It's Friday, Friday, Gotta get down on Friday

Sorry couldn't resist.

Update on what's going on here in Haiti:

I found out today that a 60 ton crane exists in Haiti. The company that owns this crane is RFI Plus. Reasonable prices if you're looking for a solid crane for lifting most anything out there. Their operators are very knowledgeable.

I found this out because the crematory and incinerator arrived on site. They are huge. And they are now sitting exactly where they are supposed to be.

Thanks crane.

Excuses in one thousand words

It's been 9 days since I last posted. So posting daily is a slight fail for the month. How this happened could be blamed on the fact that there was a lack of internet for a couple of days. Or lack of commitment on my part. This is like a choose your own path story. I don't really have anything to say tonight so I'll leave you with a picture of the sunset tonight. That counts as a 1000 words right?

"How to..." guides are bad

Sometimes.

Regardless, the fact is if you're telling someone how to achieve a task you're minimizing room for creativity. I'm not necessarily talking about something as big as "Build a hospital." The guide to that might start with 1) Start a NGO 30 years before you want to break ground. But it's possible.

Today we were asked by our general contractor to move the site security shack. Not an unusual request because it was sitting on top of the place where the main entrance to the site will be. It's not very big. Wood construction. Tin roof. Concrete slab around the base.

First, the way it was done before: screw eye bolts into the four sides, attach ropes, and lift with the excavator.

Second, the way creativity did it: 14 Haitians nailed handles to the four corners, lifted it, rotated it, and carried it to where it needed to go.

To reach the second option, my boss, after we'd gone about collecting everything we'd need for the first option and after we'd had our carpenters go to town freeing the structure from it's base, said "maybe we should just step back." Wiser words could not have been used. The next thing the carpenter boss asked us was where it needed to go. We pointed to the spot. Next thing we knew the handles are going on the sides and the Team Haiti labor crew is showing up to help the carpenters.

Next time you ask somebody to do something, maybe just maybe, try not telling them how to do it first and see what happens.

How is Haiti?

This is a question I'm frequently asked when I'm traveling back and forth from Haiti. Really anytime that I am not in Haiti, people will ask me this. And often times I feel like it is asked in such a way that I need to find a really concise way to tell people how Haiti is. So I'm going to answer in a more long winded way here:

First, I have a fairly small prism in which I work and view Haiti. It isn't unusual for me to only see a couple of square miles in a month.

Within this prism, I work with a lot of Haitian men who have had fairly consistent work for almost a year now. Add to this that the wages we pay are generally considered to be fair wage in Port-Au-Prince which has a higher cost of living. This means there is a fair amount of money that is being infused into the community. I see houses going up quite a bit faster than I'm used to seeing elsewhere in Haiti.

But generally speaking I'm expecting that people are wondering about the earthquake. How has Haiti recovered? Where is it at now 2 years later?

The best answer I can give is that it's not recovered. But there is progress. There are still a lot of people living in tent camps. Hundreds of thousands. But people are migrating away from where they had been living. Cholera is still a huge issue. We've reached the dry season which means a downturn in occurrence but it'll continue to be an issue. PIH is going to be testing the effectiveness of vaccinating large numbers of people against it in January. Economically, there hasn't been much change. People still need work. Peoples families still take care of each other.

But all of these aid related things are heavily tied to the strength of foreign economies. And the weather forcast isn't looking good for the world. This will have an impact on how fast Haiti recovers. Hopefully it doesn't take long.

Thoughts, comments, complaints, etc. I'd love to have feedback. Toodles

Saturday is the end of the week here

Made it to the end of the week. Super long week. A lot of progress on site. I got the 1.1 community health waiting room cleared of most of the warehoused materials in it which was a super accomplishment. Unfortunately I had to refill it with all the metal working materials I have on site to prepare for next week. We're going to be fabricating all of the exterior metal working so that we can get the building secured. We've also started the excavation of the 2.2 building, which is the operating facilities and the ICU, and the masons have started to lay block on that. We're moving to a new office tomorrow back in the pharmacy.

I've spent 6 months in the same office but it's time for some change. It's allowing us to move forward on some of the site work so that it's already for the big opening.

Sometimes it becomes quite difficult to keep up with emails that aren't work related. I'm hoping to catch up on all of those tomorrow. I should say it's been very good to write this every night (with one exception). Forces me to think about my day differently. Still developing how it's going to evolve over the next couple weeks. Let me know what you think.

Lack of ideas

Solution oriented thinking. It's not an easy thing. Getting to the point where when posed a question my first thought is to a solution is tough. It takes forgetting about all the nonsense that can get in the way.

For instance, I had a container arrive today. The first thought that came into my head was where can I land it that I don't have to worry about breaking contract. And while this is important the prioritization should not have been first on the contract.

Also important to solution development is thinking outside the box. Extremely cliche. But when this container arrived today, I limited myself to the west side of the property. I'd forgotten the 80,000 sq. ft. I could have parked the container in on the east side of the property.

Luckily my boss has much more experience and was able to get to a solution that effectively addressed these issues.

But now I'm typing in the dark and one of my roommates is snoring. Perhaps I shall shove off for sleep. Toodles

Big picture

First, I love the big picture. I like figuring out how the pieces are all going to come together. Finding the best way for the pieces together is good too. I enjoy the nuances of how everything comes together.

Second, I don't dislike emails. Perhaps that's unusual. I enjoy them a little. I'm not talking about those emails from credit cards/banks/ebay/paypal/XYZ record label/randomboyband. I'm talking about emails that are pertinent to the scope of work you're invested in. For me, right now, that's anything relating to the construction of the Mirebalais Hospital.

Thus when I begin to get my head really focused on unloading containers and look up and the entire site has changed around me, it's a little unsettling. So I try to stay in the loop. Mostly by convincing people it is a really good idea to copy me on most emails.

But being the loop can have repercussions. I've now been put in charge of all the ornamental metal working for the hospital. Fun stuff let me assure you. Get to get really good at welding. Got to study up on all those drawings now.

Toodles