Weight Loss, Garth Brooks, Shaving in the Dark and iPhone apps. Day 6 of our Volunteer in Haiti blog.
Haven Haiti Volunteer Diary
Progress on site is going well and it looks like all 100 houses will be completed by Friday afternoon.
It was another early start this morning which started by almost having a domestic in the tent. Sean had his alarm set for 5am and it woke the rest of us. He then proceeded to go back to sleep and I lost a valuable 1/2 an hour quality time in bed. No one was pleased!
We have porridge eggs, bacon and sausage every morning for breakfast but as with every meal the quality is excellent.
We are now working on other people’s houses to get them up to a final stage of completion. We are roofing, putting in window shutters( no glazing) and putting on doors. There are lots of small jobs to be done and some can only be done by skilled tradesmen and they are heavily outnumbered!
I met Bernadette today on a house. She is a retired school principal from Kerry but she was putting up walls and cement board like a natural trades person. When I remarked on the fact that she obviously knew her stuff she explained that when the funding for her school was cut she had no option but to buy a drill and a hammer and do most of the repair work herself.
I got off the bus this evening and I was aching from head to toe. I would give anything for a long soak in a hot bath. Luckily I’m in the first bus out and will be ahead of the queue for the showers.
I had a shave tonight for the first time in a week. God knows what it’s going to look like as it was performed in the dark without a mirror. There are 300 men here and I haven’t seen one mirror being produced in the wash up area, either we are all too embarrassed to produce them or we are programmed the same way and just didn’t think it was essential.
There is an excellent choice of food on the menu tonight. We have chicken, loin of pork, Chicken curry pie or steamed sea bass. I’m on dinner duty and afterwards I go for the chicken curry pie. There goes my plan to loose 1/2 a stone this week!
I have an idea for an iPhone shaving app though as using the camera is the only way I can see what damage I have done shaving blind with cold water. It’s not pretty!
Tonight is Garth Brooks night and he didn’t disappoint. It’s hard to believe that it’s 12 years since he played his last concert. He came on stage at 7.30 and started telling his life story and what musicians influenced him. It was just amazing to hear him play James Taylor, Bob Seiger, and a few more and then finish with a set of his own music.
He was joined by Trisha Yearwood who was just excellent, she sang two songs and just brought the house down. I was two rows from the front and awestruck. I found out this morning that padraic one of the my team members offered to do a duet with Garth and was told he’d get back to him. I wouldn’t bother waiting by the phone Padraic!
Regards
Declan
85 Person Tent:
Finishing our first house:
Kitchen Team meeting President Carter:
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