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 1st 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 2nd 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 2nd
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 2nd 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.