Deirdre Conroy Haven Blog Day 5 - 29.10.09

It’s 3pm Friday afternoon and hard to believe it’s our last working day. There’s a big push on to meet our target and even getting to write this blog has had to be postponed. I’ve been on site for nine hours, and with rest breaks needed for just that; thinking, never mind writing is a challenge. My roommate and I agree that we have reached the point of being truly mingin’, nothing else can describe the grime encrusted skin and we don’t understand how aid workers manage for months in this heat and these conditions. Though what has been done this week would never be undertaken under normal circumstances, twelve new houses have been fully completed from foundation on Monday and the other 188 houses are being finished out and painted as I write. A playground has been built and must be the only place with swings and slides in northern Haiti. The new class room is built and painted, the basket ball court finished, mango trees planted. Hundreds of locals have come on site this week and worked alongside us, ate alongside us, and last night danced and drank alongside us. A popular Haitian band with their voudou priest lead singer rocked the place and we must be acclimatising as the party went on until at least midnight. Everybody is quieter today, more to do with the pressure of finishing off and getting the site ready for handover to the beneficiaries tomorrow.

Before the band came on last night I had been on catering duty, not, I hasten to add, doing anything creative in the kitchen. It gave me a chance to see the volunteers from the other side of the counter. Standing in one spot for two hours dishing out carrots and peas, rhubarb and custard is definitely more painful than holding the paintbrush. Alan, our Marco Pierre White, took me out to see his own secret haven, the cold store container, a great chill out moment. This is where he stores his chicken sourced from Santiago in Dominican Republic and meat from Miami, and his deadly doughnuts. He has taken three weeks annual leave at his own expense to come out here and get the kitchen built (which will be a community centre when we leave). He designed it, sourced the equipment himself and unpackaged the units the night we arrived and was setting it up overnight in time for our first breakfast. Earlier in the year he visited Santiago as it turned out to be the best source of food and his suppliers there were so impressed with the project that much of the produce is supplied at cost.

Before going on catering duty I went off-site and off road with John Henry, head of security, who drove myself and three of our volunteers from Portlaoise to visit families way off the beaten track. First we drove to the border and as it was still daylight we got out and walked the no-mans land between Dominican Republic and Haiti. Divided by a bridge over the river, the border closes at certain times during the day so we have to time our crossing on Saturday to ensure we get through. This procedure involves our luggage being loaded on to a truck at 7am tomorrow and taken to the border to be individually inspected. Our big box of passports goes on ahead of us and we will then be inspected one by one on the bus, movement is not easy between the two countries, where little love is lost between the two sides. When the border gates are locked we see the Haitian people wading back from Dominican Republic through the river, where they wash clothes, and bathe as well. It is a sight I didn’t expect to see in a region so close to the ‘developed’ world. We drive back through Ouanaminthe and over fields to some ramshackle homes where we can distribute some of the gifts we have brought and I have managed to find some local gourde currency from our on-site phone top-up men, so we can leave a little help behind.

I haven’t mentioned the medical team so far, thankfully, I haven’t had to visit them and there hasn’t been an ambulance moment yet. The worst cases have been serious spider bites – two guys got bitten and had dramatic reaction. The danger about this site, over and above the insects is that it was land which had been used as the local latrine, and while earth has been moved and layers and layers of soil has been added, with all the new digging going on, we have to be more vigilant about cuts and bites. The advice we got about thick socks and boots all makes sense, though the head torch we were advised to buy luckily hasn’t been needed as the generator is not switched off at night time, though it has just exploded a few minutes ago and is causing a minor sensation outside. Tonight’s barbecue and Haven’s Got Talent is looking dubious until the back-up is sorted, the internet connection is down too ..... and with that, I am heading back to my painting team to finish off the last few walls and rehearse our performance for tonight, where there will be fierce competition from Ronan, Plumber in Chief... more soon