So what are we doing in Haiti? Same thing we do everywhere. Try and be a blessing to our friends. Troy has been Superman here in Les Cayes. He has worked so hard and made so much positive impact on this house it hardly looks the same.
I have a list: (Only because it will help me remember.)
1. Fixed the shower.
2. Fixed the sink.
3. Fixed the toilet.
4. Painted the house.
5. Made a lovely garden in the front of the house.
6. Shored up the drainage problems around the foundation.
7. Terraced the entire back yard. (Still in progress, almost done.)
8. He's also currently working on putting in gutters.
9. Reworked the pipes to get the outside shower working once we tore down the inside one.
10. Worked on the pump to see why it requires the generator to actually pump. (No luck.)
11. Worked on any car repairs that he could do himself. (Changed oil, fix busted seats, etc...)
12. Screened all the windows of the house.
Here's a photo of the house when we first got here. It has a kind of welcome to the jungle feel to it. The entire area in front of the house has been reworked and it looks really great.
Here's an after picture from the front of the house, but Troy did not take it. The grass was ruined by flooding before we got here and it is plugged now. Apparently he wasn't willing to take the picture until the grass had grown in some more. He demands perfection! I wanted you to see what he did with it. Check out the garden now.
Here are some photos of the work that was done to fix the walkway on the side of the house. It was running away more and more every time it rained because of problems with drainage. We hired a local boy to help out and Judy's full time Gardner/Security Guard was on hand to help out and oversee. He works very hard and is an amazing man. Here you can see the layering. This was built up in such a way that it would last through the heavy rains. So far it has been doing great. They planted a great deal of things along the side to gird it up, and did what they could to compensate for the fact that the neighbor's property is higher and we will have to deal with their runoff as well.
Here's the finished walkway. I wish you could see how bad it had been. You could not walk through it without endangering your ankles. You'll have to take my word for it.
While he was at it. Judy has brought in a construction crew to tear down and rebuild the entire mud portion of the house. This was a precarious section whose roof had blown off in a hurricane and whose walls were on their last legs. The tin roof was only good in one part of it, but a great deal of it was suffering from termite damage and the rebuilt section leaked pretty bad.
Here's what we were walking through to get to the bathroom when construction was going on in the dining room. The work was done in two sections. This was the first. We are still in the second.
The sticks are there because they are holding up the cement roof that has been poured for this room. That room is actually done now. It's just a mess at the moment because it is connected to the room that is currently being worked on. Things are coming along great, and we are sincerely hoping that it will all be done before we leave for Panama.
So what have I been doing?
Well there are dozens of pictures of me doing dishes in buckets on the lawn or sorting through school supplies or working on the computer. However, in all of those shots, I am sweating profusely, dressed in pajama type clothing (the coolest clothes I had) and none to thrilled to be in a picture. Since I am the one who does the blogs, you are not going to see those pictures!
There were times that I was presentable though, so I will show you those. It will have to be in another blog though. Tune in later folks. Same bat time, same bat channel!
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