Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Worksite Day 03

We're settling in a bit to the daily routine.  We start the morning early to try and beat the traffic and heat of the day.  Very strange, but yesterday we got right to the site in about 30 min.  Today, it was crazy busy!  Every morning is an adventure in driving down the mountain.  Really a bit like a theme park ride, except without seat belts.  Along the road, you commonly see families waiting for the various buses.


Another very popular street-side scene are the shoe-shining businesses.  This one was particularly busy.


When we arrive each day, we grab our cooler and a couple 5 gallon containers of drinking water.  They are heavy on the way in, but usually empty on the way out!


When we got to the site, we were thrilled to see our professional mason!  He is the same contractor that worked with the team in July and comes with great experience in Haitian building techniques.  And on top of that, we have a translator!  Can't tell you how helpful that is.  Momentum!


One of the things he built later in the day was a bit scaffolding.  I'm not sure our crew would have ever thought of building them this way.  Basically, he would just pound a hole through the wall, insert a 2x4 and add a leg.  Pretty strong, but a little unsteady.  That might come back to us later in the week...


We got to meet John Les's twin brother (did anyone else know he had a twin brother?) who stopped in to check on our progress.  His name was John also.


He and his brother along with a cousin, live in a tent on the roof of the neighbor's house just next door to their property.  He said it was certainly livable, but got cold at night and hot in the day.  Interesting that his shirt matched the tent color...


On our lunch break, John Wall stepped out into the alley with the kids and played a short game of soccer.  Shortened by the ball banging into the siding on the far side and a woman cursing us out in French Creole.  Well, mostly.  Funny how many English words they have learned from movies...  Good times!


I forgot to mention one of our favorite Haitian contractors that we affectionately call "rebar-man."  He has been there every day so far and slowly and diligently gets all the rebar cages built ahead of us pouring the concrete.  Great guy, who kept working barefoot.  Joel offered him his shoes so he is now the "Nike Rebar-man."


Overall, a very productive day and we ended with a few more columns formed and some prep work on the headers which we will probably pour tomorrow.


Stopped in at the orphanage before dinner and had some play time.  We also visited with the little guys upstairs this time and alternated between making them cry (way to go Eddy) and reading to them.





Another tiring day of work, but man those kids are great to hang out with.  Enjoyed a quiet devotional time on the roof and then time to rest.

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