Roads

Roads

Roads in the United States are excellent compared to Haiti.  The well made interstate systems of concrete and asphalt are examples of a first world country.  Even the Romans, a first world empire in ancient times, put vast resources and engineering skill into building their roads.  After over two thousand years, some are still used today.  The condition of a nation's roads will determine how well its internal commerce functions.

Roads in Haiti are a challenge.  One major highway runs between Jacksonville Base near Leogane and Port au Prince.  It is mostly paved in asphalt but has many short sections of dirt and stone.  Rough road abounds, heaved sections of pavement pop up here and there from the earthquake and shoulders are pretty much nonexistent.

‘Secondary’ roads are made of crushed concrete that has been pounded into a crushed gravel of sorts.  The lime makes the surface somewhat hard, but it is prone to heavy potholing and a great unevenness.  They are rough and slow going.

Once off of the pavement the roads are mostly made of rubble or dirt.  They are narrow and dangerous.  In the rainy season they turn to mud with large pools of water and deep ruts.  Many of the poorer people live in the back country between the sea and the mountains off of these oversized goat paths. Some of the houses we have demolished are on these roads.  The equipment barely fits down them but they are heavily traveled by the locals on foot, donkey, and cart.  It is these roads that we upgrade.

The rubble crew starts by moving in the equipment to a site selected by Travis.  The dozer is dropped off as close as possible to the location and then driven in; there is not enough room to bring the tractor and lowboy.  This can be rather tight at spots as the thirteen foot blade doesn’t always fit too well between some of the walls and houses. The loader goes to the river where we can mine the river gravel to use as a road base. 



Getting ready to load

Our dump trucks are loaded there and then Kiki and Sony transport the gravel back to the work site.  The drive is slow not just because the roads are rough, but because they are also so narrow.  The trucks barely can turn around in some spots but always seem to do so.  They dump the load in the goat path, or whatever is there, and then the dozer grades in the new road.  It is wide and flat and the locals are very grateful for the final product.  

Mining the river gravel

Providing basic roads for the Haitians is just another little part of what we are doing here.  It may be small, but the ‘thumbs up’ we get from the Haitians tell a greater story of appreciation that crosses the language barrier.