Days 330 – 337

10/15 – 10/23

Monday 10/15 – Today my team from St. Mark’s UMC in Sacramento arrived. Two members are returning team members from my October 2011 team – Ze Fernandez and Joel Buyala as team leader. They are going to go to Thomas tomorrow to work on the water system. They will be the first team to stay in the new guest quarters over the kitchen and dining room. This is the building that was built by teams mostly from the California/Nevada Conference and was the project site that I worked on on my first trip to Haiti. Today and tonight, however, they will stay at the Guest House in Petionville and rest up from their trip from California. It gives me the opportunity to visit with friends from home.

Tuesday 10/16 – After we got Joel’s team off to Thomas, Tom and I had to go to a meeting of the EMH Housing Project Team.  The project still has problems getting houses finished. Of the 40 houses only 15 are completed and 15 are ½ finished. One contractor was to build 10 houses in Mellier and 20 houses in CarreFour. He has been unable to complete his first 10 houses in Mellier and we gave 10 CarreFour houses to 2 other contractors. It’s beginning to look like we will have to give the remaining 10 CarreFour houses to other contractors also. It’s a difficult process because we have to get new bids, new contracts have to be prepared and new grants written.

The second meeting of the day was also about Mellier. Work has been stopped on the new church being built there because of huge cost overruns. This was one of the first projects started under the Haiti Response Plan and unfortunately there were no systems in place for accountability and site management of things like material purchases and change orders. It is the example that I use when advocating changes in the way we manage projects. It was agreed at this meeting that it will no longer be an HRP project and no further volunteer teams will be sent. UMCOR has agreed to provide funding for the minimal completion of the church. However, all finish work will become the responsibility of the EMH and the local community.

Joel called me this evening with a list of material that he was going to need to finish the water project in Thomas. I told him that I would pick them up tomorrow and bring them out to Thomas.

Wednesday 10/17 – Spana and I left early to get to MSC, the big building supply store by the US Embassy to buy the material for Thomas. When we got there it was closed – which was very strange. So – we drove to Echo Supply, another Home Depot wanna’ be, and it was closed. We discovered that it was Dessalines Day, a National Holiday, and everything was closed.

Dessalines was a leader of the Haiti Revolution and became the 1^st Counselor-General. He later appointed himself Emperor Jacques 1st. It’s interesting that the day the Haitians celebrate is the anniversary of the day he was assassinated.

The end result was I was unable to get any supplies to Joel.

That night Edwin Cardina, the head engineer from the Styrofoam factory in Santo Domingo, D.R. finally arrived by bus. He had come to spend a day with the Site Engineer and Site Bosss building the 2^nd story of the Guest House Staff Annex with the Styrofoam panels and answer any questions that they had.  He called me from the bus station to be picked up. Since the new bus station is only a block away, I walked over to meet him. However, when I got there he was nowhere to be found. I called him on my cell and he said he was standing in front of the station. I looked around again and couldn’t see him so I asked him to describe the area around him. It didn’t match at all where I was. I came back to the Guest House and started asking everyone if they had any idea where he could be. We finally figured out that he was at the old station further up the hill in Petionville. Apparently they hadn’t started to use the new station yet.  

Thursday 10/18 – I spent most of the day with Edwin and Engineer Rouse and Boss Mario going over the construction of the 2^nd story of the Guest House Annex. Edwin’s opinion was that we had done everything pretty well. He had a few suggestions for strengthening a couple of areas before we applied the creppasage (plaster). He also made a list of parts that we needed to complete the shell. He promised to get them right out when he got back. He was scheduled to spend the night and go back to the Dominican in the morning, but got a phone call from the factory to fly back this evening to meet with some people coming there tomorrow. So – we had to cut our visit short and get him on the last flight out to the Dominican.

Friday 10/19 – Spana and I left early to go to Thomas. I wanted to see how the St. Mark’s team was doing and spend the day with my friends from home. They were hard at work when we got there. They had finally gotten the supplies they needed in Cabaret and were preparing the area where the 2 – 300 gal. water tanks would be placed. While they were waiting for the supplies they had completely cleaned the area on the south side of the school so that it was ready for the team coming next month to put in a new garden area. Even though their work time had been compressed waiting for materials, I think they will have time to install the gutters and downspouts on the church and complete the water system.

Saturday 10/20 – I left the Guest House early with Roger Laplanche to monitor the 2^nd concrete pour at the New College Bird school. I was surprised that after all we went through last Saturday that the first truckload of concrete failed the slump test and had to be sent back. They got right on the next truck and the remaining 8 trucks all came in correctly. It’s a long day waiting for the trucks to arrive, but I think it was essential that we were there to demonstrate that we expected the quality of concrete to be maintained.

Sunday 10/21 – The office is scheduled to be painted tomorrow, so we spent the day moving, packing, cleaning and getting everything off of the walls. We discovered things that had been missing for a year.


Monday 10/22 – We’ve pretty much have had to abandon our office today to the painters. With all of our equipment disconnected, we also have no internet service. So – we decided to get out of the way and head up to the Hotel Ebolele and have lunch and use their wifi service.

Tuesday 10/23 – We got our freshly painted office back today. We’re doing a little rearranging and getting reorganized. There are 4 of us (sometimes 5 when Tom’s wife Wendy is here or Lauren comes over from the UMCOR office to work) in a small office space so we have to be creative – and good friends.

Late this afternoon I got an email from my brother that my 98 year old mother had had a fall and a series of seizures in the hospital and the prognosis was not good. So – I scrambled and got a ticket for the 9:15 AM flight tomorrow morning.
   

Days 323 – 329

10/07 -10/14

 

With apologies once again to the friends that read this blog for being absent for so long, I shall attempt to bring everyone up to date with a Readers Digest version of the last few months using my appointment calendar and meeting minutes to jog my memory. I’ll leave out the daily in and outs of the teams only to say that we had 15 teams in October and 19 teams in November. I’m amazed that so many people have contacted me about my procrastination. I thought my mother and girlfriend were the only ones reading it. My only excuse is – I’ve really been busy!

 Sunday 10/07 – The first Sunday of each month Tom preaches and officiates at Communion at Thomasin. Tom, Danette and I took Jessica, Eric’s daughter, and two of her friends with us. I enjoy Tom’s sermons, which he gives in English and a translator gives in French. He also includes a lot of music which I like. And – over the past year I have come to know a lot of people in the congregation and enjoy visiting with them. So – all in all, it was a pleasant Sunday morning. After church we dropped the girls off at the Guest House, changed our clothes and drove up to the Hotel Ibolele for lunch and a few hours around the pool - all in all – a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

Monday 10/08 – Engineer Roger Laplanche and I had our first meeting with the contractor’s engineer at the New College Bird school site. This the first phase of a 3 phase project funded by UMCOR and COR (Church of the Resurrection) from Kansas City. It will be the largest EMH project in Haiti to date. Roger and I wanted to meet the engineer since we will be interacting with him throughout the project. We also wanted to check out the footprint of the foundation forms and the quality of the rebar placement. The meeting went well and the work to date looked very good. We will be back on Friday for the first concrete pour.

Tuesday 10/09 – Today’s main activity is the Joint Leadership Team meeting. As a reminder, this team is made up of Pastor Paul and Pastor Marco from EMH, Jim Gulley, Elizabeth Petheo and Lauren James from UMCOR and Tom and I from HRP. This is a monthly recap of activities and ongoing future planning. At today’s meeting we had the Director for Habitat in Humanity in Haiti share their experience in establishing new community settlements. It was very informative and pointed out the importance of having the whole community involved in the process from the beginning. Other topics discussed were New College Bird and the Methodist Village.

Wednesday - Thursday 10/10 &11 – Yesterday’s 2 hour meeting went a little over 4 hours (which is normal) so I’ve had to catch up on my usual daily routine of checking with my site engineers and the status of my projects. On Thursday I had a Skype call with the Construction Team from COR about the progress at New College Bird.

Friday 10/12 – Another day of meetings. The first one was the Site Review Committee – Pastor Paul, Pastor Marco, Sylvio Rocourt and Roger Laplanche from EMH, Jim Gulley and Lauren James from UMCOR and  Tom and I. We report on all of the sites under construction and prioritize the remaining sites still on the earthquake damaged list. Then Roger and I had to run to New College Bird for the concrete pour (which ended up being postponed until Saturday).

Saturday 10/13 – Roger and I got an early start to be at New College Bird for the scheduled 8:00 AM pour. Naturally, the first truck didn’t arrive until 9:30. This was my first experience with ready mix trucks in Haiti as most of our sites are either too remote or too small to warrant a truckload (about 10 cubic yds. or 7 cu. meters) at one pour. When the truck arrived the driver had the required paperwork showing the design mix (amount of sand, aggregate, cement)) so we could verify that it was of the required strength (3000 psi). The next step was the slump test which tests the amount of water in the mixture. This test is performed by pouring a sample amount of concrete into a 12” inverted metal cone, then the cone is removed and the cone of concrete should not collapse more than 2 or 3”. This first load failed miserably - it totally collapsed. We all agreed that it was no good and the truck should take it back to the batch plant. Roger and I walked over take a look at the building plans and when we turned around we saw that they were pouring the concrete into the forms. We ran over to the Site Engineer and asked him why he was pouring the load after it failed the slump test. He said, “We can’t waste it”. I said, “If you expect to get paid you will absolutely waste it. Why do you think we test it?” Well, by that time the truck was ¾ empty. The second truck came and failed the slump test. We sent it back. The 3^rd truck came and failed the slump test. We sent it back. By the time we got the 4^th truck they finally realized that we meant what we said. I told them, “We can always add water on-site, but we can’t take it out.” We finally poured 8 truck-loads of cement.

Finally Roger and I met with the lay committee of the Port-au-Prince Circuit to discuss the Methodist Village project. This was the first meeting to discuss the development of this housing project. I told the committee that since we were working with a clear piece of land (in La Tremblay) we had a blank canvas and could make it into anything they wanted. I asked them what they felt was the greatest housing need and after much discussion they agreed that the greatest need was for housing for the elderly. Roger and I were tasked with coming up with concept designs and drawings.

 

 

Sunday 10/14 – Today was mostly a day of rest, although I did spend some time working on some design concepts for the Methodist Village. I’m excited about the possibility of building this project because I feel it really addresses a great need.