Impressions of an outing in the city

Just got back from an absolutely fabulous outing. We went to the bank, a hardware store, the roofing warehouse, and a camera shop. Our driver, Alex, is fantastic. The streets are so busy with cars, bikes, carts, goats, etc...and several lanes of traffic going every which way, with it somehow working out most of the time. Lots of honking, lots of lineups...Canadian drivers would just not do well here- you have to be super aggressive! I really mean that...Alex didn't take no for an answer; he just merged into oncoming traffic, and people slowed for him to let him in. Lots of people being cut off, left right and centre. Oh, and, hehe, a cyclist came out from around traffic right in front of us- Alex braked, so the hit was fairly gentle, and the cyclist got over to the sidewalk. Alex asked him if he was OK, and he said yeah. No yelling, no one angry about anything! Alex was so useful at the bank. There was a huge line-up at the bank, and Martin had to do some credit card banking/cash advances to pay for materials. Alex said there is always a big line-up at the bank; very few ATM's in the country, so you have to go to the teller. Alex used to work at the bank, so he took Martin's information and just went to the front of the line-up...I felt white & privileged, and not very good, actually, but it sped up the process considerably, although we probably still spent 40 minutes in the bank. At some point, a managerial looking fellow came up and took me to the 'VIP' waiting room with comfy chairs, far less people. Then I felt more embarrassed!

I'm going to put in lots of photos below, but a lot has happened today, so I'll blather on for a bit longer. The shopping trip took longer than anticipated, so I didn't end up working at all this afternoon, but I was able to meet with a (new) friend, Osprival Descomme (of Centre d'Intervention Jeunesseand Richard Gosser (of Partners in Progress). Thanks so much, Janet, for making this very important connection! Janet put Ospri & I in touch when she found out I was going to Haiti. Ospri is Haitian, but has been living in Toronto for several years now. He has been coming back to Haiti for the last couple of years, building schools out of compressed soil-cement bricks (I think they said 5% cement), out of a hydraulic press. Ospri & Richard are doing amazing work in communities, in teaching communities to build more sustainably, have access to clean water, and have communities involved in agro- ecology, by resurrecting farming technologies of the past. It was such a great honour to have both Ospri & Richard come to our site, where we could discuss what Builders without Borders are doing, and to share ideas about best building practises that are suitable to the climate, is seismically appropriate, and culturally appropriate. Rather then arriving and building a bunch of homes with imported materials (which is being done all over the place here), the idea would be to be part of a community, to discuss the various possible methods of building that will hold up to earthquakes, and use local materials. That was an awesome meeting, and we were going to have them join us at a local restaurant for dinner, but they weren't able to. I'm disappointed that, due to my flight delay, I wasn't able to go visit their jobsite. They were holding a plastering workshop last week, and I sure would have loved to take part in it! Martin & I are talking about going there on a road trip with Alex, our trusty chauffeur, one day, to see the school they have built.

We did go to dinner, and met up with Val (don't know her last name) and Kevin Rowell (of the Natural Builders in California). Kevin has been in Haiti for 9 months, and he had been involved in the Builders without Borders straw building. He's involved in some pretty high up government fundraising efforts for Haiti, and is a well respected natural builder (he has a company back in California), and has done a lot of work in materials testing in addition to building. All in all, I met with a lot of really interesting folks today, and saw a lot of amazing sites. Read on, if you want to hear my first (rather touristy sounding) impressions of my outing in Port-au-Prince.

Things I saw today:
•(Mostly) women walking with gigantic heavy filled baskets on their heads- so incredible!
•Mattresses being pushed along the road in  a wheelbarrow
•Police pulled over a taxi bus, and the police officer went to the car window, sporting his machine gun
•One woman with a really heavy load balanced on her head busied her other two hands braiding her hair
•Singing vendors- so wonderful to see!
•Very few stop signs or traffic lights, but traffic seems to work somehow (mostly!)
•Colours, life, joy, busyness
•Oh yes, and we hit a bicycle!

Andy Mueller & Martin Hammer in front of the tarped 'Ti Kay Pay' house we're constructing.

A few animals on the side of the road (sometimes in the middle of the road!).

Cool art on hung on the walls, for sale. 

OK, remember how I was going to avoid all the x-mas decorations, etc.? Look 

at this frosted snowman, atop a hardwarde store roof in Port-au-Prince- grrr! How the heck

does a snowman end up in Haiti?!

This is a tap-tap cab in Haiti. The tap-taps are generally quite crowded, and this one is 

parked in front of a hardware store- the one fellow is passing up what looks like a roll of sheet metal, or stove pipe, before climbing up to join other passengers. Imagine carrying that home on the bus?!

I just can't fathom how you can balance such large containers, with hefty

weights, on your head! Practise? Necessity? I'm in awe!

Alex is truly an awesome driver. He kind of chuckled when I put on my seatbelt, and 

I explained how it's the law in Canada, and I'm quite used to it. He said it was the law in Haiti too, but everyone ignores it. He then went on to explain how one time he was in a serious accident, and he was wearing a seatbelt and it saved his life...but he still doesn't routinely wear one! I took this photo because as you'll notice, Alex is on his cell phone while driving the standard truck, and when he shifted gears, he reached across with his left hand to manoeuver the shifter. Talk about multi-tasking!

What looks like quite  fancy house- quite a contrast to the tent villages, and shanty shacks I saw on our trip through the city.

***Uploading photos takes quite awhile here, so I'll post more of my excursion tomorrow. 

Morning at Grassroots United

I don’t know what time the Hole in the Wall opens in the morning, but beer is routinely on the compound before 11am. I’m trying to do online banking to pay my payroll remittance (it’s due tomorrow, and they ding you big time if you’re late), but every time I try to log on, the log on time takes so long that I get bumped out. Grrrr!

They have morning meetings here at the compound. If things were bad on the streets, they would advise that we were on lock-down, and would advise not to leave. Today’s status is that things are fine, but they ask you if going out, to go with one other person (and let the organization know you are going out), and that you take a cell phone with you. Simple safety rules.

It’s 10:30  and our ride just shown up to take us for our errands run (was supposed to be here shortly past 8am), but Martin is in a meeting with the rice straw farmer, I think haggling over prices, perhaps? In any case, I could have put in a couple of hours work by now, but for the waiting game. This is good for me…deep breathing, patience, and waiting.

A common hello greeting (from the Haitians who come here to the site) is either a handshake, or more familiarly, to tap knuckes from a formed fist together. I goofed around with our building guys, Jean-Louis & Annio, and hit elbows as a salute. 

The language is so… musical I haven’t got an ear for it yet; for sure there are similar words, but when they’re speaking fast in groups, I can’t pick out much. My French is easily understood, but boy, am I motivated to speak Creole!

Some of the more transient people (Americans & Canadians) who are have come here to wait for rescheduled flights are providing awesome free labour to the group here, digging trenches to run wiring, helping with office work, dishes & cleaning. It’s weird to see some of them putting on make-up, and having their hair done by some of the women here. Seems oddly out of place, but what do I know?!

11am, and this Canadian is still enjoying a leisurely morning. Ah, this work is hard! Think I’ll go chance into work clothes & get to it…

Outings and Meetings

The city wakes up early- before 6am, horns are honking, people walking about, and I heard people chanting  a song far away- I don't know if it was in celebration, or protest, or perhaps just a ritual. Another night of roosters crowing all night long, and dogs running about in packs barking, which I'm sure I'll eventually block out. No gun shots or tire fires since I've been here.

We had a great breakfast- omelette sandwiches on these interesting buns. I brought some yeast, with the hopes of making bread at some point while I'm here (think I'll wait until this current round of 17 newbies go home tomorrow- I'm not THAT ambitious :). I haven't even seen the showers here yet- no indoor running water apart from the kitchen, but there are a couple of indoor toilets, but for the most part, it's outside composting toilets (no roof in one- fun in the rain!). Haven't needed a shower yet, as you can just rinse off outside in the rain.

Andy left this morning for the airport, so it's up to Martin & I to continue this project with Jean-Louis & Annio. I have a feeling that Martin (who is architect of the project, and managing all of the accounting & purchases) will be absent a lot due to other obligations, so it may be just the three of us.

It rained all night, but the rain has abated. However, the forecast for today isn't ideal, and Martin just suggested that Jean-Louis & Annio take the day off, so I asked if I could tag along with Martin when he goes to do errands. We'll go to the bank, the roofing warehouse, and a couple of hardware stores- I just love going to hardware stores in other countries! (Nerd? Yup, you bet!). I don't anticipate being able to get out very often (we have to arrange it with a local fellow who is our chauffeur), and really, there is a lot of work to do, so I'm going to jump at any chance to 'get out' of the compound.

Martin said on another outing we'll go to an area of the city that has interesting Victorian style buildings, built prior to the American occupation, that are quite beautiful. American tourists nicknamed them gingerbread houses in the 50's- they stunning examples of Haitian architecture. http://www.wmf.org/project/gingerbread-houses; images:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2004148,00.html

The houses sustained significant damage during the earthquake (some were completely destroyed) but the World Monuments Fund and other organisations are fundraising to repair the existing houses. I really hope we get to see them, and also, the Palais National that was severely damaged during the earthquake. So, will pack my camera for our excursion today, and hope to have more photos later. I'm trying to arrange a meeting this afternoon with my earth block contact here, and hopefully with a Canadian engineer before he flies back to Canada.

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!

I’m en route to Haiti, after a 50 minute delay this morning due to snow, de-icing the plane, etc. I still don’t know what they spray on the wings, but it’s quite a procedure!

I managed to find 4 seats (bench-like) to sprawl out on last night, and I actually slept bits & pieces, to my surprise. Not the more comfortable bed, or the deepest sleep, but I surprised myself by actually sleeping!

I was helping Fréda and her mother this morning at the check-in line, and at some point I realized that I no longer had my phone. I went to the lost & found, to the air transat desk, but no phone. The security guys were super helpful- every time I saw them after my initial plea for help, they asked if I had found it yet, and offered other helpful suggestions to retrieve the phone. I was impressed by their interest, and that they even remembered me- they must get so many requests for help! So, I called Rogers to put my phone service on hold, and will be without phone in Haiti (which isn’t a terrible thing, given the price of overseas phone time). I guess I’ll be temporarily without phone once I get back home again too.

More turbulence, but my tummy is doing alright. Forgot to take gravol, or bring a gingerale onto the plane. They’ll sell me one, but you can only pay by credit card, so on principal, I’m not buying into their crazy scam.

Reading and napping, if turbulence will allow for it.

OK, so wonderful flight- champagne for breakfast and everything (why not, eh?!). I hadn’t ever seen a topographical map of Haiti, so didn’t know what to expect, but when landing, saw lots of mountains (albeit small), and as we got closer to the gridlines, saw some damaged buildings from the earthquake, and  many, many tent cities. Arriving at the airport was uneventful (except for the face that I was still wearing long johns and sweating to death!), and luggage retrieval took close to an hour- there was a lot of luggage on that plane. I hooked up with Fréda and Mme Clements one last time, and then went outdoors to meet my ride. I wanted to kiss the ground, I was so pleased to finally be here! Eyes wide open to the crazy overcrowded sketchy vehicles driving by, while admiring banana plants amongst the rubble. Exciting to be here! Can't add photos at this time, server too slow, but did get Fréda and her mom at airport, but will load later. We're about to get going working, so off i go!

Killing time...

an aside: <For those of you who know my character Eddie (my sweet alter-ego), 'Eddie' had to have a body scan dealie at the bus station in Ottawa (all the passengers did, not just me!), and Eddie, in good Eddie fashion, hammed it up...spread eagle in a nice theatrical pose while having that rod thing scan my body for weapons and such, while making funny faces at the other passengers. Even I was surprised that Eddie would come out to meet the security guards- gotta be careful!  The movie that we were going to make, 'Eddie goes to Cuba', has been put on hold, and in its place we'll document 'Eddie goes to Haiti'. >

And here I am at the airport in Montreal once again. I know this place only too well now. I caught a 3pm bus from Ottawa, and arrived here shortly after 5pm. I've walked the arrivals floor & departure floor a few times, pushing along my cart with my luggage, and am now sitting at a funky boulangerie. Well, I'm sitting outside of it, at this really cool and very high marble topped island- looks like it came out of an old restaurant or something- it would be an awesome surface for baking!

So, off to Haiti tomorrow morning, and this time, I'm going to spend the night in the airport (it's OK, my mom knows!), hopefully with Mme Clements & Fréda when they arrive on the 9 pm bus. There is a sad lack of comfortable chairs here, I've noticed. Perhaps they don't want to encourage overnight guests?! I'll be picked up at the airport in Port au Prince by some of my group members, and then we'll go build & plaster, finally.

In any case, on the bus trip here, I was trying hard not to look, but the guy sitting in front of me was texting a friend for the entire trip, while at the same time having a conversation with his friend beside him. His friend didn't seem to be the least bit offended that he was texting the entire time they were talking (to give him credit, at key moments, he looked at her and laughed or exclaimed quite appropriately!). Like I said, I wasn't intentionally setting out to read what he was texting, but it was just there, in plain view, a glowing distraction, so um, I glimpsed at it a bit at first, and then I realised I could easily read this one side of the conversation, which went something like:
You're just a regular girl who dreams of...
Awesome cup of soup or...
Chicken.
I know.
Sweet, enjoy.
U better.
Cool.
I would like some...
I think U do need some compliment (actually, he wrote complement)...
Ya I just care about U and hope UR happy.
Everything you could have hoped for? Still hungry?
GOD NO! Ha!
Yup, actually I'm not surprised. You eat a lot and you don't gain a pound. I'm jealous.
Yes, a good size, not grossly skinny, nor overly fat.
I'm serious.
Say, UR a pretty girl.
It's true, I'm lucky to know U...
I did not mean for you to be uncomfortable...
OK good!

Um, yup, I copied it out, just because I thought it would be kind of funny to get a series of one sided text conversations and do something with them. But the glare of the screen was bothering my eyes after awhile, and my attention started wavering, so I stopped with this one snippit of conversation. I felt a bit naughty for copying his words. It's kind of like when you're playing a game of cards, and the person beside you is holding their hand in such a way that you can see all of their cards...what to do?...why of course, take a peek. If they didn't want you to see them, they'd cover them, clearly. So, if anyone is looking over my shoulder while I type this, then of course, they are welcome to copy from me!

***As an aside, a security guard is behind me taking photos...he said he 'has' to take photos of the building. "Comme c'est bizarre, comme c'est curieux, et quel coincidence" (Ionesco, from La Cantatrice Chauve) Yikes, maybe they found out about my text-copying!

It's a curious thing to me, and while once upon a time I thought texting while talking was a generational thing I don't think it is...you've got your texters, and your basic non-texters (like me!). Texters young & old alike will sit there texting other friends while casually carrying on a conversation with real time friends sitting beside them. I can multi-task, actually I'm all for it...and I can carry on multiple chats online at a time (by multiple I mean two maximum...) but the texting while talking thing just isn't for me. Call me old-fashioned, or maybe a luddite (even though I'm not one!), but kind of like eye contact when having a person to person conversation.

Eavesdropping (eyedropping?) on this text conversation made me realise how many mundane conversations occur in this new way...Cool, neat, right, OK, gotcha, You bet, Hmmmm, and so on. So expressive, so eloquent! (OK, I'll admit it- I'm a terrible texter! It takes me forever to key in a simple sentence, and often after all that work I hit delete by accident and have to type it in all over again. I know, if I actually had a newer phone, with a keyboard on it, it would be a different story.

I have a book to keep my company tonight, entitled: Haiti, kenbe la, 35 secondes et mon pays a reconstruire. It's written by Rodney Saint-Élois, a Haitian author, about the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. I suppose it would have been good to read it sooner, but perhaps I'll devour a good chunk of it tonight. Luckily it's written in French, and not Creole, so it will be easier to understand, although I'm enjoying the smattering of creole words so far.

Bus station encounter

Soooo….an uneventful bus ride back to Ottawa. I noticed a couple of women (Haitian) who had been on the same bus as I going to the airport in the first place a couple of days, and they were struggling with some of their belongings, so I helped them carry things off the bus, and get their luggage off the bus. I’m glad I didn’t whine too badly about being inconvenienced from the flight; my new friends (Mme. Clements and her daughter, Fréda Césaire) were about to go to Haiti for 6 months, something they do each year. Each time the flight was cancelled, they spent the night in the AIRPORT, trying to sleep in a chair. I was originally planning on doing that the night before the flight, but decided that my mother would be happier knowing I was in a hotel getting a ‘proper’ night’s sleep (am I right, mom?!). This mother/daughter pair spent two whole days in the airport, and Fréda’s mother has mobility troubles, so they stay put- didn’t eat or drink.

Anyway, they didn’t even have a phone number to contact the airlines regarding the rescheduled flight, and Fréda said she doesn’t know how to use the internet, so I told her I’d call her when I find out when the flight will go. I shared candies with them (am I a granny already? why did I have candies in my pocket in the first place?!), lent my phone to Freda so she could call for a ride home, and we chatted about Haiti, the political situation (Fréda says the elections in Haiti are always a farce- so hard to imagine!), and she told me about where Mme Clements lives. Apparently her town was relatively unaffected by the earthquake. She was pleased to learn I was going to be building in Haiti, saying there was a need for more solid housing, and she didn’t seem to have the same prejudice against straw bale houses for Haiti as some Haitians do (apparently, if you didn’t listen to that clip from 'The Current' a couple of days ago, some Haitians are anti-straw bale…simply because it’s returning to the older ways of building, which they associate with a more peasant way of building. I had the pleasure a couple of years ago of taking Linda Zhu, a Chinese colleague, on a tour of straw bale homes in Ontario. Linda has overseen the construction of hundreds of simple little bale homes in China, and she said she had the same obstacles to overcome in China: the Chinese wanted homes made of brick, and bales plastered with cement, not earth…earth plaster is for peasants, cement is for the rich. In the beginning, they compromised, incorporating brick columns into the buildings, and using cement plasters, but eventually people came around to appreciating local materials.). (That was a very long aside!) Freda said perhaps when I’m in Haiti I can come visit them in their village- how I would love that! I asked permission to photograph them- and Mme Clements giggled, (she was so cute!), and took off her hats (rats- I loved the hats!). What I failed to capture in the photo is their 6 months worth of luggage that they had to haul around the airport, and both of them with canes. I helped them take the luggage out to the car when they were leaving, told Mme Clements that I was delighted to meet her, and I gave Fréda an unexpected hug. It just felt...right!

So, while I didn’t make it to Haiti, I had a great hour hanging out in the bus station with Fréda Césaire and her mother!