On the third day my skin began to turn red.......

My day begins at 5:00 a.m., with the chickens, well mainly roosters. I think the chickens sleep in. The sun comes up early here and sets around 6 p.m. We eat breakfast (the fruit is amazing) and head down the mountain to our work site. The mountain is more of a sloping cliff. People build houses right in the side of the mountains surrounding Port au Prince I have never seen anything like it.
We buy our lunch at a little bakery on our way to the work site. I now can order a chicken sandwich in French. “Polle pate, si bue plaite” Ok, I still can’t spell it.
The drive down the mountain to our site is about 20 miles; it takes us an hour and a half to get through Port au Prince to the other side. The streets that we travel sometimes are very narrow. The reason is they used to be walking paths and they built shops and homes next to the walking paths. After the earth quake most of PAP was destroyed and rubble was everywhere. The government paved the side paths in order to get trucks in and out of the city. They paved roads are now accepted as roads and people drive down them, walk down them, sell their wares on them and breakdown on them.
We see folks in the same silly straw hat or matching t-shirts. They are paid by NGO’s to help remove the rubble and trash from the streets. This is like a pebble in the pond situation.
The people on the streets come in a variety of conditions. Some are dressed very nice and are heading to a job, others are dressed in the same clothes they had on the days prior and they are setting up their street vendor sites. Still others are in the clothes they had during the earthquake and lost everything.
We drive past mansions (up the mountain) and tent cities (everywhere there is an open space) and very deep ravines (where all the trash and runoff goes), there is a whole sub-culture in the ravines. The people in the ravine have their own markets and social structure. I hear that life is different outside of PAP, but I have not left this area as yet. There are too many people in PAP.
When we get to site our workers are there and we have to unload the container for our day of work. The heat inside will melt you. I begin every work day with sweat traveling the gravity route of least resistance to the ground.
You don’t have to worry about mosquitos because the wind blows about 30 mile and hour across the site. The dust sticks to your sweat and by noon we are all the same color, terra cotta human.
We eat lunch around 12 and the afternoon is brutal to get much done. You are tired and the heat causes your memory to get fuzzy. It requires a lot of concentration to make your cuts accurate and get much productivity done. This is when my partner starts to recite cartoon lines. The Haitians do not understand his idioms. Chris is getting them to understand, “smarter than the average bear.” I told him that there are no bears in Haiti. One of the workers wants to know if bears are smart in America.
During the day there are always men looking for work and teenagers begging for food. It is weird what you can get used to.
When we get to a stopping point we start to clean up the sight and put everything back on the container, hopefully in a logical order for the next day. Chris and I then limp down to the little café that has cropped up on the work site and buy a beer, $1.00 US.
During the day there are always men looking for work and teenagers begging for food. It is weird what you can get used to.
We then crawl into the truck and drive 1 ½ hours back up the hill.
When we get back to our bed and breakfast we sit down and work on our site report and plan what we want to get done tomorrow and designate duties. The shower is amazing, but I know I haven’t gotten all the dust out of my crevices.
I try to send emails and then crawl into bed and pass out. The roosters get it all started again.
I am having a great time.

Toto we aren't in Kansas anymore

Ok, first off, I was in Africa and froze. Haiti is Africa hot. No joke, but they say it is a dry heat.
Arrived in Port au Prince in the middle of the afternoon and got my luggage with the other passengers (99% of them were white and on a mission trip and the bulk of them came from Michigan, Ohio, or Indiana). Weird. We walked out to where the taxis were and were instantly attacked by what I will call the ‘sharks’. These are locals that want to make a little money by ‘helping’ you with your bags. The mission people were big in the eyes and slow on the assertiveness. I left them to the feeding frenzy. My ride was a little late and by the time they arrived I was the only person of pale complexion left so it was easy to spot me.
We took a tour of Port au Prince and the devastation is far worse than the pictures display, mostly because it is everywhere. The rubble is stacked up in the streets along with the garbage. The streets are very narrow and driving is not for the faint of heart or unstable of neck. It can be very jarring. My partner’s head/elbow/shoulder/hip (ok I am joking about the hip) hit the side window several times because he was in the back and couldn’t see the rut coming.
From what I can tell the folks that used to live down town have moved out a bit where there is some open areas and have set up their tent cities; which are everywhere. It is a pretty sobering and humbling experience.
I worked the site today and we got some good stuff done. The house is coming together nicely, but you cannot leave tools around they will grow legs and walk away.
The supervisor of the job site makes sure that there are no neglected tools so you are constantly going back to the box to get a level/chalk box/blade whatever it is that you only need occasionally, but frequently. I constructed to partial roofs over a court yard and above the front door. That went well.
We are each assigned our own Haitian helper. My helper is named JeNelle (spelling) he is eager to learn carpentry and is learning not only carpentry, but my humor. He is my muscle, my getter, and my holder of the ladder. He also can swing a decent hammer. I am beginning my education in creole and my pronunciation is very bad……..the crew thinks it’s funny.
Today was a great day, even though it was really hot. We stay up the mountain so it is much cooler. The drive is insane!!!! The thunderstorms at this elevation rock!
The similarities to Africa are numerous although the abject poverty is worse here than what I saw in Tanzania.

Checking it Twice

So, your life has been turned upside down and you are not sure how to get it back shiny side up: enter, friend of a friend that is need of a carptenter in Haiti.....I got skills. One week later I have had my shots, renewed my passport, paid my bills, fixed the cat, closed up school, negotiated a successful contract, informed my family (mostly positive reviews), scheduled my ablation for August, postponed trip with Jane (the minute I get back we are gone Jane!!)planted some perennials, canceled the garden project (next year it will be amazing), hugged my kids and got my itinerary.

Packing:
work clothes for a week (clothes dry very slowly in the tropics)
first aid kit
sunscreen
deet
hats
work gloves
bathroom supplies
One nice outfit, we may go out one time
bathing suit
underwear (lots)
computer
water container
extra protein foods

Things left to do:
get hair cut off (again)
get emergency evacuation insurance
learn French and Creole (ok, maybe not)
get head examined

Next stop Port-au-Prince or PAP as it will now be referred.