A Long Week

Let's see....what has happened since Port-au-Prince on Monday? On Tuesday I painted the shelving unit I made for the kitchen and then we put it in place. I think it should work fine and will hopefully give some more space to store things in. After that I used the plasma cutter to cut steel sheets that are used to construct a filter mold. That takes a little while since I want to make sure I don't mess anything up because the price of steel is extremely expensive.

On Wednesday I spent the whole day replacing a tin roof on one of our buildings. It had been used as a platform to haul concrete to the roof for the dorm building. In the process, people had stepped where they shouldn't have and concrete was also spill on parts of the roof. When it rained, the roof would leak, so I replaced a section of the roof with new tin.

Part Of The Roof That Needed Replaced

Some of the workers here were clearing some of the trees so the telephone pole could be put up. They had tied a couple roped together and had it around one of the trees they were cutting with a machete. As Chris and a couple other guys started to pull as the tree was getting close to falling, the rope snapped and we all watched the tree slowly fall into the neighbors property and onto the roof of one of his buildings. Not a good thing, but we are pretty good friends with them so it should be alright. We just stood there for a second and everyone looked at each other, and then we started to laugh. There wasn't much else we could do and it was a little funny to watch.

Chris and Leslie mentioned that coffee beans are very cheap here. One of the things they do is buy the beans, have them roasted, and then send them back with people that visit Clean Water for Haiti. It helps to raise some money for the mission, but the main reason is for people to hear what is going on here. It is a good way for people who come to visit to take something back and share their story with friends, family, coworkers, their church, etc.

Fresh Roasted Coffee

On Thursday, Chris and I headed back to Port because his brother, Ben, was coming to visit for a few days. I drove from Pierre Payen to our first stop in Port. I'm getting more comfortable driving and learning what I can and shouldn't do. I did "bump" one of the stray dogs that roams the streets. Usually they will get out of the way and you can just keep going. I slowed down a little, but this dog moved slow and then we heard a whimper. Chris got out an looked, but the dog was off to the side of the road. I'm guessing I just bumped it....who knows. Ben's plane ended up being delayed about four hours, so we ended up getting quite a few errands ran while before he got in.

On Friday we took it kinda easy since Ben was visiting. We changed the tires on one of our vehicles and got a load of cinder blocks. At night we visited Dave and Judy and had rhubarb pie that Leslie had made. Chris asked his brother to bring rhubarb with him since you can't get it in Haiti. I had never had rhubarb pie before....it was very good.