Hello Mr. (Former) President

Yesterday I got a much-needed break from leading the rubble site I was at (Cine). I joined up on Tim’s team. Tim is this extremely buff Australian guy who used to be an investment banker and is now just a full time badass. The site we went to was out in the country a bit so I was thankful to be away from the hustle and bustle of the downtown site I’ve been running. The site was also mostly sledging so I spent most of the day taking out any aggression I may have had. In the morning we did a bit of demo work. The team was almost 20 people large (which is huge for one team) and demo work does not take a lot of people. Luckily Tim asked me to help him out with the demo stuff so I didn’t spend the morning sitting around like most of the team. Once we got down the dangerous walls and stuff the sledge-fest began. I was on sledge rotation with Tim, a local volunteer called Peter, and one other international volunteer. Our small group spent the day with America. America is the name of our biggest sledgehammer, a 16-pound beast of a tool. Needless to say, we got a ton of the roof sledged.

Today it was back to my team leading duties at Cine. The morning was pretty slow – we got some Bobcat action, which took care of a lot of our rubble. The Bobcats have turned a three-week job into a week and a half job. Lunch was completely not ordinary. I got back to base, unloaded the tools, and ran down the HODR driveway to the street where I stood around for an hour or so. Why? Because BILL CLINTON was in town, that’s why. Yeah. So the former president is on a Haiti rebuilding taskforce thing and he was making a stop in Leogane – he came here for two reasons – one was to see a temporary shelter that an organization called CHF made (and will be mass producing throughout Haiti) and the second was to draw more attention to Leogane, a town that needs a lot of help. Being that it was the epicenter of the earthquake, some 90% of the city was destroyed. So the shelter he was checking out is literally right across the street from the HODR base (and the slab the t-shelter is on was cleared by HODR, too)! So the Sri Lankan UN had been outside our base all day and then, closer to his arrival, more UN vehicles came in. When Clinton himself arrived, about 20 UN cars with Secret Service people in them came. It was a pretty weird site to see. He had a brief meeting and press conference and, on his way out, he stopped and said hi to the HODR volunteers. I got to shake his hand! Lunch was definitely eventful today and going back to work in the afternoon was tough. The afternoon went well – we got more Bobcat action.

In just the last two weeks or so, the number of volunteers has been fluctuating like crazy. We’ll get lots of new volunteers coming in everyday and different ones leaving everyday. The number of people on base is also really high. HODR’s max capacity is 100 volunteers at a time (we’re around 120 now) and they’re fully booked until the end of the project but they allow volunteers that are already here to stay longer if the want and if you’ve been here once, you can come back at any time later in the project (which is a good thing, I think). So there are more people at the project at all times. At the meeting tonight there were around a dozen new people. There are just a lot more short-term people that will come in for a week or so and then are gone. Now I don’t discount there work at all – any amount of time one is able to commit helps. That being said, the crowdedness of base and all the people who don’t know the rules and such makes for a more stressful living situation. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I’m super glad I’m taking my break on Friday. It’s called a “mental health break” for a reason.

I’m looking forward to working real hard these next couple of days and then taking off for my weekend in the DR.

Love,

Daniel