Haiti: Clean Water (Video)

I realized that I never posted the second video from my trip to Haiti.  After they were hit by three back-to-back hurricanes in the summer of 2008, the water supplies in the Jacmel area were contaminated.  Operation Blessing, with the help of DHL and Water Missions International, installed a water purification unit that can purify 10,000 gallons of water a day.  The system was installed in the village of Siloe.

2 Haiti Videos are up.

Since returning from Haiti I have been working on videos from the trip. One was for our partner, DHL, and two that will be used on our sites. The trip was a real eye opener for me. My only previous trips outside of the US were short day trips to Canada (which wasn’t hard since I lived in the Metro-Detroit area). I had never experienced anything remotely close to this in my life. The people were very nice, but the conditions they must endure are hard to imagine. Many don’t have access to the things we take for granted: clean water, stable electricity, and education. On top of these struggles, the hurricanes have made life harder for them. Many lost their homes, gardens and livestock when the storms ravaged their country. These are just a few of the stories.

Food Relief in L’Estere, Haiti.
[vimeo 1914853]

Clean Water For Jacmel, Haiti: Vlog Post @ www.myowneyes.org
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwkiaLw0SLk&hl=en&fs=1]

St. Marc, Haiti 2008

Day 4 of our trip to Haiti is almost done. Kumar went out with Humedica today to administer medical relief in the rural village of ….. I stayed back at the hotel to compress video footage and put it on our FTP server so that team members in America can take a look at it and use it for their news and packaged stories. I also uploaded audio files of interviews and pictures that could accompany any possible print stories. It was very stressful. The Internet in Haiti is not very fast. I was averaging upload speeds of 25KB/s, which meant that I had to really compress our video footage in order to get it on the server…but it still needed to be HD. After two unsuccessful attempts at compresion settings, I had the footage to a manageable 130MB. This took about 1.5 hours to upload. The other interesting factor was that you could only access wifi down on the patio by the pool and there was only one location with an outlet. Anyway, I think both videos uploaded ok.

We drove back to Port Au Prince in the afternoon, but made a quick stop at Water Missions to help unload our water purification unit. Once it was unloaded, we finalized plans for the journey tomorrow and went to the hotel where I was reunited with my luggage. It wasn’t that easy, but it’s not worth explaining on this blog. After an hour and a little more hassle, my luggage was finally here! Kumar and I enjoyed a wonderful steak dinner (our first “real” meal in two days) and then I immediately grabbed my swimsuit and went in the gorgeous pool at the hotel. The hotel is very nice and has many ammenities that we Americans take for granted (A/C, hot water, properly sealed windows, comfortable mattress, etc). The Internet is the only thing that is lacking and that appears to be caused by the weather. This happened the first night we stayed in Port Au Prince as well.

After my swim I went to the restaurant to grab a coke and struck up a conversation with another gentleman, Dan, who was here watching the Georgia football game. He is an American who has done humanitarian work in Haiti for 8 years. He was a wealth of information about the culture and people of Haiti. I am fascinated by the Haitian people more and more every day that I am here.

Immunization Shots

Today I had to get 4 immunization shots in preparation for a trip to Haiti next week.  For some reason I thought they were going to be a lot worse than they were.  I must have been recalling the IV I received a few years ago…these were nothing.  The muscle pain I’m feeling now is worse than the  actual shots. I am now protected against Yellow Fever, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, and Tetanus. Pills will take care of Malaria.

[vimeo 1715512]

The Aftermath of Tropical Storm Hanna

Today, Tropical Storm Hanna struck the Hampton Roads area with minimal force. We weren’t expecting it to be a big storm, but it was even less than we had anticipated. There were a few good gusts of wind in Portsmouth, VA and about 15-30 minutes of actual rainfall, but the rest was drizzle and steady winds. That said, we did have half of a tree fall on our fence. It didn’t damage the fence, but I will have a couple hours of cleanup tomorrow. About 5pm the rain and winds gave way to sunshine and a beautiful sunset around 8pm.

In anticipation of the storm, based on the media hype, I purchased a waterproof case for my Flip Ultra camera and readied myself for some fun footage. I was out in some of the gustier wind and rain with the camera and also looked for any signs of tornadoes during the warnings. Many of you may not know it, but there was a point in time when I was a certified storm watcher in Michigan (or at least I had taken a few classes and had a paper card that said so.) Either way, there was nothing to be seen today. The area between our house and the neighbors had the most damage that I encountered in my trips around the city of Portsmouth, VA.

Video and Pictures below.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/1680488]

or watch it on YouTube Here

Podcast setup

We are starting to do a podcast at work and I have been commissioned to take it under my wing.  I personally own the tools I need to do it, so I prefer to use my equipment until we get something comparable at work.  Because many of the people I will interview are in other states and countries, I am using Skype along with Call Recorder to host and record the interviews.  This was the setup I used while at home.  I did a similar setup at work, but without the Mac Pro.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/1650234]

Video: July 2008 Photo Shoot

I had the opportunity to do a little traveling to take portrait photographs for Regent University School of Psychology & Counseling.  They wanted to highlight three of their students that are/were getting their degree online and working in the field in their communities.  This is a video of that trip.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/1643044]

or watch it on YouTube here.