StephenByxbe.com

The alarm clock sounded – 5:15am…. snooze. Again at 5:20am… snooze. Again… no snooze.. just turned it off. Finally I got up and ate breakfast.. I didn’t get to finish breakfast. I had to go out to the gate and make sure all the workers were here and ready to go. When I got up I had a pretty bad headache, so I had decided I wasn’t going to the job site in the morning. They didn’t need me there anyways. I had worked out the majority of the problems yesterday.

So.. I returned to my room and finished with breakfast. I went back to sleep for a little while.  I didn’t get to sleep too much longer because we were shipping the group out for some touring of PAP. I sent the group off and headed to the depot… aka the soccer field. At the depot the guys were starting to put together groups of 1/4 rebar. They are tying it 20 pieces at a time to use for the foundations. They are also moving stuff around so we can build the storage shed for all of the supplies.

I then headed to Cite Soleil to check on the work that is going on. We are building 1 house and 2 roofs. The houses are starting to look really good. I was happy to get to see the workers in Cite Soleil. It has been awhile since I have seen them.

After C/S I took a nap to try to reduce my headache. It didn’t work very well. After the nap I went to the welder’s house and picked up some doors for the houses we are building. I brought them to the “depot.”

After lunch I sat down and started working on the numbers for the houses. I am trying to squeeze the budget a little bit to be able to offer a couple different things. I spent a good hour or two working on the numbers. I ended up going to Cite Soleil again to look at the work and saw one of the home owner’s. He was so happy. He is planning on bringing me some creole chicken when we are finished. These families are so nice. I love them all.

The day ended pretty nice. Some of the loudest thunder and craziest lightning I have ever seen. It was a fun time. I will admit I jumped a few times. The devotion was fun tonight. Talked about hope… hope for the Haitian people.

Tomorrow the team leaves. Always sad when a group leaves, but good news – BILL FUDGE is coming. FOR A MONTH! Bill Fudge is one of my favorites.

Anyways, thats it for today. Nothing crazy. Just a regular day in the life of an American-Haitian

Always with Love,

Stephen

It seems like everyday I am buying/moving something that weights 20,000 lbs. Cement, iron, boards etc… Today I purchased a load of Rebar – 10 tons worth. The truck was too big to get down the ally and into the area where we keep it, so they dumped it in the road and we drug it all be hand. It was some really tough work, but we had a lot of fun.

This morning I was up again… early.. out the door at 5:30am. Everyone was on the roof really early watching the sunrise with Lucy, Gracie and William.. since it was their last Haitian sunrise. It was really sad to see them go. I hate that I couldn’t make it to the airport with them. We will all miss them so much. We had a great team here for the past month.

Back to work now. This morning we actually left on time – without a lot of the workers. They were running towards the truck as we passed by. We don’t have time to sit around and wait for everyone. We were actually loaded and on the way by 6:15am. I was very impressed. We got to the work site this morning and everything seemed to be going well, but you know that is too good to be true. I told all the teams that if they didn’t build the houses square that they would lose money. They all said no problem but when it came down to building the house they started freaking out that it wasn’t the same measurement that I used in my example. At we know they were actually concerned. I finally got the right point across to them and work continued.

We then moved on to a piece of land where we will be building 4 houses. I can’t wait. I have wanted to build a whole neighborhood, so this will be something semi close.. well… not really but it is more than one house by itself.The land is really cool and stretched out to the beach. We walked around and talked about the project for awhile.

We moved on again. Back to Terre Noir now. When I got back I loaded up and headed to Cite Soleil to check out the work and then to the bank. After the bank I headed to the rebar store to make my purchase. It was a lot of fun. I found the cheapest price on rebar in all of Haiti.

After moving the rebar I was extremely dirty and sweaty.. Soaking wet with sweat. It was a great work out. I went straight from a two hour “work out session” aka hauling rebar to a construction meeting with all the workers.

It was a really busy day, but that is what I live for.

It’s time for bed now. Hope everyone is doing well.

Always with love,

Stephen

Today I am writing to you very early… it is 6:30pm. I have just finished dinner and I am starting my blog because tonight I know I will be asleep soon.

Today was an interesting experience. This morning started out at 5:30am, standing out front of the compound with 30 haitian workers… waiting on the truck. I keep trying to call Ronic (the driver) but Haitian cell phone service doesn’t really work until 6 am. Finally I reach him. His starter is messed up. He makes it to the compound around 5:50am. We load up 112 pieces of rebar, 30+ workers and hit the road. We made it to the job sites are 7:30 – 1 1/2 hrs late. I got everyone started and explained the new houses to them. With every set of houses there is always one person who is amazing. There is one lady we are building a house for who is so sweet. She made juice for the workers today, she bought water for me and she hugs and kisses me every time I show up at the job site.

After I finished getting everyone started I went to the cement place. This is THE cement manufacture for all of Haiti. I learned that I could get a really good price on cement so I decided to check it out. Yesterday I stopped by and learned that they do not take cash. I had to go to the bank and do a transfer to make it possible. So, now I have my transfer receipt in hand and I am ready to work. I show up at the gate. They take all of my information again. We stand around and wait… They take my picture and create a temporary badge for me. After 30 minutes of preparation we are ready – but wait – it can’t be that easy. I am the only one that is allowed to go. Praise the Lord I speak a little creole. They will not let anyone else go.. oh and get this. You have to walk the half a mile road from the guard shack to the admin building. They won’t let you drive back there until you have a receipt for pickup. This is the most secure place I have ever been in my entire life… the sad thing is it’s all about cement. So… I make it to the admin building after walking down this huge hill (that I will have to walk back up). When I reach the building I meet a group of Haitians that are waiting on their turn. I sit down and join them. I think I sat there for an hour. It was a long time. Also, no cell phones work once you enter the main gate. It is like they have a signal blocker. Finally I met with the lady, who does not speak English. I explain that I paid for 1000 bags of cement but I only want to take 200 today but I want them 100 at a time. She says no problem. It takes about 30 mins for her to create my account and print out the bagillion receipts I had to have. We joke for a few minutes and then I start my hike back out to the main gate. Once I get to the gate, everybody gets in the truck thinking it is just easy to go get everything… Nope. Everyone has to show their ID’s & Ronic cannot enter because he is wearing shorts. This place has some crazy rules. This took another 15 mins to work out. Now that we have wasted all morning, we are on our way. We drive through this huge compound (that is right on the coast with their own personal port), make it through the scales and more security and start loading cement. This place probably bags 200,000+ bags of cement a day and sells every single one of them. There were 50 flat bed semi trucks waiting in the parking lot ready to load up. When one left another showed up. Each truck carries a minimum of 1000 bags of cement. They open at 6am and close at 6pm. They are doing some serious business. Anyways, I made it out alive. We drove to the job sites and unloaded the 10,000 lbs of cement we just picked up and then did the whole thing again (minus the admin part). So today we moved 20,000lb of cement. It was very tiring and I was incredibly dirty. The really sweet lady I was talking about earlier kept trying to clean my face and arms. I was so dirty it wasn’t working very well, but I appreciated the effort.

I spent all day at Ibo and made it back to the compound at 3:30pm. I got a shower and then did some work here. Time flies here. It was 6 o’clock before I knew it.

Today was a lot of fun. I enjoy busy days. The mosquitoes are really bad right now so tonight will not be fun.

It is almost time for devotion. Thanks for everything.

Always with Love,

Stephen

I apologize for not writing a blog yesterday. It was a busy – long day and 10 pm rolled around before I realized so I went to bed. I am trying to – no matter what – go to sleep at 10pm. Right now I having to get up around 5am and be gone by 5:30am because we are building at Ibo Beach which is about 30 – 40 mins away. It is hard to get everything together and out there, because if you leave the simplest thing at the compound it is a WASTED trip out there. Today we started on one house and got 2 others ready. It will be fun working away from the “Cites” area for awhile.

Not much exciting happened today. The team that is here is knocking out some roofs which is always awesome. I found a distributor of building materials which offers much better prices. So I was very happy to be able to meet with him.

This is going to be a short blog tonight. I promise I will write more tomorrow and I will start before 9:55pm.

God has been showing me a lot lately through people and reading. I have a lot going on in my mind right now and I am excited to see what He is working on.

Time for bed now.

Stephen

This morning we all decided we wanted to go to Cite Soleil church. I haven’t been to a whole church service in what seems like weeks due to illness, teams arriving and leaving and who knows what else. So I was excited to go. C/S church is huge, so it is fun to be a part of it.

We got there pretty early so, unfortunately, we had to sit close to the front. Haitian church doesn’t work like the US. You don’t pick where you want to sit. You sit where they say sit.

The sermon is still pretty hard to understand, even though I feel like I can speak pretty good. It is a lot of words I don’t use in everyday conversation. It is also hard to pick up on the theology that is going on, so sometimes I take a book along with me and read.

After church I had a mid-morning meal and then nap time. I was disturbed from my nap to pay a block manufacturer. Of all the times for him to come it had to be while I was sleeping. Haha. No worries.

After my nap I started working on some projects on my computer and typing up a bunch of info. I took a few people on a tour of some houses we built around 2:30pm and then headed back to Blanchard.

The new team came in around 2pm today. They are from Atlanta.. so very close to home. They seem to be having a good time and are looking forward to working.

Tonight all the staff got together on the roof and relaxed for a few minutes. It was nice. It is really going to be sad when they have to leave… I have really connected with everyone.

O well… such is life I guess. We have to move on.

August is going to be a busy month… I can’t wait!

Always with Love

Stephen

Once a runner… always a runner. If I go for a long period without running, my body begins to hate me. I crave long runs. Today was one of those days. I am not a big fan of running in the area where I live. It stinks, it’s really rocky and uneven and even though I have lived here for something like 5 months or so… I still get lost. Today, I didn’t care. I had to go. So this morning, I put on the shoes and headed out. I think I ran at least 4 or 5 miles. It was a great time to de-stress and unload. I have been planning my trip back to the states and preparing for that time, which includes raising support. I am not a big fan of raising support but it is the only way I am able to be here. So that has been stressing me out a little.

After my run I did a good workout. I lifted some concrete blocks and did curls. It was a lot of fun using my make shift gym. I created a schedule for running and working out and drew it on my wall so I could see it everyday.

This was the last weekend for Ella, Gracie, Lucy and William so we all tried to have some bonding time. It was a lot of fun. More of a relaxed day. I am really going to miss this group. They have been great. We really feel like a family here. I wish everyone could stay.

We have a team coming in tomorrow, so it will be back to work this week. I feel like we haven’t had a team in forever, but that isn’t the truth. We have just been enjoying our time off.

It is getting late, so I am heading to bed.

Always with Love,

Stephen

Finally.. it will let me write. I think my blog wanted me to take the night off last night. However, I stayed up late trying to make it work. No worries. I didn’t disappear… I am still here.

So let’s see. What happened yesterday. OOoooo some randomness on the job site. One of my workers (Fredo) stops by the compound before work. He has a headache, but is telling me something about gang members trying to steal from him or from the workers and shooting at him or someone else. It didn’t really make much since, even after Byambison came out there. But, this alerted me that something was going on. After Fredo left, Ronic came by to give me an update on everything. He told me there had been some confrontation at one of the sites resulting in him only being able to take what they could use in one day. Where we are working now there are a lot of problems with things “sprouting legs” and walking off. There also seems to be a problem with people forcefully taking items… What I don’t understand is why someone would pull a gun on a worker for a bag of cement. Really… are they going to pull a gun… hoist a 100lb bag of cement onto their shoulder and expect not to get hit with a shovel as they “run away” with a bag of cement. This is just me thinking.. this has not happened.. so please don’t worry.

Anyways, I am pretty good about rambling on and on about all kinds of things. I wish I could stay on topic, but I think the blog would probably be boring then. Ok. So, yesterday. I am on foot in Cite Soleil all morning checking out job sites. At first I was with Ronic and then I saw Marconelle walking around so he joined. We scoped everything out, fixed a few problems, heard the real story about the “stealer,” and talked with some friends. The real story about the stealer was – a guy robbed the grocery store next to one of the job sites. The whole community started chasing the guy and he got scared so he pointed the gun behind him and shot, kinda up into the air. If it had not been up in the air it would have hit Rigo or Fredo. That was what Fredo was trying to tell me. I wasn’t as concerned after I heard this. I thought someone came up to them stealing from them.

After this, I had no transportation, so Marconelle and I took a nice walk back to Blanchard. It was kind of relaxing. We had a good talk. I love Marconelle, he is awesome. His new title is “Driver and Body Guard.”

After lunch, I hopped on the bicycle and peddled around Terre Noir checking on the roofing projects. It started to rain while I was riding around which made it kind of nice. I stopped by a friends house and said hello. I hadn’t seen him in awhile. By the time I made it back on my bike it was time to call it quits for the day. I ended up having to run some late errands with Ronic so I made it back to the compound around 8:30pm.

Now on to today. I think 75% of the staff woke up today with a headache and other sickly feelings. We all took a little longer to get going today than usual. Long story short… today was a little more of slow day. However, we finished framing one house and finished with the metal on 1 other. I had to make a bank run and then when I got back everyone, including me crashed. I was out until 6pm. Not sure what happened, but I hope everyone is better tomorrow.

This next week is going to be sad. We lose Ella on Tuesday & Lucy, Gracie and William on Wednesday. Half of our American staff gone in one week… It is going to be a hard time adjusting to life without them.

Well.. look at the time. 11:15pm – only an hour and 15 mins past my bed time. This 10pm thing is hard. Maybe tomorrow…

Goodnight for now.

Stephen

It was tough getting up this morning. I had to face the inevitable…. going home. If I were to move up in the mountains, I would never come down. Apt #6 (aka. Nathan, William, Byambison and myself) all slept as late as we could. The others tried to give us a wake up call but it didn’t really work. We struggled up to an amazing breakfast of fresh fruit, oatmeal, eggs and french toast! I LOVE The Lodge! Yoga sounded like a good idea after breakfast but I was so stuffed I couldn’t move… plus the sides of my legs were really sore from stabilizing myself of the mountain all day yesterday.

After breakfast we all started gathering everything and packing up, paying our bill, playing some last games, devotions and cleaning up. It really was sad to leave.

Once we were all ready, around 10am, we started taking some group pictures. They were fun. Then we started loading the car again. Beverly Hillbillies coming back down the mountain. Everyone was kinda scared about going down the mountain. They were worried that the breaks weren’t going to work. I was making jokes about the breaks the day before so I think it got them worried. Long story short.. I am here typing now, so we mind it fine.

We stopped at the Baptist Mission on the way down and had lunch. We decided to go down the side of the mountain instead of going down Delmas. It is a much nicer way… however, we went all the way into downtown. Traffic Jam. But welcome to Haiti… they are everywhere. Well, while the “Clampets” (that would be us) are sitting in the traffic jam, it starts to rain. All of our bags, computers and all, are strapped to the top of the car. I shut the truck off and yank the keys out of the ignition and whip out my knife. I start cutting the rope and tossing the bags on top of everyone in the truck. Note that we are now stopped and are the cause of an even greater traffic jam. I manage to get the bags down pretty quick and we press onward. Funny thing… it stopped raining about 2 mins later. Yeah.. that’s what I said.

We made it back to the compound, settled in and all got on facebook. It seems to be like a disease. I wish facebook didn’t exist. Anyways, dinner came.. we enjoyed it and then started telling riddles again. It was a frustrating session of riddles this time, but still fun.

I am making a pact with myself now. It goes like this: I will go to bed every night by 10pm and I will wake up and run every morning by 5:30am. It is 10:08pm so I am headed to bed.

Always with Love,

Stephen

This morning I tried my hardest to sleep in. Byambison was up around 5:45 or 6 am moving stuff around and making noise. I sat up and said “What are you doing… quit touching everything, or just go on to breakfast.” I’m not sure what he was doing. He may have been sleep walking. I opened my eyes later and he was asleep again. Anyways,I slept until maybe 6:30 – 7am and then headed to breakfast. Everyone was already up. They were making omelets for breakfast for everyone. I’m not a huge fan of omelets but it looked so good. I ate half of it and gave the other part to William. Then I got some oatmeal and coffee. We all sat and discussed our dreams and how we were sore after sleeping on real mattresses.

After breakfast we all took part in Yoga on the patio. It was so much fun. All of the staff were watching us (and laughing) but we were having a great time. It felt great to stretch after my run yesterday.

After Yoga I saw the owner of the Hotel so I went to talk with her. She had already given us a discount but after I told her what I did, who we all worked for and what we were all doing she gave us an even bigger discount. It was so nice of her. She even worked up a special menu for us with dessert and a surprise for J-Wat’s (Jean Wadson) birthday.

After my talk with the owner, I went down into the garden to do a devotion. The gardens here are so beautiful. I finished with the devotion and everyone decided they wanted to go on a nature hike. This is where the day starts to get crazy… We just started walking down the road and then started taking random paths. We ended up at the Catholic school and orphange… inside of the gate. So all of a sudden, 8 white people and 2 Haitians started popping out of the gate onto the road. It was a lot of fun. We continued walking down the road and then we saw this little path go off to the right. We started walking down it and saw an incredible view. Knowing us… especially Nathan and I… we had to continue. We just kept walking and walking trying to get a better view. We started going down the mountain on the little tiny goat paths. Before long we were fully committed on a full hike down of the mountain. We lost 2 individuals to the hotel at the beginning of the journey. They turned around and headed back home. The rest pressed onward. We were slipping and sliding down these little paths, rapidly making our way in to the valley. This is a much deeper valley than the one I was in yesterday. Everyone was in awe of the beauty of the mountains. It was a great bonding experience. There were Haitians all over the place working in the fields, picking peas and planting new crops. They were all looking at us like we were crazy as we blazed out our own path straight down the mountain. We were all holding hands as we tip-toed straight down. Off in the distance we all spotted these 2 huge waterfalls. Nathan and William decided they wanted to go one way and we all decided we were going another way. We started on our separate journeys. Nathan’s route was more along the top of the mountain and then down into the valley at the waterfall. My route was going down into the valley and then following the river up to the waterfall so we could see everything along the way. We started our decent down into the valley. It was very steep. We were led by 2 small Haitian children and followed by one crazy old man. We slowly made our way down and finally reached the river. We were all so happy to see the water. The day started off very cool but had turned warm. We played in the water as we worked our way up the river. There were lots and lots of small waterfalls. We had a great time. We took a lot of pictures. O yeah, I forgot to tell you. Gracie has been climbing and walking this whole time with no shoes on! It was crazy! Anyways, we keeping on going and get to a bigger waterfall. I am getting really excited now because I know we are almost there. There is small thought in the back of my mind that this crazy old man is leading us to his small village where we are going to join them for dinner.  By join them I mean be the main course. It was a funny thought I entertained just to heighten the level of suspense. There was absolutely no danger involved at this point. There was no mountain to fall off of or to slide down. After climbing up the next waterfall I ran ahead with Byambison to see what was next. It was about a 12-15′ waterfall that we climbed up. It was pretty slick so everyone else found a path around it. There was a waterfall that went through a cave that came up next. Byambison, Gracie and myself all climbed into it but only Byambison and I made it up to the top. It was such a cool cave. The water rush all down through it. This place is one of the mist beautiful places I have ever been – if not the most beautiful place I have even seen. We continued on to the last and final water fall. It was about 40-50′ and there was no way for us to climb it. There was only a 3′ deep pool at the bottom but it was all so beautiful. I felt like we were in the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo Di Caprio were they are running around the island. I was thinking at any moment we are going to run across a field of drugs or either some large drug plantation, but thankfully we didn’t. I think that would be the bad decision in the “choose your own adventure story.” After we played for awhile at the big waterfall we asked them to take us back to the Hotel. They said no problem. We started our climb straight up the side of the mountain. I am not lying when I say straight up. It was hilarious watching everyone. O yeah.. we haven’t seen or heard from Nathan or William yet. As we start to climb out it starts to get kinda dark. A big storm is brewing and we are about to get soaked. We continue to climb, knowing that everything is going to be really slick in a few minutes. We made it to the top of one mountain and then started to cross over to another mountain. As we are crossing we start calling out to Nathan. All of a sudden we hear them calling back. They are way up in a valley not to far from us. They had made it to another waterfall. They started to head our direction but we weren’t stopping. Now it has started to rain… not just drizzle… but come down pretty good. I think I can confidently say that this was the best time I have ever had in my whole life. I was out in the Haitian wilderness playing in waterfalls, hiking up dangerous mountainsides, shirtless, with my newest friends having the time of my life. All we needed now was a camera crew to capture the moment. We are now walking on little dirt paths, maybe 1 foot wide, that drop off down the mountain on my right side. It was amazing. The clouds were also settling in so we were being covered with the clouds. Everyone was getting really tired, but everyone was having the time of their lives. Nathan and William finally caught up with us close to the top of the mountain. It was a crazy hike. Very very strenuous. I am glad everyone did yoga this morning It got everyone nice and stretched out.

We finally made it back to The Lodge, with the help of our Haitian friends. We were all starving when we got back, so we demolished our supply of food. PB&J all over the place.
Showers were definitely in place… supposedly they have hot water here… but I am not real sure. I let everyone jump in the shower first. I decided I would wait until later and give the hot water heater the chance to heat back up. It also gave me a chance to catch up on my blogs and story time with you.

I am going to stop for now and finish this blog tonight. Currently it is 3pm. Crazy… look at all the fun stuff that has already taken place in such a short time. I think hide and go seek is on the schedule after dinner tonight. This should be a lot of fun.
Peace for now!

Ok. So I’m back. I have been sitting in the lobby of the Lodge for a while with everyone. We have all been trying to get on the internet but we haven’t had much luck. We think a tropical storm is on the way… I take that back. We believe a tropical storm has surrounded the mountain in which we are on. It has been flooding for an hour or two now.. which means no internet signal. It is really nice though because it is really peaceful. We have been trying to decide on a game to play but no such luck.

Here is something EXTREMELY crazy. There is a fireplace in the lobby area where we are all sitting and it is cold enough to need a fire. We have all been soaking wet all day and would really enjoy a fire. Who would have ever thought I would want to start a fire in Haiti??

Next thing on the schedule: Dinner – Steak – cooked medium, covered in mushrooms and a red wine sauce. Served with mashed potatoes, tomatoes and mozzarella, salad and more. After dinner – dessert and PARTY for J-Wats birthday around the fireplace.
I think tonight will be another game night.

Comment just made…. “We are going to freeze to death in the hottest country on earth.”
For the rest of the night we sat around the fire telling stories, playing the question game and just laughing. This has been an amazing trip. The rain has continued to pour and pour and pour. Hopefully the roads will be drivable in the morning :/ . If not… looks like we are staying another night!

I think it is around 11pm.. off to bed I go.

Always with Love,
Stephen