Haiti 2013 - Construction Efforts

View of the bay of Port-Au-Prince from the top of the hill of Riviere Froide in Carrefour.

From February 4th to the 11th we were with the Friar Suppliers on their ninth (I think) mission trip to Haiti. For the past four years the specific site has been the neighborhood around the compound of the Little Brothers of St. Therese (a Haitian order of religious brothers who serve the poor) in Riviere Froide, Carrefour, Haiti, not far from the capital city of Port-Au-Prince.

Riviere Foide, viewed from the hillside (above and below).
People of the area wash and bathe in the river.

A number of different activities take place on these trips. There is a medical team that sees thousands of patients, and returns two times more each year between the January trips. They have saved lives, helped children overcome malnutrition and - through their repeated visits - been able to improve chronic conditions. There is also a food handout, and this year an evangelization component was added - more about those later. A big part of the trip, though, is the construction effort. This year we continued an effort that began last year: the building of latrines; a total of 150 were completed. The families did most of the work, excavating ahead of time pits about a square meter in area and going as deep as 20'-30'. Our teams then arrived in stages to first frame, then mix and pour the cement base, and finally to build a shelter on top.

Two of the homes where latrines were constructed (above and below).

A colorful mural depicting a funeral painted on sheet metal
along one of the streets in the neighborhood.

My crew at work framing the base over the pit.

A latrine with the cement base already poured and set.

The carpentry crew adding the structure on top.

Br. Tansi, CFR and Br. Angelus, CFR, both of whom worked with caprntry teams -
Br. Angelus at the base pre-constructing the walls, and Br. Tansi on site helping
to assemble them.

Myself and Alan with some of the Haitian workers.