Day 5 - Third Day of the Build

Today went sooooooo much more smoothly. I had a good night sleep, and when we got to the site, a couple of us took the bprovrbial bull by the horns and got going. Having lost essentially a full day of productivity yesterday, we knew we weren't going to come anywhere close to getting the second house it needs to be by the end of the day Friday, so we resolved to get the one house as far done as possible. As predicted (not necessarily in this blog), many other groups were facing the same problems today as we faced yesterday... and we took delight in that... a little bit that is. What can I say. It made us feel better! So we got the roof on and hung out in the shade it provided whenever we needed a break. Remarkably, these little structures do a fantastic job of radiating away the heat. They'll make good homes for families who have gone without for about a year now, and they'll be a considerable step up from what they had before. We also got started on the siding and fascia board installations. We'll have all that done before lunch tomorrow... that is, we should if nothing goes wrong! Having only six people, the home owner, and the team leader in our crew, we are small compared to other build sites.... but we are all working really good together. The team has pretty much accepted me as someone who knows "what the crap" i'm doing, and they've begun to check with me about as much as our team leader about a particular task before they get going on it. Another guy Sahim (I got his name wrong in an earlier blog) has been really good from a leadership standpoint. Sadly, Sahim got some bad news from home and will be flying home tomorrow. We'll miss him. One of the guys in my tent is from Belgium and we got to talking about all kinds of stuff. It all started when I teased him about tossing back "few to many" last night, and I said that after having tried the beer a couple times, I decided to get on the wagon for the week.... and I had to explain what that meant. His name is Roel (pronounced "Rule" and you have to "roll" the R). I told him I was never going to be able say his name properly, and I gave him a bunch of crap about his last name being Timmerman.... sounds pretty american to me! We cracked each other up for a good half an hour. Then I joined the dinner line and Garth and Trisha got in line behind me. I got to shake both their hands and thank them for their performance the night before... which was pretty cool. After dinner I spent about an hour talking with one of the security managers who is american but has been in Haiti for the past eleven years... very intersting guy with a very interesting perception about Haiti, where it's been, what needs to happen before it can improve, and what the real problems are that hinder any real progress. I really need to process that conversation and think it over before I can write anything about it... may have to be when I get back state side. Right now there is a line of people behind me waiting for computer time, so I better sign off. That'll do it for now... Good night.