Crutches

Well it’s only appropriate to start this week’s stories off with one of my favorite things in life.  Those who know me especially well will appreciate this story that much more (Mom, Dad, Bro).  On Saturday Sue (75 year old lady I am living with in the guest house) offered to cook a gourmet meal of mac and cheese for us for lunch.  Of course I agreed and off she went to cook up our feast.  We settled down at the table, said grace, and famishly (yes I know that’s not a word Sara) began our meal.  Not ten minutes into our scrumptious lunch did I hear a high squeak and a whhhooomf.  I looked into the kitchen to find Noche (one of our two cats) had just made her meal as well.  Good thing Julie is not at all squeamish about mice and small critters (yah right!!!!).  And while eating…no problem.   Noche ran to join us in the dinning room to “eat” with us although I soon realized she wasn’t as interested in eating as she was in playing.  I did all I could to contain myself as I hear “squeak”…whooopf…..”squeak”….whooophf behind me as I’m ingesting my meal AND attempting to focus on our lunch-time conversation.   Noche, in parallel, is having a grand ol’ time catching and releasing el mousy.  I lasted about two minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore and put both feet up on the chair next to the one I was sitting in while constantly racking my brain on a mouse’s ability to climb up chairs.  I put Sue on guard duty.  She was to inform me of the where abouts of cat and mouse.  Regardless of where cat and mouse were she was supposed to tell me they were WAAAY behind me in the living room behind a couch.  That worked until Noche decided to bring “dinner” into the dinning room and more specifically under my chair.  All I can say is the amount of will power it took for me to not scream and run from the room probably could have solved world hunger. 

Tasting my mac and cheese was long gone as well as the feeling in both my legs from being elevated on the chair next to me.  This process continued (along with the leg numbness) until two mac and cheese noodles were left on my plate and I saw out of the corner of my eye the mouse scampering off down the driveway and Noche not far behind.  She came back empty handed…and I wanted to stand on the table and do a praise-the-Lord dance.  I didn’t.  Now I can’t decide if I hate cats more than I did before or less.  On one hand she DID get el mousy out of the house (more specifically the kitchen where I was to be washing the dishes soon) but she sure as shootin’ took her time.  A little less play, a lot more action kitty! 

The things I see on my site visits every day continue to boggle my mind day in and day out.  Of course the usual collapsed 5 story concrete building amongst hundreds of peoples houses in the city is getting to be the usuz’ as well as the 4-wheeling to get to sites.  But the beneficiaries we meet for each house is another story in itself and can range from someone who has (or atleast says they have) a pain in their foot (but are fully walking….and here you can typically call walking hiking) to the man in a crutch with one leg missing.  Let’s emphasis on that one.  I’m becoming convinced that the disabled here in Haiti could probably be equivalent to the standard American man or women and the fully abled here in Haiti are closer to our Olympic athletes.  No, I’m gonna go with stronger than our Olympic athletes.  The other day I was driving down the highway when I realized a young boy running on his crutches aside a car that was fishing through their purse to give him some money.  I still to this day have no idea how he collected his pity cash while crutch-running along. 

 Crutch story #2 goes like this.  Our last house we visited one day was owned by a man on crutches.  Best part, he owned the whole 4 stories but lived on the STOP story.  We in the good ol’ USA would say “no problem, he uses the elevator”.  We expats would laugh very very hard at that theory.   Don’t worry, story gets better.  After showing us the lowest level we all head for the stairs which turn out to be twisty and in several places only 3 inches wide with no railing and a shear drop off (mind you this is practically in the dark as there is no lighting in the hallway).  I gulp at the thought of MYSELF walking up them and remind myself to check each foot as I go up.  Crutch-man effortlessly starts up them.  When he’s half way up he gets a message on his cell phone.  Out comes the cell phone and he continues up the stairs reading a message I’m sure was much more important than paying attention to his crutch placement.  At the top last few stairs I see a little puppy in the house scampering about that he veers around all the while still checking his message.  As I’m reliving this experience through writing it I laugh at the thought process that goes through ones’ head when this situation arises.  First thought is feeling sorry and wanting to offer to help.  Second moment consists of being frozen in place and awestruck of the disabled person actions.  Third and final thought is the realization that this person is much more capable then you with 2 legs and 2 arms and maybe you should focus on helping yourself and not them.  As I’m scampering over obstacles to get to the job site some 50 hands come from all directions to help me, the female “blah” in tennis shoes (never mind that the beneficiary is in high heels).  I gladly take them all with not a shameful bone in my body. 

Well all good stories have to have a traumatic paragraph or two to keep the reader enthralled with the story.  Last Thursday and Friday will provide this section of today’s blog.  It appears I have a reason for last weeks’ randomness in my blog and that is because, unbeknownst to me, I was becoming deathly ill. Ok so maybe it was just a horrible two day flu bug but still!  Thursday morning found me upchucking out of both ends (sorry if that’s TMI) with a fever of 102 degrees.  Fevers of that level when you are lying in a room that’s 90-some degrees isn’t a whole lot of fun and advil became my new dear friend.  At least I was upstairs away from our entire staff and could bask in my own misery, right?  I soon found out not so much. Eklann, one of our cooks, was upstairs during my first upchucking session and raced downstairs to tell the entire staff.  Next thing I know staff members are coming up in stages to get the full report.  I soon found my business was everyone’s business and most everyone knew of my bowel movement as well as all other movement, fever, what I’d eaten, you name it moment by moment throughout the day.  Apparently this is the norm in Haiti.  I was in good hands and by the second day felt much better.   No idea what I had but one thing’s for sure.  I’m ok not having it again.  

A few more funny stories to shown the randomness of life in Haiti.  A few months ago Sue (75, 5’7”, white, female) had to have a physical done to fill out some paperwork to remain in country (we don’t need work visa’s here but basically same idea).  She really balked at the idea so Joseph (39 but looks 20, 5’0”, Haitian and as black as they come, male) offered to go in her place.  So he did.  Came back the next day from the doctors with all of Sue’s forms filled out and set to go.   Not two weeks later did another gal in our office (24, white, female, 5’8”) need to have the same physical.  Off went Joseph to the same doctor and came back once again with all forms completed.  The MCC office died laughing that day.  I did as well when was told the story.  

Famous advice from a Haitian: If you can see water in a pothole that’s a good thing because you know it has a bottom.  

As all stories end on a happy note I would like to tell you all that Kurt our MCC Haiti rep (the boss) is engaged and is to be married in two weeks to a wonderful Haitian women.  I’m excited for the wedding and all’s its’ festivities expect for one thing.  He bought a goat for the wedding feast and it stands bahing and grunting out in the backyard.  It’s really quite a helpless (and dumb) little animal and proceeds to wind and twist itself around the pole it’s tethered to until someone comes and rescues it.  Joseph, our book keeper, takes it for daily walks around the house and has taken dibs on being the one to kill it.  Eww.  When first it landed in our backyard I got all excited about our new pet and racked my brain for a lovely lil’ name for the obnoxious sucker.  Now that I know I will be eating it in two weeks I’ve decided it’s better for me mentally to keep as far distance as possible.  Hmmm I suppose I failed slightly at my happy ending.  

Crutch man's 4 story building

Section of Port au Prince

Can we say this failed?

Two men I've been working with this week.  Left is Doniel (Engineer Tech) and to the right is the mason.  Never got his name.

Ok well on a happier note I am headed to an engineers meeting tonight which should give me the opportunity to meet other local engineers.  Tomorrow there is a big drum festival in celebration of a famous Haitian drummer who just recently passed away.  I have also been informed that there is salsa dancing every Saturday from 5-8pm up in a good neighborhood of town.  I am dragging our new staff member along with me who confesses she doesn’t know how to dance at all.  Should be entertaining although maybe that’s not the best way to make friends with the staff?  Only one way to find out.   

Fresh Gingerbread

Well another week has whisked by so I suppose it’s time to write some more about Julie life in Haiti.  We shall begin with the weekend.  Saturday adventures included driving 1.5 hours or so north of Port-au-Prince to a beach called Onuagu (or something of that nature) for a posh beach experience with five other volunteers from various organizations.  Most beaches in Haiti are private and have some sort of entrance fee.  Depending on the ritziness of the beach that fee may include lunch.  Ours appeared to be that of a wealthy vacation spot for locals and thus included nothing in the entrance fee aside from a grass mat to put on our wood lawn chair.  What a gorgeous joint though (see picture below).  We began our day at the beach with a jolly fine swim.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the amount in trash in Haiti once or twice yet but it deserves a third time if not.  There is heaps and piles of it here….everywhere…..so you can imagine my surprise when we arrived to our beach destination and it was clean as a whistle.  Rest assured I was quickly comforted by a plastic bottle floating by us as we swam out into the ocean.  And another.  And then one more.  It appears Haiti has a undiscovered sea urchin which I call the “bottlefish” which is constantly breaching.  

I think you all know of my fear of underwater creatures and unlike others who prefer clear water, my motto is the muddier the better (less to see).  Needless to say not ten minutes after we’d swam out did my had graze across something most definitely squishy.  It took three more of us to encounter squishy experiences before we realized we’d found some jellyfish.  Thus ended my interest in anymore swimming and I made my way to shore as the rest of the folks goggled and googled at the jellyfish floating by until a few more got stung and then followed me in suit.  I believe I touched the top of my jellyfish and got away sans stings.  The others weren’t so lucky but their stings were fairly minor.  

I am slowly and surely finding my way around the engineering world in Haiti.  It is difficult to combine engineering design I did some 3-4 years ago in Seattle for building design with Haitian design techniques (and no design code) to build the safest structure.  Did I mention I left ALL my code and design books at home?  Really racking the long term memory for guidance.  <WARNING: Enginerd talk about to occupy a brief spell of this blog>.  Not only does one need to design for an earthquake in Seattle or California, we also must look at hurricane wind loads from Florida.  So you have to design a lateral system that can sustain seismic forces with their confined reinforced masonry system (which is kinda impossible to calculate in the same fashion we do in the USA and is more designed using percentages of things) and then try to design a roof that wont become a giant airplane wing during a cyclone.  That all sounds fine and dandy and fairly simple but it’s really quite the opposite.  Especially with 2 weeks on the ground in Haiti.  And then if all that isn’t complicated enough, you have to find a way to build ALL the above by hand.  And when I mean by hand, that does NOT include power tools OR electricity.  To exhaust the severity of this, another good example is the fact that they make gravel by hand here.  Some dude sits on a pile of already chiseled gravel with a hammer beating larger rocks into smaller ones.  Even getting water to a site can be quite obnoxious as some sites are up on mountain tops with only a little foot access path.  In addition some sites require my best 4-wheeling skills to get to in a little Tacoma truck (most days are spend with my heart in my throat as I drive to said sites).  It boggles my mind getting a truck up there to carry all the cement bags, water, and rebar.  I think we all have a lot to learn about intensive labor from Haiti.  The design part is easy.  It’s the building part that requires the engineering.  All of these problems are typically fairly simply resolved when it’s a house.  

Of course that would make my life easy so James (Calpoly professor) left me a huge community center with a clear span of 28’ and 50’ long that I have to find a specially fabricated roof for.  This week has been spent meeting with a Swiss engineer (did I mentioned a fine looking young man?  My boss has decided she’s going to play matchmaker) who had metal trusses specially fabricated for a school he designed.  I also met with a dutch family that packed up and moved to Haiti some 30 years ago and is now the mass producer of wood trusses for Haitians.  Only glitch is their largest truss span is 8 feet.  Whooops!  Luckily they have done ONE building in the past with a span roughly the same as mine which they had a truss company in the USA engineer.  And they had the truss calc sheet for it.  Phheew!  Now we just need to get Haitian engineers who’ve never worked with wood trusses to install 300 lb trusses correctly (using only manpower of course).  Hah!  Should be entertaining.  This is the most combobulated engineering feat I’ve done yet.  Will definitely be videoing that installation.  Ok enough nerd talk.  

I definitely don’t have a shortage of driving stories here seeing as that is what I spend majority of my time doing.  Unlike many of the workers in my office I am lucky to have the opportunity to really experience Haiti and all it’s poverty as I visit site after site of houses in need of repair day by day.  And my Creole is improving!!!  Ok, not really.  But I try anyways every time I have a spare moment in the car with another young Haitian who is very very patient and helpful with my dilapidated attempt at his language (especially when I bring crackers for us to munch on).  I am getting more and more motivated to improve so I can order fresh gingerbread made daily down the street from the guest house from a lady off the street.  Wow, how did I get from poverty to gingerbread so fast?  My dinner tonight consisted of a can of tuna fish.  Maybe that’s why?  But I digress….so poverty..yes…there’s a lot of that here.  But the nice thing is majority of people aren’t deathly skinny or really too skinny at all.  Just the dogs (SNIFF).  It is still astounding however the mass of people who’s homes are so fractured that they are simply un-repairable by our organization’s budget.  Rebar (that is supposed to be cast within concrete) has been exposed to rain for so long it’s of the same consistency of charred wood but weaker.  

My amazement most days however is how the 4 or 5 or 6 Haitians I visit these sites with each day can find each house with ease.  I mean these houses are basically a maze off the main route.  Driving only gets you so far.  Next you must wind your way up concrete or dirt foot paths among many many many houses (most in desperate need of repair) right and then left and then two more rights and so on.  By the time we arrive at the house they may as well have just blindfolded me and turned me around in several circles and airlifted me into the site.  Forget orienting myself.    But they don’t miss a lick and hit each house on the nose!  My favorite part is watching 4 or 5 fully grown Haitians cram into the back of my Tacoma in those ½ back cabs or whatever they are called with the little fold down chairs that we in America think getting one person in the back is achievement.  Even better, I found out yesterday one of the lady’s crammed in the back is pregnant and bumping and bouncing right along with the rest to our destination.  She darn near delivered prematurely that day as we were waiting for a street corner man to fix a flat I got driving to one house and had to drop her off early.  I think by the end of this adventure even when someone tells me Hitler is still alive and they’ve solved global warming I’ll barely bat an eye.  Each day’s surprise is more interesting than the last.  One things for sure; I sure can’t complain of a dull minute in Haiti.  

Wow, excuse those last few paragraphs.  I was all over the plate on that one.  Don’t think Mrs. Belgard my 9^th grade AP Language Arts teacher would be very proud of that last paragraph structure.  Probably cause there wasn’t any.  You all still following?  I’m lost.  Well I suppose that’s all the news I can report this week.  Life is pretty chill in the evenings with my absence of any social life besides pilates with the mosquitoes out on the back porch (these sessions are consequentially quite short).  On a side note for those of you who don’t know I’ve accepted a job with Boeing as a product review engineer in Everett, WA.  Not sure when my start date will be but my hiring manager is very supportive of my time here in Haiti as long as I give a full report upon my arrival so we’re still working out all the details for a start date.  I’m super stoked at my new position and location as my best friend Elizabeth also just got a job in the same factory.  I will be working on all parts of the 767 (I think) finding fixes for glitches during construction.  Basically I’ll be climbing through airplanes all day with my measuring tap.  Plus this means trail running at lunch for my first 100 miler as there are trails right next to the office!  How perfect is that?  I’ll just be jumping right into that training after not having run for over half a year and recovering from a stress fracture in my knee.  No prob.  Peace of cake. 

My view from the water.  The Jellyfishes view too little did I know. 

Some of the people I have been working with.  The man in blue is Doniel.  He is the patient creole helper. 

To the right is the beneficiary for this house.  His wheelchair is useless as his house is on a mountain top and requires some serious hiking by the average two pod man to get to. 

Ok all well it’s been fun.   Excuse the randomness of this blog.  I’m gonna blame it on my 25% deet bug spray that I apply more often then lotion.  Till next time may you have a happy-happy and a merry-merry!

Julie goes Bonkers

Reason #1 why I love Haiti: I think I’ve found the new LA diet.  Move to Haiti.  Your body spends its whole day being an air conditioner and snacking isn’t a common activity practiced by the Haitians.  Chocolate costs more than cars (and good wine) and the energy and creativity involved to cook a meal is far beyond me by the end of the day.  To purchase a pastry from the bakery you have to first know what said bakery item is called sans labels, purchase it at a totally different counter and then wait in a hectic line to pick up the pastry.  Most of the complications come from not being assured a cold fridge 24/7 which means for green meat after day two in the fridge (yes, we juveniles ate it the first week but never again) and powdered milk.  But where there’s a will, there’s a way and I’m sure I’ll be able to crack the code and put on weight.  I’ve never failed me before.  

Reason #2 why I love Haiti: Women don’t shave.  They find their body hair (chest, chin, legs, armpits…and yes they have it ALL) a sign of strength.  In fact women DO shave if they want to appear unattractive.  I think I was born in the wrong culture.  

Reason #3 why I love Haiti:  I asked a co-worker the other day what is a good conversation starter here in Haiti because questions of “what do you do for a living” and “what are your hobbies” can be a lost cause and even insulting.  He replied “Haitians really love to talk about food”.  During a dinner time conversation one briefly notes the weather and then dives right into talk about the food they are eating, had been eating, are going to eat, etc.  This is SO my country.  

Well the past week has been full of activities.  Over the weekend “orientation” was extended out to the countryside to a place called Desarmes where MCC’s other office is located.  The best way to describe life in the countryside in Haiti is a very poorly prepared backpacking trip, I think.  You are up against so many elements to which all you are unprepared for so you simply stick to caveman basics and don’t even attempt anything crazy.  We headed out Saturday through the mountains for a few hours and landed in Desarmes starved.  We stopped at a restaurant (aka shak with four big pots of food) for lunch before heading out to meet Josh and Mary-Lynn; some of the most hard-core Canadians I think I will EVER meet.  They have two children.  Haydon is 2 and was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (the city).  A birth in the major city of the poorest country in the western hemisphere was a little too easy for Mary-Lynn so she decided to plop her second child out in Desarmes.  I can’t decide if you have to be a little crazy to do that or just plan stupid.  Either way she got my vote of admiration.  

We lazed around Saturday evening with these two until later in evening.  One of the other MCC workers and I decided we’d sleep out on the front patio since it was cooler.  We snuggled into our frumpy floppy spring gouging mattress that we’d drug outside and settled down for a peaceful sleep.  Ten minutes later I had to go to the bathroom.  Remember the unprepared backpacking analogy?  So no flush toilettes of course.  Better yet the latrine (hole in the ground with some type of wood or masonry shelter) was waaaaay ‘round the back of the house.  Earlier we’d seen a neighbor dog wandering around.  I didn’t think I’d ever say it but I abhor dogs in Haiti.  So scarrry!  So if one wants to urinate, one must walk with rock in hand (to throw at the dog to scare it away) to the back and sit in a latrine that has tarantula spottings every hour or so, relax enough to do ones’ business, and then start the process all over again to get back to bed.  Little did I know that as I was on said journey #1, a tarantula was cheerfully crawling towards the other MCC worker’s bed.  When I returned from my trip I found her out of her bed peering intensely at a spot in the patio chucking the dog-throwing rocks at her new found friend Mr. Tarantula.  At this point all sanity is lost and we giggled away furiously as we tried to kill the spider with our rock storage that we’d collected for the dog.  Upon several attempts we lost interest of killing the spider and convinced ourselves the balmy indoors sounded much more comfortable.  The following night for potty trips #2-#6 I did no more than hang my rump out the door (dog-rock in hand, mind you).  Haiti has confirmed that I am the biggest outdoor wimp EVER.  

Sunday was a fantastic day which included a fantastic hike in the backcountry of Haiti.  We hiked up a river for 2 hours to a gorgeous little waterfall.  I’ve decided hiking with legs knee deep in water is pretty much the only way to hike in a tropical place.  So refreshing.  The other great thing about this hike; NO TRASH.  If Haiti didn’t suffer from poverty and political issues I think it’d be the most popular vacation spot on the planet.  Who gets hiking up a river in 95+ weather with mountains looming all around?  Haiti does.  As a local passed us on our way back carrying a machete and pistol we started to wonder if maybe we didn’t go quite as prepared as we needed to.  Hard-core Mary-Lynn carried her 3 month old infant along through the rushing river for the whole 4 hrs AND a backpack.  Take-two of Julie feels wimpy.  

This week has been a whirl-wind of events and I can’t believe the weekend is almost here.  I have spent most of my days out with Haitian…..um…foremen?……engineers?......financial planners?...yeaaah….I don’t really know who anyone is.  All I know if I show up with my “machin” (car) and Haitian after Haitian piles in (typically two to a single seat) and off we go.  Doniel, a Haitian foremen who I spent most of Tuesday driving around with is teaching me most of my Creole.  He knows just enough English and I know just even Creole so that we both don’t really understand each other but think we do.  I would have to admit that the past few days have been incredibly discouraging and frustrating.  James, the Calpoly professor I am filling in for, has spent over a year working with this one particular group of masons and engineers almost every day he was here and they STILL are constructing poorly.  After talking to a local NGO that is doing roughly the same type of work I am doing I am beginning to wonder how much good our educating is doing.  Another engineer from Build Change (NGO) says that they have found the masons and engineers change their ways for about a month or two and then go right back to the way they have build for the past umpteen years.  I’m starting to feel more like a babysitter and chauffer than an engineer.  This is a poverty infested city where everyone and anyone local will do whatever they can to eat or have shelter.  That includes lying, cheating the system, etc.  It’s really quite maddening and yet I completely understand.  Heck, I’d do the same thing if I was that desperate.  So families that we are helping will find a beneficiary (has to be disabled in some way) who’s really not (in my opinion) just to get on the list of first-priority families to aid.  The Haitian engineer that I am working with took me to several 2-story houses in need of rehabilitation today even after MCC has previously told him that we are ONLY working on 1-story houses (a fact which I learned AFTER my full day of work). Typically the 2-story house bottom level is owned by a different family than the upper story.  Consequently, repairing the upper story is rather stupid if the story below is nearly ready to buckle but can’t be done because it is owned by someone else.  The masons who have taken James education workshop look at me baffled as I point out gaps with no mortar between bricks and exposed rebar just waiting to rust from the next cyclone.  I would have pulled out my hair already had I not needed it to protect my scalp from the unrelenting sun during our sight visits.  

I’m starting to ask myself the same question I think everyone does after being here for a while.  Are we really doing any good being here or are we making things worse?  My view at the moment is the latter.  If a mason can’t build correctly after 1-year of working every week with a USA structural engineer are we really instigating any sort of sustainability?  Any time any Haitian becomes educated to any usable level they immigrate elsewhere for a better life.  My supervisor and I have concocted a plan.  We’ve decided we should load the Haitian population on boats and send them off to a “holding-country” for a while, sink the island, and start fresh over on another island.  Really, you can fix a house but the five surrounding house may never be fixed and can tumble on the fixed house in an earthquake.  Bonkers….I’m gonna go bonkers.  

Enough complaining and on to more fun stories.  So AS we were driving (half chauffer half babysitter, remember) around today I came across some rather peculiar experiences.  We were driving down a “road” which I’d like to say resembles more of a sidewalk.  I come to this conclusion because I believe when your side mirrors are kissing the buildings on both sides as you drive that just plain ain’t a road in anyone’s book!  Haitians don’t have the same book.  As if the “road” wasn’t narrow enough, it continued to lesson in girth tell I found myself driving over peoples building materials, grocery stores (produce laid out on a blanket on the ground), and chickens (they duck as you drive over them..don’t worry peeps, I’m keeping this G-rated) to get to our destinations.  Haitians mentality is “why walk if you can at all ‘drive’” so I was encouraged by my faithful gang in the car to keep driving as I sent apologetic smiles and waves to passerby’s.  The climax of this story will be when it came time to park.  Yep, park enough for OTHERS to get by.  After a 20 point Austin Power’s turn around at an intersection I proceeded to park on top of some ones “grocery store” as hands of folks from all angles of my vehicle (grocery store lady included) guided me furiously backwards.  Since I know you are all on the edge of your chair in anticipation to know what became of the “grocery store”, it was swiftly relocated (much to the surprise of its owner) to the other side of the street to allocate space for my mammoth United States-ness “machin”.  And if that didn’t draw enough attention, getting out of the car with my fluorescent skin took the cake.  Children everywhere started screaming “Blah, blah!” (Haitian creole word for “white person”).  Sigh….sometimes you just can’t win. 

I decided I need a good break so it’s off to the beach this Saturday with some more blah’s for a day of laying on the beach. My fav.  Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.  Too be continued.  

Hugs!

Latrine in Desarmes

The spider Patio (from left to right: Wawa, Kristen, Ann, Moi)

Showers in Desarmes.  Not a bad view from the inside looking up as you shower!

Poorly build house.  Ok geek friends see if you can find the errors!

River Hike

Notice Mary-Lynn (umbrella) with her infant daughter

Bienvienue

Howdy All!

First blog coming swiftly to you from Haiti…only 1 week late.  Wow I need to get better at this.  So much to write it’s a little overwhelming (and probably gonna be a tad boring to read) so I’ll do my best to summarize in an interesting fashion.

Last week was orientation in Akron, PA.  For those of you who don’t know (which included me until last Wednesday) that’s near Lancaster, PA about an hour or so west of Philly in Amish country.  I had an amazing supposedly 2 week orientation crammed into 3 days and got to learn how wonderful MCC is throughout the world.  I also got to meet some amazinginly wonderful people.  Each one has incredible life stories, even the random driver who transports you around has a daughter just back from Bolivia and has stories of living in Africa that’ll make you poop your pants.  Two of my favorite peeps are pictured below.  Among these amazing things one that stood out was MCC’s Material Resource Center which basically is a gigantic recycle center that makes disaster relief aid items out of…you got it…recycled things.  These include using old torn up and illegible books to make recycled paper for school children, weaving used men’s ties and jeans into door mats, cutting up used t-shirts for rags that are sold to local oil changing companies in the US for money, maintain thrift stores scattered throughout the country, and the list goes on and on.  In addition to the recycling, locals in surrounding cities volunteer during the week to help built quilts to sell at auctions for money, comforters to send in disaster relief kits, and cloth bags with notebooks, colored pencils and pens for school children.  Coolest part….you can put together these school kits and comforters yourself and donate them to MCC if you can’t donate money or want to donate in an artistic way (and have some extra fabric lying around). Here’s the website. http://eastcoast.mcc.org/materialresourcescenter .  There are specific instructions on sewing comforters and school kits online or if you want I can put you in contact with Evette at the Center.  

Another incredible thing MCC has started is an organization called 10,000 villages.  I’m sure several of you have heard about this and there are stores on the west coast to shop at!  It’s an organization started by MCC but was so successful it now has its own name and set of workers to go with.  10,000 villages buys hand made crafts from all over the world at fair prices and ships them back to the US to be sold.  The artisans who’s work is sold are paid a fair wage for their product and actually get to decide the price of their product.  Shipping fees unfortunately play a major role but the work that is sold in these stores is absolutely incredible art.  The neatest thing for me was seeing how even these things are constructed out of recycled materials.  Third world countries definitely have us beat when it comes to reusing and recycling.  Here’s their website:  http://www.tenthousandvillages.ca/.  Check it out.  Awesome place for xmas gift shopping. 

After my three day intensive session and goodbyes to friends it was off to Haiti.  There is another couple that was traveling on the same flight as I was that are working in advocacy for MCC.  Super fun couple that both went to SPU in Seattle.  Kristen is from Eugene, OR and her husband Wawa is from Kenya.  They had been living in Egypt for the past 2 years where Wawa was getting his master’s degree and Kristen was working with Habitat for Humanity.  They have some great stories of Kenya and Egypt, none of which I can remember at this place and time, go fig.  

My first week has consisted of orientation which includes 3 hours a day of Creole lessons.  Our Creole instructor, Franz, succeeds mostly in teaching us English and not Creole, preaching the word of the Lord, and singing hymnals.  We think he teaches English for most of his day and gets a little confused when he comes to us.  We know he is studying to be a pastor which explains the rest.  Nice guy, awesome enthusiasm, just not for learning Creole.  I plan to plop myself down with the cooks next week where I think I’ll learn more in one day then I did with Franz all this week.  

There are so many funny/strange/peculiar things here that I see each and every day it’s hard to pin point and write about one specific event.  Perhaps we should start with my first day of driving in Haiti.  My second day in country I decided to just grow some balls and go for it, much to the surprise of my supervisor (who was going to be riding with me and most likely was fearing for her own life, not mine).  My first journey consisted of a 2 hour drive through downtown and out to the country to do some surveying.  I’ve found the way to master Haitian driving is to have an eye for spotting potholes.  Nothing else matters.  If you can do this, you can drive in Haiti.  Unlike in the US where a pothole is merely an uncomfortable and unpleasant jostle, in Haiti you can darn near lose your entire car (and life) in one.  Putting grates over catch basins in Haiti is kind of an afterthought especially since (sans grate) it makes a handy garbage disposal for locals who find sweeping trash and debris in the early morning a form of meditation.  

Haitians have got to be the most efficient travelers.  Everything and anything is tied, strapped or held out a window to be transported down the road.  Said items can include that evenings dinner (still alive.  Very smart since they don’t have refrigerators in lots of homes), an object so large in size it really should be placed on a semi and not on the top of a local tap tap (Toyota Tacoma with the snot beaten out of it) making the tap tap incredibly top heavy but quite entertaining to watch from behind (or quickly pass before they lose something that you will inevitably run over).  My favorite part about driving in Haiti; everyone and anyone regardless of age and if they’ve ever actually EVER driven a car will help you get around a tight corner, over a bridge etc.  As I was pulling onto a road with a drainage trench below me 5 men on motorcycles were on the same ramp/bridge-thing over the trench.  I gave them a confused look to say “guys, I don’t have room with you on the bridge. You’re gonna have to move”.  They returned my confused look with one of their own and vigorously started waving their hands for me to precede onward, all eyes on my wheels.  I drove across waiting expectantly for my back tire to fall into the ditch but alas “pa problem”.  I’ve decided I MUCH prefer driving in Haiti then the US.  People are just so much more competent.  If you’re passing three abreast on the freeway everyone finds their way and it’s so much more efficient!  And fun!  J  Getting used to using my horn all the time will be tough as Americans view this as rude.  Haitians expect to be notified when you’re driving up the road behind them, otherwise they cross.   Forget “Look both ways”.   

My "digs" in Akron, PA.  All the art, chairs, tables, etc. in my house (Africa house) was actually from Africa. 

The lovely ladies from the Latin/Caribbean MCC department

Hallway to my room in Akron

Building in Haiti.  You see this everywhere you drive around Haiti. 

My goodness, how I’ve babbled.  Too finish, as the week slowly comes to an end I look forward to the weekend which includes heading up to our office in the countryside (Desarmes) with several other folks for continuation of our orientation.  Next week I will be working with another organization that has a set of engineers doing the same things I will be doing here.  It’ll be nice to bounce ideas off eachother and really get a good grasp of construction over here.  Unlike the US, you can’t read about how to build from a book.  You just have to drive around and talk to people.    Until next week, I hope this blog finds you well.  Miss you all so very much and hugs and kisses to all.