we are safe everybody!
we finished our first workday today.
whoa.
so great.
I really, really want Haiti to be a part of my life for a long time!
Haiti is beautiful.
of course, it's destroyed. the conditions are hard. millions of humans are homeless and displaced. but it's beautiful. the people. the art. the houses and buildings are almost cartoon-like.
we had a driver from the airport. I was grabbed by a man and another tried to takey suitcase. Blake was ahead of me, so he didn't see. it was soooo scary. yikes.
the drive to the home was long. lots of begging. people sleeping in wheelbarrows.
our room is great. we have a queen bed. sheets. a fan. And we share the bathroom with a lot of other people. no running water. if you poop, you throw your toilet paper in the trash and fill a bucket with water. stand on your tiptoes and dump the bucket down. kinda different than Portland.
today we started work at 7am. we stopped at 4. I took an hour nap mid-day because I was wiped and it's non cold here. right now, there are ten haitian workers employed to rebuild the house. There are also 18 volunteers. no equipment. nothing. all by hand. shovels. we have 72 five-gallo bucks that are full of rubble. we load them up, between 10 and 30 pounds. then we all line up from the rubble to the dump site and pass the buckets. one by one. the guys at the end dump the buckets. after we dump all the buckets, we pass them back and load them all up again. and repeat. we did it over 35 times today.
Haitian workers are amazing. so hard working. and funny. i learned to muh creole today. silly phrases. most had never seen a white female working construction. A few little kids came over. tried to rub off my tattoo. loved sqeezing and touching my hands. I'll give him a few little gifts tomorrow.
there are eight street kids living at the house. all came from really rough homes. the kids are great. nice. funny.
my favorite thing about the culture so far is the politeness. very respectful of women.
right now, we are well-fed. sore. have a great bed. and we feel really safe.
Pictures!
Haitian street art.
still so much rubble. this will take years.
On our drive to the home.
Our room!
View from our building.
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