It is Mardi Gras, arguably not the best time to take a team to Haiti. They are closing the roads in Port au Prince, which happens to be between our beds and our jobsite. So, rather than heading North, we move West. Goodbye Latifeau (the reason we came). Hello Lambi (last November's site).
Today we Stake (laying out the November design on the ground). We intended to do this work later this week, once the Latifeau design work was complete. You learn pretty quickly here that schedules are more like guidelines.
The site has changed a bit since November. It turns out that since Grace purchased the property recently and word has spread that we are putting 58 homes across the 6 acres, a few interlopers decided to start digging footing-trenches around the site. At first glance you would assume that they wanted to build homes themselves. But a few investigative questions later it turns out they just wanted squatters rights, where they can claim ownership and ask to be paid (a second time, it turns out) for the land.
A few additional trenches here and there are nothing for a team of highly-disciplined and focused Surveyors. However, one of the local donkeys decided he needed a drink from the recently rain-filled trenches.
First front leg down,
then second,
then head forward, mouth leaning towards water,
leaning...
leaning (wait, this water is further down than I thought)...
wait for it.... and, roll rest of your donkey body into the ditch, head down, legs flailing, with a few 'HEE-HAWs' thrown in for a proper sense of decorum.
After a few moments of curiosity, sympathy and muffled laughter (we don't want to
embarrass the donkey), we turn our heads towards the pig (or is it a hog, I can never remember the difference), who happens to be wallowing in the fresh mud that we just finished tromping through, over a series of stakes telling the construction team where to dig a drainage ditch. How do you translate into Creol, "Dig the ditch under the pig"?
I'm pretty sure in our work contracts that we don't get paid to re-stake. I need to look up 'hazard pay' as well.