Rest & Relaxation

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were much appreciated during our stay in the mountains.  Breakfast was usually coffee and buns.  The coffee was good and REALLY sweet, which made for a good wake up call.  We shared our peanut butter and jelly for the bread.  I usually grabbed a Clif bar before starting work.  Lunch was either corn meal and a Cajun-type sauce or spaghetti with ketchup, mayo, and onion.  We shared your summer sausage and dried fruit during these meals.  Dinner was rice and beans.  Sometimes I used a tuna packet with meals as well as some horseradish mustard to mix up the routine.  For such simple food, the meals were always really good and filling.

At night everyone would hang out and chat for a while.  Then, before dinner could settle in our bellies the Haitians brought out the dominoes.  They loved playing dominoes and I tried my best to join them.  We played in teams and passive communication between teammates was critical.  I didn't pick it up very well, though it was fun to watch the Haitians play.

We finished on Thursday afternoon and were able to get our bags and tools out in time to be picked up.  We went back to the FHM guesthouse.  A cold shower was definitely in order by now.  After dinner I didn't last long because I was so exhausted.

Friday turned into a rest day.  Mike picked us up and we went to the beach where we hung out for half the day and ate lunch.  I also picked up a few trinkets from the locals.  Having this extra day to relax was very nice bonus.

Construction Details & Section Views

You may have noticed from the progress photos that the roof trusses were suddenly on top of the house.  This is because the trusses were built ahead of time.  I worked with a couple of the Haitians to get this done.  When the Kay was ready we threw them up in a matter of minutes.  Also, a decorative truss is made for every Kay.  The owner wanted to see the mountains, the sun, and some animals.  I was excited to work on this part of the project so Curt gave this task to me.  The animals were challenging, and with some help from the Haitians and Jack we pulled it all together.

The Kay also had a metal roof installed which went up quickly.  Then, while some finally details were addressed on the Kay, we all worked on getting some furniture built from the scraps left over.  Gary asked if we could make a bed.  Fortunately, we had enough 2-by material to make a 4 foot by 7 foot bed.  This was huge for Gary because most Haitians sleep on the ground.  The bed could also be used for sitting or even dining.

Construction of an Incentive Kay

The following photos show a progression of the Incentive Kay construction work from Monday to Thursday.   There were some snags with the home owner who did not have all of the construction materials on site.  Fortunately, Rene, our lead Haitian foreman, and Curt pulled some strings and made some magic to get everything we needed.

Day 3: Getting to the Construction Site & The Build

On Monday morning we met with our Haitian construction crew hopped in the truck and headed for the construction site.  On the way we first stopped for some tools located at a proposed site for a health clinic.  The project is on hold because of a money-laundering Haitian baptist priest in New York who owns the open land and is trying to wheel and deal.  Sad, really.  Our second stop was for some sugar cane sticks.  The vendor took his machete to shave off the bark, and soon we were all chewing on the pulpy sweet waters of the cane.  What pulp was let after chewing we just spit on the ground.  This is one delicacy that I wish we had in the states (but instead we have subsidized corn that we make into high fructose corn syrup). The last leg of our journey took us down the ridge of a mountain along a winding and rocky dirt road.  The odds of falling out of the truck were high, but we kept it together and made it to our stop.

The road stopped at a church where we unloaded all our tools and bags.  Throughout the mountains hiking trails could be seen winding all over.  Many Haitians lived in the mountains in small communities of 2 to 4 families.  We needed to hike about 45 minutes to one of these communities.  The trail dropped down into a valley where we crossed a river and headed up a trail to the village.

The construction site was cut into a rocky hillside, and we were amazed by the amount of earth that was moved.  We asked how long the digging lasted.  The locals said they completed the digging in one night under a full moon.  They believe the earth loosens up during a full moon, and they noted they could not have been done without the moon.  As soon as bags were dropped the Haitians jumped at the project.  The building was quickly surveyed and shovels and picks were flying.  The post holes were incredibly difficult to dig because the earth was so rocky.

As we took turns digging holes we also settled into the village.  There was a vacant shelter where we set up tents.  We didn't need our rain covers, but we still needed tents to keep bug bites to an absolute minimum.  Malaria and dengue fever were a big concern.  Lucky for us the bugs were scarce at our elevation.

The next post will have project progression pictures.  Below are a few pics of today's journey.