Haiti Aquaponics, in Prisons
Part 2:Les Cayes
By Ken Rust
CEO Enterprise Aquatics
Following my first visit in 2021 stability slowly degraded in Port of Prince and some other parts of Haiti. The most unstable parts are pockets within Port-au-Prince and are gang-controlled. The other danger is road travel between cities as there are bandit checkpoints requiring payoffs to pass through. This just gets to be a normal operation for the locals however, if you are not from Haiti, then you would be a potential kidnapping target. The second aquaponic food project was to be in Les Cayes at the prison in the city. Les Cayes is a coastal town and has, in years past, been a vacation destination for Haitian locals as well as tourists.
For this aquaponic system, I provided solar-powered electrical systems. We had quite a task sending equipment for six different aquaponic and solar power systems, having it go through customs, then centrally stored, and then divided back out for a single system on individual sites. In the process, you need enough buffer in the supplies to allow for differences in the site.
I landed in Port Au Prince at the international airport, which I felt was a safe zone and stayed one night at the adjacent hotel. The hotels, like so many places, have a 10 to 12-foot high fence, razor wire, a full steel gate, and armed guards at the entry points. The next morning I flew out on the local commuter airline, to Les Cayes. It’s preferable to use the commuter flight to avoid bandits on the roads in between, and of course, it saves time. After arriving I was able to go to the work site and see what it looked like in person and see what progress had been made. After the first installation, they had already secured the aquaculture system area with bars all the way around and a sliding gate. While this was planning for a secure site, it was confining in every sense of the word. The area was raised on a terrace in front where we would put our deep water culture raft system to grow the plants. The measurements were different than what we planned, and while there were better preparations, the site was just different than we originally considered. So that evening at the hotel and a couple of beers with pencil and paper I redesigned a system to accommodate the site. This site and design allowed for the system to be coupled, but there were bars and a sliding gate in between the fish and plant culture. Jean did a fantastic job of identifying the equipment through the shipments sorting out the amount of materials that we need and getting it delivered to the site. The people that transported it dumped it at the site and rapid fashion and it sort of looked like an eviction. The site was tight so we reduced the number of fish culture tanks by one (from four to three), and began work on the site. The solar power system materials were delivered and the contractor was sharing our workspace, which was not a workable situation. We had to develop some protocols to keep from working on top of each other. The drink bottles and packaging underfoot were driving me crazy so we made a trash barrel, which helped the level of organization on the work site.
We constructed a deep water culture raft system to grow the vegetables with a wire frame and had the water gravity feed from the fish system through the DWC to a sump on the other side that was down below the terrace. The pump was located in the sump and pushed water to the upper tanks allowing them to gravity flow back through the DWC for plant production. We did have to cut some bars and make some accommodations and gravity flow was questionable at first but successful. The Health Through Walls team had a fast learning curve from the first project, and the fish system went together rapidly, regardless of the tight working conditions.
On the last day we had solar power previously we had been using an old generator to operate electrical tools that worked part of the time and could be a little frustrating. We did not have good water flow and eventually, we got the tanks filled for testing. It was very hot in this location for humid than I’ve ever been, including New Orleans, Louisiana, and I wound up being too familiar with the culture water that was coming into the tanks as we tried to clean up and keep cool. I must have become contaminated with some sort of a bug which I had to address later after I came back to the States.
On the last day they delivered fish from a local supplier and we did some training and videoing while we were there. Then they found some plants to do cuttings with including a local watercress that is readily consumed by locals. After we left they surrounded the sump as well as the terrace where the plant system was located with bars and shade cloth. They have been successfully growing fish and plants since August of 2023.
The hotel in Les Cayes was nice however fuel was very expensive due to gang activity controlling some of the ports and transport. They would only turn on the generators for additional power to run air conditioners for four to eight hours per day in the evening and, of course, the building had been heating up all day. Sleeping and cooling off was difficult. I was able to visit the home of the local director for Health Through Walls in the evenings and get home-cooked food and supper visits there. That was very enjoyable. Les Cayes is also known for its seafood and we were able to get lobster and grilled squid which we enjoyed one evening.
When we left the site, fish were eating, and several of the rafts were planted with Akino, the local agronomist, enthusiastically caring for the project. The team was catching on fast and ready for the next project in Port Au Prince for the Croix des Bouquet prison. My request for the next project that I left with Karine Duverger, was for the water supply to be ready before arrival, and the solar power system to be installed ahead of my arrival. Stay tuned…
Personally,… I really enjoyed knowing a little more Creole French. The urban area was more convenient and not a long commute to the site. I was able to interact with the group. We drove to a lunch spot on the coast and I was able to see some rice farms. Akino also spoke Spanish, which is common for people who have traveled to the Dominican Republic for education.
