Purlins & Grassroots United

Well, purlins are up...after a slow start to the day with many, many interruptions, we did finally get all of the purlins on (well, with all of the material that we had), so hopefully we'll get some steel on tomorrow. That definitely feels good!

I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about what is going on here at Grassroots United. I think i've mentioned before that there is an awesome core group of volunteers here, who are involved in so many different meaningful activities in the city and in the countryside, including, but not limited to, working in orphanages, doing cholera training, medical supply & water purification system delivery, and a plethora of other really valuable community services. There are volunteers here from all over the world, including Australia, Scotland, the U.S., and even Canada!

Many Haitians from the neighbourhood come here as well, some as volunteers, others as paid staff. I'm really enjoying talking with them, and limping along with my sparse Creole. I know that Annio really appreciates my efforts, as he doesn't really understand French, and has little or no English.

On site they have work bees on Saturdays, and tomorrow's list of chores include building a chicken coop (so hopefully those darned things won't be scratching around my tent in the early morning hours!), working on a treehouse, continuing with the plastic bottle interior bottle wall, and I'm sure many other projects. If I could, I'd love to help out, but our project is behind, and will take every hour we can throw at it. So, we'll likely work through the weekend, but maybe we can scoot into town Sunday afternoon to go see the gingerbread houses. I'll take photos, promise!

At the Hole in the Wall, in addition to the cheap beer, & juice, they sell a mini-mickey of rum for $1.25 US- Martin just bought me one. Several nights of sipping for me!

I can see now why Andy asked me to bring him fresh fruit- it's really a novelty here. We've had two bananas served to date...the food reminds me of Louisiana- lots of breaded, fried things, beans & rice, polenta, and pasta (for breakfast!).

I guess you could say I'm settling into this community more quickly than I anticipated. I'm not really digging sleeping in a tent every night, but nonetheless, am quite comfortable (it's cooler in a tent than it would be indoors, that's for sure!).

I keep getting reports of how cold it is back home- kind of hard to imagine. The last couple of nights have been delightfully cool here, though, which makes sleeping quite comfortable. It's funny- I was telling Jean-Louis how cold it is back home with the snow & all, and he told me he couldn't sleep last night because it was so cold. We laughed our heads off as we realised how different our versions of cold were!

Annio & Jean-Louis are both really observant, and I know they are quite taken with me (it's mutual). We have a lot of laughs together, and slowly, they are intuiting what needs to happen next, which is impressive. They have a great attitude, with abundant smiles. I make sure to offer them lots of teaching opportunities, but at the end of the day, I'm quite tired, from a combination of the heat, working outdoors for the day, and trying to be understood in both French & Creole.

I had a shower tonight by moonlight, in one of the stalls up against the exterior concrete block wall, and when I looked up, I could see both the moon and the barbed wire that was lit by the moon. It was quite lovely, actually. I went back to try to take a photo, but no luck.

It actually gets dark here much earlier than I thought- by 5:30, it's pretty dark already. I thought I'd be coming to the land of the long days, but no. Well, I suppose it is kind of true, in that it gets light quite early- by 5am it's starting to get light.

In the end I do have some x-mas plans- apparently Christmas eve is more important than Christmas day here in Haiti, so I'm going to go with some of the volunteers from Grassroots to visit a couple of orphanages on the 24th & 25th. They go play with the kids for a bit, and love them...seems like a perfect fit for me. When I realised that they go visit orphanages on a regular basis, I thought that would be perfect, if I could do something like that this year. I'm looking forward to it!

It's a pretty quiet night here on the base for a Friday night. A bunch of base camp folks went out to a club last night to celebrate Jojo's birthday- they went in the Grassroots bus. I probably should have gone, but found out about it kind of late, and we are working long days, so tend to go to bed on the early side.

On Monday there are more election results that will be announced (to definitively announce who will go on to the final round in January). The recent riots, etc. occurred after preliminary election results were announced, so there is the possibility that there could be more of the same kind of behaviour on Monday. Just a reminder, that if that is the case, I am in a safe place (I've only left the compound to go into the city once on a hardware shopping trip, and apart from that, have gone to a restaurant in the neighbourhood, and to the store down the laneway to exchange money a couple of times). If there is serious trouble again, we will be on lockdown, and the staff here will strongly discourage anyone from leaving. (They can't force us to stay here, but of course I will, if that's their recommendation!). There are guards here all day and all night, both at the front gate, and strolling the property, so really...it's as secure as it can get in Haiti. Keep in mind that the media of course focuses on the violence, but it is a real minority of people who are expressing themselves with violence, with the majority of Haitians just carrying on every day living. I'm writing about this to assure anyone who is worried, that if we are on lockdown, I will be staying put.

Hmmm, I've got my really cheap rum, and now I've had a free beer delivered to me from a fellow who's leaving tomorrow, so perhaps I'll go on out to the front porch and join the gang. Cheers!