A (work)day in Haiti

Best laid plans and all that...I guess the good news is that I was so busy in Haiti that posting was not really practical. So...herewith the posts I might have done had I time...

The project I worked on was in Kenscoff, Haiti-in the mountains about 15 km sw of Port-au-Prince-which had the benefit of being much less humid and also cooler at night-hooray!! Our elevation was about 5000', which gave me something to blame tiredness on besides age. Too bad I wasn't signed up for any races when I returned, I'm sure I would have done much better than usual.

The project was to build a clinic/vocational center on the grounds of a new orphanage. I volunteered with Lake Union Crew Outreach Foundation (in Seattle), and they partnered with Chances for Children, based in Phoenix. The project ran for 12 weeks, I volunteered for week 7. The week I was there we had 6 volunteers, all women. It turned out that the jobs to be done that week mostly involved prepping for and pouring concrete. I'm pretty sure I'm good on that job for awhile now...

We stayed in the "new" orphanage, still being finished inside. Our kitchen was a good BBQ with side burner, we did have a fridge to keep food cool. Although we were on "city power", it routinely went out, so we also had a generator, although it couldn't pump water, so if the city power was out, there was no inside running water-which happened for 4 of the 7 days I was there! Fortunately we could still get water from the tap outside the house, so we could boil it for cooking or washing.  My last "sponge bath" I imagine was appreciated by  the people next to me on the plane back to NYC !

Our work days started at 6:30, with a short break for "liquids and salt" about 10, then lunch about 1. We usually worked until about 5:30, although I know one day after I left went closer to 6:30 or 7. After dinner we visited or played  games, but bed usually beckoned by 9:30 or 10.

Speaking of bed...Thursday night two of the volunteers discovered that the little critters that we had occasionally observed in the house had invaded their room-and were getting entirely too friendly! So the next day saw several well-baited traps...and after close to a week, I'm pretty sure we'd at the least encouraged our four-footed furry friends to look elsewhere for their food. The joys of working in the countryside...although we were grateful that these were the small variety of rodents, and not their larger cousins!

Sunday was our day off, so we hired a van and driver and headed for a private beach for r&r. Let's just say the ride was not for the faint of heart-and I was for once grateful to be in the back seat without a good view to what was ahead. In my trips to and from the airport, as well as the trip to and from the beach (which was outside Port-au-Prince), I saw exactly ONE traffic light. Other than that, I guess you just go for it. Coming around mountain curves was fun-honk to let the people coming the other way that you're on your way down. But...the beach was nice and provided a much needed break. As much as I would usually rather explore, that really wasn't an option here, and we definitely needed some down-time after 8-10 hour days.

Photos are from the project itself are  here if you haven't already seen them. The next post will have info about Haiti outside of our work site.

Peace!
Ro