Our long-time friend and producer of our foundation wines “Satisfaction II” and “Come Together”, Mario Bollag from Terralsole, asked us last autumn if we would help him with his project in Haiti, the Tè Solèy | School Project.
Despite all the warnings from family and friends, we accepted this request and set off for Haiti in mid-January. After a safe stopover and overnight stay in Port-au-Prince, we flew on to our destination, “Jacmel”, the next day in a Cessna. There we were welcomed by Mario and taken by motorbike to our actual location. The competence centre, which Mario has been building for almost 10 years and which is nearing completion, has far exceeded all our expectations.
Despite the great poverty, the people are extremely friendly and helpful.
After a short acclimatisation phase on the first day, we began to procure the necessary sanitary materials on site before starting work.
Time and time again, projects in which we work with local materials show how great it is that we are able to work with high-quality materials from Geberit in Nepal. This work always requires a lot of improvisation, which makes it enormously exciting, but also very time-consuming.
The project stay in Haiti flew by, and the organisation for the return flight to Port-au-Prince was very uncertain until shortly before our departure – typically Haitian, you have to take things as they come.
In the end, however, everything worked out and the construction project is largely complete from our point of view. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t be returning to conduct and train local sanitation courses at Mario’s centre of excellence.
It was an extremely instructive time with many good conversations and a creative exchange of ideas. We have decided to organise more joint activities in the future, as mutual support only benefits everyone involved. So yes, there will certainly be a next time.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our donors