Kiwi Mouse Trap

As you may have guessed by looking at the length of time between my Haiti posts, I am a bit behind, but I am working to catch up. While I'm on, I thought I would share a video I put together on how to catch a mouse without killing it.

It's called a Kiwi mouse trap because I heard about it through a Kiwi (that's New Zealand) mate of mine. There were a couple of guys living in a flat in NZ, and they had a mouse problem, so they devised this trap to catch multiple mice without resetting the trap. The originators actually filled the bucket half-full with water because they wanted to kill the mice. So, they set up this trap in their kitchen before going to bed, and when they got up in the morning, there were more than 30 mice drowned in the bucket. Amazing, eh.

Kiwi mouse trap video by yours truly.

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Accommodating Haiti

On the compound in Gran Goave where we would be staying, there were a few buildings on the site, but everyone staying there lived in the tents that took up most of the free ground in the courtyard. We knew that we would be staying in the tents as well while we were there, so I brought an inflatable sleeping pad and a blanket. To my (and the rest of the group’s) surprise, the tents had full on air mattresses (and a couple of regular mattresses) inside them, one for each of us.

The tents on the compound.

While we knew that we would be staying in tents on the compound, what we didn’t know was that to make space for us, some of the locals had to be evicted from the tents we were staying in. Pastor Tim told us that the night before we arrived, Haitians had been sleeping in our tents and the night after we left, there would be Haitians sleeping in our tents again. It was just a part of the process of living in earthquake-devastated Haiti.

Another pleasant surprise was that there was a water cooler in the main building where we were able to get some ice cold dlo (that’s “water” in Creole) for drinking. Ok, so the 5-gallon bottles of water didn’t get delivered to the compound like they would in the U.S., but it was still cold and clean deliciousness in a bottle. Pastor Tim told us that the water pump on the compound was fed by a well that had been

The open-air, concrete urinals.

tested and was clean for drinking, but he also informed us that all the water that we were drinking from the water cooler had also been purified by some super purifier. This filter had a built-in carbon filter, UV filter, triple bypass, loop-the-loop, skip to the loo my darling filter (ok, so I made that last one up). For all intensive purposes, this water was as pure as the stuff that melts off of glaciers. There were two types of toilet facilities: porcelain toilet/shower combos and concrete open-air urinals. The latter was obviously mainly for men’s use. The toilet/shower combos reminded me of my time in Japan. Both of the apartments that I

The toilet/shower combo setup.

lived in there had combined toilet/showers, which means that the toilet and shower are in the same room with no divider. The main thing you have to watch out for with these is getting the toilet paper wet. The showers and porcelain toilets were supplied by two water tanks, a 100-gallon and an 80-gallon tank, which were filled automatically by an electric pump from the well. There were even sinks for brushing teeth and washing hands behind the toilets, which is more than I expected.

The water pump was the center of much social activity on the compound. From the time it was unlocked in the morning to the time it was locked up in evening, there was a line of people with 5-gallon buckets waiting to get their hands on the lever. Even though pumping the water was monotonous and definitely not easy, most of the people pumping the water had smiles on their faces and would carry on conversations with the people waiting in line. I imagine this was the Haitian version of the water cooler in many U.S. offices. On our first morning in Haiti, Janelle decided to give some of the locals a break from their daily chore of pumping water. She used her best sign language to let the people know that she wanted to pump the water, and

Janelle pumping water for the locals.

once they understood what she was saying, they were more than willing. As she pumped the lever up and down, water started gushing out. After a few minutes of pumping, the 5-gallon under the spout was full, but as soon as the water level reached the top of the bucket, it was replaced with another empty 5-gallon bucket. This continued for about 10-15 minutes. After the first few minutes, the smile that had permeated Janelle’s face when she was first allowed to pump some water faded to a chagrin. You can see the look on her face yourself in the video.

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