A New Mission Project in Haiti – The poorest country in our Hemisphere

We (Peter Kikot & Andrew Topp with International Humanitarian Aid Foundation) are in the midst of creating a fresh new home for girls called Consolation Center in southern Haiti. We are already helping homeless girls, currently aged 5-15, just outside of Les Cayes, in the area known as Turbec. Like the predecessor boys orphanage (Project Hope), this one is a very modest beginning. Managed by a husband and wife team (Eduard- who “graduated” from the original orphanage, and his wife Dejuene), the current rented facility provides daily meals for their fifteen in-house children and an additional twenty-five transient street children with no other means of support. The group of indigenous fifteen girls is fully supported with food and shelter, clothing/school uniforms (and education at an adjacent Christian school). All of these mission activities are supported on a mere $2500/month or less.

Pastor Andy has come up with a design for a housing facility for up to 50 girls, to be built on a piece of property that has been donated to Eduard and his wife Djeune. The total construction cost of the primary dormitory buildings will be $54,000.00. The bulk of this cost is for materials as most of the labor will be volunteer. This is the first phase of construction and is the most important to get started. We are seeking funding for the other phases of this humanitarian project, which will total $100,000.00 to build complete.

We are very interested in not only providing a safe and nurturing home for the girls we take in, but also provide them with essential life skills, education, and spiritual care.

If there are individuals, Rotary Clubs, Interact Clubs, churches and other organizations that would be interested in supporting this project, with finances as well as hands on help, their participation would be welcome.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. As such, the suffering of so many people there, especially children, is mind-boggling. Yet we can make a difference, and indeed, some already have. While, the investment here is relatively small, the overall benefit to the girls currently living on the street and the good will it generates is enormous! Just read some of the girls stories below to see the kind of difference that has been made already. God is Good!

Stories of the current residents of Consolation Center, as translated from Creole by Eduard Constant:

Brisline Jean :
She was born in 2001,Brisline Father’s left the family since she was born. Brisline doesn’t know her Dad but he still alive says people. She has 5 siblings, her Mom Can’t provide them food she left them with their 73 years old Grand Mother .Her Grand Mother heard about consolation home for girls she came and asked to receive all of them unfortunately, we do not have enough place and want to give a chance another need.

Dadine Jean:

We accepted her little sister Dadine Jean who was born in 2003.They are doing well at school and look very healthy.Same stories to her sister

Samorah Pierre:

Was born in 2003; she is the youngest of 4 brothers, 2 sisters

Her parents’ can’t afford to take care of her .They gave her to someone else where she works as a slave all day. She has to clean the house, carry head a bookit of water .A morning, we saw her cried she was asking to stay .Now she is with us , he is doing well at school and stay good hard work kid.

Sandra Calixte :

She was born in 2003; since she was born her parents left her and run to Dominican Republic and never come back. She stayed with her Aunt who doesn’t have a job Sandra was very anemic, weak and colorful hair when she came him .now she is a very quiet kid who loves to draw.

Manoucheca Sinal :

We don’t have a lot of details about her age but she says she is 5 years old

Her parents died in Gonaive during the hurricane. A Lady from les Cayes took her, later his husband kicked her out because she eats too much.

Daniela Calixte:

Daniela was born in May 2003, she is the 6th in her family with 7 kids who never go to school because the parents are too poor to afford that she is with us since September to go to school. Daniel is very happy to be with us

Sophonie Calixte:

Was born in 2004 same story with her older sister Daniela

Litane Etienne:

She was born in 2000 at Maniche, she was abandoned by her Mom and stayed with her mother in law. She worked as a slave, she was a malnourish kid, she was too weak to work the mother in law kicked her out. I am doing a humanitarian mission field where I met her in the street. I took her to the hospital where she stayed for 3 months for treatment. Now she is start school and doing therapy.

Tamara Wagnac:

She was born in 2004; she used to be a prisoner of her drug edict Father.Her Mon run a way in 2003.

Yousline Renaudin :

She is 5 years old , she was dropped with her birth certificate by someone on from of our gate. She said having three other sisters

Merisianne Jean Pierre:

She was born in 2004, She is a very good girl; She used to stay in the corner to ask for money or food to take care of two oldest sisters handicaps .Merisianne’s parents are category of mental handicap but Merisianne is healthy says the Doctor .

Edline Paul:

She is 10 years old she was abused by for money to buy food .She was recommended to us by the Mayor. A friend on mine who is a psychologist visits her twice per month. She made a lot of progress, now she is more happy than the passed

Lora Benoit :

She was born in June 1998 she is the oldest girls of consolation home. Lora doesn’t know his Dad she stayed with her single Mom since she was born. Lara Mom came around to consolation home offered her service just to find some foods to take home. One day she came with Lora and the little sister Yvenise the were enjoyed to be at consolation house and refused to go back because they find free foods joys of the girls now they become a member of our family.

Yvenise Zamy :

She was born in August 2006 same story with her older sister Lora

(A Note From Eduard…)

I send you these photos of Christian (below) that my

wife Djoune founded this little boy abandoned by himself under a bridge At Fond des Blancs .Djoune took Chris to the judge to legalize his case then took him to hospital where he spent 3 months. We do not have any in formations about his blood family. Since august 2008 he is with us at (mother in law house) I send you the photo # 210 that I take from now to compare to the ones that I took when we founded him.

Proposed new home of Consolation Center

Donations can be made to:

International Humanitarian Aid Foundation, Inc.

P.O.Box 13

Midland Park, NJ 07432

Or at: www.IHAF.us

Please designate “Consolation Center”

Proposed Budget Plan for Girls Orphanage Project in Haiti

Run by Eduard and Djeune Constant

For 50 Girls and some guardians

Phase I

4 – 40 foot containers @ 2,000.00 each    8,000.00

4 – 20 foot containers @ 1,500.00 each    6,000.00

Delivery = 500.00 each -            2,000.00

Masonry footings – 800.00 ea. X 8 =     3,600.00

Metal cutting equipment -             3,000.00

Welding supplies-                2,000.00

Miscellaneous – (screening, paint, etc)     400.00

Sub-total-                    25,000.00

Phase II

Build masonry base of compost house,

add toilets, sink, solar exhaust-        10,000.00

Equip housing with Bunk beds, desks,chairs 6,000.00

Equip Kitchen with gas stoves, sinks, etc    3,000.00

Solar power system for lighting and electric    10,000.00

Phase two sub-total                29,000.00

Phase III

Build roofing system -             25,000.00

Out door tables, benches, play area    10,000.00

Classroom/study/Chapel            10,000.00

Complete Project Total            99,000.00

The above prices are primarily for materials. Most labor is assumed donated/volunteer except for masonry work.

Respectfully submitted, Rev. Andrew J. Topp

Haiti – 6-08

The start of another mission project—this one seems a bit more special again, full of anticipation.  A lot of things have fallen into place in spite of some other difficulties in my life.  Our Compost House should be almost complete, hopefully waiting only for the final touches I have to add, also some of the most important components, solar panels for power, batteries for storage of electric, and exhaust fans to maintain a constant negative air pressure in the composting tanks.  I will be relieved when it is finally all together and operational!  I can’t believe that I am actually anxious to see the compost house produce its first load of digested human waste!  Pure compost!  I am hoping that Fr. Marc has begun to accumulate a supply of dry sawdust and other deciduous material, it will be a key component to get it running and to keep it running.
An additional and exciting component of this trip, (and yes, even though these trips are a lot of work, they are also exciting), is that I am meeting Jim –the well driller from Michigan, to learn how to drill wells with the used drilling rig he helped to acquire and send down to us.  At the Rotary Water Summit in Dec. 07, I met some Rotarians that are involved in replacing and repairing many of the hand pumps that are around the country.  These pumps, the India Mark II, are known to be durable and yet simple to operate.  Many were installed throughout the country by USAID and by the UN and others 30 -40 years ago and now some of those need repairs or replacement.  When I knew we were going to be drilling our own wells, I also knew a few of these pumps would come in handy for us as well.  Upon contacting these Rotarians, we struck up what I hope will be a wonderful bargain for both of us, they will give us 4 pumps if we will drill a well at another orphanage that is currently using very polluted water for all their water needs.  Right now, I am planning on renting a pickup truck in Port Au Prince, driving to Leogane where I will meet Albert, who will give me what pumps will fit in my truck, teach me how to assemble them, and then show me where they would like to drill a well.  From there, the plan is to drive to Pwoje Espwa, in Cayes, spend the next 10 days or so drilling, learning to drill, installing a pump, finishing the compost house, etc. A lot of work, but extremely valuable stuff!
Just finished writing the progress report for our Rotary Sanitation Grant, only trouble is, we have a few gaps to fill to account for the $28,000.00 that was spent so far and we only have one almost finished compost house to show for it, out of the 5 we were hoping to build.  We have had a bunch of other necessary, sanitation related expenses come up along the way, that now we have to justify in that report.  PAPERWORK!  THERE IS ALWAYS PAPERWORK!  Oh well, that’s the way it is.  Battery getting low, and we should be close to PAP.  See you again soon!   Au revoir!

Thursday, May 29, 2008   As I figured, its been a crazy couple of days.  Finally feel like we are making a little progress.  Went through shipping and customs procedures with Dominique on Monday afternoon, talked about the status of our Haitian Franchise status, and about all the different facets of the project at Espwa.   I needed to stop in Leogane to pickup a few India Mark II pumps, hand powered water pumps, and look at where they want to drill a well.  We went back and forth on how much it would be to rent a vehicle and what kind of vehicle, I really wanted to rent a pickup truck so I could easily load the pumps.  I mentioned that I really should look at buying a combination pickup/passenger, guess what?  Dominique has one and was thinking about selling it!  Over dinner we agreed on a fair price, and now its here!!   It runs great, although we did have a bit of a problem with one of the drive axles, but Dominique had a new one flown to us yesterday and we replaced it today.
Yesterday was quite frustrating with the truck breaking, not having everything we needed to start drilling wells, went into town three times to pickup parts and supplies, a water tank, etc.  Have a bunch of things to fix, the turbine is all tied up with kite string, neither grey water pump is working, some of the electric wiring has been messed with and needs to be corrected.  I keep calling Peter Kikot giving him more and more things to bring down, things we cant get here and things we need if we want to complete some of the things we have planned.  All day long I hear kids calling my name, guess I have been coming here for a while now and the kids really love to see people that care enough to keep coming back.  Of course some of the ones who are now learning English well enough occasionally get up the courage to ask for stuff that they think they need.  Its kind of interesting to see how creative they can be.

Tomorrow should be interesting, have a few things to fix on the drill rig before we continue drilling the well we finally started this afternoon.  We hope to get this well drilled, the well casing set, and prepped for a submersible pump.  Then we have to re do a bunch of the wiring that was disconnected when the local “electrician” ran his new undersized wire to all the kids houses.  Oh well, three steps forward two steps back.  A bit tired by this time tonight, guess I will sign off for now, socialize a little and then hit then hit the sack.  Until tomorrow,  AJT

Sunday, 7 AM.  A few tomorrows have gone by since I wrote last.  Well drilling has been going slower than its supposed to—seems the high percentage of clay kind of gums up the drilling bit and actually slows it down, but finally yesterday around noon we hit the bedrock and drilled into it about 5 feet, about 75 feet down.  The well casing will go down to there and then the smaller drill will go a bit deeper to where we will draw water from.   Jim had hoped to have that well finished yesterday but for some reason the mud pump lost its prime we have not been able to get it started again.  We think we have a solution that we will try after Mass and lunch today.
Peter Kikot arrived Friday 5:30 or so in the middle of a heavy rainstorm, so heavy that they pulled the fire truck out to the end of the runway with it lights on to guide the plane in! He looked really funny carrying that pink laptop bag for Nancy, one of the secretaries here!  Its good to have him down here, he works well and we have a good time together.
Of course the C/V drive joint on the other side of the “new” truck we just bought broke on Friday, Dominique was very good about ordering another one and having it flown here on the same plane as Peter.  Now the truck should be in reasonably good shape—except, the horn stopped working now, I found a broken wire yesterday that has to be soldered, I’ll fix that later.  I think Peter is a bit amazed to see all 600 or so kids eating at one time.  It is quite a sight with their 600+  silver metal plates and spoons, for lunch yesterday they had large sweet potatoes in some type of  spicy oily gravy. It actually smelled quite good!  I have been letting Peter use my camera, he forgot his and I like to see what kind of photos he takes and what things catch his eye.
Everywhere we go, especially on the weekends when kids don’t have school, there are a few kids, or a bunch, that follow us around.  I was showing Peter some of the property and where our drainage ditch goes, the river, etc.  4 or 5 kids where with us, asking us names, when are we going back to the US (they always ask that—I think they want to know how long they have to see you).  We started taking photos and videos with my camera, one of them showed us he can do a standing flip!  So we got some really good photos of him in the air! Cool!  Well- actually its been quite warm and humid, thank goodness for the fan in my room, I stayed up a bit later last night just so that I would sleep extra soundly and hopefully not notice the heat.
The kids are up so early every morning.   5 or 5:30 I start hearing them talking and playing, so we are usually up pretty early around here.  Its usually a good cooler time to be up,  yesterday morning, before breakfast, about 6, I got geared up with my home made safety harness and tools, climbed the 50 foot turbine tower and removed a mile of kite string that was all jammed into it.  It still is not working right but it also has not been windy enough to check what other short or un balance might be in it.  Something else to do later today, if I have time.
Finally got photos to load so I will include a few here- then breakfast should be ready, church after that!   Hope everything at home is ok, one more week to go!  Until later,  Andy

Sunday Evening, even though we didn’t start working till after chapel, about 10:30, it still feels like a really long day.  Jim finally finished drilling the first well, although did not get the mud pump running very well, ended up using a smaller one he had brought with him.  Still have to flush the well a bit to remove as much sediment and rock particles as possible, then it will be ready to install a submersible pump.  Tomorrow we will get the rest of the wire we need to power the pump from the line that comes from the quad here.  Peter and I spent time first replace all the broken shut off shower valves and faucets at the wash house this afternoon then  cut the angle iron frames for the solar panels for the compost house.    Tiwa started welding them together until it got dark and we couldn’t see anymore.  Finally quit around 7:30, took showers and had dinner.   Watched a movie and now most are in bed!   We had no electricity all day today,  even the batteries were dead, Peter took some time today to clean all the terminals, found the fuse from the turbine was almost broken so we need a new one of those,  the turbine seems to be working fine now. And the batteries should take and give better power.
So often today, it just seemed like we were swarmed with kids who wanted to be near, mobs jumped on the pickup truck numerous times as I drove around the property picking up gravel or tools for the work, it got a little out of hand until Francois took off his belt!  You should have seen all the kids dive off that truck!  Well, I am beat, time for bed, not to mention I am getting eaten alive again, since I am trying to sit out closer to the internet connection.  Bon nuit.   Andy

Wow, That is some flip!  And what a flip its been in the work we have done and the impressions that have been made on us in the short time we have been in Haiti.  It is now Sat. night, June 7.   Peter and I have been in transit since 6 am.  Flew out of Cayes at 7, Picked up be Jean Garry in Port au Prince.  We had several extra hours so we took Peter on a tour of PAP.   He was quite impressed, could not believe how many people were crammed and milling, desperately trying to sell something, anything, to make a few gourdes for the day.  The dirt, garbage, smells, sweat, burning garbage, burning sun, horns, hollers, nakedness, poverty, begging, strength, and beauty all mix to give one a feeling that most never experience—until you come here or somewhere as desperate and struggling as here.
Now we are in Miami airport, another change.  Should be used to it by now, don’t think one single thing that we planned on doing happened the way we planned it.  Why would our flight home be any different?!  Our flight to JFK was canceled so we have been re-routed thru Miami,  good thing is, we sweet talked the good natured check in girl and we are flying first class from here.    That will be a first!  We still don’t board for another hour or so.
To summarize the past few days,  here goes,  Peter and Tiboss put together the solar panel array for the compost house according to the specs I gave them,  it looks really cool!  And Fr. Marc even thinks its welded in the framework strong enough that noone will steal it!  I went over the design for the exhaust fans for the compost house with Tiboss, as well as the battery/control closet with the mason, and also the sink and water tank layout.  Obviously we are not getting to finish and start operation of the compost house just yet, but the end is getting near!  I will most likely have to go down again in 2-3 weeks to do the final install, and then we can begin composting!
Jim finally finished the first well!! With the drilling rig.  There were the typical combination of “Haitian” setbacks and it took more like one week to drill a well that Jim first thought would take one or two days to drill.  After the whole process was complete, we estimated we will most likely always experience similar problems, both with the equipment we are working with as well as the type of ground we are drilling in, lack of adequate water supply, and lack of repair parts etc.  and we should plan on one week per well.  Jim is hoping to drill one more well before he has to go home.  I am pretty sure Kevin and I know enough to drill one on our own later on if necessary, especially if they get the large mud pump working better than it was.

Back in Haiti again!  Have been here 6 days now and this is the first chance I have had to write.  Spent all day Monday traveling, first by air then by car from Port au Prince to Les Cayes.  The solar panels I brought down for the compost house would not have made it with me on the small plane and I needed to make two stops on the way.  One at an orphanage in Grand Goave that has asked for help with its water supply, “Servants of All”, and the second stop was to find a girl who was approved for Gift of Life heart surgery last year.  Her mom had tried once to get her visa, was denied because she did not have the right documents, but apparently is so poor and a little bit slow or afraid, was not able to follow up properly to put together what they needed.  We tried to contact them numerous times with no success, although a family friend at Mt. Sinai said they were still hoping to get her here for surgery.  I came armed with new letters from the hospital and the doctors office and from GOL to see what I could do.  My driver, Jean Garry, was very helpful in finding her place.  We arrived in Petit Goave in the dark, her street and house was supposed to be somewhere behind the Catholic Church.  We wove our way through numerous streets blocked with mounds of dirt and gravel, others washed out.  No street signs anywhere.  Jean Garry asked at least a dozen people for directions and when we got close we started asking if anyone knew her.  The last guy we stopped responded with, “are you here for her chart?” (somehow I knew that’s what he said, even though my Creole is almost non-existent!)  At first Jean Garry said no, he thought the man misunderstood what he asked, so I interrupted him and told him, “wait, if he thinks we are here for her chart, he must know of her—and if she has a new chart, maybe we are here for her chart!”  Turns out, this man not only knew her, but is the one who has been helping her get examined and put her chart together!  She lives just up the street on the corner!    The house, if you can call it that, just looks like some sheet metal stood up against a wall with people living behind it.  According to her records, her father is deceased, don’t know why yet.  We find the girl and her mom just kinda hanging out there with some other people and begin trying to ascertain if it really is her and if they are still interested and able to come to the US for life saving heart surgery.  It seems like they are.  The neighbor friend, Joseph, is most helpful, apparently mom, Paulonne, is a little slow or just so unfamiliar with what to do, she really needs help.  Schmide, (pronounced Schmeed) is quiet and a bit shy, but as I find out later, is not so shy that she cant ask for what she wants!  I promise to see what can be done to set up an appointment at the Embassy for Thursday or Friday.  Jean Garry agrees to call Joseph to let him know when to be in Port au Prince.
The road to Les Cayes has not improved much in the 3 or 4 years since I last rode on it!  It takes us a total of 5 ½ hours to go 120 miles!  Between traffic and the many sections of road that are dirt, full of potholes, or almost washed out completely, it is a mixture of driving as fast as possible when the road is good, to crawling over and around the many obstacles!  Jean Garry has not yet been to the “farm” so once we get into Cayes, I direct him thru the city to the exit from the road, down our mile long gravel, rutted, road/driveway!  Dan welcomes us, and heats up some rice and beans for these two tired and hungry travelers, its late, so everyone else is in bed.  Jean Garry eats, and then turns around to drive back home, which is not quite as far as Port au Prince.

Tuesday brings what has now become the usual smattering of frustrations and joys.  The grey water pump in the kids neighbor hood is not working again, I assume it is clogged with debris but also discover that someone has removed the steel cover we had bolted to the concrete wall, protecting the connection (and anyone who might touch it), the outlet is hanging out of its box, and the connections on it look dark from shorting out when it rains and gets wet.  Later I have Dan call Maurice, who is supposed to be doing electrical work, to come, remove the pump, clean it, repair the outlet etc.  We did that whole routine a few months ago, and I am pretty sure he can handle it on his own this time.  I am most interested right now on trying out the new “Feri pump”, a compressed air power water pump.  Kevin Scobey (Scoobey for short) and I pull out the gas powered air compressor, dig thru our supplies for fittings we will need, and set out finding enough of the right size pipe—that is anything but an easy task, takes about 2 hours of asking a dozen people for the current location of various tools, keys to get to the tools,  etc.  finally have enough materials put together to try out this pump, but then the question is where?  This kind of pump works best in a deeper well, it can be used in shallow applications but you need to have a special timer hooked up to your compressor as well.  We first try it in the one pond they are using a trash pump in for irrigation, not deep enough, the Feri pump sends large sprays of water 50 feet into the air, but its not a steady stream like we want.  We then go in search of a deeper well, there are several hand dug wells around the fields and property, but we cant find anything deeper than about 20 feet.  We calculate we need at least 50 or 60 feet to make this work properly—I told the company in Australia that makes the pump we would be using it at 70 – 100 feet and they said this should work well at that depth.  I am planning on using it at the north neighborhood in conjunction with a series of solar panels, wind turbine, composting toilets, 12 volt lighting and fans—hopefully all independent of the power grid.
By now its getting late, so we decide to try it in the morning at the kids neighborhood where we know we have a well that is 60 feet deep.  We will just have to pull the electric pump out, insert this one, and if it works well, we may install it there permently.  The pump  that’s there now is not pumping enough water to fill the 500 gallon tank that’s there, (there were two tanks, but you may recall one was hit by lightening a few weeks after we installed it).    We take some time to look at the existing well pump near the quad, it runs almost constantly, is something of a large contraption, originally designed to run on pedal power, solar, or battery, or converted city/generator power.  It has been repaired and modified numerous times and currently something is leaking badly on it again.  Its one of the reasons I am going to insist that we install a back up well and pump as soon as possible- when this pump quits for good, we will be struggling until we get something else in place.  I learn some other difficult news in discussing this pump with Marc, some time ago, part of the pump was pulled out of the well for repairs and apparently the well casing collapsed about 30 feet down.  It had been drilled to 120 feet and had fairly good water, but now we are only drawing from 30 feet, mostly ground water, and there is no way I can use the Feri pump in this location if we had to.
Anyway, the joys for the day were seeing the kids again.  Michael, that used to carry my back pack is now really big and likes to help me when he is not in school, Scoobey has a group of 8 or 10 boys that he has been working with in the metal shop, cutting, welding, etc.  they made a forge to heat metal from scratch that uses a bicycle pedal to run it, they are making an elaborate gate for the front entrance, and soon they will begin to work on making the large clean out doors for the compost house.  That was another joy,  To see the progress of the compost house that I designed and drew was pretty cool.  Some of the construction details are not quite as we discussed in October, but they are putting a fair amount of Portland cement in the concrete mix and they are filling the lower walls solid, so I am fairly confident it will be a good sturdy structure for its purpose.  First floor is almost finished and the second floor is going up!  The exhaust pipe size is too small, and they are missing one, I discuss it with Jr., not sure he fully understands, but I know we can adjust that later.
Another plus to the day is the visit by a representative from the Farmer to Farmer program, a Dr. Darma something.  He is doing a very thorough job examining all the plants and planting practices and later has several serious talks with all the guys involved in the farming and nursery planning and implementation.   Number one issue is irrigation.  “There is no point in calling this a farm if you don’t have irrigation” he said.  The guys are doing some irrigation but its sporadic at best.  One of the items on my list of things to do is to come up with a viable project that we can apply for a matching grant—obviously it has to be irrigation, combined with drilling more wells and buying more pumps.  I am jumping ahead for a moment, on Saturday afternoon, after the water summit was complete, John Johnson, myself and Dominique (a Haitian women who we met at the conference who may be able to help us with clearing containers thru customs) had John Garry drive us to the Double Harvest Farm to take a look at their practices.  WOW, what a huge project and its easy to see why they are the main supplier of produce for all of the Port au Prince area.  They use a lot of hydroponics for their seedings and they use an incredible huge drip irrigation system for all of their farming.  The produce that we saw growing, they have about 100 acres of it, all look large and healthy.  They have a 300 foot deep well and huge water pumps, a 250,000 gallon back up water tank/pool, all kinds of equipment, buildings, etc.  The manager of the place told us in the few minutes we spoke, “one of the most important things when working in Haiti, is to have a back up for everything”.  I had been discussing that same thing with Darma concerning our own well pumps.  I am not sure that we can put in a complete drip irrigation system at this time, but it definitely is the best way to be growing plants in Haiti.   If anyone knows how to get a very large grant to do that sort of system, it would be the way to go, but until then, we will most likely work with a canal and flood system that Darma and I discussed and he thinks should work just fine for now.
Darma is supposed to be putting together a list of his suggestions and sending me and Dan a copy so we can try to follow up on them.
Needless to say, the amount of work that needs to be done to really make things work well, is incredible.  Yet, I am convinced that it can be done if we can get and keep enough committed people and funding put together.  Darma is also convinced that there is no reason why we cannot feed our own kids all the produce they need from our own land as well as have a sizeable, steady cash crop that would pay for the operation of the farm.  We should not be growing corn at all!  It is not nutritious, is hard on the soil, is not worth anything in the market, and wastes valuable cash crop space.
He also believes that another key initial ingredient that needs work is the field preparation.  None of the guys in charge of the farm management know how to drive the tractor!  None of them really knows how the field should be prepared and the old man that is currently paid to drive the tractor, only knows how to use the triple plow, which should only be used once or so per year on each field.  The disc harrow should be used almost constantly, but by the looks of it and the fields, it has only been used on a few occasions.  We also do not have a furrow making setup—something else to look into when I get home.  Since I do have some experience farming, albeit with horse drawn equipment,(Thank-you Alvin) and I also know how to run the various aspects of the tractor, I volunteer to spend some time on Wed.  teaching these guys some of this stuff.  – Unfortunately, Wed. starts off with torrential rains and flooding, so all tractor plans are post poned.
Wed.= tons of rain and flooding overnight into the morning, when it breaks a little, Kevin and I decide to try to air driven pump in the well in the kids neighborhood.  We get down there, all set up, try to pull out the existing pump—-and its stuck!  I mean really stuck!  Sand and sediment must have settled in on top of it, hopefully kids have not thrown junk down there, although that thought crosses my mind, but we cannot force it too much, it may break, and then we would have no water for the wash house.  For some reason we are not meant to try this pump just yet.  From what we did see of it pushing water, once we get the pressure balance right, it will produce a lot more water with less energy than any of the conventional electric pumps we are using.  I need to send a note to the guy in Australia that I spoke with a few times to see if he has any other ideas at this time.  We cannot wait to get the well drilling rig out of customs and start drilling real wells and getting pure water!!  I really hope this new contact with Dominique will help and we will be drilling by mid January.  John Johnson is pretty sure his retired well driller friend will come down then for a month to teach a group of our older guys how to run it.
Ok, on to the next thing, I quess it’s a good thing there is no end to the projects that need to be worked on, if one thing hits dead end, there is always something else to do!  Kevin and I decide to take a look at the rotator/rototiller attachment for the tractor.  Bertinee told us the one time Soluk had it hooked up it was smoking, so they haven’t used it since and none of them were sure what to do with it anyway.  We get it all hooked up, make some adjustments to the depth of it and such, and then try tilling in several areas with no problem and no smoking!  Not sure what they were doing wrong but am pretty sure they didn’t have it hooked up correctly.  I spend some time with Kevin at least explaining the farm uses and techniques for each of the attachments, especially the disc harrow (thank-you Alvin) so that when the ground is less soaked, he can work with the farm guys and at least get them started.  That is making a long story short of course,  just wish I could be around more to see the farming and field prep thru.
Next, Maurice informs me that the main switch on the generator burned up yesterday and we cannot use it until we install another one.  He has found a used one in town, the connections are not quite the right size and he is not sure how to mount it or hook it up.  We spend a few hours mounting it, and adapting it to fit our needs but eventually we get it up and running.  Hopefully it will last a while!

We finish out the day by going to the Rotary meeting to talk to them about applying for another grant.   They seem positive enough, but apparently their district has adopted a new policy that all grants have to be submitted in writing, fully filled out to them and to their district rep. To be approved by both before signing.  This will definitely slow things down, for some reasons, Haitians seem to love paper work, just for the sake of paper work!  I talk to Jack on line later and we decide to proceed with the application anyway asap and keep our fingers crossed.
Thursday—have to head to Port au Prince for the water summit around 12.   Nick, a young guy that volunteered at Espwa for a while now runs the Norwich Mission house in Petionville. I hear the place is nice, not sure what the guesthouse John Johnson has found is like, so I plan on checking out Nicks place and possibly staying there for my three nights in Port au Prince area.  Later, when JohnGarry picks me up, I make contact with John, stop at his quest house, a Methodist place, not too crazy about the neighborhood, so on to Nicks place.  Nick is glad to see me, the place is very nice, up on a hill, a good wall around the property, reasonable rates, so I decide to stay there.  I have some time to kill before going out to dinner with Nick and some others from there, it’s the first time I feel like I can and probably should relax.  They have a very friendly playful German shepherd, Tarma.  Have a great time with her in between catching up on email and working on this journal!  Two young guests arrive who are businessmen from Fla. Who have started a company using older donated sails from sailboats, that initially they were giving to poor fisherman to help them with their trade.  Now they get so many sails donated, they decided they can make some really great handbags from these and sell them in the US and beyond, donating part of the proceeds back to areas that need it.  They are here to see who could manage things here and have the bags made by local people here—definitely entrepreneurial types.  They also say they would like to make a donation to Theos work, I give them our info—we shall see!

Friday, Jean Gary picks me up around 8, too early really, but he cant seem to understand that the appointment is at 11, he has already told Joseph and Schmide to be there by 830, so I hope they may let us in early to the US consulate.  We meet them in front of the consulate, not far from the Presidents palace.  Have to go around the back of the building to “gate 3”, its really just a door!  There are already about 100 people back there waiting on line to get an appointment.  I check with the guard at the door, sure enough we are on the list for 11 and the guard says we cannot go sooner!  By now Jean Gary has left to go to the airport to pick someone up, so we head out on a brief tour of the central square and some photos by the palace.  We see a playground in a park, I can tell Schmide wants to check it out, but she is too shy to ask, or maybe its that she is all dressed up for this occasion and doesn’t want to get her dress dirty!  We sit in the shade nearby as I see her repeatedly glancing towards the playground, I finally say, come on, lets check it out!  She has fun climbing around, but obviously doesn’t have much muscle to climb across the monkey bars.  Back by her mom, a woman selling Piti, triangles of bread, stops by us, Schmide tells the woman she will take one, she only has 5 gourdes that I had just given her after a magic trick and it costs 10 gourdes, about 30 cents.  Immediately she says no thanks and the woman starts to leave, but of course I stop her and offer the extra—Schmide is very happy and shares with her mom.
We get back to the embassy in time for our appointment only to wait with the crowd, must be 200 now, for our name to be called.  Apparently people kinda struggle to get near the front of the crowd to have their Ids chosen to be put on a list who will later be called in for interviews.  Not everyone is chosen and around 1130 I see the guard tell the crowd, that’s it for today, they are not taking anyone else.  We finally get called in around 1230!  After several meetings with 2 different agents there, we receive her visa approval about 230!  Yeah!!  We go look for Jean Gary who is now waiting out in front, tell him the good news, explain to them they have to pick up their passports and visa next week.  Mom and Shmide give me hugs and kisses along with Joseph who offers heartfelt thanks, it feels good to have done this, all the waiting was worth it.
Now I can go to the water summit meeting!  The summit meeting at the Montana hotel, the best Hotel in Port au Prince, is well attended, maybe 300 people from Rotary groups, church groups, government reps, NGO’s etc. , both Haitian and non-Haitian.   A goal is set to provide pure drinking water to the entire country in the next 10 years. It would be more accurate to say that the goal is provide a way for everyone to purify their drinking water  thru a system of building, donating and /or selling water purifiers to every school first and then every home.  Many people will still be getting their water from rivers, ponds, shallow wells of polluted ground water, and sometimes even puddles!  We hope to be able to supply pure water from our deep wells once we have them in place.  The information is helpful to us, but we may be more helpful to those in Southern Haiti at least, if we soon have the capability to drill deeper, more pure wells for others around us.  Then the only concern will be that people transport and store the water in clean containers.
As I mentioned earlier, after the conference was over on sat. John, Dominique and I go check out Double Harvest.  On the way back Dominique says she needs to get back to take her daughters and some friends to an outdoor concert in Port Au Prince in the large public area near the palace.  I had heard about it, some of the people at Norwich house were hoping to go.  The crowds are predicted to be huge, the artists are two very popular rap guys, Akon and Jean Wyclef.  Last time, 10 years ago, when a concert like this was held, it turned into a huge riot, Wyclef had to stop after 20 minutes, many people got hurt and it was a mess.  So this is going to be a huge thing, that I was planning on staying away from!  Dominigue wants to know if I would like to go, apparently she has some sort of VIP passes so they won’t be in the midst of the crazy crowd. I have heard so much about this thing at this point, I say, “what the heck, might as well check it out!”.  We stop for a quick dinner, leave John Johnson with Jean Garry, and head to pick up her daughters and friends who are hanging out at the Montana.  Turns out her VIP passes are pretty good!  Once we get down town, park by a nearby friends house, work our way thru the huge crowds up towards the stage area, we push thru the barricades, the police let us thru, and then go up to the balcony of a hotel that the band has reserved, about 75 yards from the stage!  Akon body guard/manager greets us up there and invites us to help ourselves to food and drinks,  before long her daughters want to get closer and head, with their passes, to the VIP stage, only about 25 yards from the main stage!  I guess we have no choice but to follow, so back down into even more of a crowd, and then up on the stage!  The concert in largely sponsored by Voila, one of the two cell phone companies here.  Dominique greets the owner or chief manager of the phone company on the stage, we stand next to him! A little while later, a woman and her daughter, very well dressed, stand next to me on the other side, Dominique says Hello, and tells me it is the Presidents woman!   The concert is awesome, Akon and Wyclef are really good, (and I never liked rap!) but they have a really good message for the crowd.  They compliment the crowd on the progress the country has made and encourage them to keep it up!  Its up to them to change this country and to make it all they know it can be!  The crowd seems to love the whole experience and message, at one point Akon repeatedly crowd surfs while singing, has to stop occasionally to pull his pants up that the crowds keep pulling at!  The concert goes from about 730 to well past 1130!  We leave just before the end to avoid the mob exit!  At home, Jack sends me a news report that says more than 100,000 people were there!   Something of an historic event, I would say!  Really cool, and I am really mad I did not bring my camera to it!

Well I think that’s it for now,  I went to bed tired, got to the airport and back home with no problems, even though it was nasty snowy, icy weather at home.  The cold felt good, and now its back to try and make all the great plans and ideas come to fruition!  Once again I appreciate all the support I receive to make this happen and keep up the work at Espwa.  We are truly giving Hope to so many who desperately need it!  Until next time, Ouvwa…   Pastor Andy

I am writing this to you now while we are flying, and I will keep adding to it as I have time, that way when I get an internet connection, it won’t take long to send this off and get you up to date. When I get to the airport I have to first go thru immigration, have to make sure they stamp my passport this time, last time they forgot and then I had a problem leaving, because my passport indicated that I had never been there! After that I need to stand in one of the most unorganized baggage claims areas you have every seen and search for my overweight bags! Then I will proceed thru customs where I will basically lie and downplay whats in my bags, hopefully getting thru without paying taxes on the pumps and tools I am bringing in. If that doesn’t work, then its bribe time, (they call it paying taxes, but it has to be US cash and its funny how it goes in customs guys pockets! )

There are two guys that I will be looking for when I get to this point, the one is Donald who is an older guy who kinda supervises all the guys who try to help with you bags and then want to get paid for their help. If you don’t want to pay someone to help, you have to refuse their help repeatedly or they will just grab your cart or bags, drag them outside and then demand payment. However much you give them, its usually not enough! That’s where Donald helps, he decides who actually helps and you give him the money for everyone and he spreads it out and then gets rid of the guys. Traveling by myself, I am not sure if I will use their help, If I can find Jean Gary quickly enough, I should be fine on my own, he is the driver that is supposed to know I am coming and will bring me over to the other small airport. If a goes well, I should be in Les Cayes by 3 or so, although the proposed flight time of 2PM doesn’t always mean very much. It would not be unusual for that plane to take off an hour or two later.

I know I have been doing this for a while and should be getting used to this, but I am not. Took some photographs on the way here that, if they come out alright, will show you how different things here often are! Marc’s new puppy is very cute, a little rotweiler who at the moment is nothing but sharp teeth and curiosity! I couldn’t help playing with him and having s ablast! I think my battery is running low, so I am going to stop now, put this on charge, and probably continue in the early AM. I am also fading out while I am typing, not a good sign!

I got up at 530, showered, shaved, starting sorting all my stuff. Just went for a walk to take a few photos to send you. I have a new bracelet that one of the guys in the art and craft class made for me as a welcome gift! It says Mr. Andy, in red white and blue woven into black! Right now, the “visitor” kind of people that are here include Daniel, an engineering student- hes here for two months, Dan who is here for two years (coordinates a lot of different things), Pasha and Paige two girls in their twenties I think, who are here, I think for the summer to teach arts and crafts and English. We sat in the courtyard of the quad for awhile, having drinks of rum and sprite on ice! Local grown peanuts that have a special local spice on them, they are a little hot but really good! Finally had dinner, fried rice, Creole style, chicken, plantain, lettuce and tomatoes. Of course ended up doing some magic! Just a few card tricks, broken finger trick, etc. the kids were hilarious trying to figure them out or copy them! It was Jeff’s birthday, he is 13 and for some reason he did not tell any of the other kids, so he was allowed to hang out with us for the evening along with 10 or 12 others, mostly older guys. In the summer, they try to send as many kids as possible to live with whatever extended family they have around, so there are only about 300 kids or so here now. No school other than the arts and crafts and English classes, and whatever ongoing work needs to be done, they are currently starting to build a wall/fence around the property.

They said its supposed to be hot today, as I am sitting here, I can feel the sweat rolling down! Daniel and I are going to start right after breakfast at 7, figuring out the best way to take care of this water problem. It sounds like we will work until11 when it starts getting too hot, and then go to the beach! That should be a trip! You know, we often talk about how difficult it is here and about all the problems, and its true, it is very different than home, but there is a much more relaxed atmosphere here, the kids are great, everyone is working together here to make a huge difference in these kids lives and it really gives you a special feeling to be part of it. Most of the photos are self explanatory, but there is one there of Fr. Marc with Eddie at the hospital, he was hit in the eye with a rock on Thursday, or so the story goes, was brought to the hospital bleeding a lot. He doesn’t look that bad now, but he cant see out of his left eye. I looked at it and can tell he definitely has bleeding behind his lens, that’s why he cant see, supposedly they have a pretty good doctor at this hospital now and he was having another doc. Look at it today, hopefully they have someone that can open it and drain it or he will lose vision in that eye. Well, here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure!

This photo is on the way from Port au Prince to Les Cayes, You can see the one main road that goes from North to South in Haiti

Its Sat. night, ten thirty here. Feels later since everyone gets up 5 or 6 in the AM. The real work will begin in earnest on Monday, I think its good that today started out a little slower, we took time to discuss lots of possible projects and began to prioritize, tomorrow I will have a chance to sit with Fr. Marc and make sure our plans are ok with him, and I need to discuss a few other things with him, one being his hopes for a thousand seat pavilion/Chapel where local people can come also. It will be a tiered open air structure with screen shading over the whole thing. There is some disagreement on where to place it on the property and we need to decide soon, since the money for it has mostly been raised already.

Church (Mass) should be interesting tomorrow, in the past the music has always been led by bongo drummers! That’s it, no other instrument! Needless to say, it is usually very upbeat!

On our tour of the property this morning, (Daniel had not been all the way around yet), I noticed there were no more chickens, when I asked Porsha about it, she explained that it was just economical to raise their own chickens, in order to get fat enough chickens they had to buy American pullets, and then give them special feed which is not readily available here, and the whole process was too expensive. It doesn’t pay to raise local chickens either, even though they don’t need any special feed and are very hardy, they are also quite small and skinny. It works out quite a bit cheaper to just order large quantity frozen chickens from one of the humanitarian food suppliers. Once a week, that’s what they do.
I cant believe how hot it is still. I hope the electric holds up for the night so the fan keeps going! We already had delivered today two big tanks that we will be using to collect waste water before pumping it out towards the stream. Monday we are supposed to be getting the thousand feet of pipe we will need.

Started Sunday out with good news and bad news, Eddie with the damaged eye is starting to see again, thank God the bleeding must be dissapating on its own and they are supposed to release him tomorrow. But there was another 2 year old boy at the hospital that Fr. Marc saw and showed me a photo of, he was left playing in his front yard while his mom went to market, the grandmother went to the back of the house to do laundry or something, while she was there, a loose pig came and ate the boys ears off! You see some of the craziest things in countries like this! Other than that, we had a good Mass this morning, a little girl (maybe 5 or 6yrs.) attached herself to me, sat and played next to me the whole service and eventually fell asleep in my lap. we had a delicious lunch, we had rice, mixed green vegatables, beef that was rolled and cooked with other spices and carrots that they called “strangled chicken” or something like that! Spent time with Marc going over a number of issues, it looks like we start construction on a composting toilet house if I can draw up plans for him. Daniel and I hooked up the backhoe on the tractor and we dug the first drainage tank whole. We had to prepare both tanks before we put them in the ground and now tomorrow we will get that going and then start digging a very long trench for the piping. We are going to try to get to La Mandon tonight to send email. Otherwise tomorrow. Until then, miss you all, be safe, and write soon! Yours, Dad/Andy

Hey all, its now Wed., July 4, 2007, Happy Independence day! I guess we will not have fireworks here. But its plenty hot anyway! We finally finished digging the 1400 feet of trench today and got most of the 2” drain pipe hooked up. Right now Daniel and I are waiting for a car to pick us up to take us to LaMandon to meet with Fr. Marc to go over some of the other projects we will be working on over the next week or so. Another group is coming tomorrow from California, not sure what they are doing. It takes some getting used to, having an audience all day long when you are working. Yesterday and today there was this kid, I guess 12 years old or so, Jean Robert, who hung on the backhoe with me most of the time watching me dig, said he wants to run a backhoe when he gets bigger! The masons finished the first grey water collection tank, I guess it doesn’t matter but we asked for it to be square and it is quite a trapezoid! (not level either, oh well) Just don’t have time to teach them everything. I think our ride should be here soon, just want to add a few photos and then try to send this off again later. Talk with everyone soon! Andy

I can’t believe it is Sunday already again! Finished Chapel a little while ago, sat down to start writing and catching up and Daniel and I were called on because the water pump wasn’t working again. Turns out a weld on the pulley of the motor had broken and the thing sounded like it had a busted piston as it tried to run but couldn’t. Toto says he can fix it and he went to get the necessary parts and welder. There is so much to do here all the time. The list of projects never seems to end. We have a lot of work that we have started to do, that now I feel like we have to finish before I leave, and thank goodness Daniel is staying longer to finish what we don’t and to do other projects. Right now we are concentrating on the larger projects that need both of us and especially the things that I know more of. I am pretty sure we will finish almost everything we have started, but it will be busy. The dental clinic (we are building out of two of the containers that are here) was totally out of the blue as is hooking up the main electric panel here to the quad! — while its Hot no less! Anyway, it all keeps life interesting! This morning Dan (the other one who kinda coordinates things here), asked how long he can extend my stay for? I told him that is probably not possible right now!

Yesterday, one of the new girls, Kelly, who was staying here at Castel Pere, decided to move elsewhere—to Mr. Alexander’s where there is A.C. and it’s a little more civilized, and you cant hear the Voodoo drums at night. Its funny, but the night before, Kelly and one or two others were asking all kinds of questions about voodooism and seemed really fascinated, but I guess it got to her when the power went out in the middle of the night, was very dark, and quiet except for the drums.

Took a walk after dinner last night, spaghetti, which was very good, and took photos of a lot of the kids. It was crazy, got mobbed over and over again by the kids who wanted their photos taken! Took some more photos of the two cats here, Mimi and mimi, the bigger one, which is half the size of our cats at home, is supposed to be the mother of the smaller Mimi. She had 3 or 4 kittens, but then they got sick with something and died, at one point someone found the mother cat eating one of the dead babies, grosss.

Last night it was so still and warm, no breeze at all. Its quite warm on the roof and my room is even hotter! Saw some gym mats in the tractor garage recently, think Daniel and I are going to grab a few tomorrow to sleep on the roof. May have to rig up some mosquito netting to make it work well.

I was very overheated yesterday morning and didn’t feel very well for a while, took a little break lunch time but then went back to the heat and the dental clinic project. I will take some photos when we make a little more progress on it, I dug all the footings for the other container, the masons are supposed to make the footings on Monday and then on Wed. we should be able to pull the container onto them. In the meantime we have to finish cutting the doors and windows into the container, its really cool the way we are making the windows using the cutout container piece as an awning for shade and to keep the rain out! It’s a little design that I came up with that works really well! Its cool!
Also have to dig another drainfield and trench from the main kids kitchen, will probably dig that Sunday afternoon, had the gravel for it delivered yesterday.

The kids are so starved for attention, often when we walk from place to place you will have several kids not only tagging along, but also holding your hand or arm! Even some of the older ones!

Daniel just determined that the fridge, which made ice for the first time last night and is at least keeping stuff cool, is straining the wiring, which is way undersized coming over here from the generator. As soon as we hook up the city power, later today, we will run a dedicated line to the fridge to solve that problem. Think I will get back to work now, have a little time before lunch. Hopefully will be able to send this off tonight. Otherwise, maybe tomorrow someone will come and hook up the internet set up for here, that would things much easier! Hope everything is going well at home, I will see everyone soon enough! Love to all, Dad/Andy

—Hey all!—

Cant believe its Friday the 13th, Josh’s birthday! And I am sitting in Port au Prince airport waiting for several hours for my flight home! Have not had much time or energy to write till now, and knew I had no more access to the internet so there was no hurry. I do want to try to summarize all that was done and put in writing some of the things to be done yet.

We did dig a new drainfield for the main kids kitchen sink, found the 2” pipe that “Bamboo” (David Mustain!) had installed a few months ago, unfortunately, when we went to drill drain holes in the pipe we discovered it is largely clogged with all the food scraps and rice that they wash down the sink! The smell was unbelievable! Almost lost it several time, thank goodness one of the kids really wanted to help and use the drill, so I let him finish drilling the drainholes to see if we could get it functioning. Finally decided we need to replace that line with a 4” line going to a settling basin with an overflow, Daniel is going to work on it. The only fun part of that job was teaching Angie, from Utah, how to run the tractor and backhoe. She really enjoyed it and ended up doing some more backhoe work another day too.

We also dug a trench from the quad kitchen which will be lined with gravel and then a new 2” drain line will lead into that area to water the garden area from below. Daniel will also oversee getting that done. The trench was also useful for running the wiring out to the two drainpumps for the wash area and the neighborhood wash area. The pumps and piping for those two areas has been working great! The masons are supposed to finish off the collection boxes today, constructing the lids with access for the pumps. I went over the design of it several times with 3 different people, I think they finally have the idea! They had one formed out and ready to go yesterday when they quit working at 3.

It was really funny when I was out by the wash house yesterday, after we had the power on for a while and discovered that some of the kids were already using the outlets for plugging in cell phones and one small black and white TV that a dozen kids were sitting around on the wash basin floor watching! I know it was one of Fr. Marc’s concerns, that if they had access to electric, they would soon be playing radios and TVs everychance they got until late at night! It would begin a whole new set of problems! Progress! The kids are going to be very disappointed when Daniel installs the heavy duty metal covers he was making to protect the outlets!

The big news is that the Dental Clinic is well underway, the footings were done on Tuesday so we lifted/pushed the 40 trailer onto them on Thursday! It was a bit of a project, a lot of engineering went into figuring out how to accomplish it with a tractor that could only lift one end of the trailer at a time about 3 feet off the ground maximum! Thank-goodness, in low gear four wheel drive, the tractor pushes like a bulldozer. So I figured out a way to make ramps out of some steel U channel they have there for stair building and we pushed and adjusted the container up into place! It took most of the morning and two of the pier footing broke apart fairly well. The boss mason, Jr., said they broke because he didn’t know we were going to be sliding the container over them! I guess he felt guilty that they hadn’t used much cement to hold the rocks together! I am not sure how he expected we would put it into place. I told him it was no big deal, we just need them to be repaired soon.

Before lunch we figured out what lumber we would need for the roofing, made a list and went “shopping”—in one of the other containers and we had the carpentry shop rip some 2×8’s into 2×3’s to save on lumber. Also pulled out of one of the other containers a gas powered compressor I had sent down maybe two years ago and got that set up for use with the air nailer I just sent down in the last container. Noone there knew how to use those things so there was a lot of interest in what we were doing! Took a while to get the compressor going, since the fuel in the carbaretor had turned bad. But once we got it going and ran it for awhile with no load, it worked great! I would like to teach them how to use it in their wood shop, but Daniel thought it may be too dangerous!

Fr. Charlie finally found the 22 cal. Loads I left down there last time so now Daniel can use them to attach some of the wood to the container roof. After lunch we framed out most of the roof, Dan just has to order some roofing metal for it, Daniel will screw it on, and it will be mostly done! Just a few more windows and doors to cut out, security rebar to install, wash and paint to whole thing and put in a few dividing walls!

By the time we finished, around 5, Daniel and I were filthy dirty, sweaty, (I suppose smelly although I didn’t notice!) and that was after I had changed my shirt three times! I parked the tractor (Daniel took a chunck out of the concrete wall of the garage the other day, the day before that he backed into a motor cycle and now he’s afraid to drive it!) We then took a walk to check out the masons work on the wash house and to decide on the location and size of the settling pond the villagers want for our drain project. There is a fair amount of water in the last 300 feet of trench where the pipe now stops since we have been pumping about 3 times per day. The last 100 feet the water is quite clear and leads me to believe that there is river water infiltrating at that point. After the pond is dug (Portia wants to dig it, Daniel taught her how to use the backhoe and she loves it!) , we are still going to put a large gravel area to filter what ever comes out of the pond, I think we will still run piping out into the gravel area to ensure that the water gets that far and gets properly filtered.

Finally got back to the quad! Took a shower, started to pack, gave to Dan and Daniel any tools or supplies that I had brought and planned on leaving there, showed Daniel how to use the power gun to nail concrete or steel, opps, forgot to warn anyone before I shot it off! Gave Paige that two bags of candy I still had to give out to kids as rewards etc. Also fixed her shutters on one window that were sticking badly.

We were going to go to the Bay club for dinner and drinks, but they were planning a farewell party for me, so we stayed home instead. It was probably better that way, got to hang out, relax and draw up plans for a composting, four seater, Privy! I drew a floor plan, side view and rear view, complete with dimensions and materials listed. Dan is going to try to get a price from someone there to build it and hopefully we can get it started soon. I will have to send down or bring down a solar powered vent fan which I came across recently that is made for this kind of house. Have to remember to ask Dan to take photos of the plans and email them to me so I have a copy and can figure out the necessary CFM’s.
Got everything packed into one bag but decided to split it back into two this morning, one was too heavy, must have been the 5 bottles of rum! And other gifts I bought for everyone, didn’t have time to shop really, just bought some things from kids at the orphanage and had Dan send a few people he knew out for some other things. Picked up two huge bags of spiced peanuts at La Mandon on the way to the airport this morning and a DVD player Dan asked if I can get repaired or replaced for him.

I feel really good about everything we accomplished in two weeks! The one big concern I have, and everyone at the party last night agreed, is that the power company is still unreliable. The drain pumps and the water pump at the wash house rely on sufficient power being supplied to them, Idiosh, the power company, didn’t turn the power on for two days so we didn’t get to fill the shower house water tanks any more. Finally around midnight last night, the power came on for the night but we had the breaker to the shower house turned off since we can’t run it off the batteries or the generator at this time. Everyone that was there would still love to see us become mostly power independent if possible, unless someone can guarantee that the city power is going to become more reliable. Time will tell. For now, I told Dan and Daniel, they may have to bring the generator from time to time over to the wash house to fill the water tanks.
It was still hot when I decided to call it a night, slept on the roof for awhile, but then the wind died down, it got hotter and buggier, so around 2:30 I went back to the room and with the fan on, it was not too bad. Slept till 5 and finally left around 6. Everyone seemed very appreciative, Dan explained that some of the older guys said they like the way I work and hope I come back soon! We’ll see…. Lord willing, until then, Andy