Three Days of Work

I'm hoping to make this post a kind of introduction to the culture and work, as we've experienced them so far. We finished the a foundation for a school today. So, there's that.

Eric, Chris and I arrived in Port Au Prince on Saturday morning, and - as Chris wrote in his post - took a long ride from the airport to the All Hands base camp in Leogane, where we'll be living and working until a week or two into next year. "Base" has a gate out front and shares a back yard (the Joint Logistics Base, or JLB) with a bunch of other NGOs including Habitat, The Red Cross etc...

The structure of the Base is situated on a large compound that includes the JLB, a bakery and, conveniently, a bar called "Joe's," presumably named so after the owner of the entire facility. Considering the size of the place, Joe must be doing alright for himself by any standard, let alone a Haitian one.

Here's an arial picture of Base from the second floor. The courtyard area is used for games and construction pre-builds. The covered areas are for sleeping; although, some longer-term folks choose to sleep in tents on the roof.:

And one of the JLB:

Sundays are off-days at All Hands and Chris, Eric and I spent some time wandering the streets and assimilating at Base. Not entirely surprisingly, there is very little evidence of the civil unrest that we were warned about prior to our arrival. In any event, the folks at Base seem to view it as an unfortunate, but understandable, restriction of their ability to work uninterrupted. A "What're ya gonna do? Let's hope it doesn't happen again.." kind of perspective.

The folks at Base have all been pretty welcoming of us. They remind me of a lot of characters I've met over these last few years of volunteering and in various communal living spaces, but with an extra, more "international" flavor. They are generally young to middle aged and variously displaced from their lives at home. It goes without saying that, for whatever the reason, it takes a unique individual to seek out and live well in such company and condition.

Whether for our excessive e-mailing with Matt (the construction director), Brendan's prior experience working here this summer or my own connections with some of the other volunteers who happen to be here now, everyone seemed to be expecting us when we arrived and were willing to embrace us in the work and community. This type of initial hospitality, in my opinion, is unique compared to a lot of communal live/working environments like this one and is a testament to everyone's commitment to get things done together.

Mike and Brendan arrived in town in the middle of our first work day and immediately joined the foundation of "School 7," where I was working, at lunchtime. The foundation is a 20'x84' slab with 18" deep trenches supporting structural and partitioning walls, with rebar throughout.

Chris also Day 1 working nearby, on the roof of "School 6," where his team stayed until after dinner-time to finish up. He lost his favorite long-sleeve shirt in the process and is still pretty broken up about it...

We ride to work in "Tap-Taps," hired trucks who work pretty much exclusively for All Hands, running volunteers and materials from base to sites. Tap-taps leave at 7:30 sharp and we begin loading them around 7 or earlier. Everyone here is eager to get out there and start the day. With 10-15 people stacked on top of wheelbarrows, rakes, shovels, drills and saws in the back of a small Toyota pickup, the rides to site get us more prepared for work than the weak, mass produced coffee.

In Haiti, it's not as easy as calling in a Cement Truck or bussing in 50 additional volunteers as we might've done in New Orleans. Big, big, big piles of sand, aggregate and cement are mixed either by the machine or by hand and brought into the foundation one wheelbarrow at a time. In spite of some diesel-powered concrete mixer troubles on days 1 and 2, we managed to finished the pour today and will be begin framing the structure tomorrow.

Here are some photos of that site:

Eric has spent the last few days working on pre-build for School 7 and built all the roof trusses, wall components and cut all the studs to length for when we start to go vertical with the structure. He's also gone out to the community to do some "special projects" on other sites around town with some of the All Hands regulars. Today, he fixed a concrete wall that was falling down and generally being a pretty good hand to some of the things that need attention here.

Tomorrow, Eric is going to finish his broken wall while Chris, Brendan, Mike and I will join long-termer "Carpenter Mike" in framing up "School 7." From what I can tell, the schools only have 8 walls and, with the trusses already built, we should be able to throw the structure together quick enough to be able to start "School 8" after Christmas.

The long and short of it is that we're all pretty stoked to be here and to be working together again. So, there's that, too.

Frumin