Days 276 – 279 (8/20 – 23)

8/02 – 8/18 – Vacation at home with friends and family.

Sunday - I left home last night at 6:00 P.M. and flew to Los Angeles. I had a 2 hour layover; then left on the “Red Eye” for Miami. I arrived in Miami at 5:45 this morning and had just enough time to grab a muffin and coffee at Starbucks and walk to the gate for my 6:55 flight to Port-au-Prince. Barring any flight delays, this is my favorite flight connection to Haiti. All other flights require an overnight stay in LA, Dallas or Miami. This is my 6^th flight to Haiti in the last 18 months, so it has become pretty routine. I was aware as we were approaching Port-au-Prince that I was thinking more about the work that I had to do and not feeling the excitement of being in a foreign country. I arrived at 8:45 and went smoothly through Immigration and Customs. I got through the gauntlet of porters with a stern “No, merci” and met Eric in the parking lot. Eric was his usual talkative self and entertained me all the way to the Guest House.

I was the first of the Staff to return from vacation. Tom and Danette are coming in later this afternoon and Mario is scheduled to come in tomorrow. The Guest House was in total disarray when I got there. There has been a lot of work going on, but the schedule that I left for them was obviously not being followed. Rather than working in an organized fashion - where one bedroom or bathroom was finished before the last one was torn apart – every room was under some phase of construction or destruction. After I unpacked, I did a walk around and surveyed the job site. Roger LaPlanche, the Chief Engineer, was still gone on his vacation so I called and left a message for the Project Engineer, Samuel Abicher, that I wanted to meet with him first thing in the morning.

By dinner time Tom and his wife Wendy and Danette had arrived.

Monday – We got a call from Mario this morning. He is having some medical issues and needs to have some lab work done. So, he won’t be able to come back for a few days.

Eng. Abicher finally arrived and I let him know that I wasn’t very happy with the progress of the job. I asked him why he didn’t follow the schedule that I gave him and was answered with a blank stare. It was obvious that he felt it was an interesting document but nothing that he had to pay any attention to. I tried to impress on him – again – that we had teams coming in 2 weeks and this job needed to be done. He shrugged his shoulders and gave the standard Haitian response – “No problem”. It’s very apparent that I’m going to have to turn up the heat if we have any chance of making the deadline.

We actually have a team arriving this afternoon from Louisiana, but it’s a small team and we can put them in the Manse where Mario and I live.

We also have some of the UMCOR New York staff arriving for a 2 day Strategic Planning session. Fortunately, the Haiti Response Plan staff is not included in their meetings, so I can concentrate my energies on the renovation.

Tuesday – We got our Louisiana team off to their Job site in Le Tremblay and I waded in to the Guest House renovation. I started prioritizing the work and moving people around. I was met with a lot of resistance but insisted that this was the way it was going to be or they could find another job. I’ve run out of time and patience to be diplomatic. I hate to have to become the bad guy, but there is just no sense of urgency in any of the work force. By the afternoon most of the grumbling subsided and some productive work was being done.

The one piece of good news is that the first truck load of material from the Dominican Republic finally crossed the border. The container has been sitting at the border for 5 weeks while the shipping brokers have been trying to get all of the Haitian customs paperwork in order. It has been a nightmare. The bad news is that this first container doesn’t have my material in it. It is all going to Doug Ahlfeld’s job in Musak. Mine is still sitting in Santo Domingo. But – at least we have most of the paperwork and procedures in place.

Wednesday – Work continues at a reasonable pace. The new concern is being created by Mother Nature. It seems that Tropical Storm Isaac is knocking on our door and the latest track takes it directly over Port au Prince. The latest reports are that he should be arriving sometime late Friday night or Saturday morning. We’re not overly concerned about our welfare here at the Guest House. Petionville is snuggled up against the leeward side of the mountains and should be protected from the main force of the wind. Our new drainage canal is completed and should prevent any flooding from the rain. However, other parts of Haiti will more than likely be hard hit with flooding and mudslides. We’re keeping one eye on the weather reports.

The BUNK BED saga: I was having little success in finding 25 new bunk beds anywhere in Haiti. So – I drew up a set of plans to have them made out of wood and planned on bringing back some of my tools to assist in the process. The day before I left for vacation, Eric’s brother, Beson, said that he could make them out of metal. I quickly drew up another set of plans for metal beds. Beson gave me a very reasonable estimated price and I commissioned him to build 1 set of bunk beds. A few days after getting home I received an email from Tom with some pictures of the new bed. It wasn’t anything like I had drawn, but Tom said that he, Mario and Oge thought that they were strong and well-built and would work fine. The price estimate went up a little, but was still OK. I told them that if they thought the bed would work to go ahead and have Beson start building. Well – with everything that was going on with the construction, I hadn’t had time to really look at the new beds that were starting to line up in the parking lot until today. The first thing that I noticed was that instead of using nuts and bolts to assemble the frames (as I had drawn), Beson had welded everything together. There was no way we could get these beds through the doors! After much head scratching, I figured the only way we were going to salvage this was to cut them all in half and retrofit some bolt on braces.