Day 9

Today was a much slower day than others. It was soon clear that more skilled craftsmen were needed than general laborers today. Bossman gave guidance but generally, the skilled craftsmen did their own thing.

One young man began preparation for laying the middle section of the church floor, from doors to altar, with ceramic tile. He began with a lengthy process of measuring with a string and a level. He would wrap one end of the string around a rock and then sit the rock on the new concrete on either side of the middle section. Then he would run the string across the broken chunks of concrete base to the other side where he would wrap it arounnd a second rock. He did this east to west, as well as north to south, from the door to altar. Once the string was at the height of the new concrete slabs running down either side where the pews will sit, then he laid a tile under the string at different points to determine the final level of base chunks of concrete, and newly poured concrete over top the base.



Once determined, a crew outdoors began mixing concrete again, and hauling it in by the bucket to slowly fill a small space to lay a few tiles at a time. Starting at the altar, he began placing one 12" x 12" tile at a time with a simple trowel and rubber mallet. He filled the space with wet concrete over the base, placed a tile underneath the string and then tap tap tapped with the mallet until the tile was both level and just snug under the string...over and over and over, throughout the day. We watched amazed. Precision mattered to this man.



Outdoors other craftsmen continued with their creation of forms for 2 columns that would hold up the new porch entrance to the church. With simple wooden strips the height of the column and wire bands, turned and tightened with pliers, they basically created a Roman style ribbed column. At the top and bottom were caps formed with wooden blocks with circles of varying diameters cut out the middle. After putting the entire form together, they sheered it up with an intricate structure of 3"-4" diameter tree trunks and nails. Once everything was secure from all directions, concrete was lifted by bucket loads up a primitive ladder, again made from small trees. Everything was cut down with a 15" long steel machette, a chip at a time. No sawzall or chainsaw here! I couldn't wait until the forms were removed! Just wanted to see their work inside.

With a shorter work load today, we spent a good long time in the ocean cooling down. The Haitians thought we were crazy swimming most every day in the middle of their winter. Milord, our interpreter, sat on the beach for hours, shivering, as we froliced in the waves, sun, and sand. Remember it was in the mid 90's!..and many Haitians were wearing long pants and sleeves. We wore as little as possible without being rude to their culture, and stayed wet as often as possible! Brenda Walters, a member of my church at home and chaplain for the VFW, made us all these little neck coolers that really helped. They send them to our servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep them cool. Some team members only wore theirs occasionally but I wore mine daily! You just dip them in water and whalla! They stay cold for hours! Wore mine around my neck, on my head, whatever it took to stay cool. :-)

We returned from our swim to the exquisite smell of seafood. One of the older children, Ralph, had proudly shown us two large crabs the night before. He had dropped them on to the front porch of the pastor's house, as we watched them run sideways in attempt to escape their fate. So it was a good guess crab was on the menu today. Cooley also saw large crawdads through a window along the path from the pastor's house to the church. Possibly they would be our dinner.

Both guesses were wrong. You cannot imagine our faces when we removed the cover to see absolutely garganuan shrimp! I mean shrimp the size of small lobsters! Cooley began to salivate at the mouth as he wiggled with excitement in his seat, in anticipation of the feast before us. Tom passed once again...no goat, no fish, no shellfish, pork or shrimp for Tom. He did his best to sustain himself on local fruits and vegetables, rice, beans, bread, and practically a jar full of peanut butter. He had no idea what he was missing! Darryl, Jerry and Cooley all declared the shrimp steaks "the best meat I have ever eaten...ever!" Both the king of France and the President of Haiti declared Joselin "cook of the year!" (Just kidding. But they should have.) We went out onto the porch with a resounding array of claps and "whoohooo's" in accolade of Joselin's incedible dinner for us. He blushed.



It was obviously the weekend, because local music blasted across our side of the mountain, well into the night. Children were scarce, as they joined in porch dancing across the village. Eventually we all fell asleep. We knew there was still much work to be done.

Final note: The twin goats found their mother early in the morning once the rains stopped. They slept all day. It was the quietest day here so far...well...until the music started...another long night.