The team’s arrival and establishment in Gonaïves was not easy. Initially, it was necessary to find accommodation for four people, expandable to eight or ten, depending on the phase of the work. The first thought was to look for apartments in some “condominium”, closed residential complexes with surveillance, usual for expats everywhere. The prudence of movements and the safety of our people were the starting point of any action in a country where social differences are so abysmal: Haiti is a country where a tiny minority is extremely rich and an immense majority of the population lives in the worst of miseries.

Despite being a joint venture of two companies with a similar culture, the displaced people were of different ages, different sexes, different marital statuses and we counted on the addition of someone who had just signed on for the project, so the ideal was to rent individual apartments for each member of the displaced team. But this possibility of finding apartments in a securely gated residential complex was just a dream: this was a real estate product that did not exist in Gonaïves. After a long search, we ended up finding a house with 8 rooms in fairly good condition and in a seemingly quiet part of town. The daily Haitian Big Brother began, although without cameras, obviously.

During working hours, within the team deployed to carry out the work, there was an organization chart and a hierarchy that regulated personal relationships. In addition, we had a workplace built on the construction site itself with practically the same standards of comfort as we could have here in construction offices. Nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to relationships in a work context.

During extra work hours, the hierarchy disappeared and they became a group of equals, each with their “backpack” of origin and the new Haitian life. Inside the house, they had to initially assign rooms, organize themselves to share the living room, toilets, kitchen, garden and unify, as far as possible, establish coexistence criteria based on equality of opinions, without hierarchies. And outside the house, Gonaïves offered leisure possibilities, with the standards that a European can imagine, practically nil.

If we add to this context that one of the new people, hired explicitly for the project, ended up being an intolerant and dangerous person for his colleagues, it is easy to deduce the amount of time and suffering that we all had to dedicate to achieve the personal well-being of all and general peace. Probably, during the first 8-9 months of work, the conversations between the displaced team and those responsible here revolved much more around human relations than around the work and the problems of making it move forward, and look what there was! The psychological management of the team became the main factor to take into account and take care of.

On the other hand, while we were looking for accommodation, we managed to hire, with relative ease, several Haitian women who ended up becoming fundamental in maintaining peace and harmony within the team. They took care of all the personal and general logistics: cleaning, laundry, buying food and managing the kitchen in general. Nadege, Naima and Jesula were the best local finds.

Seventh part

Sixth part

Fifth part

Fourth part

Third part

Second part

First part