Rubble Houses in Haiti March 2013

Disclaimer: I'm sorry for the disarray of the format that this turned out to be. I haven't figured out how to work the composing place to turn our right on the final blog. If I try any longer to figure this out I'll never get it posted, so enjoy the words and pictures even though they're wildly scattered.

January 12, 2010 at 4:53 pm local time an earthquake that registered 7.0 on the Richter scale hit Haiti.  The epicenter was Leogane 25km West South West of Port au Prince.  The intensity of the strong shaking was felt as far away as Jamaica and Venezuela and also in Cabarete, Dominican Republic where I was sitting working on lesson planning.  At the time I had no idea what I’d felt and rushed to the door to see if there was some commotion in the street.  Since I had no radio or TV it wasn’t until the next day I learned that this had happened.

The results of these seconds of terror were approximately 220,000 people were dead, 250,000 homes had collapsed as well as 30,000 commercial buildings and the Presidential Palace.  By January 24 there had been 52 aftershocks recorded as well as localized tsunamis.

Rescue work and restoration began immediately and is still going on.  On March 8, 2013 I was part of a team from my church who traveled to Haiti to help with such work.  We were organized by Canadian Baptist Ministries and went to assist a group called Conscience International who are building rubble houses. When we were picked up at the airport we met the other half of the team who were from Texas.  We were loaded into a rickety bus of grinding gears and smoking brakes and drove 3 hours thru traffic jams and bumpy,  broken roads.

When we arrived, it was dark so we didn’t see much but we were welcomed with a meal and shown to our dormitories where we would spend the week.

On Saturday we had to be up at 6:00 for breakfast at 6:30, then be ready to walk to the location of our work for the day.  It was our first glimpse of the community of Grand Goave as we walked the streets lead by our faithful guide, Junior.  All along the way we greeted the people with ‘bonjou’. I had been taught a few phrases of Kreol by my Haitian students while I was living in Dominican Republic. but those who knew French got along equally well as it is very similar and everyone there seems to know it also.

It was about ½ hour walk and when we arrived at the site our 1^st work for the day was moving a pile of rocks while the Haitian workers measured off the size of the house and marked it with stakes and string which they also used to indicate when it was level.

We moved the rocks by forming a chain of workers from the pile to the new location and then passing rock by rock.  Some of us, to have some fun, would groan loud and long to indicate the rock was extra heavy ---- ohhhh!

After the rock pile was moved we began to dig a trench for the foundation and level off the ground in the middle.  As there were so many of us we took turns with the pick axes and shovels. That day we uncovered what we “thought” was a big tarantula.  By midday when we broke for lunch, we had the trench dug.  We walked back to the compound to eat and have a short rest.

When we got back to the site we found the Haitians had gotten the trench all filled in with big rocks.  We gathered little stones in the white buckets and filled in as many spaces as we could.  Then they mixed cement and poured it over the rocks and then built up and smoothed it to be an even and square foundation.  

Our work was done for that day.  We walked home, showered and rested until supper.

In the evening Junior took us to a shop where we all had smoothies – papaya, breadfruit, or potato. Yes, you heard right, ‘potato’.  They were all sweet but you could taste the individual flavour.

Next day was Sunday and as here the time changed and we lost an hour of sleep.  We walked to church which was just around the corner and arrived while Sunday School was still going on.
 

Those of the team who know French could follow the service a little. We could sing the songs because there were books and Kreol is very phonetic and some of the music was familiar so we knew what we were singing about.  After church we talked to the people. There was another missions group there from the States working at schools and orphanages. It was fun to talk to the people and surprise them with the little Kreol I know and I found a few that had some English.

After church and lunch Junior took us souvenir shopping. Two or three guys had laid out their crafts and we got what we wanted.  There was very little bartering but I did get a few $'s off my purchases.  

When we finished there we loaded up in 2 vehicles and headed to the beach.  There we saw beautiful water, another mission group with orphans that they were taking swimming, a large group of UN soldiers on some R & R, several more displays of crafts, vendors of fresh fruit and the promised lobster café.  We ordered our lobster and watched them prepare and cook them.  It was served with pick-leez which is a spicy coleslaw with hot peppers as one ingredient. It is very common and we encountered it 2 or 3 times more through the week. We stayed there until time to leave for supper.  The evening was spent relaxing, meeting on our rooftop location for devotions and then early to bed to prepare for another work day.

Monday we went to the riverbed and gathered piles of sand which were transported in the beat up Mitsubishi pickup truck, to various rubble house locations.  The waiting time between loads was spent on the beach and I was able to gather a good quantity of sea glass.  We were entertained by some children and sights of the activity that goes on at the water – laundry, bathing, motor bike washing and fishing.

Tues., Wed. and Thurs. we were delivered to several different locations where we gathered rubble and filled at least 2 dump trucks every day (for a total of 7 in the week), which was quite impressive because Wed. and Thurs, we only worked until noon.
 

Remember I mentioned a big tarantula. Well Wed. we uncovered a tarantula haven and saw many laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarge ones throughout the day as we loaded our buckets with rubble.
 

Tues. evening Junior took us to a chicken BBQ place where we had chicken, fried plantain and pickleez at a little takeout restaurant.

Wed. afternoon we went to the city market, not to shop but to see the culture and the set up of their open market.  You could buy anything you needed – pots and pans, fabric and sewing supplies, fresh fruit and vegetables, canned goods, soap, clothing, etc.

We ladies got some big souvenir shopping bags – well souvenirs to us but this market really wasn’t for tourists.

We walked through acres of make shift stalls covered with tarps to keep out the sun and when we arrived at the other side, we were at the river again.

We walked home through some tent housing areas and stopped at a former hotel where we met another mission group who bring water systems to the villages. They own the hotel and use it for housing the groups that come.  They were also running a DVBS kind of program in the schools.  The group, that week,  were on Spring Break from Arkansas.

Some of our team went swimming when we got back but many of us had had enough walking for the day.  In the evening, devotions and then some card games or socializing.

On Thurs. afternoon the completion of the week was that we got to present keys to 2 families for their new houses.  We met them at their location, presented the keys, watched them unlock and then prayed with them and gave them a bag of housewarming gifts- the remainder of things we’d taken with us.
 

This was the climax of a week of hard work – to see the reactions of the people when they received their keys and walked into their new home with the heart on the front. 

Thursday night the materials finally arrived so we donned our work clothes again and unloaded the truck. 

On Fri. were up at 4:00 to make our way to the airport.  Because of the distance, the other team had to come too even though their flight wasn’t until 3:00 in the afternoon.

At 10:30 a.m. we flew away, leaving behind the beautiful faces, the beautiful water, the beautiful mountains and taking with us the beautiful memories.