Visited a pharmacy near the presidential palace. It is supposed to be the best pharmacy of the ones still standing. There were better pharmacies, we’re told, but they were destroyed. The lady at the counter told us that not too many people come for things. In particular, I asked about insulin – they have none. But apparently one a small handful of people have come asking for insulin, anyway.

varied stuff available for sale at the pharmacie

reported as one of the best pharmacies that is still standing

variety of stuff available at the pharmacy

iodine bottles

bottles at the pharmacy

The rain has started. When it began it was just the slightest pricks of moisture, more a sense of coolness on your skin, welcome after a day of tropical sun. The (full?) moon had risen and could barely be seen through layering clouds. I was outside talking with a medic enjoying the cooling evening breeze and little by little the rain became more and more insistent. We watched a water truck arrive and fill a tank, by the time it left the first pregnant drops were falling. And then the tropical rain let loose.

Down below stretches a sea of lights. On my first night here I was surprised at how many lights there are in the city – I didn’t expect the electrical infrastructure to have been so intact. Doc and I stood looking and imagining the increasing misery of those below who have tarps for wall, ceiling, and floor. There’s not much to say to each other, and after some silence Doc said “this pisses me off. I can’t fix this.” and flicked his cigarette over the wall into the long darkness below.

Neither of us have any reference to what it was like before the earthquake (the locals say “ka-ta-stroph”) though we’ve both been to the slums of India, Africa, and Afghanistan. Tonight’s rain has subsided now – it’s nearly 4AM – just a bit of pattering left. Doc doesn’t expect that there will have been massive slides or buildings disintegrate farther with the rains tonight. Only that today was probably just a little more crappy than yesterday, and we both know there’s much worse to come and no alleviation of suffering in sight.

The lights are still on in the city. I can’t see the moon anymore. It’s begun to rain again.

Tent camp at Place St. Pierre (across from Eglise St. Pierre). Little girl named Valentina who locked on to Kevin, who picked her up and held her as she squealed happily and sucked on her fist. She and her slightly older brother had both waved and giggled at us, and we had been waving and giggling back. She’d diarhea’d down her leg and mother had just washed her. As she was standing on the curb naked and wet with mother dumping water on her a boy walked up next to her and matter-of-factly pissed into the street.

Standing there watching also was a well dressed man who had been a waiter for 31 years at the upscale hotels including the M– which collapsed. He was looking for / visiting with friends. Has a house “a la montagne” and 20 of his extended family died but not his own kids or wife. But out of a job and thinks maybe restaurant might reopen in 2 weeks. Or a month. Or longer. He said that before the earthquake it wasn’t so good either because there have been so many tragedies – the presidents coming and going, and unrest, that tourists didn’t come and the hotels or restaurants would close.

About now the father of Valentina comes over. The white parts of his eyes are legal paper yellow – hepatitis, pronounces Hilda, when I tell her about it later. He says he has no job, he tries to wash cars when they come to park. He wants to show me the place where he, the mother and two kids stay – a triangle pitch tarp and a tarp floor set up not more than 2 feet from the curb where Valentina just had her bath. He says the rains will come and this is all they have, please help, what will they do, she can’t stay here but what can he do. He didn’t ask for money, he wanted me to see. But I had to go, my driver insistently beeping his horn from across the street. I said I was sorry, I don’t know how to help, tell me how you think I can help. He was sorry too, he had no answers, just foreboding about the rains to come.

Valentina

Valentina and brother

man with baby in tent camp

We’re off to meet with Shawn who is something like a fixer who’s very recently gone security firm. He’s doing security for a company that has the contract to do logistics for the folks searching for expat bodies. One of his guys came back and said that they found two canadians today in the M– hotel but only got one body out. It’s been a month. We saw two Mexican women in orange caving coveralls covered with patches – they are body searches. One woman was much smaller and shorter and we were told that she’d found the largest number of expat bodies. They call her “the snake” (en espanol). Suddenly I realize what the “repatriation of remains” provision is all about on my life insurance. There’s a contract to find and pull out the (insured) expat bodies. I’ll leave the rest unsaid.

UN

This grocery store near the south-eastern end of Rue Delmas. It’s next to the Thai restaurant. Looks reasonably stocked, apparently the prices “c’est normale“, and there’s no apparent damage to the structure.

fresh bread at the store

meat and cheese at the store

staples and processed foods at the store

liquor and beer (this photo only shows about 1/5 of the wall!) at the store

Arrived Haiti aprox 12:30. Hot. Came in on a fully full 757 and although 3 other flights arrived at approximately the same time in the terminal, immigration and customs was smooth. Just lots of people, and hot. Immigration lady was slightly bored but pleasant. I didn’t have baggage and squeezed right past all the people in the temporary giant armory-style building, had a pleasant bon jour and ca va? with the customs person and then found Kevin waiting for me in possibly the only chair in the terminal. SF guys are resourceful like that I guess.

Shannon (that’s a dude) was waiting outside with a rental truck/van. He came in a month ago driving in from DR and has since seen the whole city. Drives kind of like a crazy Afghan especially when he drops a cheesy poof and has to go digging around in his lap to find it. We zipped about and I lived up to the stereotypical asian with a camera. Except Kevin has one too.

Here’s a few views from the first outing that day. We also went to a grocery store (“market”) on Rue Delmas which was completely intact and had everything you’d expect – staples, processed stuff, produce, meat, bread, toiletries, etc. And an entire wall of liquor and beer, which is kind of a weird sight since I’m sort of used to Afghanistan now. Don’t seem to have selected those photos, maybe tomorrow. Went out after night fall too but pics on other camera. Tired now. Enjoy photos.

tents - immediately after leaving the airport terminal

a well organized tent city, still near the airport"

a well organized tent city, still near the airport

plenty of stuff for sale on the street from goods to produce

street vendors with earthquake damage backdrop

all concrete construction is not the same

declaring ownership - this tent has quite a yard

fallen building on Rue Delmas

Rue Delmas traffic around 13:15

contrast in construction - this house seems completely untouched

wooden poles for sale on Rue Delmas (approaching Place St. Pierre area)

side road from Rue Delmas. Some smaller roads have been blocked off and tents line the roads.

the coming rains will cause this kind of debris to slide

people on a second story structure among fallen construction on Rue Delmas

side street food vendor (near the 100's Rue Delmas)

Looks like a quick trip for the second half of March is on. Logan’s gonna meet me there late March and I’m relieved that he can stay through the first half of the beginner’s photojournalism course that will kick off in April.

A ton of stuff to do for that — I gotta vet the Afghan who will run the course and settle on the camera model, and check on the number of working computers. And oh, actually find professional or skilled amateurs willing to mentor the students from afar (do you take photos for a living or hobby? Are you willing to trade email with an Afghan to review their photos and offer advice on improving their skills? Email me!)

Also got the Amazon wish list for the Jalalabad Public Library going. The fab labbers are making custom book cases and study areas on the shopbot. They’ve been practicing with stools, cabinets, and shoe racks. The library is going to start off modestly in a small room next to the fab lab at the sharwali. The library is something that the labbers suggested themselves, in addition to books they want to loan things like cameras and laptops too.

a cabinet of the local style made on the Shopbot

a shoerack made on the Shopbot. The fab lab users take their shoes off in the computers area to help keep the area clean.

Mostly I’m going to check up on things especially lots of reports that amount to people not getting along.

Well, if you’re going to be in Af / Jbad and wanna get together or have things to check up on, send me some mail.

Neil, Sherry, Amon, and I went to the National Science Foundation headquarters in Arlington last week. Neil gave a talk for their Distinguished Lecturer Series and there was an after party, I mean after meeting, for people from various organizations interested in bringing Fab Labs into multiple environments in the USA. We were also joined by Fabbers Jim Jannisse (Wisconsin) and David Richardson (Ohio) from the USFLN, and Kelly Snook from NASA Goddard (and a graduate of the How to Make Almost Anything class at MIT).

Neil Gershenfeld speaking at the National Science Foundation

Neil's presentation at the National Science Foundation drew a large and varied audience

Representatives from many agencies and organizations stayed to discuss scaling Fab Labs

I was hoping to wait until I got a link to the video from Neil’s presentation but it’s been over a week so all you get are some photos. For anyone in the Boston area, Neil is giving a similar talk at the Museum of Science on March 10, 2010.

This was the beginning if a whirlwind trip, including some amazing meetings with people interested in helping with Fab Lab Afghanistan as well as site scouting the Fab Lab DC site in North Cap (I’m already late on the site report, hopefully I’ll get to that this weekend).

Well, I’m still not sure what happened to the blog because it involved scary mysql database stuff.  And I did some wordpress updates at the same time, leading to a rather pronounced down time.  But thanks to Jeff, the blog is back and everything seems fine.  Whew!  Jeff’s fee was super steep, two Tootsie Rolls, some congee, and a cup of water – but I managed to scrape it together.

I have a lot to catch up on, having just returned hours ago from several days in DC and lots and lots of fascinating meetings.  But first some things from around the fab world that I would have pointed at if the blog were up:

new space in Soshanguve South Africa

3D scanning, modeling, and milling

Soshanguve Fab Lab moved to a new building.  The empty room didn’t look a lot different but the new work areas after the move looks super inviting!  If you’re at all in the area now is a great time to visit.  That center table in particular is just screaming for you to plop yourself down at to make something cool.  In characteristic Soshanguve style, they’re doing just that and jumping headlong in to 3D scanning, modeling, milling and molding.

In Afghanistan, we’ve started making plans for the public library that will be in a room next to the fab lab. We’ve set up an Amazon book wishlist which is being filled by local Afghans. They’re spreading the world among themselves to select the books; we’ll need to find ways to fulfill their requests. The selections so far are really interesting and run the gamut from basic English to computer and networking to anger management and conflict resolution to business marketing and fundraising.

Gay Maclaire (right) sets up a wireless modem at his new internet cafe at a makeshift camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti January 30, 2010. After the earthquake destroyed Maclaire’s internet business, he recovered some of the equipment and started an internet cafe at a makeshift camp in front of the damage presidential palace, where he lives with his family. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

Some of you know that Nadya is spearheading an effort to fund and link with a Haitian organization to bring a Fab Lab to Haiti. We’re having lots of various meetings with different groups at MIT but she’ll always welcome more input or help. Go see the site to keep up — Nadya’s running a blog on Haiti related events and information (Boston area biased).

Ok, this is insanely exciting.  I’ll let Hameed tell you in his own words first:

We installed another fabfi today. This connection is for W, about one killometer to the south west of the tower.

As you can see in attached photos of the fabfi, we made the antenna out of two metal oil containers. We then made holes in it, made a wooden frame for it, we nailed a small board beneath, and installed a small plastic container which perfectly fits the router and protects it from rain and things like that.

This new antenna works the same as the ones we’ve been using.

Rahmat and I thought we should do something visionary and see if we can survive without the Shopbot.

There are several amazing things here, in case you’re also too excited to notice, they are:

1. the Afghans understand what’s going on technically
2. they aren’t allowing material or logistics impede forward progress and instead are improvising with what they can get their hands on
3. the reflector was made with not only “locally available” materials but using pre-used material (meaning not new, perfect stock materials)
4. H and R are sufficiently motivated not just by their own internet connection but the community mesh in general and are really putting in time and effort
5. they took pictures and wrote us a summary!  With no prodding!
6. while it’s not “the best signal possible”, that antenna is getting -77dB to -71dB which is REALLY CLOSE to what our machine cut antenna gets at that range. Oh, wait, that’s slightly bad news for the computer controlled machines. But awesome for our FabFi team!
7. did I mention they dreamed this up themselves?

This is more proof that sometimes you don’t need an optimal, perfectly engineered (expensive) solution. What you need is something that works, now. That oil can reflector is no where the best signal that they could “possibly get”, but what they are getting is GOOGLE (in Hameed’s words)!

Man, I am SOOOOOO proud of these guys.

Jalalabad FabFi does.