First Full Day of "Work"

Hello Folks!

It is currently 7:41 am on Sunday!  I was way too tired last night to update my blog. Thus I am doing it now! Long story short yesterday was AWESOME. I was very lucky to arrive on a friday night since Saturday and Sunday is the weekend!!(just like back home! lol) I slept in till ten because i was so tired! slept like a baby :). Did the usual morning thing. Breakfast, coffee, juice, and lotsa talking! Met some other people that i hadnt met the previous night.

At around 11 Heidi(who has alot of titles here) and Steve (volunteer counsellor here for 2 weeks who im bunking with at the moment!) invited me to go snorkeling with them just a little ways down where there is a small coral reef! The water was just a perfect temperature, and the different colors of fish that i saw were just spectacular!! We were out there for a good 2 hours! saw so many bright blue, yellow, red striped and solid colored fish. However half the reef was decaying and dying, which has to be tied into the earthquake as well as the pollution etc. It was still very beautiful and a reminder of how cool God's creation is!

After we finished snorkeling we were met by 5 local boys around the ages of 8 to 12. (Watson, Gerard, Donald, Janou, and unknown lol). We let them use the snorkeling gear and they were very excited about that! Gerard and Donald also asked for Creole bibles which SP has in stock at the base! Steve ran back to get a few for them. I thought that was so cool. First day here and we are just having fun but in the midst of  fun we could give two children and their families something hopefully they could cherish and read and learn about the Gospel!

Lunch happened (burgers OH YEAH!) and than i got a tour of the compounds that are being made beside our immediate base. Jim gave me a tour (hes about an hour away from Bangor, Maine! close to my uncle) of the construction and what I will be doing. I will also be working with Frank(recently retired from a southern state i believe), and two Jims (both very nice guys) and our foreman Ken (who is very nice as well). If you havent noticed every single person ive met here have been so welcoming and just awesome individuals! Im very excited to start work on Monday. Right now there are 14 houses being built which are actually split into two separate houses. The goal for these houses at the moment is to house volunteer teams that come to Haiti which at the moment are 2 to 3 groups a month. That is a substantial number and at the moment they either stay in tent places (which I am in right now) or at a house down the road. This project was started in late September. The houses are made of cinder blocks that are locally made. Their are a group of 40 local Haitian men that work on the houses. They are the primary masons laying the blocks with Ken and Jim making sure everything is going smoothly and somewhat correct! What Jim, Jim and I will be doing is doing the concrete forms that go on top of the walls before the roof goes on and the forms on the windows etc. The idea around this is to make it earthquake proof, and be able to stand a large quake. Pretty awesome id say!

After the tour I took a little rest to get showered. The showers are actually pretty cool too. Its a building where the guys and gals showers are separated by a wall that goes three quarters of the way up. So people can converse back and forth! haha So if u havent guessed yet, I had a conversation with Deb while showering. lol  Shes from California and here as an intern with the water sanitation program. Very cool person! After my shower the plan was to go to Port-Au-Prince for the international Jazz Festival located at a very "Posh" Place right past the airport. That was quite amazing. There were three performers for the night. The first group was from Spain called Rubem Dantas Group! WOW, they were good. Some crazy solos by the base guitarist. It was CRAZY! look them up on youtube. Very eccentric too, check the one guys hair out! haha   The second group was Canadian!! Her name was Kellylee Evans, and shes from TO. Won a juno or two! and she blew my mind. So talented! I screamed Go Canada a few times! (OF COURSE!) We unfortunately had to leave before the last performer because of the 11 pm curfew and our journey back to the Jax Beach base which can take 2 hours at the heavy traffic time. We luckily got back in an hour thanks to Nat's awesome driving skills and knowledge of where the crazy massive (and very needed) speed bumps are and the cracks in the roads (remnant of the earthquakes effect). SIDENOTE - I saw Tim K at the festival! We talked alot and got caught up! It was really good to see him. He is at the other base right now which is about 2 and a half hours away. BUTTT he comes to Jax Beach on Monday! So i am pumped for that!

That was pretty much my day in a nutshell, or a little more than nutshell! lol Todays plans are to relax, socialize, go snorkeling again and chapel tonight! which i am very excited to go to! Another cool thing that goes on here actually is that every sunday morning Nat and a few others pick up 60 orphans from the local orphanage and bring them to church. Very cool! Nat is actually one of the co-leads on a massive project that SP is doing down the road called the Lamb Center which will be a place for orphans to go etc. Ill update more on that later though cause im fuzzy on the details!

Anywaysss im all blogged out! and i have bfast to eat! and my bible to read :)

Hope everyone has a blessed Sunday and God Bless!

JD