Day six

Today was Sunday, so the Haitian crew took the day off, and invited us to go visit some of their houses. We only worked until about 12am, then ate our lunch of red beans and rice- getting a little bland at this point, haha.

I filtered a lot of rough sand with some new volunteers, Shaun and Ean, who used to work for GRU. Sand is now becoming an issue, as we need to sift so much rough sand to get the fine stuff needed for plaster mix. As a group we managed to finish digging the black water overflow, cement plaster the bathroom dome, adobe plaster the main dome further and create a nice communal space between the main dome and the other facilities.

After food we took motos (motor bikes driven by crazy dare devil Haitians) to where some of the Haitians live. The bike ride was an experience in itself. Weaving in and out of traffic at mad speeds, with three people on each bike. Everyone driving in Port au Prince is constantly honking their horns, and gesticulating wildly. It was a lot of fun getting there!

We were first invited to Billy's home, which I think used to be a school. Lots of children and their families share this large compound, and they're constantly doing little restoration jobs to make it better. Billy has been doing sculpture work using car tyres as his material. He started with hanging birds like the photo below, and has progressed to child's swings, plant pot flamingos and other imaginative creations!

We then walked to Samuels house, perched high atop a concrete cliff, accessible by half dozen precarious steps. The walk there took us past many ruins, and every one had a harrowing story behind it.

Samuel is training to become a reverend, and is very dedicated to his work. He invited us all into his house for a refreshing drink, and to talk. He and his family were more than happy to talk about their situation, their experiences around the earthquake, and their plans for the future.

After talking to Samuels family he offered to show us around the local community, and show us a plot of land he is planning to turn into an Earthship. We trekked around a maze of side alleys and streets tightly encompassed by concrete building and ruins. Open sewage pipes ran through many alleys, and stray cats and dogs streaked past constantly.

We then walked though a market place where Brian broke one of his sandals. Dozens of Haitians laughed at the sight of an American walking though the slums of Port au Prince bare foot! We then spent some time at Maritas, where we got some good food and talked.

Later, Marita, Brian and Paul convinced me to go to a Haitian carnival called Rara. The music was unusual, but unique. I like the fact that Haiti has it's own sound, as too much local music has become westernised. We danced with the locals and had a fantastic time!

Day Five

Day five was a really big day, as we got the bathroom and shower operational! I started by mixing batches of adobe and concrete for various people, sifting sand and cutting rebar pins. Later I organised interns to help collect the rubble needed to fill in the blackwater cell. First you add large pieces of flat rubble so you dont damage the plastic liner. Then smaller pieces, a 3" layer of sand and finally about 2 feet of earth.

Next me and James made the drainage tubes (4" diameter plastic tubes with holes periodically drilled into them) for the partially filled planters. These allow the water to flow from one planter to the next, and also make it possible to see the water levels.

After fixing in the tubes for the planter Brian, me and about 5 other people shovelled a ton of earth into the planter. After finishing that we started digging the overflow trench.We really do seem to dig a lot of holes, haha. I also attached the overflow to the cistern.

The roof structure is now almost finished and the water catchment almost operational. Rain is captured on the main dome and fed by gravity across the gutter (on top of the archway leading into the courtyard) and around the bathroom roof, finally emptying onto the roof of the cistern. It looks pretty awesome!

At 3pm Mike R called a meeting and the whole compound met over the laptop incident. GRU apologised for how they reacted over the incident, and the meeting gave people a chance to say what they needed to say, and express how they felt. It ended on a light note with the owner of the laptops saying "It's just a laptop guys". The interns left feeling upbeat I think.

We finished the last touches to the shower facilities- a rock bench and concrete platform to stand on - Rory finished lathing the bathroom dome, Phil and Salty continued to adobe inside the main dome and I helped Amzi and Brian to dig the overflow. The overflow will probably never be used in this climate. but legally it gives the whole septic system more credibility.

Finished and knackered for the day we had dinner and joined in with a few special festivities, as it was one of the GRU member's birthday.

Shneiders E-mail

Shneider (one of the best workers on our Haitian team) just mailed me to say how much he appreciated what we did. The letter is so beautiful that I have to put it up here.



"My dearest friend,
             
How are you? Your family, your business and staff Earthship?
Today, with a heart full of love, full of goodness and full of satisfaction that I write you this letter in order to greet you, thank you and congratulate you for the training you Earthship have given me.
                        
                  I wish you more courage, more patience, more wisdom and more knowledge.
                                                 

                                                     I love you!
                                              May God bless you!
                                                       
                                                                                      It's Shneider!

Day four in Haiti

Day four started with a lot of mixing batches for Phil, Rory, Mike etc. I got a few guys on sifting sand (were running out!), splitting cement bags and fetching water from the cistern.

The bottle walls are now almost done. Especially the bathroom and cistern veneer. Everything was progressing smoothly until we were alerted to an incident that just occurred with one of the other organisations in the compound. Two expensive laptops holding the plans and data for a years work were stolen, and everyone was told to go to the entrance. This caused huge friction between the grassroots organisation (GRU), and the Haitian volunteers. GRU searched the compound, and finding nothing they confronted the Haitians. After some time our extended team members were sent home for the rest of the day. Disappointed and confused they left.

Me and the team pushed on and had to work a lot harder without our friends and co-workers. We dug the blackwater cell, plastered the bathroom floor to finish and filled the greywater cell with rubble, followed by earth. Phil and Rory plastered adobe inside, and increased the height of the gutter. But we all did these things slowly...

We worked hardest today I think, and with heavy hearts.

The evening though was fantastic! Brian and Paul convinced me to take a walk with them, and some GRU people, outside the compound to see some local people (and buy some chocolate if possible!). We walked for about 20 minutes and found a petrol station to buy supplies (Luxuries). We then continued on to a tent camp. We were invited to play domino's and drink a beer with some Haitian locals around a table, surrounded by a structure made out of corrugated metal, canvas sheets and reclaimed wood, all built around a live tree. It was definitely an interesting place. The guy who left the table to give us room turned and I realised he had at least 30 clothes pegs attached to his face! We soon learned that every time you lose a game you get pegs to clip to yourself as a forfeit.

The games were fun but confusing. The Haitian guys were fast and slammed their domino's onto the table, gittering everything and making the whole scene even more confusing. Me and Brian followed suite and soon we were all slamming domino's onto this old table, surrounded by a shanti structure, playing with people we had met only moments before, in the middle of a tent camp!

Me and Brian had a fantastic time and collected a lot of pegs.

Soon though we walked back to the compound and got some rest for the next day.

Day three in Haiti

We got a lot done on day three. I mixed a lot of cement and abobe mixes, with the help of Emmanuel and James. The mixer we use is an antique, with an external belt driving cogs. The handle also needs to be propped up with a piece of rebar- slightly dodgy, and the sand used needed to be sifted, as the material we have is very rough.

We also layed a lot of plastic bottle bricks, dug out the dry well for the shower, filled the dry well with rubble (collected from the streets) and started a big chunk of the greywater planter. The plastic bricks are made from the two bodies of plastic drinks bottles (the tops are removed), with one fitted inside the other. With a lot of people on bottles today, a large ammount gt placed. he shower, cistern, toilet and gutter for the main dome all took shape today.

The planter between the shower and toilet (greywater planter) got mostly dug today. The water from the shower will drain into this planter from the dry well, and then be filtered by the bananna plants. Salty and Amzy dug the planter with the electric hand held digger. A lot of the interns wanted a go with the digger, and other power tools being used! You only have to show them once and they have it out of your hands enthusiastically giving it a go.

Phil and Rory took over the sifting of earth to make abode mix for the finish coat of the main dome. Rory is a viking who works at an almost super human speed, so much so that when you work next to him you feel in slow motion.

That night I finally noticed the city around us. Once the sun set all the lights in the hills started lighting up. The view was a shock, as i've been focussed solely on work for the last few days, going to bed early and too tired to appreciate my surrounding.

Day two is Haiti

For me day two in Haiti was mostly about the septic system. The 5' deep hole got completely dug out, which we covered with two layers of 10mil plastic. We then placed five tractor tyres into it, stacked on top of each other. The last tyre had a 8" long millipede in it, that surprised Amzy, who was maneuvering the tyres.

We tacked the plastic in place, then started the foundation for th bathroom above the septic system. The concrete footing encompassed a circular ring of re bar to strengthen it. Meanwhile me, Peter Coss and Amzy started drilling 16 re bar pins into the edge of the footing. We then attached small, then medium sized wire to the 8 slightly curved intermingled lines.

After the wire was in place we added a thin layer of cement to the lathe, to start the form of the dome.

Mike R had then started digging the footing for the foundation of the shower room. We repeated what we had just done for the septic / toilet room, by pouring cement around a circular re bar. After the footing had set up we then built a bottle layer directly on top of it.

Bottle work was done on the cistern and the footing for the toilet too, so the shape of the building site really started to take form today.

Phil and crew worked on a second layer for the roof structure on the main dome, which then then lathed. After lunch Phil, Rory and Salty started a chain of people to fill the void between the two roof layers. This insulation was composed of Styrofoam and cardboard collected from the streets of port au Prince, and stuffed into rubbish bags. Phil said the bags really smelled funky, and later that day uncovered a dead chicken from under the bags of insulation! Nasty!



Ariving in Haiti!

(These next blogs will be written retrospectively, as the Internet availability at the compound we stayed in was not reliable)

We left Albuquerque yesterday, and after a few connection landed in Miami, where we managed to find food and get three hours sleep. Early this morning we got up for our final flight to Port au Prince, Haiti!

When we arrived we were greeted by live Haitian music in he terminal. After getting our bags and equipment, we headed outside into the heat! Winter in Haiti is still hotter than England ever gets. The airport was bustling with people. Aid workers, UN workers, Tourists (not so many), Haitians and people offering to carry our bags.
We finally met up with Marita, our liaison and translator to the people of Haiti. She is originally from Canada, and speaks French and Haitian Kraol fluently. Marita led us to a bright yellow school bus, where we met Chad and Sam, who run the Grassroots United organisation.
Sam drove us through the chaotic streets of Port au Prince, past street vendors selling food, supplies and sweets, past countless cracked concrete buildings, while Moto's (crazy motorists) weaved around the traffic. Everyone was constantly honking their horns.
We turned onto a very bumpy side road, which led us to the Grassroots compound. Chad gave us the tour, which included the toilets, showers, cholera station and the hole in the wall (where you can buy beer). After the formalities we dropped all our bags and started working, and within ten minutes I was pounding tyres!

I generally worked with Mike Reynolds (the crew call him Gandalf), Mike Bellasone (AKA Navy Mike), Jonah Reynolds (Mike R's son) and Amzi. On day one we worked mostly on the cistern, that will hold the water used for drinking, and showering.
First we had to scrap the organic spongy layer and disturbed earth away, then we pounded and leveled the car tyres, which has been collected from the streets by Haitian volunteers. After Mike was happy with the foundation of 10 or so tyres we placed the cistern on top.
As soon as this was done we started to dig the septic tank to the right of the cistern. Eventually this will be a 5' deep by 4' diameter hole. We probably got just under 2' done that day.
The Haitian volunteers were a fantastic help. They arrived after lunch for the first day, and were very enthusiastic. It was their first Earthship day so they made some mistakes, but were very willing the learn EVERYTHING.

Phill and Rory plastered the original dome completed in the first Haiti trip, and started to form the gutter, while Brian started making the window and door for the main dome.
I started teaching some Haitians how to mix cement in the mixer (1 part cement, 3 parts sand, water and fibres), while Mike R and Salty (he was in the navy for 20 years hence salty) taught people how to build bottle walls and dig with the electric digger. Maria got 5 people on making plastic bottle bricks.

I met Peter Cos, a very friendly 28 year old Haitian, who has 2 small children (I later found out that his partner and mother of his children was killed in the earthquake). He's a musician, and used to be a sound engineer for a local radio. Peter worked very hard, learned a lot on the first day, and always spoke to you with a smile on his face!

The first day ended with a lot of work done, and me completely shattered! Dinner was a good meal of beans and rice, with a black bean source which I devoured. I then set up my tent and slept until seven.