First full day on the jobsite!

Here I am, at the jobsite in Haiti. Day two of being here, and my first full day of work. Martin Hammer & Andy Mueller are the lead contacts & builders from Builders without Borders  here, and we have two local young Haitian men working alongside us, Jean-Louis and Anio (sp?). My french is working with them, and I'm hearing more creole, but certainly not speaking.

So, I'm based in Port-au-Prince at Grass Roots United. Grass Roots United are leasing the land we're on. Grass Roots do all kinds of really amazing work here in Haiti (http://www.grassrootsunited.org/), including distributing medical supplies, safe drinking water, and safer, sustainable construction methods. There is a constant turnover of new people here...my first day here, 17 new people showed up. Most people are camping on site, and we are in a walled in compound with barbed wire on the top. There is a guard at the front gate..weird to be in a guarded place. Most people are tenting, quite a lot of young people, and lots of different languages being spokedn. It actually seems like a youth hostel!

In any case, that's my setting. I was coming here to plaster, but as with jobs anywhere, let's say things are a bit behind here. This building is a load bearing straw bale building, and lo and behold, last night there was a thunderstorm and big rain, so Andy & Martin got up at midnight to fix the tarps (oh, load bearing, the joys of tarping!). Today's jobs included tweaking the top plate, plumbing up corners, and getting ready for putting up trusses. We had hoped to put up the trusses today, but alas, we had a full day with the work we had, and it started raining at 5pm again, so we put up a new tarp system. Andy built a temporary ridge truss so we could span a tarp and shed water, instead of having the tarp sit flat on the roof.

Most of my time here in Haiti is going to be spent here on the compound, but I am expecting or hoping for?) an excursion or two, hopefully to see other natural building projects.

The heat & humidity yesterday were brutal, but things were (slightly) cooler today after the rain, but it's sure not the weather I left behind in Montreal!

Materials are slow to materialise, and things move....slowly. One phrase in the book I'm reading by Rodney Saint-Elois, translates essentially as, if you're in a hurry, you won't last long in Haiti. Good to know. And good for me to take my time, take a deep breath, and know that things will get done...when they get done.

The building is to have an earthen interior plaster (hopefully I'll be able to post the photo of where our sand will come from: Jean-Louis & Annio are feeding rocks into the rubble crusher, which later gets sifted into...what they call sand. What I call gravelly chunky sand. Not finish coat quality, but sand nonetheless, being made out of the rubble ruins, of which there is an abundance. I suspect with the amount of work to do, that I won't get a chance to get out into the countryside a whole lot while I'm here, but I hope I get a chance to go on at least an excursion or two. It's quite interesting, and different, to build with what is immediately accessible- people here are quite resourceful, and there is little waste of materials. Even within the compound, there is a comprehensive recycling system set up. I'll try to put up detail shots of the actual load bearing building, as there are many differences from how we would normally build them. The rice bales are cute, and tiny (12" wide).

In our neighbourhood, Martin & Andy & I went about a block from our compound and entered a tiny cement block building, and there was a little store there, that will also exchange American dollars for Goudes, the local currency. Strange. But practical, as now that I have local currency, I can buy rounds in the backyard at the 'Hole in the Wall'. It is literally a hole in the wall...through the cement block, to the neighbour's place, and they sell beer for .85, coke, sprite & juice. Very handy!

Here are Fréda Césaire & Mme Cléments, safely arrived in Haiti!

Val & Andy working on one of the really wonky corners (yup, wonky corners in Haiti too!)

Jean-Louis & Annio attach the exterior bamboo pegs to the building.

An earth shelter, already built and inhabited at Grass Roots.

Look- it's really...a hole in the wall. With cheap beer! 

The rubble crusher/sand maker.

Andy attaching home made gussets to the trusses.

There remains much work to be done at this job, and hopefully the lime plaster arrives one of these days. The idea is earth plaster inside, lime outside. Earth plaster samples have yet to be done, so that will be on my list of jobs sometime this week as well. Unfortunately, with flight delays, I was only able to overlap with Andy for one full day on the jobsite, instead of the 4 or 5 days we were supposed to work together, which is too bad. We got along well today, and it's always so much fun to work with other seasoned builders. However, he's been here for 3 weeks now, and is really ready to go home- I can understand!

So far so good...it's not going to be a leisurely stay here at all, and Jean-Louis and Annio need lots of direction, but I think we'll get into a groove. I'm sure we will, as a matter of fact. Looking forward to getting trusses in place tomorrow, if the rain keeps at bay!