No More Sleeps 'Till Home! O', Canada!

And so, I actually slept in until close to 6am- maybe the early church service didn't happen, or maybe I was too tired to hear it. In any case, I'm feeling well rested, and more than ready for some snow.

There's an abundance of fruit for breakfast today- the new kitchen guy, Pascal, rocks: pineapple, mango, grapefuit, clementine, banana, papaya, and even a slice of apple- I haven't eaten apples in Haiti ever...if they grow them here, they're not common.

Today will be my packing up day, and I'll paint a coat of aliz on the walls we plastered yesterday if they're dry enough- they may not be yet. In which case I might just get to hang out. Loren, fellow Canadian, has finished his first solar cooker (built by himself and some Haitians), so I look forward to seeing it in action, and trying to hook him up for a meeting with the folks from Deslandes. Benitta would love a solar cooker, so she told me. Loren is also interested in building a solar kiln, so we'll see if we can fundraise for that, so that CIJ can produce clay filters for filtering water.

And now, back to sipping coffee & eating fruit on the straw bale porch for the last time...in awhile.

Sleeping quarters inside the straw house

The Senp Kay, bottle wall and clay/straw house

Exterior of straw house

Miam, miam

Oops, forgot to post this from a couple of days ago:

Today's breakfast rocks- boiled eggs, fresh white buns (there's only white bread available here, unless you shop at an expensive American type grocery store- where you can get loaves of whole wheat bread that's rather crumbly, and not really worth it!), sliced tomatoes, real butter, and a foil wrapped wedge of processed 'cheese' that is similar to La Vache qui Rit, if you know it. Cheese is rare in Haiti- Haitians don't tend to eat it, so therefore, it's quite expensive. I'm going to savour this darned processed cheese triangle like there's no tomorrow. Wait, there is a tomorrow, and I'll land in Montreal, hopefully to a good bottle of red wine, real cheese, and good bread. Oh, and of course, to some love!

Yesterday's breakfast was delicious, albeit strange. French fries (home made, of course- they were yummy) with...boiled beats. Never would have put the two together, certainly not for breakfast, but it was killer! There is now another cook who works alongside Joanne here, and the menu has changed a bit- I think he is a chef, and so we have noticed little changes- subtle changes in flavours, nicer presentation on the plates, and a bit more variety. I haven't seen spaghetti with hot dogs & salt fish at all this time (whew!).

I must say I look forward to being home, to being able to eat when I'm hungry (so privileged, I know!), and having a few more vegetables thrown into the mix. I have eaten well here, though, for sure!

Moonlit bucket showers and Prestige

One last moonlight bucket shower, oh, how blissful...and here I sit on the straw bale porch, sipping what is likely my last Prestige, with a refreshing breeze blowing over me. Not cool enough to change out of a halter top, but Jean Louis said it was 'really cold' tonight. I told him he'd turn into an ice cube instantly in Canada!

We had a really productive day today, JL & I- completing the finish plaster on the interior walls of Andy's Senp Kay.

Jean Louis, ever happy at work!

I painted another coat of the aliz paint onto the first wall that I plastered the other day, and it's looking fine.


It seems like I've been in Haiti forEVER this time- I suppose 5 weeks is a long time, but they've got volunteers here at Haiti Communitère who have been here for over a year. Folks who have been here every time I've come back...wow, hats off to them. Haiti is an exciting, vibrant and wonderful place to be, but it's also gritty, noisy, and plain old hard at times. Of course, I have the bug to keep returning, as the positives continue to outweigh the negatives, but there are real dangers here. In Cité Soleil yesterday, when the security alert was announced to us, the leader of an organisation was shot (likely died) and other  violence ensued as a result of it (burning houses, etc.). Of course, if one stays away from such places that have been prone to outbursts in the past, and if you actually respect security alerts, you're in no more danger here than in most large cities. I suppose the most dangerous thing you can do in Haiti is get into any vehicle- even if you trust your own driver, there are lots of other erratic drivers on the roads, goats to avoid, people to dodge, etc.

A little out of order, but here is a group of women who came to my straw bale talk yesterday- they are signed up for a month long construction training session here at Haiti Communitère.

OK, I thought that last Prestige was my last one, but Ton just brought me over another last one...which was great. It was good to talk about the changes here at HC over the past year, and the future direction. I admire Ton, Delphine, and the other 'lifers' who just seem to be able to stay here full time.

 For my part, I'm happy to have spent 5 weeks here, but can't really imagine being here for a longer stint, and I certainly can't imagine being here in the summer- the heat I've experienced on this trip, especially while we were in Deslandes, is more than enough for this delicate Canadian.

Building Naturally, in Deslandes

In behind the house that we stayed in while in Deslandes, they started doing infill on a structure. The outdoor kitchen there had been the typical pole construction without walls, and they decided to enclose it. I saw a large pile of clay in the yard, that they filled with water, and beside it, a bunch of boulders.

They mixed the clay, put up a one sided form board, plopped the wet clay (wet like putty wet, not like clay slip) against the form, and then went to the other side and started putting the boulders and rocks into the new clay mortar bed.




It went up really fast- like over 2 or 3 days, and while this clay mortar (straight clay) is on the soft side, they intend on putting a cement plaster on the outside (oh, they love their cement!).

 

I thought it was a cool way to get a structure up quickly. Deslandes apparently isn't on the big earthquake fault line, although I'm told there was an earthquake there in January, which caused some shifting in the earthblock building built by the crew there (they didn't do a foundation, but rather, dug a trench and then stuck earthblocks in for the first course, and so on).

 I think the crew in Deslandes have finally got a grasp on the compressed earthblock building methods taught by Jim of Tierra y Cal- the crew has done a really stupendous job this time. The blocks are now laid for the school, and they are ready to pour the bond beam and get to the roof- and then it's time for plastering. I'm told that they'd like me to return to assist with plastering, so we'll see how that goes.

Back yard at house where we stayed

Back yard at Benitta & St. Geste's place- kitchen is banana leaf reed enclosure

Our dining room

Front porch where we stayed

All Blancs are now named Tina

Last year when I first arrived at Deslandes, kids and adults alike would shout out 'Blanc, blanc!' to me as I roamed around the village. I was uncomfortable being called white all the time, so at the school, I made sure each time they called me blanc that I interject with my name, 'Mwen rele Tina'. Soon, most of them knew my name, and then I would hear 'Tina, Tina!' being yelled out across the fields if I was walking by. That was cool.

This year, I made sure to introduce all of the Endeavour participants to the kids at school- I repeated the names, made the kids repeat them, and then tested them to see if they remembered their names or not- it's so much more friendly and nice to be recognised by your name than your skin colour, says the privileged white woman.

When we (the white members of Endeavour) would walk the dusty streets of Deslandes, we realised that the kids shouted out 'Tina' regardless of whether I was part of the group or not, and so, I think Tina became synonymous with white woman. We do all look the same after all, n'est-ce pas? That was a funny realisation!

An Allelulia Kind of Day

There is an elderly woman who lives across the road in Deslandes, in a small hut off the outdoor kitchen at Benitta & St. Geste's. I have never learned her name, but she starts each day by sweeping the dirt courtyard, singing Alleluia. She is a tiny thing, and might have limited capacities, but when she sings Alleluia, it comes from the heart. It is a wonderful to wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 to that sweet song. She'll walk around barefoot sweeping, and muttering a bit to herself. It is hard for me to understand her, and she has mostly been stand-offish with me, but on my last day in Deslandes, I had a short conversation with her in which I partially understood her. 

Brooms in Haiti are made of natural materials, naturally. There is a daily ritual of sweeping the dirt courtyards, and then either collecting the leaves and putting them in a compost pile, or just throwing them under the cactus hedge. Last year Ian got quite a chuckle out of that, because of course the next day the leaves and debris were all over the courtyard again.



Sweeping is a daily chore, one left to women and children, and "my" little girls often swept our courtyard. The brooms take a bit of getting used to- not quite as easy as all that to get into nooks and cranneys!



While Deslandes doesn't have nearly as much garbage as other cities, and certainly nowhere near the problems of Port au Prince, there is still debris littering the schoolyard, and everyone seems to have a 'pitch pile' on their property for throwing plastics and tin cans, which will later be burned. Sighhh.

I can't get over the fact that everyone here is so...beautiful. Cleanliness is of utmost importance, and try as I may, I can never get my laundry as clean as Haitians do. I'm told that they use a harsher soap- and perhaps that's true, but some of my girls helped me do laundry one day, and they definitely have a different technique. You see women and children doing laundry all across the country- in any river they have access to, or in tubs in the courtyard. They are also immaculate all of the time- I have no idea, in such a dusty country, how they can't have grit all over them too. I can't for the life of me keep dirt out of my fingernails, yet I can't remember seeing a Haitian with dirty fingernails.

I love Haitian women dressed in black- that is a particularly beautiful combo. A few of my friends consented to photos. I don't have a photo of my alleluia lady- I have a strong vision of her in my mind, but somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to take a photo of someone I couldn't really communicate with.



                    

My Alleluia woman lost her husband last year to cholera- he was elderly, and likely feeble already. I was in the village when it happened, and after the one night of wailing, we were back to the alleluia start to the day. We (my Endeavour group & I) were discussing the hardships of living life in Haiti (for Haitians), and how impressive it is that people keep going forward. Almost everyone I have met here was directly affected by the earthquake in 2010, and you can only imagine the hurt that comes with that, but although death happens, sometimes frequently in a community, people seem to have the ability to pick up the pieces and go forward. No time to make an appointment to see a therapist, nor money...but only the knowledge that in order to survive, there is work to be done, water to be collected, food to prepare. I have known since my visit here that Haitians are resilient, strong, and resourceful, and I have a lot of respect for them. There is a lot about how Haitians behave that I still find difficult to understand, but I'm sure they could say the same about me.

Here in Port au Prince, church service starts early- on average these days at 5am. And how do I know, you might wonder...why, it is conveniently broadcast with quite loud speakers from a couple of doors away from us. This morning's singing was softer and more in pitch than other times, and the preaching wasn't that yelling kind of preaching that is really unpleasant to wake up to. Given the choice, I'd take an alleluia kind of day anytime!

On that last day in Deslandes, as I was walking across the school field to go back to my room, I heard the little woman singing Alleluia again, and it was the perfect bookend to my day.

Hairdos and Plaster

This shot has nothing to do with this entry, but it's so gosh darned cute. A goat on the porch of the school in Deslandes.

Another hot day in Port au Prince, but a lovely evening breeze is picking up, cooling me off on the front porch of the Ti Kay Pay. 

I went to the market with Benitta the other day when I was still in Deslandes- I observed her haggling with some of the vendors over various items. One such item was a piece of meat- goat meat, I imagine- she picked up a chunk of the meat from a bowl (sitting out in the open, not on ice, of course, and covered with flies), and asked how much it was- the vendor named her price, and Benitta scoffed and said no way (I'm imagining that's what she said in creole!), put the meat back in the bowl, wiped her meaty hand off on the branch of a tree, and walked away. We did the other groceries, and then went back to the same meat vendor- and this time Benitta picked up the same piece of meat, handed it to another vendor who examined it carefully, and without a word, gave it back to Benitta. She paid for it, and I asked afterwards if they were charging more because she was with a blanc, and she said yes, of course. So, I let her go to market alone after that incident! The meat handling, and passing it to the other vendor to handle, was strange. 

On my last night in Deslandes, some of my favourite girls (dating back to my visits last year) joined me on the porch, to sing songs I had taught them the first time, plus some new songs (it's so fun to come back after a year and hear kids singing songs you learned together!). 

My girls, hanging out on the porch with me

They did some dance pieces- kind of evocative dance to gospel music-who knew?! (One day JP was doing some teaching in a class, and the kids came to get me- they were practising dance pieces for Carnaval, and their teacher wanted me to see. The older girls did a dance piece, and then a group of wee ones- maybe 7 or 8 years old, did their dance piece, complete with some dirty dance moves- I couldn't believe how they could move, or that they were even moving that way- wowie! I felt so white, and like such a non-dancer!). 

 The girls gathered around me, asking me to take their photo, and then they took turns playing with my hair. I rarely comb my hair, and certainly haven't done so in Haiti. The girls ran their fingers through it, untangling the mess, and trying to braid it. They touch so easily- kids and even some adults love to touch my white skin- I guess they think it will feel different, and I suppose it does. I have a couple of little growths that look like warts on my neck, and it's surprising how many different kids in Haiti have tried to pick it off. If you have dirt on you from plastering, they will wipe it from your skin, as I witnessed when these same girls picked the plaster chunks from Meg's feet. I have had women as well as children touch my hair- they seem to be quite taken with it- in part, I suppose, it's quite a different texture, but I think it's also the colour- you don't see much silver hair here.

Hair is important in Haiti- women spend lots of time doing one another's hair, and mothers do a different hairdo for their daughters every single night- I watched as Lélé did her daughters' hair one night, and I swear, it takes at least half an hour per child...and she has four in her charge! Driving around the countryside and in cities, it is a frequent sight, to see women sitting in a row doing each other's hair. 

Taken in the back yard in Deslandes in 2011- look at little Mimi here!

My girls, last year, taking care of one another's hair.

Dine, washing Maquise's hair

 

It was the perfect going away party- me & my girls dancing and singing on the porch, and the icing on the cake was singing Mimi almost to sleep. She is such a bright light, that one!

Today, there was a group of women from Cité Soleil (a poor and often unsettled part of the city- there are frequently security alerts that warn us not to go there) came to our compound today to do a month long training course on building with blocks of styrofoam that are bagged up, reinforced with rebar, and then plastered. I gave them the tour of the straw house, and then of Andy Mueller's (Greenspace Collaborative) new Senf Kay (bottled walls, and clay/straw walls). I decided that since this is a group of all women getting construction training that I'd toot my own horn a bit and tell them about me running a construction business, how many of my employees are women, and how women can do anything they want to. In Haiti, the men on construction sites are always surprised to see me there, and when I work, they're astounded- wow, you work as hard as a man! It's funny, since at home, it's so common (in the natural building world, that is) to have women on-site. I shared some slideshows with the women on building with bales, told them to ask lots of questions, pay attention, and make sure that whatever type of building they do in the future, that they be thinking of sustainability, and earthquake & hurricane resistant construction. All in all, I'm pleased that I 'butted' in to their day of training. 

There was a lot of cars honking today, sirens going, and helicopters flying over. I'm never sure if these things are due to security alerts, demonstrations, or what. The prime minister resigned a little over a week ago, and things have heated up in different parts of the city as a result of that. That's the last thing Haiti needs now- more political unrest! 

Apart from that, I continued working on the finish plaster inside of Andy's building. I think I have a recipe that I can live with, especially once we paint an aliz coat over it.

This is a previous attempt at the finish coat- I was outside mixing, when I should have been inside supervising- it went on waaaaaayyyyy too thick. 

 So, my goal is to finish the interior plastering before I fly out on Wed.- this will mean a busy schedule, but one that I think is possible.

Oh, Canada. Oh, snow. Oh, home, sweet home. I'm ready for you!