After a few trips and lots of negotiations which I will get into later, our little family company ended up with 20-year lease renewable into perpetuity on a massive abandoned Bauxite mine complete with a deep-water port mining equipment and structures. The lease was for 1-gourde (Haitian currency) worth about 12 cents US per year.
Because of the years of corruption and government malfeasance, outside industries were leaving the country in droves. We were bringing the promise of jobs and a little contribution to Haiti’s virtually nonexistent balance of payments as well as fresh economic meat for the government to “tax.” We were big-time international operators who were legends in our own mind and in way over our heads. They gave us the keys to the whole place. The main warehouse was loaded with spare parts, including lubricants, Ford pickups, and Broncos.
Several brand-new heavy Cat engines fan to flywheel in shipping crates along with rolls of 72″ wide new conveyor belt for the ship loading cantilever conveyor to get the ore to the ships. We surely needed this, since the locals stripped off all the previous belt in the past and cut it up to make roofs for their little makeshift houses. At about $20 per foot, it was a good thing we had about 1000 feet on rolls left behind in the warehouse so we could replace it.
After we got settled and hired the 100 or so people, We took a large Cat 988 (about an 80,000 LB machine and the entire army of guys we had and pulled that massive roll of belt unto the conveyor and threaded over all the rollers and got that running again. While we were doing all this, we got a $50,000 grant from the US government’s private-public insurance/foreign development/political risk insurance/loan guarantee OPIC to do a further study of the reserves of calcium carbonate. There were no core drilling rigs available; we did this by hand having a man digging a vertical shaft just big enough for a man to pass and hand up a bucket of spoil. We cored the deposit down 30 feet and still didn’t reach the bottom. Only in a third world country could you pull this off.
We hired security for the mine, to stop everyone from stealing our stuff, which consisted of one enormous and well-built gentleman armed with a machete, which he didn’t need since the sight of him made anyone give him a wide berth; like the Israelites fleeing Goliath but there was no David or God’s wrath to challenge him. He recruited his helpers just to cover the area, which were mostly unarmed. He was a gentle giant as long as you behaved yourself. He was so loyal that while we furnished baseball caps with the company logo on it, he also took it upon himself to get the local seamstress to sow on arm patches to his somewhat bedraggled shirt with a crude imitation of the logo denoting him as an official of the company. Our logo, by the way, was a melding of the Haitian flag and the US flag with Haiti American Mining Co. above and below it.
However, there was one attempt a couple of years before we took over the mine of grand theft when someone was able to try to steal a D-8 (30ton) dozer and drove it across the mountain behind the mine to National #1, the only main highway that crosses the country. They intended to transport it out of the country to sell on the black market in South America. It was easy if they had a cat key (which will start any cat machine) and a little fuel. They got scared and abandoned it along the highway. We intended to hire transport to haul it back to the mine. The problem with that was, having to go through the little town of Miragoâne, the turns on the streets were narrow to navigate. So, we decided to drive it the 3 miles over the mountain back to the mine. So off we go with our returned booty. When we started to climb the hill because it has been sitting so long, it leaked out enough hydraulic fluid that the drives in the torque converter wouldn’t turn so that it wouldn’t go over the hill. With the ingenuity of the locals, we rented a donkey and loaded him up with 5-gallon pales of oil from the mine and schlepped it over the hill to the dozer. News of this operation soon spread across the countryside. Since this doesn’t happen every day in Miragoâne, the headline, word of mouth joke was how the little donkey rescued the mighty D-8. After scaring a goat over the hill to his untimely death and plowing through a small cornfield (which we had to settle up the damages with the owner on the spot), We finally got it back to the mine and was once again peace in the valley.
We were off and running; equipment was moving stripping away the left behind Bauxite, revealing the white calcium carbonite below. A lot of hand labor was also involved, and we even thought about using a human conveyor with baskets to get the ore down the hill to the port about a mile away but decided to do the heavy lifting with the equipment we had.
We ran into an unanticipated operational problem with productivity. When I was at a meeting with Dean, our ramrod and he told me that by 1:00 in the afternoon, the labor force was wearing out (even the equipment operators). We made sure they had enough water in the relentless heat. Dean said the problem is that they are so malnourished that they just give out. We thought about that for a while, and we came up with a capital idea of hiring the local best cooks to cook an early lunch, give them an hour break and then start the afternoon shift. We could buy plenty of beans rice and griot to feed the troops rather economically to get the productivity up. We thought we solved our problem for about a day, and then something heartbreaking to see began to occur. At lunchtime, the men would meet their wives and children at the fence and hand their entire lunch over and feed their families. Once again, we were back where we were. Dean asked me, “what do we do now boss,” I thought for a few minutes, did some quick bean-counting in my head, and said, “I guess we’re going to need more beans rice and griot and hire a couple more cooks.” The third world is a different world, and you have to adapt to the conditions that Americans seldom face. Good old capitalism mated with heart and on we went. All was going well, and we were getting ready to mine, load, and ship our first load to the States within three months. Then the death blow hit. To grease the skids that Reynolds so dutifully engaged in for 30+years, I had to pay in the back of a car $10,000 to Baby Docs cousin (who also “owned” the Mercedes dealership in Port au Prince. Soon after that, one morning at 5:00 AM, Baby Doc fled Haiti along with the same cousin that I paid 10k to, on a plane out of the country.
Because of the turmoil of confusion that followed and not being able to determine who to pay off or who was in charge, we were forced to shut down and leave, just like Reynolds, only one big difference, we were a little company, and they were the Behemoth Reynolds Aluminum. If we stayed another month, we would have been broke and lost our Florida family company. The day we finally closed the gate, a herd of our workforce and their families stood at the entrance begging us not to leave. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
The intrigue, CIA, US government screw-ups, Voodoo, young girl prostitutes, Communist Cubans, and a pedophile corrupt Catholic Priest, who became president, are part of the next episode. Stay tuned. Reliving this part of my life helps me battle my depression. Thinking of what I was a part of and how thankful, with all I’m dealing with now, to have my family, my home, and all of it in the good ole USA.
Tales from Depression and Dealing with it. 