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.