There is also going to be something called in the lingo a Real Time Evaluation next week - when I am back working for the University. This is where a team of disaster response specialists do a quick and highly structured review of the response as it happens. This is more useful than the usual evaluation role of going through the battlefield to kill off the wounded. It is the sort of work I really like doing. However I will have to give them information by email rather than speak to them directly.

The best part of the day was being able to speak to Max and say Happy Birthday to him on the phone. I also spoke to Catriona but it was too late to speak to Jacob. I also realised that I need to get skype if I ever do this again.

Happy Birthday Max!

2010-04-13T23:02:00.002-05:00

3 Today!!! Hope you have a very, very happy birthday

lots of love from Daddy xxx

I'll be home soon

Day 26 Thinking Allowed

2010-04-13T19:09:00.008-05:00

It's beginning to come to the end, I can tell: I need a haircut (and a shave, but that's only today). I spent today at home writing a financial training course and beginning to draft my final report. It is good to sit back and think aloud, look back and remember to separate the immediate and tactical from the long-term and best practice.

NGOs always have to make a difficult choice between operational efficiency and appropriate controls. I am sure every organisation makes these choices, but with the consequences of making the wrong decision being life or death, shelter or storm, the stakes are very high.

I have had a few complex, but amicable, discussions with my colleagues here on this. Most NGOs tend to prioritise delivery - especially in critical emergencies - and take more risks on controls. As long as it is not reckless, this is usually the right thing to do and you can tighten up when order has stabilised. This can quite often be simple decisions like when to get more than one quote for buying materials. If you visit more suppliers you will get the best price and you can cut down the opportunity for the supplier to give a backhander, or indeed the opportunity for your own employee to ask for one. However driving around looking for prices and then comparing quotes can lose a day in the crowded roads of Port-au-Prince. So the project gets delayed by a day to save a small percentage - so the choices are real.

Unusually for a NGO, my current organisation is much more on the control side. This happens across the world, the controls feel more like those of a commercial operation that wants to keep a tight reign on spending. It probably works well normally in a country like Haiti - currently 168th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). And if your normal operations are making regular payments to people who run schools and mobile immunisations clinics it is probably okay. But for a fast-moving, ever-changing emergency response then it can be too cumbersome.

So I have been reflecting on this today. I can't change an international organisation's financial policy. So I will give them the benefit of my experience and make it work as well as possible within their rules. I also respect where they are coming from, they raise a lot of money from hundreds of thousands of people across the world and so feel the responsibility towards these people very keenly.

Comments free for all now I hope

2010-04-12T20:59:00.003-05:00

I didn't realise until now that the blog restricted comments to registered users. Apologies if you wanted to say something. I have now realised the problem and, I think, worked out a way for anyone to make a comment.

As long as I don't get too many comments from sellers of wonder drugs or from the Central Bank of Nigeria wanting my bank account details, I will continue with this. Let me know if it works.

Day 25 Il n'est jamais tard pour faire le bien

2010-04-12T20:10:00.002-05:00

For those who stared out the window in French class this means It is never too late to do good. Click the title to watch a video from my former employer, Oxfam, and you will see how poignant that sentence is.

It seems terribly unfair on my current employer to highlight my previous employer, whilst keeping them anonymous. I guess I want to speak relatively freely and if I publicised my current employer I would feel obliged to be more circumspect about the issues that arise. They are very good people and a great team of people who get on together better than I have seen any other NGO. It is also a truely international house with colleagues from Pakistan, Ecuador, Benin, Australia, Ireland, Indonesia, USA and Albania. I have had to be circumspect over one or two issues, but I'll tell you over a pint.

It is now raining more. Which is really bad news: water on the roads, drainage canals filling up and rivers rising. A lot of work is being done to clear drains and rubble. A lot of rubble seems to have ended up in drains - it appears that they have open drains by the roadside in Port-au-Prince, with little concrete footbridges to get to the houses and shops. I can't say exactly as I am not allowed to walk anywhere because of tight security and curfew. Well the mosquitoes are thriving. It is looking grim. A lot of work is taking place to relocate camps, there is a lot of controversy that I don't quite understand. But the relocation seems to be motivated by a mixture of looking for more hygienic locations, but also a strong suspicion that the weak Haitian Government won't/can't challenge the 10 or so families who own Haiti and most of the land. Apparently they are unwilling to have their land appropriated for shelters which may be around for years to come and may end up being replaced by semi-permanent constructions.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10144437.htm

The weekend didn't work out well for me and I felt lousy this morning. By about 3.00 a Doctor colleague suggested that I ought to go home. Half an hour later I went home and slept on the terrace of the house for thre hours with the fan on. The house is lovely and a terrace to myself for three hours was just what I needed. Followed by a long glass of cold, clean water and lots of rice.

I am now wide awake at 8.30pm, which only sounds odd given that I normally wake up before 6am. The tent gets hot once the sun is out so I get up early and go to bed early. In fact, of course, the whole country gets hot early. And being near the equator it gets dark very quickly after 6pm.

You can hear this in the language. People say Bon Soir (French) or Bonswa (Creole) in the afternoon as well as the evening - (do I need to explain that Bon Soir means good evening in French?) So people don't really distinguish between afternoons and evenings, they merge into one before the night arrives very quickly. Actually similar to the Spanish Buenas Tardes which means Good Evening and Good Afternoon.

Day 24 Thunder and Lightning

2010-04-12T08:14:00.000-05:00

It has started to rain more. Today was the first cool day I have experienced here. The rain falls about 8ish at night and seems to last about an hour or two. It starts as a proper tropical downpour before petering out into normal rain. Tonight we had the first thuderstorms too.

Our house has been declared fit to sleep in, so we can sleep indoors. However there are now more of us than available beds. So I am sleeping in the tent still. My children's tent which I have been borrowing has stood up to all the tropical rains that Haiti can through at it. There have been some strange odd orangey stains on the top, that took me a while to work out: Mango stains! My tent is pitched under a Mango tree and the heavy rain seems to be causing a run of mango juice. Now I could be very wrong.

Today was another quiet Sunday. I woke up late after going out last night. I did a lot of sleeping and reading before going out for a meal. I had red snapper: a meaty fish common in the Caribbean and very tasty.

So, I actually began to feel cold and for the first time since arriving I had a hot shower. I have been having three cold showers a day - in the morning, getting back from work and just before bed. So having a hot shower was a big change. I would like to think that I am acclimatising, but I expect it is more the coolness under the gathering clouds as the hurricane season is about to arrive.

This is supposedly an El Nino year: the 7 year cycle of unusual weather (at this point the more I write, the more I'll have to make it up on the spot). So anyway every 7 years the weather in the Pacific suddenly changes, some parts of the world get droughts and others get floods. Neither is any good of course. The people of Haiti, especially those still sleeping under tarpaulin and bed sheets will bear the brunt of it. Progress is being made but the size of the problem is so overwhelming. Monday is the three-month anniversary of the earthquake: the tragedy is still with us.

Day 23 The City Shakes

2010-04-10T16:27:00.000-05:00

No, not an earthquake, not an apres-choc (what happens to your teeth after 3 Mars bars?), not a riot, not a food distribution. Barcelona scores. The whole town seem to be watching Real Madrid - Barcelona and both Barcelona goals have been met by shouts heard in every direction.

Football seems to be the sport here. Haiti qualified for the World Cup in 1974: they must regard Scotland as a footballing superpower. However they won the Caribbean cup 3 years ago so they are definitely a regional power, which is more than we can say for Scotland. Given that the national stadium, La Stade Sylvio Cator, has both collapsed and been occupied with tents, I presume that an immediate return to regional footballing success is not on the cards.

View Larger Map

You'll need to click on the pointer in this map to see a photo of the stadium post earthquake and tented.

Yesterday afternoon we celebrated the tents arriving (the ones on Brad Pitt's barge if your remember). This was commemorated in a not totally unexpected manner. First an attempt to reverse the lorry carrying the tents (from the barge in Jacmel to our office in Croix des Bouquets) across a crossroad in a busy market through the front gate causing utter chaos in the early evening traffic. Next wait 15 minutes as all the male employees realise that they are about to be roped into unloading a lorry and drive off to 'urgent appointments' causing more traffic jams as the traffic backed up by the lorry is then blocked by a string of our pick-up trucks trying to squeeze into the gap. Next round up 6 men from the market and haggle with them for half an hour over whether they should be paid US$8 or US$6 for unloading a lorry, whilst the remaining staff decide it is unsafe, and probably illegal, to enter the lorry. Finally watch 6 exhausted men sweat buckets unloading a lorry load of giant tents. These tents are classroom tents. They are huge and heavy and take 4 people to carry them.

Finally put the financial procedures to bed. I made all my recommendations, cleverly argued, examples cited, advantages explained. The response was fantastic - we can't do that, that's not alllowed, there's a better way in the manual, just do it this way. Oh well the joys of being a consultant - you really don't get a say in the end. So what they wanted I will do, and I will help them get it right and work out how to deal with the possible consequences. And of course they will get some fantastically pretty spreadsheets that do magic things like compare the previous week's cash book to next week's cash needs and flashes when the cash is about to run low. (Ok I made that up, nearly)

Oh and a very large PS - Congratulations to Sian for 2nd place in the Hippocrates Poetry Prize. Can't find a better link than this http://twitter.com/HippoetPrize. Now that is the magic of the internet (and mobile phones) I would have had to wait for weeks to have found this out in the pen-and-paper age. Well done!!!

Day 22 Forty Times Shy

2010-04-09T17:40:00.000-05:00

View My Haiti in a larger map

Went to bed early last night in Croix des Bouquets, was woken at midnight by someone telling me I was sleeping in their tent! So moved to another tent. But was very glad as new tent was cleaner and drier. But despite the interruption I slept well and wasn't too tents.

I headed off in the morning through the countryside to the rural town of Gevachier. This was pleasant agricultural country - flat lands and gentle hills wedged between the mountains and lakes. My missions was to check out a few potential depots and examine a store before the new stock officer starts next week.

As the office in Croix des Bouquets is unusable after the earthquake - they are working in tents - finding a new office and depot is vital. A lot of equipment has started to arrive from the barge, so the need to find storage for containers is beyond critical. We are storing some in the grounds of an orphanage - the grounds are massive in case you are concerned about the children being squeezed out. The current storeroom was a bit disorganised and needs sorting if the stocks are to be controlled and protected, either from pilfering or damage.

Haiti doesn't often look like the Caribbean to me. All the buildings are concrete, whereas I would expect more wooden buildings. However the biggest difference is that the people of Haiti look more African than the rest of the Caribbean. There isn't that mixture of races and colours that you see in the rest of the Caribbean: African, Indian, Indigenous, Chinese and European. I guess it's Haiti's history of winning its independence 200 years ago that meant that the colonisers didn't repopulate with other races; as they did in the rest of the Caribbean after the abolition of slavery.

Heading along the road to Ganchier, through canefields and banana plantations, Haiti began to look Caribbean.

Day 21 Croydon des Bouquets

2010-04-08T18:10:00.000-05:00

Had a heated conversation about Emergency Financial Procedures until 1.30 am and have spent today headachey, overheated and working in a tent. Still long sleeve shirts and socks to keep the bites down. I am now feeling the heat of the day, the heat of the night and the heat of getting things done with a week to go.

Apart from the one day off (I confess I worked in the evening) I have worked every day. I now need to work every day to get this done and have a decent file to handover to the permanent successor who is supposed to be coming from South Africa soon.

The energy levels is affecting my writing. As you may notice I have switched between talking about work and commenting generally on Haiti and aid/emergency issues in general. Work (remember this is accountancy / accounting) isn't always worth writing about, so I like to give a wider perspective. But it takes a bit of energy and that seems to have sapped away.

Right now I am back in Croix des Bouquets. Unlike Jacmel it is basically a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Croydon des Bouquets perhaps. Had a useful day chasing down orders, inspecting a possible new office and continuing to finess financial procedures.

So it might sound great sitting in the dark, next to a pool, in a hotel that I can't sleep in as it doesn't look as if you could get out if another earthquake happened. No it doesn't sound that great at all. I am hot, sticky, got a headache, it's pitch black and I am fighting off mosquitoes. This will all be followed by a night sleeping on a tent pitched on pebbles.

Tomorrow night in Port-au-Prince sounds great in comparison.

Boat docked, containers unloaded and being shipped as I write. Yes, great news and some people will get tents soon and some children will get to go back to school.

Day 20 In Tent to Write

2010-04-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had twenty mosquito bites on my right foot. The soothing cream was becoming ineffective, but I was still remembering - nearly - not to scratch. A kind colleague found me a different cream that was more effective. I also made the decision to wear socks to work today for the first time since I got here. I must make it clear that I did not succumb to the Brit-on-the-Med fashion disaster of socks - especially dark socks - and sandals: I wore socks with shoes. I also wore my shirt sleeves down - and it worked very well. I got one bite on my arm - for the split second I had rolled my sleeves up. I got the little mozzie, splatted her (only female mosquitoes bite) and saw my blood splat on the desk from inside her.

Not such a biting day, but quite a bruising day today. Spent most of it writing very long and serious recommendations on financial management in offices without a financial management system. As well as designing an idiot-proof electronic cash book. This was followed by a rather intense discussion on all aspects of it.

That wasn't so bad. Writing financial procedures is who I am, is what I do. Playing with Excel is fun when given free rein to do it right and make it pretty, possibly you might struggle to believe it. Most accountants are Excel junkies and love to solve complex puzzles.

After spending the first two weeks uncertain about what I can do, it looks like I will spend the last week with too much to do. I'm back in Croix des Bouquets tomorrow and Friday, Jacmel Sunday and Monday. Back to Croix des Bouquets on Tuesday. Then two more days working in Port-au-Prince before heading back. Time flies like an arrow, kill flies like a spider, fruit flies like a pineapple. You pick.

Day 19 What did you do before the internet?

2010-04-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

This is my first emergency programme in over 12 years. Since then the internet has expanded from something that was unavailable in developing countries to being omnipresent. So what did we do in emergency operations before the internet and mobile phones? I was asked this question this evening and suddenly felt very old.

Other things have changed too: anti-bacterial gel is everywhere following the swine and avian flu scares, this is definitely a hygiene improvement. Water coolers with water cleaned by reverse osmosis (seriously) ensure that water filters are more obscure.

I found it odd - everybody sitting typing away on their laptops. We did have big chunky laptops with black and white screens (a big improvement on the previous green screens) so we could type in wordperfect and do accounts in multiplan or Lotus 1-2-3 with wysiwyg if you were advancd. Excel, Word and windows were just about available, but definitely no internet and definitely no mobile phones.

The difference was that people read books, listened to the radio, wrote long hand-written letters. For work messages we used satellite phones that cost $10 a minute to make a call or send a fax. There was one satellite above each of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and you had to dial the correct number, point your satellite dish at it and spend half an hour waiting for it to go through.

We also used VHF radio to communicate with each other. Each car and house or office would have a base name and we would communicate using that strange radio language so Oxfam Headquarters became Oscar Hotel.

It seems like a different century - it was a different century - but the change in communications has such a dramatic effect. Of my four colleagues sitting outside with me, three are sitting with laptops on skype, catching up in work emails and reading the news. No one is reading a book, no one is listening to the radio, no one is chatting. On the positive side no one seems depressed or on the verge of cracking up or getting extremely drunk failing to cope with being locked up and isolated.

Day 18 Accountant Bangs Head - Brick Wall Collapses

2010-04-05T18:52:00.000-05:00

Aaagh on top of what you are about to read the power cut out just as I posted this the first time - the crucial time where the entire posting zips into cyberspace so I am about to re-write it all.

How not to run a cash account
1. Don't wait until the cash has run out before topping it up
2. Don't sit on the request for 4 hours before looking at it
3. Don't ask the internal auditor to approve all transactions before they are paid and look at what is simply a request to move money from the bank to the cash tin last.
4. Don't ask for authority in writing to bypass above procedure
5. Don't wait until lunchtime after a bank holiday when the queues in the bank are two hours long to eventually leave for the bank
6. Lastly don't ever do this on the day that Brad Pitt's boat (seriously) has docked with 22 containers of tents waiting to be unloaded, but we can't get there because the guy in charge of it is sitting in your office for six hours in order to get the cash needed to unload the containers.

There are some basic rules - don't wait until the cash has run out before getting more is the main one here. Getting the internal auditor to effectively authorise payments is counter-productive: not only does it slow everything down and dilute responsiblity; but it also means that the auditor can't be objective if the payment is challenged later.

6 hours later, the cash arrives. The man who is due to get to Brad's boat gives up for the day - he can't get there in time tonight. In an attempt to get things moving I take cash in person to the Emergency Manager in Croix des Bouquets so that he can buy the materials for the play areas and not lose tomorrow as well. In strict value for money terms this was not a good use of my time - I am not paid to sit in cars for the afternoon. However I wanted to show that finance people should go the extra mile to support project work.

I am working on changing this - slowly we are getting the people and the bank accounts and the rules agreed so that the 2 emergency offices can take charge of their finances and often avoid the largely unnecessary bottleneck in Port-au-Prince. I would like to sort this out too, but I won't have the time or the authority to do so. So the best bet is just to give the people in charge of the emergency programmes more responsibility and authority to do it themselves. All the hours waiting for cash today gave me the time and furious motivation to get this sorted.

Oh yes, Brad Pitt. He is chair of a charity set up to provide shelter to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He has sent a barge full of shelters to Port-au-Prince and as it was not full he has allowed us to add 22 containers of tents, etc. for free.

On a happier note I realised that I am occasionally thinking in French and have stopped simultaneous translations. Nowhere near fluent, just a bit more fluid.

Day 17 My first day off

2010-04-04T18:13:00.000-05:00

Easter Sunday and my first day off. Very relaxing morning on the computer. I then had the house to myself (apart from the guard, the cook, the cleaner and the women who washes the clothes). Julie then came round to take me to what I thought was an Oxfam party, but it turned out to be a party for the UK medical charity, Merlin.

As the whole emergency field is so small of course I met some old friends like Annie the Nurse who used to be a star of the Public Health team in Oxfam.

I am now planning the week ahead. Both the programme offices in Jacmel and Croix des Bouquets have now managed to appoint Finance Officers, and we are just about to agree how to have well controlled finance operations in both places. Maybe things are about to take off.

Day 17 Happy Easter Children!

2010-04-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

I hope you all have a lovely easter and enjoyed your eggs! Thinking of you all.

Lots of love

Day 16 Joining the Jet Set

2010-04-03T22:17:00.000-05:00

I am about to break a cardinal rule of blogging: don't write when you have been drinking. But, what a great day. I spent the morning reading more about cash for work, had a swim in the midday sun, then tried to do some work on re-analysing the costs of managing the programme between the different elements of the programme. Admittedly that wasn't too exciting - in fact I fell asleep doing it. I should point out that it 32 degrees and I was sitting outside.

In the evening D, a colleague from Dublin, announced that he intended to go to a bar and given the new slightly more relaxed curfew restrictions, would anyone else like to join him.

I am glad that I did. Not only did I meet some former colleagues from Oxfam and a few of the other Irish people here, I finally caught up with Julie who I hadn't seen for 10 years. By the time she arrived as full of energy as ever,it was 10 mins before my curfew. Still time enough to catch up and make arrangements for an Easter barbecue on Sunday afternoon.

It was great to get out, even if 'Jet Set' bar was typical of the 'international' bars you see if every country - beer, pizza and steak frite! But just to meet other people and exchange stories and work out how other people tackled complex issues such as cash programming and buying shelter. But I shouldn't pretend that it was lots of serious discussions: good to have these, but better just to relax after a couple of weeks of intensive work.

J, the security bloke, has offered a film show tonight. He has 20 films on his hard drive: everything from the Bourne Ultimatun to the Wild Geese to Black Hawk Down. Christ, so typical of the ex marines who do security work for NGOs. However I am prepared to sit back, relax and take it in.

Day 15 Cash for Work

2010-04-02T18:49:00.000-05:00

Well it's Good Friday and I have had the pleasure of working from home in Port-au-Prince. A lovely balcony, a ceiling fan when the electricity is on (evening and mornings) and just a sedate place to work. There is some chanting going on outside, I hope it is Easter-related, but I am not quite sure.

The house is deep within Port-au-Prince, it is surrounded by 20 Feet high walls and has an equally impressive iron gate. There are two unarmed guards: they would rather be armed. But with security measures in place there should be no need for this. A new security adviser has arrived, called Joe, he is ex-army and looks it (the army provides a lot of aid workers, primarily in logistics but also in security).

Joe has reviewed our 6pm curfew and relaxed it to the extent that we can go out until 11pm if:

1. At least 3 people travel together
2. The driver is Haitian
3. We carry a VHF radio (as well as mobile phones)
4. The destination is agreed in advance
5. Arrival is reported by radio and a precise pick-up time is agreed and adhered to
6. No staying overnight away from the guest house e.g. as a guest of another agency.

At about 11pm last night there was a loud commotion outside the house. I suggested that we make ourselves lower profile by turning off (obviously foreign) music and switching off unnecessary lights. Joe went prowling around and F, who is a French speaker from Burkina Faso asked the guards if he could hear what the shouting was about - it was in creole so not easily understood. Thankfully they confirmed that it was two groups of drunk people having an argument after a party. Not that serious, but not something I would want to come across if trying to return home in the dark, having dutifully followed the security guidelines. Rioting is another security risk here.

Part of next week's work will be looking at Cash for Work programmes. Not very helpful phraseology I'd think you might agree. I believe in cash for work, it's what we all do every day. But let's forget the phraseology, Cash for Work is a way of both getting recovery work done (in this case clearing schools of rubble)and giving people enough money to survive.

There has been a partial switch in recent years from giving poor people food to giving poor people money. A lot of this is formed from entitlement approach developed by Amartya Sen who made the point that people starve when they are short of money, not short of food - except in particular circumstances e.g. during a war. He proposed that giving out food aid, the traditional model for giving out aid was missing the point. Indeed food distributions were often about removing western grain surpluses as well as a reluctance to trust poor people to spend money properly - and often put local farmers out of business. Sen proposed that aid should be delivered by cash (sometimes with food too) as it gives the poor the power to make their own choices.

This shouldn't be that surprising after all the social security systems in the west make cash payments - although the US does food stamps, which people sometimes, inevitably, sell for a smaller cash amount.

So the idea of cash for work is to pay people enough to live on whilst they clear the damage to the areas they live in. So the clearance gets done, people who have lost jobs due to the collapse of the economy can start back in employment and poor people get enough money to live on in desperate times.

So I spent today reading up on this and understanding what the project here involves: how we select the teams; how they are paid and fed and how the correct people get paid. I always like to get the theory first and I much prefer to read, I find it much harder to process verbally so spending a whole day reading about the theory and practice was a great luxury.

Oxford Mail Friday 2nd April

2010-04-01T21:29:00.000-05:00

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/6514547.Counting_cost_of_Haiti_quake/?ref=rss

Day 14 Exit the clowns

2010-04-01T19:16:00.000-05:00

The last 24hrs have been very diverse. Just after logging off last night I put my tent up in the garden of the Hotel Mamika, as I was doing so the first tropical rainstorm of my visit here came tumbling down. I got the fly sheet on and hid inside for half an hour waiting for it to calm down. I eventually braved it in order to fix my tent before the rain got inside it. I succeeded, but got absolutely soaked through in the process. I hung my wet clothes up in the hotel room that it is not safe to sleep in and then went back to the tent. As I might have said I have no clean clothes so was not looking forward to putting on wet clothes in the morning. The nights are still very hot - 26 degrees - and humid. However in the morning my clothes were completely dry. The heat beat the humidity

The morning at work started with the worried bleatings of two young goats, with their legs trussed, being taken to the kitchen. Thankfully hot dogs for lunch!

The rain has the unpleasant side effect of quadrupling the mosquito population - I am covered in bites - especially my back, one must have got into my tent last night.

But you know, there are tens of thousands sleeping under tarpaulin, with sheet draped round the side. They have no groundsheet or anti-malarial medicines. It is utterly desperate. There is stagnant grey water all over Port-au-Prince, a lot of rubble seems to have been dumped into canals (thankfully most of it is trucked off), so when the rains come for real it will be awful. There is a sense of urgency, but it is still a hard place to get things moving.

I am still making steady progress at work. If I can get the correct controls in place I will be able to set up a structure that will allow the offices in Jacmel and Croix des Bouquets to buy materials and pay contractors directly. This will allow us to get things moving faster. So I am doing my bit too,despite not building a single shelter.

Day 13 (Late) Send in the Aclowntants

2010-03-31T20:31:00.000-05:00

Strange day, spent mostly in cars. Travelled up to Croix des Bouquets, which is basically a suburb of Port-au-Prince: the Paisley or Reading of Haiti.

This time, I actually was working in a tent in the car park - the office hasn't collapsed, it is just collapsing. I then spent the afternoon in a very large depot looking at bits of wood to build child-friendly spaces. Followed now by an evening having finally caught up with the Clowns without Borders.

I have celebrated recovering fully by drinking 3 little beers and a very large 7-up bottle. Best not push it any further - although the three beers are less than 2 pints, so let's not worry too much.

Also talked to Julie, friend and former Oxfam colleague, who has told me that a lot of my old friends are here, and that there is a barbecue on friday and would I like to go along? Yes please!

The activity in the Croix des Bouquets office was impressive. They really seem to have got the message about how critical the next few weeks before the rains are. Impressive people.

Also had interview with the Oxford Mail. If you get it in the next few days please let me know.

Day 13 (early) Bugonia

2010-03-31T08:13:00.000-05:00

Bug seems to have gone! Hooray I have a skip in my step and a solidity in my frame!

Day 12 Mountain Due

2010-03-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

I travelled back to Port-au-Prince today. I saw even more of the destuction caused by the earthquake that on the way out last week. Houses and buildings collapsed everywhere, gangs of labourers (in matching NGO, UN or government t-shirts) clearing old buildings and the rubble. Good to see the money being spent I say! Other evidence of things actually happening was seeing temporary schools. The photograph at the side is a temporary school, with the rubble from the old school cleared at the front.

My bug-like thing is still lingering. Not great, no, I would say. It's just tiring and needs a bit of planning to do anything. I need to travel again tomorrow, but it is a short two-day trip, so I'll get that over with and probably take Good Friday off if I haven't recovered. There is a doctor in the house, so I'll have a word with him.

I am still impressed that it has taken over a week for this to happen.

One of the most exciting things about tomorrow's visit is that I will at last catch up with the clowns. The 'Clowns without Borders' are a troupe of American clowns. that my employer had hired before the earthquake to entertain children in schools. They were due to arrive on January 13th, but the earthquake struck on January 12th. However they agreed to come back and have been busy entertaining hundreds of children in camps and temporary schools.

Day 11 Taken with a Large Pinch of Salt

2010-03-29T20:49:00.000-05:00

Not really up to writing much tonight, after a terrible night's sleep last night and a bit of a bug making me dehydrated. I fell asleep after work and started dreaming of eating ready salted crisps. I have had similar dreams in the past after dehydration, reminding me to add salt to my food - something I normally never do. So I put a lot of salt on my dinner and it made me feel better.

If you really have lost a lot of salt, it tastes almost sweet when you first put it in your mouth. But I wasn't quite there today. I had taken rehydration seriously - lots of water and these 1/2 ltr glass bottles of coke seem to have made the difference. I wish I had remembered salt yesterday.

I leave Jacmel tomorrow afternoon. I am not looking foward to the twisting three hour journey over the mountains, particularly if I am unwell - however I can take some medication if needed: I don't think it is a bug, just sensory overload.

I will have one night in Port-au-Prince: I am also not looking forward to the noise of lorries, dogs and gunfire. Nor am I looking forward to being locked in a compound. However I am looking forward to sleeping in my tent as I can actually cool down for about three hours in the early morning. Night time temperatures are 26 degrees here. It is also humid so it is harder for perspiration to cool you down as it doesn't evaporate easily; something I don't particularly notice that because I haven't spent much time in places with dry heat.

Work carries on. I need to do a lot to help the process where responsibility for looking after the money can be moved from the main country office in Port-au-Prince to the emergency offices in Jacmel and Croix des Bouquets. This is necessary and painstaking because without proper controls the money that you and your friends and your government have given might as well be left in a big bucket in the middle of the market with a sign saying Biggest at the Front, Smallest at the Back.

As some of my colleagues in Oxford might tell you, in general I am sceptical about the true value of most financial controls. I think accountancy attracts people who are drawn to process and order. They fetish overlaying controls and dream up ways to prevent any imaginable risk. I think there are also a few accountants who turned down a career in the police because it was too wishy-washy. I actually find it quite hard to switch off my general trust in people and concentrate on the real risks and how to minimise them.

Over the years I have seen almost every imaginable fraud and attempted fraud. I probably can't stop every cunning plan but I can do my best on the three most common areas: outright theft of cash; pilfering from warehouses and the daddy of them all - procurement theft in all its guises e.g. over-ordering, placing orders with friends and family or taking backhanders

So controls are needed and costly to implement. Again if any charity tells you that all your money goes directly to the needy (as Children In Need used to say before they were embarassed into stopping) they are either probably lying or being incredibly irresponsible. So celebrate the charities that employ HR specialists, Internal Auditors and the Monitoring and Evaluation teams that check if the project is working so that they learn from their mistakes. That is the vital framework that is needed to make a long-term difference, it is also the vital contribution that a true long-term supporter of a charity will make.

Day 10 An interest in numbers

2010-03-28T21:09:00.000-05:00

As I am only here for a few weeks I feel obliged to work on Sunday. However sitting in a hotel drawing up contracts (in French) is actually quite fun. What else could I be doing apart from going to the beach and drinking coconut water? I don't really like days at the beach and I don't really like being out in the sun. My job keeps me indoors during the heat of the day.

My ulterior motive for leaving Port-au-Prince for Jacmel on Thursday was that there was a plan to take all the staff to a beach party yesterday as a way to welcome the new Country Director. All day on a beach in the searing sun, washed down with gassy beer, sounded so unappealing. So getting to Jacmel got me out of that.

At this point I should point out that I am not a character in a Kingsley Amis novel nor am in any way related to William Boyd's Morgan Leafy (the one who wasn't really that Good a Man in Africa).

Three interesting numbers. There are 5,000 NGOs working in Haiti at the moment: I am sorry but this is overkill. The landlords and anyone with any sort of skill can make a killing. If you, your scout group, your village link, your mission group or your rotary club want to help Haiti please give money to someone who is already here - the choice is vast. Arriving in Port-au-Prince en masse in matching t-shirts (two lots on my flight alone) isn't taking the aid direct. It's really just getting in the way of people who know the country, know how to run distributions without causing riots and know what you have to do to get through the barriers of working in Haiti.

Second interesting number: Reliefweb listed 850 vacancies amongst relief agencies in Haiti. That is a phenomenal number, well beyond what is available in the skill pool. Now each emergency increases the size of the pool (I joined the pool after the genocide in Rwanda, having previously been a VSO in the more sedate Guyana)and the Tsunami in Sri Lanka and Indonesia increased the size of the pool massively. However there are other emergencies going on as ever in Darfur in Sudan, food crises* over East and West Africa. For example, Oxfam is currently doing emergency relief in 30 countries - the third interesting number.

Experienced people know that Haiti is a hard place to work. Its reputation is violent, corrupt and incredibly slow to make anything happen. Most big agencies have been working here for a long time: you can't not work in "the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" if you are serious about targetting the poorest of the poor. So if you are doing a good job, running a well managed programme in a peaceful part of rural West Africa where the people need your help as much as the Haitians do, why would you want to go to Haiti?

There is a paradox at work, and I have seen it in every emergency. The new people always go the newest emergency, which is usually the hardest. The experienced people can pick and choose and many do. For instance, I bumped into an old Oxfam colleague in Oxford train station, who is now working for the UK Department for International Development (DfID), when I told him I was coming here he shook his head sadly and said with a wry smile "Don't go to Haiti"(I should point out that he always was a cynical old bastard) However there are also, including in the team I am working for, many fantastic and highly experienced people who pick and chose here because the need is so great and because the need for strong leadership is paramount.

These decades of what must have been very frustrating development work have now given the agencies who have been here (incurring those nasty admin costs like renting an office that no-one wants to donate for) a good start in the earthquake response as they are known and largely trusted by Haitians, have been working with local groups and know who the good people are in the various government departments and ministries. So if you want to know who to give money to, look to see who was here when you had to scratch hard to raise money and harder still to make an impact.

*nb "Food Crises" not "Famine". There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, no-one need starve through crop failure. There are food crises when crops fail and people are too poor to buy food. Poverty is the root of the problem not the weather.

Day 9 Hitchhikers Guide to Haiti

2010-03-27T18:10:00.000-05:00

This may be the image of the earthquake that everyone remembered. The Presidential Palace collapsed, surrounded by beautiful manicured lawns. Also seemingly the only grassland in Port-au-Prince not covered in tents.

Why is Haiti so, so poor? I can speculate on the effects of reparations to France that continued until the 1940s; I can speculate on the influence of the small numbers of wealthy landowners who effectively control the country - people talk of ten families, this may be true(incidentally the people who own the land that the population in tents need to be resettled in - negotiations to follow); I can speculate on the weakness of government and the culture of crime,graft and outright theft that arises out of that.

Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic are poor countries, or indeed countries with a lot of people living in poverty ("poor people" sounds soo judgemental, darlings). From all these countries you can pop down to Gatwick and get a charter flight to an all-inclusive beach resort. All-inclusive to Haiti doesn't sound right.

I have another photograph that I can't upload right now due to poor connectivity, showing the cove next to where I am staying now. Haiti certainly has the scenery for a tourist industry. I am not blind to the problems of tourism: but for a country this poor the employment and foreign currency could be one more strand to support a desperate economy.

The amount of money donated to Haiti since the earthquake has been astonishing. It will take a long time to spend it, particularly if it is to be done properly. If anyone is looking for the "donations sitting in charities bank accounts after one year/two years/ five years" story I hope they find it. A quick fix will not do here. The generosity does of course represent an amazing opportunity to kick start the economy. It is a huge injection of funds and there will be an enormous demand for labour and skills. All the sorts of things that can make a difference in the long term if someone can make it happen.

We have teams selecting schools to rebuild. A question came back that illustrates the point. Someone pointed out that one of the schools selected for rebuilding was derelict before the earthquake - should we provide them with temporary classrooms? Likewise the people who lived in tin shacks before the earthquake simply rebuilt them: they weren't any worse off as they had not much to begin with. Should they be offered large waterproof brand new tents? I hope the answer is yes. Yes to giving people a short-term fix and yes to giving Haiti a better future.

Day 8 In the heat of the night

2010-03-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

Started the day grey-faced and exhausted. Due to a shortage of rooms I spent the night in "Dady's Hotel et Nite-Club" with my own door directly on to the bar I had the delight of very loud Latino Pop until 2am. Think MTV playing Mexican pop.

I awoke at 7am and managed to swap for a more sedate place, that goes quiet at 9.30 and backs on the sea. So, yes, I intend to swim in the Caribbean sea tomorrow afternoon. Sorry I deserve it. It is a beautiful blue and after the curfews of Port-au-Prince the exercise will be lovely.

It hasn't rained yet. So this dream may be postponed as the clouds are gathering.

Work continues on. A bit more mundane work on cash planning and financial controls. Important but, as the saying goes, nothing to write home about. So I'll stop.

Rather amazingly I have managed not to get ill so far. I have a horrible track record of picking up every bug going (alongside my track record of always getting searched at customs). However I have been utterly fastidious in doing the things one is supposed to do. There is a bravura amongst aid and international development workers that means that you are supposed to have the strength to beat these things. However I have stopped pretending
and try to:

1. Brush my teeth with bottled water
2. Keep my mouth closed in the shower
3. Don't eat chopped fruit or veg
4. Keep my hands away from my mouth

As I have basically had no fresh fruit or juice for a week I am beginning to feel a bit blaagh. But better than taking anti-biotics for days.

Day 7 Arriving in Jacmel

2010-03-26T09:06:00.000-05:00

On Thursday morning I left Port-au-Prince for Jacmel. This involved a three hour drive along the coast, over the mountains and down to the South Coast for the comparatively peaceful town of Jacmel.

The level of destruction was evident throughout the drive, collapsed buildings everywhere, roads mangled by the earthquakes, along with landslides and rockfalls in the mountains. But the most shocking sight was seeing hundreds of people living under tarpaulin. Whilst most people in Port-au-Prince are living in tents, in the more rural areas a lot of the basic work still needs to be done. We are doing our bit too - although our concern is more with schools than shelter.

Jacmel has the familiar buzz of an Emergency Programme office. The constant hub-bub of people coming and going from operations. People are working on laptops two to three to a desk, trying to get orders made, agree transportation, negotiate sites, recruit labourers and foremen. I squeeze onto a desk and start to work on the cash plan.

As the Jacmel office also collapsed in the earthquake we are working in the offices of another NGO, who have been very kind to us. But we are even more cramped - however as the operation speeds up more and more people are heading out to the camps and schools we get some breathing space.

Without cash everything will grind to a halt. We have no bank account here (yet) and it will take a few days to get one open and even longer for the vital cheque book to arrive. So planning the cash needs of the office is vital.

I have also had to interview for a Finance Officer to work here to ensure that the money is looked after and that appropriate controls are in place to ensure the money is spent properly. It is difficult to recruit in such a small town in a country where the proportion of people who have ucompleted formal education is low. I am still hopeful. Transparency is so important in this type of work - people who give us money need to have faith that it will be used properly. And that's where we accountants fit in.

Day 6 Getting to Grips

2010-03-24T18:05:00.000-05:00

Work began falling into place today. When I arrived on Sunday I was a bit taken aback to find that there was already a Finance Manager here. RJ had been brought in from Pakistan to work on the overall budget (emergency and development), he is one of those highly resourceful people who can take on lots of tasks and is highly experienced. He is a fantastic person to have around, but it made me worry that I would not have a lot to do.

However the problems I described on Monday and Tuesday were symptons of a wider problem and gave me the solution to mine. Payments are centralised in the main country office in the capital Port-au-Prince, where I have been working so far. However it is obvious that the best way to tackle the log jam is for me to go to the offices near the camps we are working in so that I can sort out the banking, the cash management and ensure that contracts are signed and cash needs are planned.

I made this proposal last night and it was agreed today. So tomorrow (Thursday) I will go to Jacmel on the southern coast and later go to the other programme office in Croix des Bouquets. This is, of course, merely a plan and years in this business tells me that anything can happen in the meantime... ... and indeed the plans changed in the time it took me since I started writing this paragraph.

So I am very pleased to get this sorted out. I think I can begin to make a difference so that the people in camps can have tents, hygiene, play areas for the children, as well as the schools being cleared of rubble and rebuilt. This won't finish when I am here, but if I can help to get the ball rolling I will be very pleased.

I also got my camera to upload to my laptop! The office in Port-au-Prince collapsed in the earthquake and a new office has been hired. However it is only half-built and has not been inspected by a structural engineer so many of the staff are working in the car park under canopies. It reached 32 degrees yesterday.

Day 5 Latrines for VIPs

2010-03-23T17:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's payments got made. Some happy engineers were seen heading to the bank and the builders' yards to buy the materials to actually get play areas and latrines built. Hooray - and a bit of a team effort to overcome all the obstacles. Things will need to change if there is any chance of spending the millions of dollars raised to first of all get people into safe camps and secondly into permanent accommodation.

The biggest danger with people living close together in camps is the spread of disease. Agencies tackle this in two ways: some provide clean water and pipe it to tap stands around the camps, others provide latrines. Some do both. If you remember a disgusting fly-ridden hole in the ground at the back of a Scout Camp then your idea of a latrine is not pleasant. Now I am not going to pretend that the standard Ventilated Improved Pit Latrine (the VIP Latrine) is the last word in luxury. But properly built they are crucial for preventing the spread of disease. First of all the Pit needs to be long and deep: long enough to be shared by several latrines and deep enough so that the flies who do an ever so vital job can't reach the people using the latrines and spread diseases. You then put several cubicles over the pit, each with a concrete slab with the appropriate holes, slopes and footholds. The pit is then ventilated with a very long pipe so that the smells disperse away from the tents where people live. The ventilation helps ensure that the matter degenerates.

So some more people will be getting these latrines in the next few days. For the Haitians used to running water and flushing toilets it will not be great. But it is a lot better than what they have been using for the last two months, and it may help keep a lot of people alive.

Day 5 From Mango to Papaya

2010-03-23T08:19:00.000-05:00

Breakfast this morning was a choice between spaghetti bolognese or cornflakes. I chose the latter. There was also a very large Papaya (Paw-Paw).

I also received an email from Lucy at MANGO (Management accounting for NGOs) asking if I would mention their role in getting me this assignment. Very pleased to. MANGO do all sorts of useful things like provide financial training in all corners of the earth for NGO finance staff. They also keep a register of accountants who can be deployed to help in emergencies and disasters or just where they are needed. www.mango.org.uk

They also provide training materials in various languages. I don't need these here, but they act as a useful English-French Accounting Dictionary.

Day 4 Whistle Blowing

2010-03-22T17:54:00.000-05:00

I was given a whistle this morning.

Advice on being trapped in a building after an earthquake:

1. Don't shout, you'll use up oxygen and inhale dust

2. Don't light a match, there may be gas

3. Do try to hit a pipe or something metal

4. Blow whistle for attention

Before all that I had my first night in the tent. I slept for nine hours with only one interruption - the sound of machine-gun fire at 3am. It seemed far away and possibly just shots in the air.

My First Day at Work

This was an unusual day for me. But I have the feeling that it will become familiar. Mostly the day was quiet as I struggled in French to listen to the finance team. Two events highlighted the sort of difficulties I will either have to manage or possibly even solve. Both are related and both are typical of emergency programmes.

(Again I need to refer to terminology. What people in the UK refer to as charities, people who work in them and in the countries that they work refer to them as Non-Governmental Organisations or NGOs for short. The term is more accurate because we are supposed to be working with people, not just giving out alms. And of course in many countries NGOs do the work that the government would do if it had the money and infrastructure, such as rebuilding schools that have either collapsed or rendered unsafe by the earthquake. So forgive me for using NGO.)

So imagine you work for a small NGO in a poor country. Your NGO has spent years cultivating relationships with and developing the skills of local groups. You have a good relationship with the Ministry of Education. You are used to timescales over years, you make a payment every six months or so. Everything is planned.

Suddenly a disaster happens. Your budget increases up anywhere between 100 and 4,000 per cent overnight. Lots of experts in getting things done quickly arrive, they want to move quickly, they are not interested in processes and suddenly instead of writing one cheque every six months you have to actually buy and order the stuff and arrange the transportation. And, of course, your house has collapsed and you have lost friends or family. And the office has collapsed and you spend all day working under a canvas canopy.

There are of course lots of different responses and I have seen many of them. But the most common is to feel aggrieved that the fast-moving emergency people are breaking-the-rules, feel threatened by these change and retreat behind procedures. Such was my day.

In the late morning F, a Kenyan engineer, asked me to resolve a problem because he needed to take a lot of money to the South East of the country to pay for works to clear collapsed schools and rebuild temporary ones. He didn't speak French and couldn't understand why his payment request was being refused by the Finance Team. R, the accountant, explained to me that the Haitian technical advisor was unhappy with the request. I spoke to him and he was seriously unhappy. He felt that one of his team had been bypassed and were not aware of the project request. F was very keen to get the work started because work was starting to fall behind. I brought them both together. F assured me that the technical advisor's colleague had been involved, however the advisor was still unhappy.

I resolved it by going far enough up the line to find the engineer in charge of all programmes in Haiti. Once he gave his okay the Technical Advisor accepted the decision and the cash was paid out.

I left that exchange slightly disappointed. R had initially refused to pay a valid request on the say of his long-term colleague. I do realise that he was sticking up for him, but the problem was not an accounting one and had rumbled on until F had asked for the money. See, money is always at the end of the process and anything that goes wrong beforehand usually ends up as a headache for the finance team.

The second event was more painful. Late in the afternoon I was asked to speak to a man who had been waiting all day to be paid. He explained that he was a contractor who had been building children's play areas in camps - a very worthy project to ensure that children living in camps had somewhere safe to play. Again his payment was being refused. Again R, the accountant, was unhappy with it. This time he was justified in his concern. The contractor did not have any sort of contract as he had been working off the promise of payment from a technical expert in one of the field offices. He arrives in Port au Prince asking for $2,000 to buy materials: he had no contract, he could run away with the money. These were largely theoretical risks as he had been working with us for several weeks and was known to many of the staff. But because the Personnel team hadn't gave him a contract of employment or because the technical team hadn't given him a contract for works or because the finance team has little idea of how the programme works he was not getting paid.

I tried to resolve it, but without success. R wasn't going to pay him even if instructed to: he was not going to take the risk that this man would run away with the money - the risk that the programme would be delayed was someone else's problem. Eventually we worked out a way that the contractor could be paid on Wednesday. If he stays that long: there are hundreds of NGOs here and another one will be more than happy to pick up his work. So yet again the work we are supposed to do is delayed and postponed, the children go without a safe play area for a little bit longer or lose out altogether. Donor money sits in the bank and everyone loses.

I can see some of my challenges. I doubt I will change people's minds in 4 weeks. But I can at least try to find a way to break some of the logjams. Perhaps taking some of the risks and fear away - emergency works are always higher risk. We just need to get people to feel safe enough to make the right decisions as opposed to the most risk-free decision.

Day 3 Arrive

2010-03-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

This blog is going to be seriously compromised if I can't get photos to load from my camera...

Will continue for now.

So this time yesterday I was in Manhattan, seeing Broadway, 42nd Street, Times Square and all the tourist traps. I only had a couple of hours, with the most important target being a new suitcase as my Delsey suitcase that has lasted nearly twenty years, and has been with me to most places I have been to, finally collapsed during the journey from Birmingham. The only reason the contents weren't scattered across the floor of a boeing 767 was that I had bought a luggage strap.

The flight from JFK to Haiti was okay. However the sight on arrival at Port au Prince was a good reminder of why I am here. The terminal building had massive cracks and was out of use. A temporary customs hall had been created. It was very hot and the queues were very long. There were no luggage carousels so luggage was thrown through gaps in the wall where a 45 minute scramble ensued.

Having waded through this I was really looking forward to walking out to the bit where someone is holding a card with my name on it. Mmm, no one there. I'll just stand in the entrance way - basically a giant gazebo and bide my time. 20 mins later, most people have left and I am standing there getting very hot. However after about an hour someone arrived to pick me up.

The drive through Port au Prince was illuminating. There are lots of what would otherwise be called refugee camps (* technical point people only become refugees when fleeing to another country, people in camps in their country are known as Internally Displaced People). Some with up to 8,000 tents (I am told - I can't count that fast). But the biggest sight is streets and streets of collapsed, crumbling and abandoned buildings. The fear of aftershocks is keeping people out of buildings. Including me.

I am in a lovely guest house just now. There is a pool (which no one is using so I presume it is unhealthy) a large balcony that my colleagues are working on, two pet dogs and a beautiful garden that is covered in the tents that we sleep in. The threat of aftershocks is keeping me out of buildings at night.

Day 2 Birmingham to New York

2010-03-20T20:49:00.000-05:00

Continuing in the calm before the storm mood I flew from Birmingham to New York today. The principles events were an old friend Marion (carrying her puppy in a bag) driving me from Newark to JFK, my suitcase arriving open off the flight, held together by a £5 luggage strap from Debenhams, and at end of the day a trip on the subway into Manhattan to buy a suitcase, a toothbrush and take lots of photos of New York to show to Catriona.

It is pretty impressive - of course. Doing the reverse of the opening journey from the Sopranos along the New Jersey Turnpike was a ridiculously illicit pleasure.

2010-03-19T12:31:00.000-05:00

Unusual equipment

After agreeing this assignment, I started receiving instructions for unusual equipment to take. I have done similar work in Africa - although several years ago - and so was a bit off-hand with the packing.

Then the requests came: have you got a mosquito net? No, but I can get one. "You need to bring a tent, oh, and a torch. A bed mat too. You are staying in a hotel. But you can't sleep there at night due to aftershocks"

So instead of one small suitcase I have a very large suitcase with camping equipment inside it.

2010-03-19T12:23:00.000-05:00

Today is an in-between day. I am finishing work, completing budget reports and other various routine jobs to get out of the way before taking my month off.

I have already said goodbyes to friends and families (more later) and am about to take the train to Birmingham for my early morning flight to New York.

2010-03-19T12:19:00.000-05:00

This short blog aims to cover my one month assignment where I will be working as a Finance Manager for the Earthquake response in Haiti.