Dirty All Over

I woke up last night around quarter after two to the sound of dogs fighting. Or maybe they were playing, I can't say for sure. But when I saw what time it was I was extremely excited because right before going to bed I heard there was going to be a lunar eclipse but it wasn't happening until the middle of the night so I figured I'd miss it. Then, thanks to those dogs, I got up and stood in the courtyard by myself and caught the last bit of the moon disappearing and headed back to bed.

I got up this morning at pretty much the exact same time as yesterday, 6:45. I had corn flakes with powdered milk and coffee for breakfast. I may have missed Haitian food, but I really didn't miss the breakfasts. Today was similar to yesterday in that most of the volunteers went to one of the two school projects. I went to school six again and spent nearly all morning sifting sand. It may not sound exciting (and it isn't really) but me and two others got a system going so were working pretty efficiently. While we were sifting, there was concrete being mixed for rendering. At first, the concrete was being mixed in a mixer powered by a stationary bicycle, which people would take turns riding. It was pretty cool but it turns out that mixing it with shovels on a piece of plywood on the floor is faster, so they switched to that method. Then the rendering began. What it is is a mixture of gravelly sand, concrete powder, and water. Once this is thoroughly combined, the resulting substance is applied to the walls, which at this point is just a form board and chain-link fence. So I did a little bit of rendering with a lot of help from a two little Haitian boys who, I must admit, were probably better than me at this.

Like yesterday, we stayed on site for lunch and afternoon break. During the break the team leader from the other school came to school six looking to trade some of his volunteers for those at our site. He said that people were too hot. I should have taken this as a sign to stay where I was, but in the afternoon I walked down the road to go work at school seven, where they are laying the foundation. This was hard, hot work, but fun. From the outside (and to me at first) the process looked like sheer chaos. After participating, I realized that it was, in fact, chaos. But controlled chaos. Here is how it worked in a nutshell: someone fed sand, rocks, concrete powder, and water into an actual cement mixer then would throw the buckets forward to someone who would catch the buckets and throw them to people on the side of the foundation, who would fill the buckets with said rocks and sand and would run the buckets back to the mixer. Once the mixture was made, wheelbarrow runners would have their barrows filled with concrete and would run them onto the foundation, where they would be directed as to where to dump. Then there were people who would run to the wells and fill buckets with water to bring to the mixer. And repeat. I don't know if you'll be able to picture this all happening, but everybody had their place and things ran well. I started as a wheelbarrow runner then switched to bucket catcher. In the afternoon I pretty much managed to get myself covered head to tow in concrete, dirt, and whatever else it was I was covered in earlier.

I came back to base totally wiped out. We had make-your-own egg sandwiches for dinner then had the meeting. Post-meeting there was a brief Christmas dinner crew meeting, where we discussed what supplies we were going to need from Port-au-Prince. Leogane has some of necessities one would need, but when it comes to some of the things like, say, ham or cream, you need to go to the capital. The menu is still definitely not set, so ideas are still welcome. We want to make items that are simple but delicious. After this I decided it was time for a real shave. It was interesting because I got to see what I would look like with different facial hair styles. I can now definitively say that I look goofy as hell with a mustache, though I suspected as much. Now, for the first time in ages, I'm totally clean shaven. I had two main reasons behind shaving - it will be less hot and this way I won't get some horrible facial hair tan from all the time I'll be in the sun. I complimented my shave with a thorough and long bucket shower. I went from extremely dirty to the point I'm at now, less dirty. Bucket showers have their merits, but you really can't get completely clean. But I certainly feel a lot better. And now I'm here in the "internet cafe", updating the blog and jamming out to whatever comes up on shuffle.

As usual, I'm tired (but in a good way). Tomorrow I'm signed up for more foundation fun, where I'm sure to dirty myself terribly once more.

Happy official winter.

Love,

Daniel