Days 36 & 37 (10/20 -21)

Thursday – We awoke early this morning to the sound of ripping cloth and a body hitting the ground. Steve’s cot gave up the fight and just quit. I’m sure that the fact that he’s 6’5” and over 300 lbs. had nothing to do with it. Since I had the only other “heavy duty” cot, I gave Steve mine and took the extra one that we had brought. Naturally, when I set it up it had a broken leg in the middle and I had to prop it up with a cement block. This pushes the center bar up just enough to turn it into a rocking chair making sleep problematic. But what the heck – I’m the team leader. I finally gave up and got up to watch the sun rise.

Lou Lou fixed her usual magnificent breakfast and we started to work with very full stomachs. The morning was pretty much the same as yesterday except for a wonderful surprise – they had delivered another truck load of cement blocks.L Since they weren’t going to move by themselves, we started the hauling process all over again – interrupted again by the occasional “conga line” and recess. An interesting side note – the floor plan that Gabriel had started to build looked a little strange to me and I asked him where the drawings were. He smiled and pointed to his head. A few minutes later Director Lazarr came up and started asking questions and pointing at walls and was clearly upset. Since I don’t know enough Creole to be able to follow the conversation I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but had a pretty good idea. Gabriel argued back and Lazarr left in a huff. About 10 minutes later, Lou Lou came up and started pointing at walls and pointing at Gabriel and giving him what for. Five minutes later walls started coming down. Never underestimate the power of a large Haitian woman. Who, by the way, had lunch ready right on time and a smile on her face.

The afternoon slowed down a little while Gabriel rebuilt the interior walls. However, that didn’t spare us from continuing the “block party”. By the time 4:00 rolled around, everyone was pretty well used up. Linda, our resident “medic”, was busy treating children’s cuts, scraps and blisters. Once the band-aids come out, everyone wants one. Lou Lou’s dinner was wonderful, as usual and Lazarr, James, Noel, Gabriel, Lou Lou and Ginette joined us in a lengthy discussion of how things were progressing in Thomas and what other things needed to be done and what the UMVIM/UMCOR role might be. With Mark-Anny, James and Joel interpreting it went very smoothly and a lot of insight was gained on both sides. It was fun to watch Lazarr with Joel – he was constantly putting his hand on his shoulder and rubbing his head. A real bond has developed here. 9:00 PM – generator off –lights out.

Friday – After another night on the rocking cot, I woke up early and watched the sun come up again. I think this is my favorite time of the day in Haiti. You can listen to the sounds of the countryside waking up and enjoy the coolest part of the day. Several cups of Lou Lou’s coffee and a stellar breakfast and I was ready for another day. Since Gabriel was still moving walls we decided to clear out the piles of rubble between the new kitchen and the school to create more room for the Hot Lunch preparation. The cooks were thrilled. Linda and Loni spent the morning working with a couple of classes of kids doing craft things and teaching English. Judging by the occasional peals of laughter and excited chatter coming from the classroom, they were a huge hit. Ze, our Cape Verde soccer star, got a game going with some of the boys. He breathlessly exclaimed later that “Those Haitian boys are pretty good.” It’s good to be on the good side of the cooks because lunch was especially great today.

We finished our clean-up project and got the last remnants of sand and block in from the road and happily quit at 3:00. Showers and dinner followed in quick succession and then we had our after dinner devotional and discussion of our day. I always ask each one what the high point of their day was and although we could all agree on certain things as being outstanding, everyone had their own special memory.