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

Today, I Almost Passed Out

Brendan and I got into Port-au-Prince yesterday afternoon, met at the gates outside the airport, and caught our shuttle to Leogane. The two hour drive afforded Brendan an opportunity to give me the scoop on what was going by the windows--crowded, narrow streets clogged with overburdened Chinese motos and street vendors, about every fifth structure showing visible earthquake damage, rubble in the streets.

After a quick tour of the All Hands facility and the claiming of our bunks, we were thrown right to work on the foundation of a new school being build a couple of miles away. I was extremely antsy from the plan ride and eager to get to work, so I threw myself into the considerably arduous labor with relish--hauling buckets of water out of a well and bringing them to the cement mixer, carting buckets of gravel and sand, pouring cement, the whole deal. Felt great.

Today was a different story. After three hours of similar work, I was getting increasingly lightheaded and headachy, and when I started seeing spots and the muscles in my left arm began to tighten and contract uncontrollably, I threw in the towel. A year and a half away from the heat of New Orleans and sweat of construction has apparently made me soft. The heat here is intense, and not to be trifled with. A few days to acclimate should make it better, and in the meantime, I've moved to the task of rendering, which essentially means smearing cement on unfinished walls like Play-Do.

All in all, a smooth entry to a great organization full of wonderful people. It's tremendously energizing to be surrounded by such hard-working, big-hearted people from all over the world.

Headed out now to peruse the streets and perhaps enjoy a few local brews. With any luck, we'll have more scandalous stories to report tomorrow.

-Mike

Arrival

Once we crossed the threshold at Toussaint L'Overture airport, it took just a moment to catch sight of the sign reading "Aaron, Eric, Chris" and to rendezvous with the person we thought to be our driver. On a brisk walk through the parking lot, the gentleman explained that he was not our driver, but he did know a cop at the gate and could access the airport to fetch us. Through the car honks and crowds we came to Martin, our driver, woke him up, and started out.

After five hours in Martin's Mercedes traversing the 40 or so miles from the Airport in Port Au Prince, we finally arrived at our new home. There ain't no fast-runnin' trains in Haiti, evidently, and despite Martin's considerable skills behind the wheel, we thought the congested dustdevil that is Haiti's capital might have us licked.

While seemingly everyone in the city plodded to and from the shops with their widgets and whosie-whatsits on their head or under their arm, we and Martin stood still. At one point, while crews broke up the badly busted street with pick-axes, we didn't move for an hour two.

As it turns out though, we needed the downtime, and were able to catch a few z's for want of any in Fort Lauderdale, but that's another story (see Aaron Frumin's blog, Oh the Places You'll Drink). Of the few things that did whiz by our window, crude tarpaulin tents emblazoned with USAID or Samaritan's Purse, seemed to make up the lion's share for a while.

By and by, we made it Leogane and the relative comfort of the All Hands basecamp at Belval Plaza, and I was reminded of an old song from Woody Guthrie's tramping days.

This train don't carry no rustlers, whores, pimps, or side-street hustlers; this train is bound for glory, this train.

Love and thanks to all those who got us here.

Chris

(Another) Important Update:

Friends,

The last few days have been full of uncertainty and anxious waiting. After much correspondence with All Hands and sufficient deliberation amongst ourselves, we have been re-invited and have decided to continue with our plans to volunteer in Haiti this month.

The unrest is still a very real situation, but seems to be more isolated as reactions to specific political events. As such, the organization seems more able to mitigate for their fallout. Leogane, where we are working, has quieted, All Hands has gone back to work and we want to join them.

Thank you for your continued support and your thoughts while we are away. Check back in for updates about our progress.

The Team

Important Update:

Friends,

Many of you have heard reports of the civil unrest in Haiti since the recent presidential election results there. Roads are closed, riots and protesters fill the streets and, in the absence of a basic, functioning security apparatus, there is a high level of danger and instability.

As a result of these events, we've been informed by All Hands that they have closed their operations indefinitely and will not be receiving new volunteers until December 24th at the earliest. The airport has been closed and they say that violence and road closures make even domestic travel difficult, if not impossible, in the immediate future.

This closure affects all of our scheduled volunteer dates and may become either prolonged or shorted as the situation progresses or deteriorates.

While I can only speak for my own beliefs about this...I think that although Haiti is certainly in need of aid, it is not the kind that we would be bringing that will help them the most at this time. Building schools and transitional shelters is a necessity that seems like a relatively distant priority when compared to explosions, violence and very real civil unrest.

Presently, Haiti lacks basic levels of security that I don't think would be brought by our crew's work. In any event, the absence of such security would make our goals and work difficult to carry out. It's unfortunate that this doesn't seem to be the time for "our type" of aid and we're all disappointed to not be able to be there at this time.

Still, some of us retain intentions to go to Haiti as soon as the conditions there make it possible and we hope that you all will continue to support that effort.

On behalf of our whole crew, I want to thank all of you for your support and rallying behind our trip. Probably the most heartening lesson from this whole thing has been the outpouring of support from our friends and families in this endeavor.

Those of you who have donated financially to our efforts can expect a refund through Pay Pal or otherwise in the coming days/weeks as we get that process sorted out. If you would like us to forward your donation to All Hands, please let us know and we will be able to do so on your behalf.

Thank you all, again.

Aaron Frumin

Welcome

Welcome to our blog, blog, blog. We are, in no particular order: Aaron Frumin, Brendan Gordon, Mike Ward, Eric Boehning, Chris Mewes and Nate Rau. Hello.

For those unfamiliar with our ragtag crew of misfits, we originally came together through our work with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity and (for the most part) continue to live in the city in a variety of capacities. You can learn more about who we are and where we've been by clicking here and following the "About Us" link.

At the time of this writing, we leave in a week for one month of volunteering in Léogâne, Haiti, a city outside Port Au Prince that the UN has determined to be “the worst affected area, with 80 to 90 percent of buildings destroyed.” Since the earthquake, our host organization, All Hands, has been rebuilding homes, schools and providing other services in Léogâne, Haiti. All Hands provides free housing to volunteers at their base camp and we are grateful for the generosity of our friends and families for alleviating the financial burden of getting there.

We're not quite sure what our communication capacity will be there and intend to use this blog to recount our accomplishments and experiences for our friends, family and benefactors.

So, check back in with us, won't you?