Is it working now?
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