A flurry of activity

Sitting outside relaxing after work, with avid story teller Osprival Descommes, founder of CIJ

February 22, 2012

There is a refreshing cool breeze tonight, which is quite out of the norm for here. It was yet another stinking hot day here on the jobsite- we really can’t do any work between noon and 3pm- it’s just too hot. So, we worked from 3 until about 6 tonight- much better. Oh, and of course, we worked the morning shift too.

We have had to shift our goals a few times here…everything happens slower than you think, and even when you know this, you can get caught.

February 24, 2012

The crunch is on- we have one more full day with the entire crew to finish whatever we can, and then one day with a partial crew, as we will be traveling to Port au Prince on two different days. This first Endeavour crew to come to Deslandes has been terrific- everyone has adapted quite well to the pace of life here- we have realised that while it’s wonderful to set goals, they aren’t always attainable- sometimes due to lack of materials, or budget, or energy. It is quite draining to work in a really hot climate when you aren’t used to it, but everyone has done well.

We set a goal to finish the compost toilet facility, and will achieve it, but for making the doors. That was out of our control, as they said they couldn’t find wood locally. This was pretty disappointing to the crew, as we really wanted to have the toilets completely ready for the compost toilet folks to come and install the toilets & compost buckets. We’re close, but not quite there. We did manage to finish the clay/straw on the building, do all of the partition block walls (which took longer than any of us had anticipated), two coats of plaster, and today, JP is doing a sculpture on one side of the toilet building.

Laying partition walls out of compressed earth block

We have had lots of help here and there on the project- especially with collection of materials, and doing jobs that might be more fun, but as for the really dirty jobs, it’s hard to get people to join in. It seems to be cultural- people don’t like to get really dirty here. We always have plenty of spectators at the jobsite- a mixture of kids and adults. There is lots of curiousity and praise in what we are doing there.

Plastering the toilet building- the jobsite is a busy place!

We added some green trim around doors & windows to break up the yellow

We are also in the midst of painting the first school building- it’s rather an experimental paint, with nopal cactus juice, pigment, and water. The colours are vibrant, but it’s a difficult paint to work with- it involves lots of pressure, and going over the same spot several times to work the pigment in- the cactus juice seems to suspend the pigment. We’ll try to paint a clear protective coat over the paint (likely a glue/water paint) to preserve the finish. Unfortunately, this was the pigment that Jim provided us with, but no one checked with the community about the colour (big faux pas!). It turns out that one of the nastiest prisons in Haiti was painted a bright yellow, and for Haitians of a certain generation, this colour is still associated with the prisons. We painted the posts green, and put green trim around the doors and windows- this definitely adds something to the building, and cheers it up in a different way. But again, an important reminder to consult a community before moving forward on any project!

We had lots of help painting

We have been most warmly welcomed here in Deslandes, and the relationships with the kids here have had a strong impact on all of us. The kids genuinely love spending time with us, and we each have certain ones who will follow us everywhere. Some of us have been advancing in creole, while others are able to speak in English and be understood just fine.

We’ll be sad to leave Deslandes in a mere two days, but the people of Deslandes will have had as rich an experience as we have in our time here. We look forward to progress reports on the composting toilets.

Our gang, hanging out on the porch after a day of earth block training

JP sculpted a tree onto the side of the building, and Shane did a sun- I forgot my camera in Verrettes, with shots of their finished artwork. 

Movie night in Deslandes

February 18, 2012

Deslandes, Haiti

Movie screen set up using plywood and a sheet

Tonight was the most magical night…maybe the most magical night of my life. Jim & Adriana (Of Tierra y Cal) had a movie night, and they showed Wally (Wall-ee?). 

The movie!

After at least an hour of problem solving (getting the generator going, and all of the projectors talking to one another), they were up and rolling, without sound (well, there was sound through a small set of speakers). I sat with Mimi on my lap, Mischli lying across my lap asleep, and Dine lying on top of Mischli- I was in heaven, and cried a few tears of…I don’t know exactly what emotion as these precious young beings clung on to me- I was joyful and sad all at the same time. The kids laughed heartily at the appropriate times, despite not being able to hear the soundtrack- animation is a beautiful thing!

Captive audience, all ages

I just went out into the field on my own (at 10:15pm) and I can hear another voodoo ceremony drumming across the fields, crickets singing, and a few roosters crowing. All is well as I get myself ready for bed on this Saturday night in Deslandes.

Dead Goat Laundry

We have finished our stint in Deslandes- at least, the group has. I will return after they fly out to paint an aliz coat on the building, followed by a protective glue & water coat. We ate extremely well when in Deslandes- fresh fruit, bread, freshly made peanut butter, bread, and on good days, freshly squeezed lemon or grapefruit juice.

Lunches were always a hot pot of some sort- a stew, or 'mayi' (hot cornmeal with veggies), and dinners (my favourite) included fried plantains, picklese (spicey cabbage salad), sometimes fries, often rice, some sort of meat dish with sauce (or fish, or sometimes fried chicken). In any case, you get the picture- eating locally produced, fresh food daily. Benitta works hard along with Madame Alien to feed us. It was all going swimmingly well until Dave & Paul saw them kill a goat in the backyard- apparently with a very dull knife. From there, all of our lunches & dinners included goat- and all goat parts. It got to the point where things were just too goaty- so I had to gently ask Benitta (put a positive spin on things!) if we could have chicken for dinner again- that we LOVE her fried chicken (true, true!). I also mentioned that Canadians aren't really used to eating goat, but that I LOVED it (a bit of a white lie, but I was trying not to hurt her feelings. When I go back, I might have to pay for that lie- she may serve me up goat entrails as a specialty!).

In any case, the day after the real goaty meal, Paul & I were doing laundry in Benitta's backyard. It smelled too goaty, so we moved over into our own backyard to finish the laundry. We realised that we could still smell goat...and then made the realisation that the tubs we were washing our clothes in had likely been used for....goat. I admit, I'm not a fan of the smell. But I persisted and finished my laundry- left it flapping in the breeze for an extra day, just because I could.

February 17, 2012: Deslandes on a Friday night

Friday nights are party nights here in Deslandes- the generator is running, and my Haitian friends are in the dining hall across the road, playing dominoes and sipping Babancourt rum, which is more tasty (and pricey) than Baccara, the rum I have been accustomed to drinking here.

The mood is festive, and here across the road from the dining hall, sits our crew outside in the courtyard, enjoying banter about this & that, and having sampled some of the fine rum ourselves.

We’re pretty pleased with our work and progress to date- the block walls in the washroom stalls are now done, and we’re ready to put a coat of plaster on the exterior of the building. We also painted a couple of coats of ‘experimental’ paint- nopale cactus juice, water, and pigment. We did two coats with the yellow iron oxide, and it looks SO much better already!

I am loving seeing our group interact with the kids- that was my big draw to this community, and I’m tickled to see each of our gang connect in really meaningful ways with the kids of this community.

This remains a special place for me, and my bond to the community grows deeper each time I come here, and with my developing language skills, I continue to be able to forge more profound relationships with people.

Life is simple here- quite simply! When you have limited resources, and ittle electricity, you find other means of entertainment. The most common is sitting around talking, playing cards, or dominoes. Occasionally, we play live music, and then there is dancing and merriment to beat the band. I love the naivety of our time here, and the simplicity of our interactions. 

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!

February 13, 2012: First day for our crew on the jobsite

We had a wonderful welcome to the community after breakfast today- Ospri. Kazimi and Claubert welcomed us on behalf of CIJ- we sat around a tree, because in traditional voodoo ceremony, you sit around a special kind of post or totem, so the tree represented that cymbol, to mark the fact that we’re in a country where most people at least have some sort of belief in voodooism.

We did a tour of the jobsite, starting with the compressed earth block machines, and then went on to look at the first earthblock school, followed by a tour of the unfinished clay/straw toilet building that Ian & I started last year.

Ospri, Claubert and Kazimi took us on a hike down to the farm by the river, and that was a hit- it truly is beautiful, and it’s really nice to be able to share the beauty of Haiti with groups of people, rather than only get a taste of Port au Prince.

We made our work plan, and decided to finish the clay/straw washrooms that Ian & I had started last year. It’s great- the team divided up naturally, and the earth block crew (for dividing walls) took down the not so good block walls, while the clay/straw crew went off in search of materials.

After dinner, Ospri asked if we would like to go for a walk- he took us down the road a bit to a neighbour’s house- an elder, and a healer, was hosting a voodoo ceremony. Often here in Deslandes, I fall asleep to the sounds of the voodoo drumming…it’s a beautiful, magical sound.

It was quite an honour to be invited to the ceremony- before we entered, Ospri asked permission…we could hear the excitement of the drums, and the singing. When we got inside, it was the most incredibly moving, vibrant experience of my life- we were under a thatch roof, lit by candles, with a group of women leading songs, drummers beating out a lively rhythm, and everyone dancing. The elder was quite taken with me, at some point, and asked me to dance with him a couple of times. This, too, was an honour- I can’t even describe the evening in words, but suffice it to say, it was truly spectacular.

Deslandes, February 12, 2012

We made it! The entire crew is now in Deslandes. We have had varying degrees of stomache woes, so hopefully now that we’re stationed here, there will be less issues with sanitation.

Our ride was about an hour late this morning due to the gas shortage- during this shortage, gas is being sold for 80 Haitian dollars/litre, which translates to 400 gourdes, or roughly $10 American- how the heck can anyone afford to drive here? I have yet to understand where Haitians get money from, how they actually survive. Andy & I asked Samuel the other night, and after lots of speculation, he said, ‘I don’t know where the hell they get their money from either- it’s a mystery’. So strange!

We stopped at a beach- Ospri had told our driver to go to a private beach (thinking that we would prefer it), but we all balked at the $15/person entry fee- and went instead to a public beach next door, for $1/person- much more reasonable. And real. There were vendors in our faces selling their wares, and the crew ate some beach food, we drank prestige, and swam in the ocean. It was nice- but oddly enough, shortly after getting there, it got quite cloudy & breezy- almost chilly- the coolest I’ve ever felt it here!

A brief stop at a grocery store in St. Marc, then off to Verrettes where Ospri & his accountant & I met to have a quick business meeting.

We drove as far in as we could, and then were ferried across the river in the boat (after watching our luggage go, and dearly hoping that it didn’t get wet, or tip over!). At some point along the route, we had to get out of the boat to walk the rest of the way, as the water was too shallow for the boat to pass.

We weren’t expecting to have to hike in with our packs- the initial idea was to have the packs driven directly in (the long, long bumpy way in), but in the end, that didn’t happen, I love hiking into Deslandes carrying my belongings with me-  it felt good after being cooped up within the walls of the Grassroots Compound.

It is truly beautiful here- on the trip here, I was trying to see Haiti through the eyes of my newcomers, trying to point out little things I had observed, and once we got to the river, drinking in the beauty of this area anew. It’s in such contrast to the dirty city.

Benitta made a beautiful meal for us- picklese (cabbage salad with some heat), fried chicken, fried plantain, potatoes & breadplant  an eggplant dish, and a gigantic plate of spaghetti. We were well taken care of, and received a warm welcome from everyone. They are doing a great job of trying to host our group- this is the first time the community has received paying guests, and they want to do it up proper.

The generator hums in the background- they wanted extra power to be able to light up the courtyard to allow my guys to set up their tents. I think they’re going to love being here- the rhythm is relaxed, and people are friendly.

Bedtime, at 9:16pm!