Missed

So Tomas missed us here, which is really good.  We did get a good amount of rain and flooding, but the hurricane force winds were absent so there wasn't a lot of damage.  Some of the local volunteers' houses were flooded, so one of the teams today went to their houses and helped them to bail out the water and clean out the mud. 

The water had started to recede, but we keep getting showers, so it hasn't completely gone.  Our part of town isn't flooded, but the center of town is.  We went out on Friday to take a look at the damage and ran across a number of international journalists and aid workers who were here to assess and report on the flooding damage.  Leogane was hit the hardest by flooding from what we have heard, although there have also been reports that flooding was very bad in Gonaive (in the north of Haiti).  Since All Hands has worked there in the past, they may be sending out an assessment team this coming week and if the flooding is really bad, they will set up a satellite project there.

Today was the first "normal" day for All Hands since I've been here.  We had multiple teams out in the community doing various jobs this morning and will be going out this afternoon as well (we have a 2 hour lunch break in the middle of the day).  I am working on the "rubbling" team.  We are clearing a housing slab of the wreckage from the earthquake.  We have multiple people taking out the rebar that is used to steady the main pillars that hold the house up - they also appear to be used in the roof.  Another group of people is using sledgehammers to break apart any concrete that is still intact or is attached to rebar.  The third group on our team shovels the rubble into wheelbarrows and takes it to our rubble dump site - the rubble will likely be at least partially used to rebuild.  The rebar is being piled up and will be reused as well (not necessarily the best of ideas, but people do what they have to).


A small group of Haitians stopped by at the rubble site today and asked us what we were doing and how much we were being paid.  They couldn't believe that we were working for free, nor could they believe that the local volunteer on our team was working for free as well.  This is a very common reaction here.  We have so much in the US and volunteering is a normal thing, but in Haiti, many people have nothing and to work all day without compensation sounds crazy.  What I find interesting is that our local volunteers are all younger - upper teens and early twenties - so I wonder if this mindset is beginning to change somewhat.  The local volunteers are working to help their community - that is more important to them than money.


This post has grown to be much longer than I intended - I simply meant to post to tell everyone that I am OK and the hurricane missed us.  :)  Pictures will have to wait until I return to the states.  The bandwidth is too small here to use it up by uploading pictures.