Up to Speed

Up to Speed

The camp has been slow on activity this past three or four weeks.  Christmas and New Years had many staff go home for extended leave periods.  They have been trickling in since the first of the year but today was the first day that everyone that left on leave returned. 

The biggest difference in camp was that the work on the expansion resumed under full steam today.  A number of new carpenters and masons came in this past week for three month stints.  In addition, the Haitians laid off at the end of December were rehired; well, many of them I should say.  As the rubble crew headed out this morning there were fifty some locals milling around the front gate wanting jobs.  When we returned in early afternoon, there were still some tires smoldering at the SP entrance where those not hired vented their anger.  I suppose with that kind of attitude I wouldn’t hire them either.

An additional number of staff in training also added numbers to our base.  Five or six new faces were at dinner tonight along with the many new faces from last week.  Rubble has hired a new operator, a friend of Francois’ who flew in with his wife.  He will start Wednesday after his orientation training.  Phillipe has good experience operating equipment and driving trucks.  He and Merriam are both in their mid twenties and should fit in easily during their 12 month stay.

Rubble crew has been working on the site of Habitat for Humanity.  They are building a small community of single family structures.  Displaced Haitians from the earthquake will be moving in soon.  I’m estimating there are around one hundred or so little two room buildings erected so far.  Along with those are fresh water wells, latrines and security.  Francois has been grading the old fields with the dozer scraping level the furrows and mounds left over from the last crop.  I was moving dirt piles and trash around and loading the trucks with left over concrete scraps that we spread on a future road as base material.  After three or four days our time there is almost finished.

Today after I pulled off of the Habitat project I moved the loader back to the Lamb Center and then drove the backhoe from base to the Lamb Center.  I’ll be using it tomorrow to demo a small structure next door.  The demo materials will be used to fill an old cistern on site so nothing will have to be transported.  Travis and Robert both had meetings with nearby mayors concerning demo work in their jurisdictions.  They said the meetings went well; it seems to open the doors for future work in their respective communities.

The dining room was full tonight, in fact we had overflow to the concrete ‘tables’ outside.  Many new faces to meet and get to know.  From the volume I’d certainly say that the captain said, ‘full speed ahead’.