Sigma Chi Haiti 45 blog

Hey all - Jason again

Sorry for not updating the final day until now, but here it goes. 

The last day of our trip was easily the most memorable.  We started out by going to Pastor’s church up in Callabase.  While there we were amazed by the service and how passionate it was.  There was singing, preaching, and everything in between.  While there Papa Dick, Steve Chapman, and Bert Perkins were all able to speak to the many Haitians and they were all very pleased that we were able to help all week.

Following the service, we headed downtown to see where the earthquake had hit the hardest.  Although many of the buildings had been removed by the guesthouse that had been hit, downtown looked very similar to the previous year.  There were still many buildings that had been marked destroyed, that were still standing and unfortunately the tent city outside the Palace had not shrunk at all.  Seeing the destroyed Palace once again gave me chills as it was still split in two.  We also went inside the once beautiful catholic church, which had now become a shell.  

After viewing downtown, we went to what was my favorite part: the orphanage.  The girls once again sang for us and absolutely loved the dresses and toys that the members of Haiti 45 were able to provide.  We played jump rope, keep away, drew with chalk, and taught the girls how to use our digital cameras (which they absolutely loved).  It was great to be able to put a smile on their face and we all had an even bigger smile on ours.  

We finished the night with dinner at Pastors house.  We ended up meeting up with our past translator from our last trip there, who had her little girl with her.  Pastor also surprised us with a visit from a senator from Haiti, who drove 300 miles to meet with us.  It was a really great way to wrap up the trip and fun was had by all.  

Overall, this trip was once again unbelievable.  Everyone from the trip would like to thank you all for the support and prayers while we in Haiti and hope that you continue to support in the years to come.  

You can also view all the pictures from the trip at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.529056136042.2026026.94100944&l=f9971180d1

Joe, Pat, and Jason Here:

Day 6 of work here and Haiti, and our muscles are reminding us of the week we’ve had so far.  Today was definitely the hottest day, so an excursion to through Jalousie and a tour of fort Jacques were incredibly welcomed.  We learned about the history of Haiti’s revolution from the French as well saw some amazing views of Port Au Prince.  

After the tour, we decided to take on a few of the Haitians in a soccer match, thinking we would be taught quite a lesson.  Surprisingly though, we hung with them through most of the game, and although we still don’t know the out of bounds rules in Haiti, we seemed to keep up.  In the end Reggie blew it, and Pat didn’t (bet you can’t guess who wrote that).  

After the Haitian American soccer game, we traveled to the Baptist Mission to indulge on some “McDonalds” (American style food in Haiti).  Immediately following we walked outside to bargain with some local street venders for paintings, wood carvings, and other souvenirs.  Spoiler alert: a lot of fathers will be receiving machetes for fathers day. 

To finish the evening we had our final group meeting, as we will be saying goodbye to 2 of the members of Haiti 45 who will be departing the morning.  

Adam and Brian here,

Today we had the opportunity/challenge of climbing Mt. Mere Roseaux to visit one of the local schools FOCUS Ministries supports. After a 6 a.m. departure from camp and a two hour journey to the base of the mountain, we arrived at the starting point of our journey. We were greeted by a crowd of locals and donkeys who would accompany us up the mountain. The majority of the group decided to ride donkeys with wooden saddles up the mountain, but a few Sigma Chis and one adult guest hiked both up and down the trail.

After the four mile ascension we were greeted by a school house full of children. We took a few minutes to catch our breath as we took in the scenery: multiple mountain ranges separated by a lake bordered by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. For a short period of time, we socialized with, and took photographs, of the students before addressing the group as a whole. Jason Tedtman and John, one of our adult guests,  gave brief speeches before our young audience gave us a Haitian greeting of singing and clapping. They were excited to see us and curious to get to know us; they took a particular interest in differences between the hair of Haitian’s and our own. We mingled with the students and allowed them to examine us briefly before we took a short trip to a near by soccer field for a real Haitian futball game. While Team Haiti dominated the field, Regnold and Tedtman led the Sigma Chis to a well earned loss: 3-2. The Haitian fans enjoyed watching our men get schooled as they erupted every time we let in a goal: all parties had a great time. After the game we took a short photo break, said our goodbyes, and began our descent.

We took a ‘shortcut’ down the mountain that turned out to be rather confusing and treacherous. We had a few wipe-outs and a few wrong turns, but, eventually, we made it down to mountain to safety. It turned out to be the longest, and most meaningful day, though no rock throwing was included; we ended the evening with a great dinner and some well needed rest for the last two days of Haiti-45.

-Tag Team Duo

Over and Out.

Day 4 of our trip - our last work day in Callabasse. During our first 3 days, the group had made quite a bit of progress in leveling the site on which the medical clinic will eventually stand, but we still had a ton of work to do. Most of the large rocks had been moved, which allowed us to focus on a much more exciting and equally mentally demanding task: moving dirt. We needed to completely clear an 8 foot path down the entire width of the property in order to provide our lead engineer a clear base from which to plan the foundations of the building. 

Our method? Without an available wheelbarrow (2 were broken and the other was in use by the other group working at the site), we resorted to utilizing an old fashioned “chain system” in which we passed buckets filled with dirt to a dumping point 50 feet away. Things were going extremely well (read: we had moved about 1/4 of the total mass of dirt) when we broke for our mid-day break.

Then, soccer. Or, should I say, futball… Either way, in spite of a 5 goal handicap, we lost pretty convincingly to a group of Haitian educators, students, and faculty from the Callabasse school. As always, it was awesome to see the way these kids’ faces lit up when they saw the soccer ball Jason Tedtman had brought.

Mother Nature again cut our day short  - dark storm clouds arrived around 1:30, and, despite our desire to wait out the impending rain, our driver recommended we return to the Guest House early to avoid unsafe mountain roads.

Final Thoughts on our work at Callabasse (by the numbers)

2  - the number of tons of rock moved.

5 - the number of goals we lost by in the soccer game

4 - days we worked at the site

3 - soccer balls we donated to the school

7 - email addresses exchanged between us and the locals

1 - very happy village of Callabasse

-ARH

Welcome back. new post time.

Today we built upon our previous successes of moving rocks and moved rocks.  We got a bit of variation in our work as Don needed help building the “gabion wall” (giant wall made of stones in wire cages”  Some guys worked assembling the cages while the rest of us improved our rock throwing/catching abilities further. As the title alludes to we were cut off early in our work by a rain storm.  Although we couldnt put in a full day at Callebasse today, we are in a good position to have a solid amount of work done by the end of the day tomorrow.  

After dinner at our group meeting, Papa Dick’s good friend and Haitian Doctor “Dr. B” came over and spoke on Haiti.  She told us about her love for the haitian people, the resilience of the nation, and how, even though she had many chances to live in the states and work there, she kept coming back to Haiti. 

Overall, the learning continues and the world perspective keeps shifting (for me at least).  Much more to come and much less talk about moving rocks as we move into the weekend. 

Love,

CCC

Walt here- coming in for a very special guest blog post. The guys on the trip bet me I couldn’t make it through this post without using the phrases “sup” or “skkkkrt.”

Well, I just did. They win. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll to talk about what we’ve been up to.

Yesterday we began progress on clearing the site for a new medical clinic in Callabasse.  Basically this involves moving a very large pile of rocks and transporting it into another, out of the way pile.

With only the use of a few pick axes, two shovels, and one wheelbarrow- we’ve had to get rather creative in order to do this. We’ve found that forming a line and tossing individual rocks to each other down the line has been the fastest way to do this. And besides, that’s how Jerry Rice learned to catch a football as a kid in Mississippi (look it up). 

We’ve been lucky to have a number of local Haitians help us out with this, and their positive attitude and work ethic have been contagious. They’ve also helped us out with learning bits of pieces of Creole. Not only that, we now know our very own Bert Perkins IV would pass for a local to many.

As Papa Dick has said “You’ll never run out of rocks in Haiti,”  I think that might be an understatement. While the work has seemed never-ending, our engineer, Don Seela, says we’ve moved closed to five truckloads of rocks by hand in less than two days. I’ll take that.

And now for the obligatory rap, they made me. (comin straight off the dome as always)-

got alotta rocks

buildin up my stocks

ill take on any stairs 

mr. cool ain’t never cared

these rocks sharp, hope you don’t get stabbed

like a young randy moss, check the one hand grabs

i know my gloves broken, but my sweat ain’t

call me mcgovern, cause i’ll go all day