Days 56 &57 (11/09 – 10)

Wednesday – Today was all about teams coming and going (mostly coming). We had three teams coming in from the states – including Tom’s wife Wendy’s team and one team returning from Petit Goave. For the first time since I’ve been here, there wasn’t a single vehicle left in the parking lot while everyone was reroute. With the 1 team already at the Guest House it was a real crowd – over 50 - for dinner. Amazingly, we didn’t run out of anything. It was a real opportunity to see how well the Guest House and UMVIM staff functions. Needless to say, most of my day was taken up in helping the staff and incoming guests where I could.

Thursday – We got 1 team to the airport and 2 teams off to their work sites this morning. We are expecting 2 more teams from the states and I team returning from Hinche this afternoon - another busy day. But in between departures and arrivals, Tom and Wendy, Sarah and I had to go to Mellier for a Community meeting. Mellier is about 25 miles west of Port Au Prince – just a couple of miles from Leogane where I was on Tuesday for the Carter Work Project. So – we left at 8:30; got to Mellier at 10:00; left Mellier at 11:30 and got back to the Guest House in time to have a quick lunch and greet our first new arrivals at 2:00. I’ve traveled this stretch of road at least a half dozen times since I’ve been here and each time I’ve seen small signs of improvement in buildings and infrastructure – except in Carre Four, of course, which is still a pit.

 Mellier is the location of our largest building project in Haiti. It is the site of a new 4500 sq. ft. church and 20 of the EMH Pilot Project houses. We send 3 teams a month there – more than any other site. The amount of work done on the church since my last visit a month ago was very impressive. The footings and stem walls are finished. The back fill for the slab has been completed and they were placing the rebar for the slab. I calculated that over 500 cubic yards of material was moved to back fill the stem walls. That’s over 50 – 10 yard dump trucks. The amount of concrete and mortar used to build the footings, stem walls and slab will exceed 140 cubic yards or about 20 cement truck loads. And – it was all done by hand – one bucket at a time. In fact, I think that’s pretty descriptive of post-earthquake Haiti. Progress – one bucket at a time.