Haiti Team Journal (Part 8)

Thursday, March 28 

Again, up for breakfast at 7:15. 

At 8:15, we left to go help pour a cement floor in a house. United Christians International has been instrumental in providing homes with cement floors. Since JeanJean grew up without a cement floor and has seen what can happen as a result (tapeworm, etc.), it is a particular passion of his. 

We stopped to pick up cement powder, loaded it in a dump truck, and then loaded ourselves in the back of the dump truck as well! 

Below is Sanessa's account of the dump truck experience:  

It was cool and overcast when the dump truck pulled clumsily into the tight driveway lined with cacti fences. It was an old beast of a vehicle, no lights, rattling and shaky, making horrible screeching noises over each bump. 

In Canada, if we saw a vehicle like this on the road, we probably would have swerved across four lanes of traffic to avoid it! However, this was Haiti and we were feeling adventurous, so we clambered up the sides and into the belly of the beast. It sounded like a wounded jet starting up and rode just as smoothly; most of us ended up plastered against the floors or walls the moment we started off. 

However, what the trip lacked in comfort, it made up for in entertainment! Children and adults came running as we rattled past, waving in excitement. Some, the older ones, looked at us in confusion, no doubt not used to seeing a dump truck full of white people rolling by through their backyard. But we definitely made the little kids’ day!
 
When we reached our destination, we carried the cement bags up a short hill to the house. We helped mix the cement powder in with the pile of gravel-sand mixture on the ground and water that the women had carried from the river. 

We then formed a bucket brigade to get the cement inside the house;expert Haitian floor-layers trowelled the floor. Two hours later, the job was done. 

In the meantime, the crowd of kids watching became quite intrigued with one of our iphones; they couldn't get enough of getting their pictures taken and then viewing them. 

By the time we left, they had done their fair share of singing and counting (even in English!) just so they could get a video of themselves doing that. 

When we were finished we climbed back in the dump truck for the ride home; it delivered us right to the front door of the guest house! 

After lunch, some of us cleaned up various parts of the compound and others spent the afternoon painting the elementary school. Later we went to check out a mommy pig and her 5 little 5-week old piglets; she was tied to a tree, but her piglets were allowed to run free. Then we played volleyball and had supper. 

At supper, Al opened the butter dish to butter his bread, but found a tarantula instead! 

Thanks guys! 

After that we filled bags for Easter gifts for local children. Then, after collecting bugs to feed the pet tarantula we crawled into bed. 
Written by M. Roseboom