Building Goodness in Haiti on NBC29

One of the team members on our trip is a reporter for the local NBC29 news. He has been travelling with us, working with us on the building project, and reporting the whole thing along the way. They are doing a sort of feature story about the whole trip which you can check out on the NBC29 webpage. This is probably, the best way to follow along with the trip, since Henry is here to report on the trip not me. Although, since I haven't really been able to see what's been reported, I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of the reports which may or may not accurately reflect my personal awesomeness. But Henry seems like an alright guy so I think I can trust him.

Building Goodness in Haiti on NBC29.com

Where we are

I meant to post some of these details before we left, but preparations were a bit frantic, so I'll just fill in some details as I go. We flew into Port-au-Prince, Haiti which is the capital of the country and one of the areas hardest hit by the quake. From the PAP airport, we had a two or three hour bus ride to the CODEP Compound, where we will stay all week. (CODEP Compound on Google Maps)

Relative to the surrounding area the compound is practically a mansion, although compared to American standards the living conditions on the compound are quite rustic. Its really not that bad, but you do have to be much more conscientious about conservation, since most of the normal utilities like electricity, water, trash disposal have to be dealt with on the compound due the lack of reliable infratructures in Haiti. Currently, the most obvious by-product of this self-sustainable environment is the strong sulferous odor of the water since the water-purification system was damaged in the earth quake and they haven't yet been able to get the parts needed to repair it.

Most of the work we will do this week will be on the compound itself. The buildings on the compound survived the earthquake with very minor damage and are still in very good shape. The majority of the damage was to the walls surrounding that surround the compound. For the last two days, we have been rebuilding the walls. We won't be here long enough to finish the walls, but we are hoping to complete certain key aspects of the process completed so that the Haitians can finish the work after we leave.

Bon Joo!

We arrived safely on Saturday afternoon. We flew into Port-au-Prince and drove to the CODEP compound where we have been staying for the last few days. The bus ride from Port-au-Prince to L'Acul was quite an experience to see the extent of both the poverty and the post-quake destruction. We were encouraged to be be discrete about photography so as not to offend the Haitians. So I don't have too many pics driving through Port-au-Prince but I did get some choppy video of what we saw on the drive through.

Sunday, we visited church, which was held in the courtyard since all the church building were collapsed. Later that day we drove into the mountains to survey some of the work we will be doing.

Monday and Tuesday we started the work, more on that later, we are getting started for today. Gotta go.