Things I learned in Haiti

1. Mardi Gras is NOT the best time to visit the country, especially if you want to move through Port au Prince.
2. Schedules are more like intentions.
3. The camp never sleeps. With 15,000 people sleeping in shelters at the base of your window, someone is always talking, dogs are always barking, and roosters are always declaring their territory.
4. On Wednesday night, Ash Wednesday, the end of Mardi Gras, we were able to enjoy listening to either (a) a yelping voodoo women from 3am to 5am or (b) a woman having a baby. There was some contention on which it was. I suppose it depends on how soft-hearted you are as to what you heard that night. You decide.
5. 
   

My Day

4:30am - Wake up, look around, and see everyone else asleep. Scheduled to leave compound in an hour for the airport. Lay back in exhaustion.

4:55am - Get up. I should shower, but what's the point? We're just going to drive through PAP anyway.

5:30am - Packed, eaten, ready to board. where's the big blue cage (BBC) flat-bed 37-Haitian passenger bus?

5:50am - The 7 passenger panel van arrives, but we have a team of 15 and our luggage...

6:10am - Team Leader Rex makes the call: the team of 9 who fly out first are to board the van and leave now. We'll figure out what to do next.

6:20am - Van is packed and heads to the guarded compound gate. There it is stopped by the guards - the BBC driver called and told the guards to NOT let the van go. Hence the early morning shouting match: "WE'VE GOT TO GO!"

6:25am - I run across the compound, through the camp and into the girl's home to get the boss.

6:30am - One hour late, the first 9 teammates, their luggage, a driver and a security guard exit in a 7 passenger van for the airport (they make it off).

7:00am - BBC driver shows up, a bit late.

7:15am - The remaining 6 teammates, myself included, are loaded up and out the gate for the airport.

8:00am - Arrive at Port au Prince airport.

8:35am - Sitting at the gate after 3 rounds of security checks and ticketing.

10:15am - 4 teammates board for their flight to Ft Lauderdale. The 2 of us remaining are scheduled for a noon flight to Miami.

11:15am - Miami flight time is changed to 1:21pm

12:15pm - Miami flight time is changed to 2:21pm - we are not making progress here.

1:15pm - Miami flight time is changed to 3:56pm - this does not bode well - we go to the counter and reschedule our 7pm flight from Miami to ATL to 10pm - otherwise we won't have time to catch our connection. "Can we have a meal voucher?" "NO"

2:00pm - We return to the counter. "I don't have any money." She gives us two $10 vouchers, which we spend on something akin to fair food.

2:20pm - Miami flight time is changed to 4:04pm. Strangely, this is good news - the time to flight is actually reducing.

3:50pm - We board after 7 hours and 50 minutes in PAP.

7:10pm - Arrive in Miami, losing an hour in flight thanks to Daylight Savings.

8:15pm - Through immigration, picking up checked baggage, dropping off checked baggage, being force to LEAVE the airport and then reenter and go through security again (excellent airport design, mind you) - at the Gate to ATL.

8:50pm - Co-waiting Teammate arrives, having gone through customs as a Canadian citizen. We go eat at an neighboring restaurant and toast the day's adventures.

10:00pm - Board our flight - in honor of the remainder of the trip, it is 15 minutes late.

12:20am - Arrive in Hartsfield Airport - ATL.

12:45am - With everyone else walking away with their luggage and the conveyor turned off, I begin to expect I won't be coming home with my bags tonight. I walk Dave to his Hotel Shuttle and run outside to tell my Dad that I still need to get my bags.1:12am - After filling out a claim form for my bag that is still sitting in Miami, I crawl in the back of my parents' car and am headed for home.

1:56am - Am walking upstairs, giving my kids a kiss, hugging my wife, and heading for a shower.

2:23am - Fall asleep.

Day in the Life in Haiti

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.