This Week in Haiti

This week has seen us rendering at School 12 and 13.  These schools are located right beside each other and have been plagued with problems with the cement skin not adhereing to the cement core of the walls.  So, Charilus (the boss), has been knocking the skin off in areas and we have been reapplying it.  We finally got to the point yesterday where it was re-skinned on the outside and we had started to paint and then someone went inside several of the classrooms and started ripping off parts of the interior skin (without the boss' permisson)!  It is the job that never ends, it goes on and on my friends, someone starting ripping at it not knowing when to stop so we'll go on skinning it just because it is the job that never ends.................

One of the perks of School 12/13 is Antoine, a little boy who lives just behind the schools in the tent camp and he comes to help us everyday!  He is the most adorable little boy and if you ask him what his name is in English, he replies "I'm the boss."

You can also see him in the video below helping sift sand.  We are all under the tent because it had started to rain and we needed to keep the sand dry to sift it.  We have actually run out of sand at the schools and are waiting for more to come so we can fix the parts on the interior.

This is what we do on our lunch hours.
After taking this picture, I layed down beside the green
bucket and had a snooze.  I didn't even care when all
the kids came out for break and stood around
looking at us - I was just too tired and hot.

And while we were napping on the ground, Meg managed
to find a way to get comfortable in the wheel-barrow. Meg is
number 2 on the team and supervises and works so she is
extra tired. 

I got very excited yesterday morning as I realized I must be aclimitizing to the weather as during the night, I actually had to put my sleeping sack over me as I was ever so slightly chilled.  I have yet to actually sleep inside the sack - have I mentioned how freaking hot it is here.

Tonight was a graduation party for a dozen of the local Haitian volunteers.  In the local volunteer program, the volunteers are assigned to a certain project (be it school building, health education, etc.) and then get training while they donate their time (think on-the-job training without getting paid).  You could tell the volunteers were very proud of what they had accomplished and I was very happy for them.  I got to help out with the party - I had to sort through the rice for dinner (before it was washed and cooked) to pick out any bad pieces of rice.  Michel got to help grate coconut and then help to make banana pouse (deep fried plantains - yummy!).  I do have to say that the speechs were plentiful and there were several interesting performances but the people who talked through the ceremony made me mad as I felt it took away from the pomp and ceremony. 

I have come to the conclusion that anything I wear to do construction work in will be garbaged at the end of the trip.  Everything I have worn is horribly stained with either red sand, concrete or paint.  I will also have to trash my runners as they have been wet at least 4 out of the 14 days I have been here and the baby ants love to swarm then during the night.  This requires me to thump my runners against the floor to get them off and then stomp on them - baby killer yet again - and not feeling bad about it!

We have been quite daring and bought some street food and survived to tell the tale!  At the construction site there is a Sapibon dealer (think freezies but in a square bag that fills your hand) and when you are working up a sweat, it is pure heaven on earth - red is my favorite so far).  I also had a street version of pate (a dough ball filled with meat and spicy pickled cabbage - known as picklies).