The Endeavour team are heavily immersed in a more rural way of life here in the village of Deslandes. We all prefer the pace of Deslandes to Port au Prince, and the setting is much more beautiful.

En route to Deslandes, Ospri arranged for us to go to the ocean- and rather than go to the private beach he had in mind, we went to a public one right beside it (less money for the same ocean front!) and swam for a couple of hours. Then began the real journey to Deslandes- which involves driving along the highway for a couple of hours, and then onto a dirt road for…close to an hour. We got out of the vehicle at some point to hike down to the river (the Artibonite River) where we were ferried across in a rowboat after all of our luggage had been taken across. Some villagers came to take some of our luggage in wheelbarrows, and then we each picked up a pack and began the 30 or 40 minute hike to the village.

The view from the Artibonite River is stunning- palm trees, coconut trees, and lush plants- all things that are absent in the concrete confines of Port au Prince. Centre d’Inspiration Jeunesse (CIJ) own some farmland that stretches down to the river, with an irrigation system rigged up via a generator & pump. This allows them to grow beans, melons, broccoli, tomatoes, eggplant, and an abundance of other foods.

We arrived just as the earthblock crew started working on the second school building here in Deslandes, and got to see the compressed earthblock machine in action. The crew is moving quickly and doing a great job. We decided as a group to jump on to finishing the compost toilet facility that was started last year, which involved finishing a bit of the clay/straw walls, laying earthblocks for the interior walls, and plastering. Everyone is pitching in, with leaders naturally emerging. We are doing really quality work, and every day there are more spectators who come along to see what we are doing. Some people come by to observe, while others come by to participate.

There are lots of slow-downs here, one being the extreme heat (extreme to us- this is winter in Haiti- summer is apparently unbearable), lack of basic materials (such as buckets, levels, drills). We have to walk across the equivalent of a football field to go and fetch buckets of water, and the same for wheelbarrows of clay and sand. Finding straw to put into the clay/straw walls, and the plaster, involves a longer walk (20 minutes?) across several fields and through some banana groves, and the green clay that we really want to use in our finish coat will involve going back across the river and hiking. I definitely told people it wouldn’t be easy here, which it isn’t, but the amazing connections and experiences with the kids at the school balance out any negatives. The kids are magical, fun, and delightful. I have especially enjoyed watching the interactions between our crew and the kids here. I think it’s those relationships we have formed with the youth here that  has made each of us fall in love with this paradise. 

When we get to a site with high speed, I’ll send photos of our projects- the block walls in the toilet stall are now complete, and we’ll move onto plastering the toilet building next. Yesterday part of our team painted a colour coat onto the existing school using a novel and experimental recipe of nopale cactus, water, and iron oxide pigments. We’ll have to see how durable it is- I suspect if we don’t paint a protective coat over it, they’ll have to repaint at least annually.

This morning I was awakened at 5am by a church ceremony, and a cacophony of roosters crowing and calling to one another across the neighbourhood. Now the drums and singing sound more like they are part of a voodoo celebration…Haiti is a beautiful and magical place!