One week remains

I've been a little lax in updating the blog recently. Let's see...

Last Friday (20th), was a busy day. It was Bill Wagner's last day to finish the house in Bon Repos, we had two more guys arriving to work with Bill Fudge, and then there was the work. We are shifting the kindergarten rooms so that we can restart vocational classes which means all the desks are getting shifted, mostly all up one level. The kindergarten desks aren't that bad. They're small and bright colors. But the first grade had two unwieldy large desks that we had to hoist from the ground up to the second floor. Perfect reason to break out the climbing equipment! In the middle of dead lifting them up from the third floor, Stephen got a call saying that the two guys were at the airport. Which was about an hour before I was expecting them to arrive. So we finished hoisting and Stephen and I took Pastor Luc's truck to pick them up. Came back and immediately set about shifting all the other desks around. They were a bit smaller and could be handled by two people.

But you can't get the climbing gear out just for one thing. No you've got to find other stuff to lift from the ground to the roof. It's a requirement. So up the solar panels brackets went. Bill's guys were massively helpful in all these efforts and we had the brackets up in no time. After a little bit of cleaning on the dormitory roof it was a day.

Saturday I spent the morning at the airport/Coconut Villa with a new team. After that I came back to the compound to finally grab some breakfast. As I was just sitting down Pierre comes upstairs to find me because our fresh shipment of 5 tons of steel has arrived. Woot! Finished eating and then grabbed my gloves. Nathan, Fritz, Amos, Marconell, Jean Wadson, Briguer, Mark, Kenny, Jude, Petit Colas, and Ronic blasted through the pile in record time. Afterwords we decided to head to Visa Lodge for a little bit before dinner.

Sunday we had the pleasure of having an english sermon at Cite Soleil for the first time in a month and half. It was excellent. Then we all packed into Marconell's tap-tap and proceeded to Obama beach. We got there and there were 70 or 80 UN soldiers there. One of our team members here is fluent in Spanish so she chatted with them a little and found out the UN is pulling it's troops out on February 12th. This could be interesting since the inauguration is Feb. 7th. We'll see how that shakes out. Otherwise it was a nice day to relax and recover for this week.

Now, we're in a dead sprint to try and get the school ready for classes on Sept. 6th. 3 classrooms have to be painted as well as all of the new construction at Terre Noir. We had 30 people from Mission of Hope come over today to help speed up the process but there is lots still to go. Tomorrow Soles for Souls will arrive and bring loads of shoes with them.

One week from tonight I'll be back in Cincinnati. It's hard to believe.

Spoke just a little bit too soon

Well that was short lived. I woke up sunday feeling okay but as soon as I was off to the airport to drop off John and Katie I felt a little twinge in my stomach. I felt really messed up but didn't seem like I was getting any worse. We all went to Cite Soleil Church and I struggled to keep my insides inside. I came back and passed out for a couple of hours. After that it all went downhill. Suffice to say by 4 I was starting my cipro and by 7 I had a 100.7 degree fever.

Luckily this morning at 6 I had a 98.5 temperature and felt worlds better. Today I'm going to rest a lot and prepare for tomorrow. Nathan and I are going to meet with Pastor Leon for lunch tomorrow to talk about some ideas we've got about some ways for possible growth. Otherwise it's a relatively uneventful day. White Oak is tearing it up in Bon repos and Bill is making great headway out at Repatriate.

Currently reading: Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright

A week goes by

So much to catch up on. I am no longer sick. Fever is gone and I'm back to jumping around on roofs. This week was incredible though tinted with sadness. On the one hand Amanda flew out on Monday and she is sorely missed here. On the other, we had three teams here and there were people from each team that had been here nearly six months ago in march. It was really cool working with them because the group leaders had already prepared them exactly for what to expect so that it wasn't a big shock for them and made our job easier. I mostly got to work with a team from Virginia. They had a contractor and a custom cabinet maker on their team which worked wonders when it came to framing roofs. We knocked out 3 houses in 3 days and only have one left in Cite Soleil to finish up the batch.

The other team was from Alabama. They were a blast too but I only got to hang out with them after work because they worked with Bill Fudge most of the week out at Repatriate. Bill has been working miracles out there and is bound and determined to have the foundation poured and completed by the time he leaves on august 30. But anyways they were great fun to hang out with and now I've got loads of friends from Alabama.

The third group was from Cincinnati and they worked tirelessly with Bill. It's great to have experienced team members down here to teach the new ones. It is a good exercise in teaching and can be in patience. This team got filled out quite a bit more yesterday when 8 more showed up. It was a pleasant surprise when we (Alabama and Virginia teams plus Nathan Byambison and I) returned from the beach yesterday and I saw two familiar faces from my Walnut days mixed into the group.

Today we dropped both the Alabama and Virginia teams off at the airport. I got to go up to Boutillie, which is one of the best spots to see the entire city, for the first time today with the Virginia team. It was absolutely stunning. It was really amazing to be able to see almost exactly where we worked from so far away because there are very few trees and even fewer tall buildings. It also kinda reminded me of the view of Barcelona. Made me wonder about the possibilities of having a Haiti that wasn't impoverished. Afterward we went down to Epidor and then back to the compound for them to pack their bags and then I took them to the airport. Then I picked up one more person and came back to the compound. At 5:15 I crawled into bed for a cat nap. Ended up lasting until 9. Missed dinner but there was some taco stuff left from last night. And now I'm just trying to tie up some loose ends on work from this week before we launch into the next one. Hopefully Stephen, Nathan and I will get a chance to meet with a friend of Pastor Leon's who wants to tackle the issue of child slavery or "Restevaks."

Quick summary of things from this week: I saw Dr. Paul Farmer at the airport on Monday!!!, got to go to Visa Lodge, Wahoo beach, we got 2 new generators, we finally have the truck from Cincinnati that is absolutely massive for transporting materials, got a lot of the teams to try Sabibon, learned how to say the past and future tenses in creole, Pastor Leon came back from the states, Jean Wadson jumped off the first floor because of an earthquake scare, Jean Wadson is getting better fast.

Another day another trip to the airport

Today I woke up around 4am to find I had a 100 degree temperature. After that I drank loads of water and slept for another 4 hours. By then it'd dropped down to 99.3. I was feeling alot better so I got ready to go pick up the new team from the airport. Just as I'm about to leave I get a frantic call from Jean Wadson screaming something about "ROCKS! *incoherent masses of people screaming* FIGHTING IN THE STREET *more masses* WATER IN CHURCH." Apparently the community at Repatriate was very angry that we were pumping the water out of the trench for the wall into the street. This is the same street that's been a mud puddle for the past month because it's 3 feet above sea level and after last nights rain was a big pond anyways. In addition we're going to be grating and paving the road once we're finished with construction so that it can actually be used. But no matter we pumped the water onto the church grounds and nobody got hurt.

I went off to the airport with Jeannoel to meet the team. I was able to find them without problem and we got all their luggage in the tap tap and then some of them got lucky and rode with Stephen in an air conditioned truck he was driving. We came back and I passed out for 4 hours. When I woke up I took care of some clerical things and read a bit more of Wholly Jesus. I highly recommend it. Dinner was pumpkin soup which is always excellent. And now it's time for devotion. It's so incredibly hot. It's almost impossible not to be absolutely drenched all the time right now. I'm kinda looking forward to being to wear hoodies again. Not at the cost of leaving but its still a nice thought.

Wholly Hot or why a dollar is a dollar unless it's a goudes

I am convinced that today was the hottest day yet. I have never felt like the sun was beating down so intensely. But first a little of yesterday...

The team from New Jersey is incredible. I woke up yesterday morning to find out they'd been awake for 2 hours and were ready to go work. I was excited for their enthusiasm but figured it'd flag by lunch. When 2:30 rolled around and they were still going strong and I was wiped from trying to keep up with them I left them in the capable hands of Mark and tried to go recover. Then I made the crazy thought that they might be a little less eager today. FALSE.

So we went to drop them off and Stephen and I went by Pastor Leon's house so he could get the truck and then I headed on to Maxo's which is where we get alot of our supplies. And then I discovered the secret to being well rested in Haiti. Sleep every single time I get in a tap tap. A whole bunch of small naps adds up really fast to making a rested person. This plan worked great. I was feeling awesome. Then I got to the gas station and didn't have enough money. No chance of them taking credit cards and there are guys with shotguns at every station. So I ended up sitting at the station for 30 minutes while Kenny made sure that I completely understood the way that Haitian money works. After I went back to get the team and then it was just about time for lunch so Nathan, Jean Wadson and I went to get food from the lady across the street from Blanchard. It was great rice with beans sauce and some green cabbage I think. And a large crab. That one surprised me a little bit.

We went back and finished work around 3:30 because of a bunch of combined factors. We came back and just chilled until dinner. It's been such a long day but I learned a good bit that will be useful for years to come. Tomorrow I'm supposed to meet with John Chew. I'm a little excited.

Construction projects and fun stuff

Well today was blisteringly hot. I have no idea what temperature it was just that it was hotter than yesterdays hot. Jude and Dolge's driver and I went to the airport today to pick up a team. Things went really smoothly and we got back around 10. Afterwords the team set out to build Stephen's Depot. He wants to have enough storage space so we can stockpile all the cement, lumber, rebar, and anything else we could possibly need to build. They jumped in with gusto but with the heat the way it was today they were wiped by the time they finished.

I finally got the chance to finish one of the three bunks beds on my agenda. It turned out great. The pictures should be up on facebook before the night is out. After that I passed out again. Everyone is a little exhausted these days. I catch a quick nap anytime I get a tap tap ride. This is what happened when I went to get tin today for the depot. Jude woke me up when we got back.

Tomorrow we start knocking out roofs. Stephen and Bill are going to go check out a truck in St. Marks. And I'm really looking forward to Wednesday when I'll get to spend some time with John, a missionary we met a couple of weeks ago. We're going to go look at an orphanage project he's involved with as a possibility for engineering students getting involved. He's also just a really cool person and I'm hoping to get some wisdom from him about life.