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