The work continues on the compound. Lots of action especially on the water tower construction behind my house. Thursday afternoon and Friday morning saw Luckner busily doing electrical wiring before the cement roof would be poured. A wind and rain storm prevented it from being finished Thursday.
Today, Friday, the cement roof is being poured on the first level. I love watching the workers on the ground scurrying around like busy ants. Workers standing on the ladder passing buckets of cement up to the next person – up, up they go. Someone standing in a pool of wet cement at the bottom scooping the cement into the buckets to be passed. Others on the roof pouring wet cement into a wheelbarrow and taking it to one area to pour it out. Another there with a long stick to push the cement around to keep it underneath the string so it will be level.
Passing buckets of cement up the ladder
Pouring cement for the roof of the first floor
Rice and beans for the workers for lunch
Time to sit down and enjoy a bite before getting back to work
Now this will be left to dry before the work will start on level two of this building. Ti Luc continues to enjoy sitting outside and watching all the action involved with the construction. If Luckner is not onsite then Mama Karen tends to spend more time watching as well.
There were only two tents outside when the rain came yesterday afternoon, mine and Ti Luc’s. Carol has had her tent inside the devotional/meeting room since she arrived. I was so concerned about helping to cover all the bags of cement to keep them dry that I forgot to have someone move our tents. Needless to say we had wet bedding, pillows and mattresses in a very short time. We, however, still slept
outside after allowing the tent to dry and changing everything necessary for sleeping with what was dry inside the house.
Early tomorrow morning, Saturday, will see us leaving for Port au Prince to pick up the nine person team from Texas with Kathy from Canada. We are looking forward to a productive and fun week with them. We are hoping and praying that the rainy season will not really start while they are here. It will be difficult to keep beds dry in ten mosquito tents in the rain.
My heart is heavy for all the displaced people in Port au Prince living in tents. Whenever I think of the rain, I think how very difficult it is for them. Dear God, how can they manage? How can they survive? They have so very many obstacles to overcome just for survival. Lots of illnesses in PaP now due to the lack of sanitary facilities, etc.
Carol leaves with us tomorrow morning. She will overnight with friends in PaP and return home on Sunday. She is going to be missed and especially by TiFi. Ti Fi is glowing in the awesome ongoing attention from Carol. Thank you, Carol, for a job well done. Carole has been the person for finding misplaced and lost items as well. I think she gets 10 out of 10 in that area.
Tifi playing ball with Carol
Tifi will sure miss Gramma Carol!
The noise from the Rice Mill next door continues to cause a problem for sleeping. No doubt it will be a big problem for the new people tomorrow. Trying to adjust to the noise of life in Haiti takes some doing. Having a noisy rice mill next to us does not help. Someone here recently suggested I check to see if a muffler could go on it and then try to be a friendly neighbour and purchase one.
Hopefully the new team will blog while here from their perspective.
Friendly neighbourhood rice mill
~Karen
