Workers Coming & Going in All Directions!

Yesterday, Tuesday, and today Wednesday, there has been a lot of activity onsite. Workers, Haitian and Blan were coming and going in all directions and accomplishing a multitude of different tasks.

Work continued on the Water Tower foundation behind the main house/offices. One of the ‘Canadian’ team made a comment that “that building would never fall”. Luckner is using lots of rebar and is keeping a close eye on how the cement is being mixed. He has refused some wheelbarrows of cement and sent it back to be remixed. At this time he is not only the Assistant Director but is also wearing his Engineer and his Construction Manager hats.

Water Tower Site at Start of Day

Both days have had continuous streams of wheelbarrows bringing the sand and rocks, for the mixing of cement by hand with shovels. Then the “Bucket Brigade” of passing the heavy buckets of cement from one worker to another to the appropriate spot to be dumped. Lots of tired arms and bodies by the end of both days but more so by those on the blan crew who worked at this for some time as well.

Water Tower Site by End of Day

The whole ‘blan’ team, which consisted of four men and one lady, worked Tuesday morning counting the food supply on hand for the feeding program for our school students. It needed to be counted because we decided to keep only enough to feed our students for the remainer of this school year. What we have on hand for our students for next September we are going to start sharing today with hungry people in the community. We will be giving out what we estimate to be a two week supply to various families, along with some money to purchase beans to cook with it. Food is available but the cost has risen dramatically. The people are hungry now, so we will do what we can to help alleviate it a little. We will trust God to provide food money for our school students for next year.

Our school has not yet reopened. Perhaps next week??? Perhaps the week after?? Many people are not yet emotionally ready. We decided to restart the feeding program at our school this week. A meal is prepared at the school, as on a normal school day, and the students come at 10:30 a.m. to thankfully enjoy a big plate of rice and sauce.

The work on the cleaning out of the septic tank and unplugging the drain was finished Tuesday. Showers and toilets for the Kid’s Home are once again in good shape.

Wednesday morning saw the Canadian crew heading to St Marc to purchase plywood and 2 x 4s for Dickie’s projects and to allow the three musketeers to try to make contact with someone at the UN base. They are still unsure how they are going to get from Port au Prince to the DR on Tuesday, so they can fly back to Florida and on to Canada on Wednesday. It will all work out somehow.

St. Marc Traffic

More projects were worked on. Dickie organized the tool room and Jim and Ken treated the benches Dickie had made earlier with insect repellent, then Ken started painting them a bright yellow. With all the projects going on, time is still found to visit with the children at the swing or spend a few moments kicking a soccer ball with them. That is what brings joy to the labour.

I want to share something funny that happened last weekend. Actually it was early morning on the day of the funeral for Serlande.

Luckner and Don were to be at the funeral parlor at 5:00 a.m. The clothes to put on Serlande were at the house here. Don was supposed to take them with him early morning. My house has a fence around it and Dickie’s mosquito tent was set up just inside the fence very close to the gate. It is quite dark at 5:00 a.m. Don left to walk outside the compound to be picked up by Luckner. He, however, forgot to take the important bag of clothes with him. Jim was already up so I asked him if he would take it and run quickly to catch Don. Being the nice guy that he is he agreed and ran out the door. In his haste and in the darkness, however, Jim ran into the fence and bounced backwards with force. As he was trying to recover his equilibrium and, perhaps, his senses, he heard Dickie’s voice calmly saying “Next time try the gate!” We all had a good laugh. I laugh now as I think of it. We were all very sad about Serlande but God provided a good laugh in the midst of that sadness, and the laughter was very good for us all.

~Karen