What a crew !

The heat is unbearable: 98 F in the shade, yet the men keep at it: it’s grueling work, with picks and shovels, carrying stones and gravel in buckets that keep breaking, because the wheel barrows broke once more. From 7 am to 3. 30 pm with a ½ hour lunch break of rice and beans, they keep plugging away. I wonder what other country could provide such strong, resilient, determined workers.  The equipment bought in Haiti has been imported mostly from China and is of poor quality no matter what price. ( as much as possible Rt 1 equips its men with tools that Ray brings in …yet we know that it isn’t the way to stimulate the local economy…but if we don’t , so much of our limited budget goes into replacing bad tools!

At 3 , the men slowly drift towards the pit where water has been dumped from a truck.  They have been in the process of building the well house but it isn’t quite ready yet. Since sophisticated power tools and expert labor are not available , construction goes at ¼ of the speed it does in the US for instance. We can’t risk installing the water pump until it will be protected by walls, a roof and a steel door. By the time they pack themselves in the back of the pick-up truck, all 25workers  look clean and fresh,  ready to face their families without a trace of the hard hard work they have just accomplished during the entire day.  They do get prestige in their neighborhoods from being hired to work with foreigners on a construction project  but that and their small  salarIes ( small by US standards= $15/day )  seems to be little compensation for the tremendous effort they have been exerting  six days a week since March 15.

I have to remember that our work ( Ray training them, directing the construction, my bi-lingual administration, the gathering of  grants and support) has given these 36 men ( among whom six are orphans from NDL) a way to earn a living as we are building this new home and school for the 90 children of Maud’s Maison Notre Dame de Lourdes. 

What I appreciate the most? Their good humor... their cheerfulness and laughters..

Hope for one boy

The earthquake crippled him.

Stevenson at Work

Stevenson lost both parents and was stuck under rubbles for two days after the earthquake in Port au Prince in January 2010 when his cousin found him and dug him out.  Using a borrowed wheelchair Jakson brought him to the Missionaries of Christ the King who took him to a hospital. He was operated on and a metal plate inserted to replace his shine bone… the operation didn’t go well, his leg keeps getting infected and he can no longer walk. He lives with the other 89 children at the Foyer Notre Dame de Lourdes and until recently, he spent his days in bed with nothing to do.  He is 20 years old, he can barely read and write.

 At the site of the future orphanage, there are many rigorous jobs that demand resilience and physical strength but thanks to Maud’ s idea, Stevenson is finding his place among the men.   As of last Monday he has a half time job with Relief Team One participating in the construction; he cuts tie wire for the reinforcement column.  He is helping out and he is out of bed.   His grin is a mile long.

Kervin

He was so malnourished when he was brought to Maud’s orphanage at his mother’s death that he looked like he was 4 or 6 months old …… yet he had all his teeth!  His gums were blood shot and he was emaciated.  He didn’t have the strength to even sit up and all he did was cry.  Maud said she couldn’t, she wouldn’t keep him. The doctor Maud consulted at the hospital the following morning diagnosed severe malnutrition and told her the baby would die within 24 hours.  Amidst all the discussions concerning his life, somehow , this baby, this little boy,  in the middle of his crying found the words he needed to say and to the utter amazement of all, they heard “Mwen grangou” “ I am hungry”…so they fed him …monitored his intake and brought him back …..No one knows exactly how old he is, and his growth is thwarted by severely bowed legs but Kervin is here to stay and he has won Maud’s heart.

Minutes before the earthquake that dreadful January 12  he had come looking for “mamy Maud” wanting a hug. She had just picked him up when the first tremor sent them both to the floor….the next tremor got her with the little boy still in her arms, back on her feet.  From then on it was total mayhem;  somehow she yelled to all the children to get out of the house….none died and none were hurt in the rubbles. 

Now Kervin is solidly present and one of his joys is to help open the large front gate to the orphanage to let cars in:  “mwen kapab” “I can do it” he says with determination.  This same determination that helped him survive as a severely undernourished baby will certainly serve him well as he makes his way in life. 

It rained on her bed.

The director of the hospital Cardinal Leger in Leogane  ( which was the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake) called Relief Team One to see if we could repair her roof. The rainy season has started and every night it rains in her bed!  This is in the new building that was constructed to get her staff and herself out of the tents where they have been living since January last year! 
A team of seven of our best students went down and in three days they reconstructed the whole roof structure over the little chapel and the sisters’ bedrooms.  No funding comes for staff housing; foundations are much more interested in financing schools or hospitals. Yet, without staff, there is no functioning hospital….so the logic escapes me…

Any way my room was in the condemned former hospital. I was given a key to lock myself in, and when the rat decided not to enter the front door ahead of me, I was very pleased.  I have never spent the night in a deserted condemned greatly destroyed hospital before;  a  little gecko joined me in the bathroom where a thoughtful person had filled a 5 gallon bucket for my shower.  Ceilings are broken, partly fallen, equipment and supplies are still there, but everything is covered with dust and abandoned… the operating room is spooky  with only a little bit of equipment yet, some supplies still there , seemingly ready but covered with gravel and dust…everything sealed at a moment in time and deserted… creates a strange feeling.. really eerie !

The good news is that under Ray’s creative energy and guidance, the men and he were able to make a brand new roof. They all slept in the same tents the nuns have recently abandoned and had a taste for what their accommodations have been like. Mosquitoes galore, even after the UN ( gun at the ready, not sure why?) came to spray the grounds…

Where do I come in? Well I speak English and French and therefore am the link between builder and hospital staff…kind of fun!

What a class!

Half the class stayed after the hour was done to practice the problem given to them.  Their determination is palpable. They are working on assessing the material needed to build a frame structure in Haiti: something all of them can relate to, a dream that might become their reality:  they can envision building their own house! Jackson, the tailor, rebuilt the house that he lives in with his wife and young baby last spring after the earthquake destroyed it, using the skills that he learned from the program.

 This is the 7 am English for Construction class that runs five days a week every week for 6 weeks and is part of the program to teach construction techniques and construction management with hands on practice in the field.  At the end of this course they get a certificate attesting their competency in the classroom and in the field.  This is drawing a lot of students: 48 attend the class. This comprehensive concept of construction technology is introduced by Ray, the Director/Founder of Relief Team One who is a US General Contractor with a long experience in carpentry and masonry work. This course is his brainchild: class work, with top students helping weaker ones, Haitians helping Haitians. Field work takes place at the new orphanage site, under his watchful eye enforcing a tempo and a quality of work (with anti-seismic and anti-hurricane international standards) that Haitians haven’t encountered before.   In class the concepts are reinforced in English, French and Creole by Ray, Big and Bellegarde( 2 men being trained to be leaders) and I.   I enjoy adapting my experience in the classroom to this local reality: it is super fun to teach a practical application. 

26 men are currently employed by Relief Team One on the site of the orphanage complex we are building.  Ray gives out crisp orders, paces from one group to the other, directing the men to maximize their output.  He speaks no creole and ten words of French: but all listen and all hear his directives.  He has me call the owner who calls the suppliers who deliver the material and all the pieces of the puzzle of the construction come together. No heavy equipment to ease the work.  Men work in small teams on various aspects of a structure, holes and trenches are dug with pick and shovels, and cement is mixed with shovels, and it works!  Progress is evident and at every visit I get to see it.

Those men work harder than I have ever seen anyone work before: the fact that an unpaid foreign volunteer (Ray) with strong leadership skills, expertise and vision, is the drive for providing housing to their fellow countrymen who are orphans AND training and jobs for them is a HUGE motivator.  Most of them don’t have a background in construction; they are tailors, students, managers, musicians, mechanics…. But they come every morning and then work all day under the scorching Haitian sun.

Sweet Mickey is New President in Haiti.

The singer Michel Martelly won by a large margin. He has the support of the young and the poor. He wants to unite Haitians to work for Haiti.  His opponent Mme Manigat, stated tonight on TV that the elections had been rigged…. Everything is calm ( very few gun shots were heard on the night after the elections) and the results have been well received…what is she trying to do?  She has the support of the intellectual class and of former president Aristide who has a big following. Is there going to be another page to the election story?  We are all hoping for peace so that the country can continue rebuilding itself.

Speaking of construction:  work at the new orphanage site is progressing.  20 workers are busy lining the septic tank, digging the foundation for the bathroom. It is a lot of fun and very impressive  to see all these men working hard in the brutal sun and making visible changes.  The plumber came and we went over the bathroom plans… it is going to look like a cross between a convent bathroom and the bathroom of  College Brébeuf in Montreal where we take our students every fall!  J

AND,   11 chicks were born ( 2 have already died) and are busy following their Mom /hen as she shows them how to scratch the dirt and fallen bananas trees leaves to find little bugs… Great fun to watch!

By the way , bananas right off the tree taste totally different than Giant Dole bananas: it's like another fruit!

Random tidbits

6 young men (18 to 32 years old students in the English /construction class) dug a 12x 12 pit for the septic tank for the future orphanage , 7 am to 4 pm, with pick and shovel hauling dirt and rocks out in 5 gallon buckets, one at a time all day for a week under the 90 F blasting sun!  Anyone want to try? They are covered with dust but work with heart because they are grateful for the $ 10 /day pay check and the lunch. ( we are trying to give them something to pay for the tap-tap rides to the job $ 1.75 /day)

We are looking into two water purification systems: one bio-sand, the other solar powered.  Interesting stuff!

One of the dogs ate the rooster!!! The chicken is traumatized, no more eggs!  J  Now the dog is gone!!  Choices are made:  dogs are not food.  Everyone sleeps better:  the dog used to bark half the night and the rooster would start to crow at 2 am!

Yesterday lunch was “ragout” !! I had wondered what the goat head,  fore legs, and tail that were soaking in the kitchen sink were going to be used for… now I know!

Enjoy your peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches J