The Grand Marshal blog continues…

… Success!!!!!!!!!!!! We win the quiz night, we lead from the beginning, strict rules of 8 per team mean we have to have play it with 3 subs, we do exceedingly well on the music round and fall a bit flat on the Haven round, but a win is a win and needs to be celebrated, so we do...

Wednesday:

Far away hills are green…

Before I left Brussels an old friend of mine and I got chatting about how we always think that far away hills are greener, to which I agreed, that was until I arrived in Gonaives here in Haiti.

Gonaives is grey, with other various shades of grey that light the distant hills, there was a bush fire on one of the hills nearby last night, this morning it didn’t look any different. Years of exhausting the natural woods of Haiti have left the landscape barren. I now have an idea of what it must be like to walk on the moon and look around, the sorry difference here is that there are 300.000 people living here in the city, not far off the size of Cork, Gonaives. We head into the city on a tour to visit some of the beneficiaries, I nod off on the way due to tiredness from the heat of a morning’s work in the sun and the blandness of the landscape. Security, as always, is tight on our visit and everything as always on this April trip, it runs perfectly.

Farra, the local representative of Haven is on hand to answer questions and she explains that there are strict criteria on the families that get houses such as ability to pay the 2 dollars month (which is les than the families would normally pay if only renting) for 5 years that the new home owners are expected to pay, but she then explains that if the family can’t pay for whatever reason, the months are added to the end of the 5 years, so eviction is not a real threat for the new home owners. Maybe this is something that Leslie B can persuade the Irish banks to follow suit on in Ireland over the coming tough times ahead for families.

On the way in to town, we pass a few interesting places, a shack/bar showing the Barca v Inter champions league game at 2 this afternoon, a few US Aid centres, Canada Aid and other organizations with the aim of helping the Haitians in their hour of need.

The one question that is constantly present is what will happen to the the Haitians after the houses are built (and there are 1.3 million homeless or living in tents)? Without a real and viable economy these families can never survive, or survive but little more. I am intrigued, to say the least, by what can be done, is planned to be done and what will end up happening…. Haven is a small step in the right direction and deserve to be applauded for being the pebble that causes the ripple in the lake.

The Grand Marshal blog continues…

… the Haven trip is turning out to be one of those really rewarding, difficult, hard volunteer trips but also a bit of an adventure, Monday night was no less, after a few hours of dodgy electrics, bringing back fond memories of pub openings, and power failures, eventually, and full credit to everyone, the show got on the road, and instead of it being a Haiti Stars in Our Eyes night we were treated to the real deal, and had the actual winner of Haiti’s Stars in their Eyes competition, a girl called Winifred, who really has the most amazing voice ever singing Ave Maria.

No electricity for the fans in the camp site, so it was a great chance to experience what Haitian families have been living with since being given tents to replace their shattered homes since January. On a lighter note I also now know what a symphony of snorers sounds like, and all my ammunition for giving out was taken away by Declan Hilary ringing my phone (which should have been on silent) at 3h30 and me being singled out as the naughty tent-ant L

Tuesday:

A rare but welcome site greeted Tuesday, clouds threatening rain, can this be? So we got a light shower to get things going but barely enough to be considered a alight shower, then the hottest morning arrived and back to siving sand. Myself, Nick (a Cork man also known as a skilled labourer but at what we’re still not sure) and Ross (a Kildare lad who has played GAA for California so is good enough for me) have been developing tactics on how to get the best results, from the least effort, a few more concrete blocks here, a few less there, the gradient too high too low. Work is tough today, the heat is a killer, watch checking isn’t allowed by us except if badly needed, the clock is literally not moving this morning, what was meant to eb a 3 hour start to the day is going to be an eternity. Work resumes again after a a breakfast break and we get cracking again.

By the time we stop for lunch we are in full flow, but the heat is taking it’s toll, I feel weak, sick and head off for the air conditioned bus to hang out for an hour, Ross is getting head aches, Nick is at his limit too.

The break does it’s trick, and we are re invigorated by the news we no longer have to sive sand. Never were 3 grown men so happy to hear they had been ‘chosen’ for the steel bending, it’s just what the doctor ordered, still out in the sun, but the sun is now aided by a nice cool breeze, the blisters on the hands don’t seem as bad. We end with a couple of beers for the boys at 6, grab some dinner, head for the showers and get ready for the quiz night ahead, each pre empting excuses on being absolutely useless at quizzes, we agree to call ourselves the Steel Benders in recognition of our improved status amongst the masonry team…

Thomas Gabriel – The Blog Continues!

It’s day three on site and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to reflect on Haiti 2010. In comparison with what Leslie Buckley referred to as the pioneer group of 2009, everything has changed and everything has stayed the same! The journey here was tough; the final 90 minutes on the coaches being particularly challenging, travelling as we did on something loosely termed ‘roads’! The weather has been brutal: over 40oC (108oF) every day. By 11am work has to stop and the volunteers head for the shelter of their choice. Our tents are too hot to go into during the day and the coaches are made available for those in need of modest air conditioning. Others find the shelter of their choice in this fairly barren and remote location. A stillness settles on the site when the sun is at it’s highest.

It’s clear that feedback from our last adventure has been taken to heart. The toilet and shower facilities are a lot better; the organization of the catering has been streamlined (and special thanks has to be given to the catering team who are to working in temperatures even more extreme than those of us out on site). The layout of the site is much easier to navigate – the list of adopted suggestions goes on! No doubt the October trip will benefit from the suggestions coming out of this trip!

During the week, we are all given an opportunity to meet with some of the beneficiaries and yesterday was my turn to journey down to Gonaives. The coach was very quiet during the return journey. To see children existing in squalor, many with distended stomachs is heart-breaking. We were there for less than an hour and it was long enough – they are there for the duration of their lives. The roofs over their heads are just that – roofs and very little else. I think every single one of us who have made that journey is convinced that the beneficiaries will be moving to a relative paradise when they get to this new community under construction. The problems in Haiti are immense and perhaps all we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But to know that this project will immeasurably improve the lives of hundreds of very poor people makes our efforts worthwhile and important (and vital to continue).

Of the 297 volunteers, there are about forty people who also came in October. They include Brian the foreman for the playground project, Trish the team leader for the carpenters, Patrick Hand and Jerry O’Connor also on the playground or community project (led by John O’Connor), Sarah Fitzpatrick, Louise Glennon and Olive Cummins from HQ, Cillian, Niall and Laura Duggan from the medical team. My tent mates Ailish, Martin, Leo and Mike. I know I’ve missed a number of people (such as Ted Philpott, Mike Curran, Mike Hogan etc!) and I apologise that due to pressure of time, my mind has gone blank! And that’s before I even mention the new friends made in the past three days! What is very clear about all 297 volunteers is that none of them are strangers – they really are friends I’ve yet to meet!

Back to site now – and back to the debilitating sun.

Kieran McGuinness, Delorentos

Sunday 25^th April

Sunday morning at 6am Níal, Ro, our tech Gouj and myself joined the huge queue in Dublin Airport marked “Haven”, and wondered what we were getting ourselves into. Check-in done, we bought various over-priced lotions, creams and repellents and whatever else we’d left ‘til the last minute. I guess I was a little scared, a little excited… I suppose we had a feeling of adventure similar to the one that precedes a tour or a holiday.

Ro and I brought over guitars, I was pretty embarrassed about it, other people had boxes of gifts for the kids and stuff, but we’d promised we’d play a few songs and be part of the nightly on-site entertainment. Instead we stuffed our bags with light things like pencils and crayons and notepads, small practical things like that.

I was a bit concerned about the travel day, I love travelling, but any flights over 2 or 3 hours I generally get a bit nervous from being couped up, and this flight was 9 hours, and then we were straight onto a bus for five more. When we eventually took off (we were delayed by about 2 hours) the onboard film was “All About Steve”, presumably chosen to ease us into the hardship of the week.

A few minutes after we arrived into the sweltering Port-Au-Prince Airport we separated into six buses and slowly set off on the small bumpy roads.

The journey started off jovial, everyone filming the people who lined the roadside and the UN camps and the scampering goats, but quickly as it got dark and the faces of the gaunt people looking at us from the firelight, the cameras went away and the bus became quiet.

We arrived into the camp in the pitch black, had some chicken nuggets and found our tents by torchlight, eventually getting to bed around 11 pm Haiti time, about 5am Irish time.

We set up our camp beds and tried to get some sleep, (breakfast was only 6 hours later) As we lay in bed in the deep dark silence we wondered what we were getting ourselves into…..again!

Kieran

The Grand Marshal Blog

Sunday :
Myself and the mother arrive in Dublin the night before to avoid the unimaginable wake up at 2a.m. in Cork, and take the bus up as many Corkonians have done.

We are one of the first to arrive for check before 6h00, and Haven have definitely been listening to the veterans of the Build It week in October 2009, Louise Glennon is handing out Haven shirts for the photo for Monday’s papers and there are 4 check in desks operating seamlessly and dealing with the winding queue.The signs are good, this is going to be a slickly run week.
9 hours of flight and exchanges outside toilets as old pals meet up and discuss the excitement of the trip ahead, everyone has been shocked by the earthquake and its devastation of 230.000 victims and millions left homeless.
On the plane I read the Times Rich list and think of the great way Leslie Buckley is celebrating his inclusion/entry on it, being the main man, with wife Carmel, responsible for over 300 volunteers, mostly from Ireland, a few like myself who have started the journey outside Ireland.

From the air we see Port au Prince is now a city full of blue tarpaulin sheet tents, he airport is eerily quiet, I wonder now that the media spotlight has disappeared from Haiti has the Aid gone too, but then I guess we are proof it’s not. A relatively enjoyable 6 hour bus journey, to get to Gonaives, which will be our new home for the next big week ahead, disturbed only by the enormous gaping cracks left in the roads by the recent earthquake, serving as a reminder as we leave the tented city of Port au Prince. Some completely squashed buildings re-tell a tale that the locals are unlikely to ever forget. The kids of some of the beneficiary families of the Haven project have a spectacle awaiting us to greet us upon arrival.It has all the feelings of being right, all the questions that one asks before taking on such a trip are quickly answered here.
It’s about 5h00 Irish time by the time Leslie Buckley has greeted and thanked us for taking part, Olive lays down the ground rules, and it’s meant to be a fun week, but will only be successful if they get us all home in one piece. Dr. Niall, tells us that the weather is going to be hot, which we were expecting, but even hotter than last year, which I wasn’t.
So off then to see the 6 man tents that will be our homes for the week, meet our fellow tent-ants, exchange a few laughs as lads fail in a fruitless attempt at putting up mossie nets and nod off…

Day 1

Monday

… nod off until there’s a big hurry radio alarm clocks are going off, it’s all men on deck type of stuff, i grab and some wash essentials, get to the well laid out wash area, no water but to my greater annoyance it’s only 02h00, so I trudge off back to bed until the next alarm goes off, same routine, but similar result, no water and it turns out we’ve been on wrong time zone, the time difference isn’t 5 hours, it’s 6, so off to bed again, and on the 3rd attempt we head to the showers but still no water, it’s going to be a smelly day…

The kitchen crew have the unenviable task of feeding all the volunteers and also the local Haitians who are working alongside the Haven volunteers, all this done on a green field site, in the poorest country in the Western World. Somehow they manage to cook up a super Irish breakfast, interrupted only by news that the water is back on, I run, literally for the showers and it’s worth the wait.

The day of work starts off with chats from the foremen, I am on the masonry team, the only job I don’t want to get is sieving sand, getting the stones out of the rough gravel to make it usable for the bricklayers when putting the blocks up. Of course I end up on the sieving sand job with a young lad Michael in charge. My mis-fortune turns around when I see its not only Haven HQ who have upped their game, the formen have also, gone are the arm breakers of last year’s sieves, and here are the 2010 models, a lot easier to work with and we get through 5 hours with breaks to keep us going. Then the sun is now hitting the 40's and its time for stoppage until 14h00, the arms are beginning to ache. The majority of lads head off for the shower that has evade them until now.

The afternoon sun is scorching, savage heat as we’d say in Cork, but by the time we head back at 3, its calmed down to a manageable heat and we get a good afternoon work done.

It’s Haiti Stars in our eyes night tonight, so am off to brush up on my Uptown Girl

The Grand Marshal
J