Down and dirty

Ok, so I'm admittedly a good bit behind in blogging, so it's time to play catch up!

After our lovely weekend in Jacmel, myself and the other interns jumped into our "week in the field" head first. On Tuesday, our first day in the field, I helped with rubble removal at the giant Stevens site, where a large two-story home was completely pancaked. We spent the afternoon swinging sledge hammers and breaking up the top layer of concrete to clear the way for rebar cutting and eventually bobcats to come clear the site. Our team leader estimated the site would take about three weeks to clear. All Hands has cleared an incredible number of rubble sites in Léogâne, providing an invaluable service and a great step toward rebuilding. Our translator, Berlyne, told me that a private Haitian company had estimated $3,000 to clear her mother's land. As most Haitian families lost everything they had in the earthquake, rubble clearing is not something they can afford. Because of the way that most buildings are constructed in Haiti, rubble removal must be done by hand and is incredibly hard work. That's what volunteers do best! The landowner's son and a few neighbors actually came by and took a turn at the sledgehammer. It's a great motivation and inspiration to see the face of who you're helping and to work right alongside them.

Wednesday was spent mixing concrete and rendering (smushing concrete into chain link to make walls) at All Hand's seventh school in Léogâne. This was an amazing workout, even compared to sledging the day before. Between carrying water from the well in 5-gallon buckets, mixing concrete and sand with shovels and performing aerobics by reaching into a bucket of wet concrete, standing on a bucket, and lifting the concrete over my head, I felt like I'd been at the gym all day. Luckily, we were rendering on the inside of the building and were in the shade all day.

Thursday I helped dig trenches for the foundation at the groundbreaking of school 9 and was amazed by the outpouring of support from the local community that came to help us dig. The school director even swept our dirty construction site and brought out some tables to serve our lunch. He also led us to the temporary tent that All Hands put up for the children to have school in while we're building their new school. I was greatly impressed with our team leaders on this site, Chris and Tom, and how they were surveying and measuring everything and actually managed to get solid trenches dug with a workforce that included someone like me.

Friday was a special day celebrating the opening of All Hands's sixth school in Léogâne! I could not get enough of all of the beautiful children dressed in their Sunday best to celebrate their new school. We set up tents and chairs for the ceremony and served some pate (sort of like empanadas) and Sweety (Haitian Kool-Aid). The ceremony was lovely and the school director presented us with a lovely trophy (check out the inscription!). The best part of the day  was all of this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The week culminated in Plaza Playtime Saturday morning, where all of the local kids from the two IDP camps near our base came over to play. Although my understanding of Kreyòl is completely nonexistant at this point besides a simple bonjou, the universal languages of crayons, football and dancing were more than sufficient for communication.

After a full week of hard work in the field, we're fitting in quite nicely with all of the other suntanned, bug-bitten, never quite clean but always smiling volunteers. We're getting used to ketchup on spaghetti, bucket showers, complete darkness during non-generator hours and the surprising joy of living in a tent.