Opening Cermonies

One last trip to the Hrib Crib to return Sue's car, one last chance to drop off what I didn't want to take to Haiti, and grab things I'd realized I did want to take. Also my last chance to grab a bottle of rum, since we found out its going to be a dry build... circumstances worked against me, and I'm going to have to rely upon the kindness of my friend Scott, who is bringing three bottles of wine. He is also the Whiner Tattler, as he will be working with me, and you don't want to whine to the guy with the wine.

I got back to the hotel just in time for the Opening Ceremonies. One theme was clear - this is going to be hard.

The MC, Patrick, talked about how it was going to be a lot of really hard work. In the sweltering heat and humidity. He repeated it slowly: sweltering heat and humidity. Perhaps I should have trained by sitting in saunas over the last couple of months. He pointed out that our recovery was going to take place when we slept on cots. In tents. "How many people questioned your wisdom in volunteering for this build?"

But we know this week isn't about comfort, and it isn't about the easy way out. Patrick reminded us that, "this week is for all the Haitian people, so battered by history and the storms of life. Because humanity always wins."

When greeted with a standing ovation, President Carter told us, "Save your strength!" For the first time, he talked about his age being a factor in the build. He's 87. I'm good with him slowing down a little. A little. Rosalynn even said it was okay that they were staying in a house because (cupping her hands around her mouth like she was telling a secret), "We're old!" She still choked up when she told us that the conditions we would experience this week would remind us that we have everything.

We are being charged with more than just finishing a house. We are being deputized as advocates. Pat Blake (if I got that right) talked about how we would all be story-tellers by the end of the week, that we couldn't build every house, but we could advocate for Haiti and inspire more people to come down to help. "When you come back, you'll take the pictures in your minds and the stories that you hear and the tears that you have shed, and you'll tell stories of Haiti that will impact it for a long time."

Mark Andrews told us he has been working on this project for a year, but it feels like a century. This project is the end stage in Habitat's "Pathways to Permanence" in Haiti. They began with emergency shelter kits, then transitional houses, then upgradable houses, and now permanent homes. No repayment is required, but community involvement and sweat equity is still required to participate in the Santo project.

He pointed out a problem that was unique to this build: they were building homes for a community, but it was a community of strangers. People at that refugee camp were there because it was safe, but were completely disconnected from each other. Habitat had to build a social community, identify leaders, resolve conflicts, and get strangers working together just to get the project moving. Ultimately, this hodge-podge community came together and took part in designing the houses and community, and in determining the selection criteria.

We'll leave the Port-au-Prince airport and drive through the worst slums, including one of the most notorious slums in the world. We will pass a marketplace where raw sewage runs under the vegetable stands. Mark told us to expect to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the destruction and the magnitude of what remains to be done, to be frustrated by how little we can do, to be angry that not much of the hundreds of millions of dollars pledged to Haiti has arrived. He also told us to expect to be energised by the Haitian people, the most resilient he has ever met, who function in a world in which we could not, and do it with a smile. He said expect to be transformed (which choked me up a little), so that when we leave Haiti, we can't wait to get back and talk about it to anyone who will listen.

Our MC returned and said that he had asked Mark what the hardest thing was about working in Haiti. The answer was simple: "Working in Haiti."

Jonathan Reckford, head of HFHI, spoke last. He said that, over the course of the week, we may find something that is not exactly to our liking. And we may choose to express that this thing is not exactly to our liking. He challenged us to tack onto the end of our statement the phrase, "and that's just the way I like it." "My, that's an unusually large and intimidating bug on my bed... and that's just the way I like it." It might take the punch out of the Whiner Pool, but it just might get us through the week. That, and we found out tonight that the meal tent will be air conditioned, which is also just the way we like it.

(thanks to Habitat for the photo)

Haiti Earthquake: 19 months later...

What is Habitat for Humanity International doing to help piece Haiti back together? 

More than just bricks and mortar...

On Jan. 12, 2010, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti just 10 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

 The earthquake damaged nearly 190,000 houses, of which 105,000 were completely destroyed. Of the more than two million affected survivors, 600,000 are still displaced today. That’s more than twice the population of Buffalo, living in temporary shelters and with little infrastructure in an area not much larger than Western New York.

This summer, Habitat for Humanity will break ground on a permanent housing development in the Santo community of Léogâne. Léogâne is close to the epicenter of the earthquake, where nearly 80 to 90 percent of buildings were damaged or destroyed. The development will provide housing for up to 500 homeless families, or approximately 2,500 individuals.

The Carter Work Project in November will complete 100 homes in one week, toward that goal of 500 homes. The Global Village Program, which organizes volunteer teams to perform short-term assignments at builds all over the world, has put together three week-long trips before the CWP to assist in preparing the foundations for our build.

In light of the number of displaced persons, housing 2,500 people may not seem to make a dent. While Habitat measures their progress by the number of families and individuals served, the impact of their work can be seen in the transformation not only of lives but entire communities. They call it their Urban Development Approach, which is based on empowering and strengthening communities in defined geographic areas. By working closely with communities, Habitat helps them to build self-confidence to take action, identify and prioritize their needs. Habitat also helps them develop community action plans and leverage their collective capacity to advocate for change.

While Habitat has set a goal of serving 50,000 families in the five years after the earthquake, the scope of their services to date goes well beyond building permanent structures:

• more that 24,000 emergency shelter kits have been distributed to those in greatest needs, while 3,000 more have been stockpiled for distribution in the event of a future disaster

• more than 2,500 families have received upgradable shelters (a timber-frame skeleton with pressure-treated plywood walls, a tin roof, and permanent concrete foundation, to which concrete blocks can be added later when the family can afford to upgrade), including the families who will move out of them to occupy the CWP-built homes

• Habitat has assessed housing damage on over 5,000 units, to determine which can be made safe, and launched a repair/rehab program that completed 500 projects by the end of this June

• more than 3,000 Haitians have been trained in construction or construction business practices

• 1,200 Haitians have been trained in financial literacy

• more than 700 Haitians have found job opportunities through Habitat Haiti and Habitat Resource Centers (with unemployment at 60%, rebuilding cannot take place without employment opportunities)

To help in funding these desperately-needed projects in Haiti, all participants in the 2011 Carter Work Project are asked to raise $5000 apiece. Please help rebuild Haiti and allow me to do the same by donating here!

Whaaat? No Bath & Body Works Orange Ginger??

When I did the CWP in Lonavala, India in 2006, we stayed at Velvett Country (life is cheap in India; spelling is cheaper). Velvett Country is a resort, with meditation paths and tennis courts and a masseuse on-staff. Of course, we left before 6 every morning and returned after dinner every night, so we partook of none of that, but there was a lovely deck around the pool large enough to accommodate all of the volunteers as we reviewed the day’s events after sunset. I could catch Sabres highlights on CNN World Sports in my room.

For the CWP in Los Angeles in 2007, we stayed at the LAX Marriott. There were 6 pillows on my bed, and I still use Bath & Body Works Orange Ginger products after using the samples we got as toiletries every day. There was a Starbucks in the lobby and Wifi all around.

In 2008, I went instead on a mission trip with the Lovely Lane Methodist Church, to build a dental clinic in San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala. We stayed in lovely cabins right on the lake, and had homemade dinners with a family who lived nearby every night. The hot water setup was questionable, but the view was fabulous. A little boy I sponsor in Guatemala draws me a picture of the mountain we were looking at with every letter he sends.

The CWP in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2009 involved a long bus ride to the site, which gave us a chance to wake up before arriving at the build site, marking our time in the sun’s rise over the pictures of the King which were affixed everywhere along the route. The hotel had in-room internet so I could argue with my publisher, beautiful teak wood everywhere, and, well, a mall attached, which also included a Starbucks and was showing “2012.” Massages were $11. Hot oil massages were $13.

Haiti is going to be different. Muuuuuch, much different.

My friend Karen Haycox works for Habitat for Humanity International, and has posted a bit on Facebook about the conditions there. First and foremost: security. Karen wrote about how she was always met at the airport by someone to take her where she was going. It wasn’t the royal treatment – it was a necessity. Whereas on all my other trips I have gone early to see the country (and acclimate to the heat before the build), there’s no traveling alone in Haiti. The volunteers will meet in Atlanta first for the Opening Ceremonies, then take charter planes to Haiti and be shuttled directly to the campus together. No shopping, no wandering into town for a beer after a hard day. We’ll only know we’re in Haiti because we won’t actually get to see Haiti (nightly entertainment brought to the campus aside).

Second: pillows. We may or may not get pillows, but we certainly won’t get six of them. Or maid service. Or Starbucks. We will be sleeping in 6-person tents, which I expect are actually a lot nicer than the tents our homeowners were living in before they were accepted to the project. Now, I’ve had powerful good luck with roommates on these builds (Tammy Stines three times, solo once), but Tammy puts up with me being a slob and there’s no guarantee that the other four people will. And six people sweating all day in the hot sun sleeping in an enclosed area with a single fan… well, that brings up…

Three: water. In India the hot water lasted for about 45 seconds and in Guatemala the hot water heater controls were suspended inside the shower, held up only by bare, live wires. Thailand had no hot water problems, and LA of course had Orange Ginger bath products. Haiti will have — a bucket. Portajohns, to be sure, but no running water. We will each get a bucket of water every day for bathing. Not my preferred form of hygiene to begin with, but after a day of working on a build in the hot sun, crusted with mortar or paint flecks, covered with several layers of sunblock and sweat… I may pack a scrub brush. Certainly we’ll all be in the same boat, and will all smell equally bad, but the problem comes on the trip home. After we take charter planes back to Atlanta, people are going to get on connecting flights. And sit next to perfectly innocent, bathing people who are not going to like this one bit. I’m planning on asking my friend Sue to pick me up in Atlanta (after covering her car seats in garbage bags) and let me spend a couple of hours in her shower before I’m fit for sitting next to anyone.

Four: Wifi. This was kind of a surprise. Turns out you can’t go anywhere without Wifi. This is a blitz build let by a former US President, with a couple more brave celebrities backing him up, and great publicity for Habitat for Humanity International. There won’t be as many members of the media present as there were in, say, Los Angeles, but media will be there, and they’ll need the internet. So there will be a computer tent (I expect, along with the First Aid tent, one of the few air conditioned places to be found). And we’ll have some power strips for charging iPhones and iPads. So, if I can bear to touch my favourite electronics with my grimy hands, I get to blog from the site. And maybe even catch some Sabres highlights online.

This is going to be a challenging build, reminiscent of the early days of Habitat when volunteers would be put up in churches and schools for the builds, but without the convenient plumbing that those facilities proudly boast. Given the fundraising requirement (India’s registration was $800; Haiti volunteers need to raise $5000), only the most committed volunteers will be there. The challenges are what make this build so enticing: pushing myself to physical extremes; bonding with a new house crew and tent-mates; learning enough Creole to converse with the homeowners and learn about their experiences with the earthquake (note to self: learn “earthquake” in Creole, or this could get confusing); packing what I’ll need without overpacking like an idiot. Only four more months to work on that packing list…

I'm going to Haiti!

After weeks of anxious waiting, I finally got the e-mail with the news - I've been accepted as a volunteer on the 2011 Carter Work Project (formerly the Jimmy Carter Work Project, but after working by his side on the builds for 24 years, Rosalynn finally got equal billing). Acceptance isn't automatic - I wasn't accepted in 2008, even though I'd worked on the 2006 and 2007 builds. This year only 400 volunteers can go, and 150 of those are affiliated with the corporate sponsors of the build. That leaves 250 of us, several hundred fewer than usually get accepted.

The odds were already against me, number-wise. Add to that my past performance on builds, and, well... See, my first build was in India in 2006. I arrived in India a week early to acclimate to the heat, which never happened. It was over 100° and I was 40 pounds overweight. By the time I got to the build site, I was aware that I was not going to be able to toil in the hot sun oblivious to the heat as I had hoped. I was going to melt and whine about it. I fortuitously ran into my House Leader, Dave Bullen, at the Opening Ceremonies and presented my idea… “I have low blood pressure and can’t go up ladders, I’m wilting in the heat, and I have no particular building skills. I am going to be your Safety Monitor.”

At the Houston build they lost 20% of the volunteers by noon every day because of the heat – we weren’t going to lose anybody. I promised to make everyone drink their water and electrolytes and take breaks, keep the work site clean and hazard-free, and make sure the scaffolding and ladders were safe. In a country where most scaffolding is several stories of bamboo lashed together. And life is cheap.

Everyone drank a bottle of water every 45 minutes, reapplied sunblock every two hours, drank electrolytes every three hours (I had a thing going with the first aid tent to get them to mix and chill the electrolytes for us so they tasted less like sweat). I was known by the local labourers on the site as Pani Ghodi – the Water Nag. But we didn’t lose a single person to heat. One person went to first aid at the end of the day, and they told him he was dehydrated. “No way – there’s this woman on our site who makes us drink water…” We did lose someone to some dodgy eggs, but hell, it’s India!

Despite the fact that I had completely invented the position of Safety Monitor, I took the responsibilities quite seriously. I got to the build site early every day and crashed the Block Leaders’ meeting to find out what the safety concerns of the day were. When Indian film star John Abraham (“Water”) was working two doors down, I kept the lookie-loos from trampling the stacks of roof tiles on our site to get a look by heavily enforcing Hard Hat Thursday. I was so into spreading the electrolyte love that I accidentally offered electrolytes to President Carter outside the first aid tent. Secret Service did not look amused, despite the fact that I have since learned they have quite the sense of humour.

Here’s how good a job I did. The following year I visited one of my crew members on a cross-country drive, and he told me that they were jealous that I “called” Safety Monitor before anyone else. They didn’t realize I had fabricated the position as a coping mechanism. Because of my fine work in India, the next year on the Los Angeles build, there was actually a position called “Safety Monitor” at every site. You had to wear a red hard hat and fill out paperwork on OSHA regs, so I kept my monitoring informal and remained supervisory (and the Home Depot gopher) on that build. In Thailand, because of my connections with the Lovely Lane Methodist Church of Cedar Rapids (which I may or may not explain later), I “Safety Monitored” two houses, which included plenty of ice-, sun-, and cotter pin-management.

Safety Monitoring works on a large scale, when you have enough other workers to go up ladders and work on the roof, and especially when they’re hard workers who wouldn’t come down off the roof to get water so someone has to hand water up to them or catch them when they pass out and fall off. But when there are only 250 volunteers to be chosen? Well, they gave me the benefit of the doubt here. Or they don’t keep careful notes on the volunteers…

Stay tuned to find out how I intend to make myself useful in Haiti…

Fundraising Kickoff

Over the next several months, I will be raising money for Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI). I need to raise $5000 to qualify to go on the Carter Work Project in Haiti in November. I've already overcome the first hurdle - being accepted as one of only 400 volunteers who get to go.

I first became involved in the CWP in 2006 when I was donating money online to HFHI after an earthquake in Pakistan. Whenever there is a disaster, I donate to HFHI, because they're the ones who are there after the cameras and celebrities have gone home, working with the residents to rebuild their lives. On the donation page, a banner advertised, 'Now accepting applications for the CWP in India.' I hate hot weather, was terrified of planes, didn't particularly like travelling, and had no building skills. It was so contrary to my nature, I just had to go...

Through the CWP, I have helped build a village of 100 homes in India, a village of 82 homes (for the King, who turned 82 that year) in Thailand, and rehabbed a home in Los Angeles. I have never felt closer to God than I did at the home dedication in India. These builds are really hard for me, but never as hard as the living conditions that we are helping families leave behind when they get the keys to their new Habitat homes. Please make a difference to someone you'll never meet - I'll do the heavy lifting, I just need your help to get there.

Donations can be made on my Team Member Page - thanks!