Return trip

And so, after several weeks of silence, I have finally booked a return trip to Haiti. Part of the silence was due to a really challenging indoor/outdoor winter plastering job here at home once I got back- not exactly a relaxing way to start the 'winter holidays. The plastering job went reasonably well, though, and it was followed by a ten day dogsitting stint in one of my favourite villages anywhere, Wakefield, Quebec.

I have been playing with return dates to Haiti in my head for quite awhile now (probably since I left at the end of December!), and finally actually booked my return trip this afternoon. I'll be heading back to Haiti February 4, and count on staying for 2 months. I will do some finish plastering with the Builders without Borders (BWB) project with Andy, but will also head out into the countryside to work with a community that has been building with compressed earth blocks now for a couple of years. I am quite enthused about meeting the people of this community, of living with them, becoming immersed in the language, and the culture. I feel like we will all have so much to share with one another.

I will help design a curriculum for their natural building school, and quite suppor their model of teaching, which will entail the participants returning to their own communities and building one more building (with supervision from the school) before receiving a certificate- I think there's a lot of value in having students go and practise what they have learned, and in doing so, sharing their knowledge with their communities.

I really look forward to getting back to old friends and new at Grassroots, and to working once again with Andy. The hole in the wall beckons, I can just see it now!