StephenByxbe.com

Working on the depot for 12 hours straight, with no real breaks, probably wasn’t the best idea. This morning I woke up and I think everything was sore and everything popped. To say I struggled out of bed is an understatement, but I was up at 5am getting ready to go.

This week has been very difficult with supplies. We are working 30-40 mins away from Terre Noir, 1 hour away from the block manufacturer and we only have 1 big truck to bring supplies to 8 houses. My phone has been constantly ringing with people saying we don’t have this.. we don’t have that.. I have been gong crazy. On top of that, Ronic’s truck broke down twice this week so we were left with absolutely nothing. It has been very stressful, but somehow productive at the same time.

I went and checked on all of the job sites this morning. They are all going very well. We spent 4 hours this morning checking out the sites and getting cement. I finally made it back to the compound and snuck in a small nap. Afterwards it was off to the bank and town for some errands. I took up the rest of the day driving around town with BMB.

Tonight has been fairly relaxing. Just taking some time to sit down and think. That hasn’t happened in a while!

Maybe I will make it to bed early tomorrow!

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!! Hope everyone is doing well.

Always with Love,

Stephen

I don’t know if it really is possible to melt… but I think today was pretty close. I started sweating the moment I got out of bed and continued to sweat until 9pm tonight. I lost at least 10 lbs today in sweat. I got up this morning with intentions to go to Ibo Beach and look at the construction. There wasn’t really a reason for me to go to Ibo today, but I was going anyways. However, I didn’t end up going. I decided there were a lot of things I needed to do today.

I gave Ronic everything he needed and then I started working here. I have been building a “depot” or storage shed over the past week or two. We have so many supplies coming that I needed a place to put everything out of the weather. I had two sections already built.. about 32′x16′. We went ahead and put all the boards in that came the other day. So this morning I moved a huge pile of rocks out of the way, which were in a gigantic ant pile. We lit the ant pile on fire after this. It was a lot of fun. We spent a few hours moving rocks and broken blocks. After we had cleared it all out we put gravel all on the ground to make a nice floor for everything.

Once we finished cleaning up, I built the next section to the depot. It is 11′X16″. It was about lunch time when we got the first 2 rafters up. We stopped after the first 2 and ate lunch. After lunch we finished with the rafters, lats and with the gravel under the new portion. I didn’t have any roofing nails so I couldn’t finish with the tin. I took a break and waited for the nails and the generator. As soon as that arrived I was back at work finishing the metal and starting the next section of the depot. It is the corner piece. I got half of the rafters finished and then called it a night around 6:30pm.

It was a productive, sweaty day. I liked it.

Now it’s time for some much deserved sleep.

Always with love,

Stephen

P.S. – the internet was down at the Insurance and Tag office today so we couldn’t do anything. Also, the alternator was bad so they had to get it fixed.

That is the question.

The goal today is: Go to the office of the “Haitian Papers” aka the ID office and take 3 hrs to get an ID that takes Haitians 1+ months to get.

Next – drive to St. Marc, work out the price, pay, drive home and get ice cream.

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Now on to what actually happened.

I went to bed around midnight last night. Not good, but O well. I woke up this morning around 4am to my phone ringing. Ronic is calling. If you don’t remember, he drives the big tap tap that carries all the supplies to the job site. I figure, if he is calling at 4am.. we have a problem. I answer.. he does not sound good. He tells me he has been at the hospital all night. His wife has been really sick with fever and really bad symptoms, but what makes it worse is that she is pregnant and due very soon. I tell him to let me know if I need to do anything and I told him I would cancel work for today. I hang up with him and start texting all the bosses. The word starts spreading fast. I called Ronic back to ask what his kids were doing. He said that they were at home with someone. Autumn was going to watch the kids if he needed her to, but he said he needed help at the hospital so she went over there.

After all the workers finally figured out we weren’t working today I headed to Cite Soleil with the American team. They were starting a new roof so I wanted to look at it with them. Also, we are roofing the caretakers house at the C/S compound so we had some specific guidelines to follow. I took are of all that and then it became truck time.

Our first meeting was with Marconelle’s brother (9:45am). He works for the government in the “Haitian Paper” department. We showed up at his office, bypassed the gigantic line, sat down at a desk, wrote our info on a piece of paper, paid our money and finished. Marconelle’s brother hopped on a motorcycle to go have it processed and said he would meet us at lunch (12). We headed over to Visa Lodge to sit and wait. He showed up at 1pm and handed us our papers. How easy was that. Three hours to do what normally takes at least a month (or so they say). We start looking at everything and realized Bill Fudge’s name is spelled – Billy Steven Fedge – not Fudge. Big problem. They could have messed up on mine for now and it not be a problem, but his was the one we really needed. He says no problem. We will just run back over to the office and fix it. Next we realize that the birthdate on mine is 1955 and Bill’s is 1985… that probably isn’t going to fly either.

We get in the car and head back to the office. Long story short, we couldn’t manage to get it fixed today because the director who needed to sign it had stepped out, but it will be ready first thing in the morning.

We could have been finished with the truck if it had not been for the stupid “E”. Goodness… what were they thinking haha. I want to see the faces on the guys at the port when the realize how fast we got out papers.

Anyways, we called it a day around 3 and headed home. We are trying again tomorrow.

It’s going to be a good day.

Thanks for everything.

Always with love,

Stephen

I know I know.. I didn’t write a blog yesterday. Just shoot me now… I probably ruined someone’s night because I didn’t post. Sorry.. really.. I mean it. I can’t say it won’t happen again, because it will.

Anyways.. nothing fun happened yesterday that I can remember. So on with today. I woke up a little late, but we had planned to go to Cite Soleil Church, so it was ok. However, we all had our own “English Church service” so we didn’t end up going to C/S at all.

The new group arrived around 9am or so. They got settled in, I talked with them, explained the work for the day and moved on. I was supposed to have a meeting with the bosses but I moved it to 5pm. I remembered that I needed to go to Cite Soleil to pick up some money for a door, so I hopped in the truck with Marconelle and rolled out.

I needed to leave for the mountain around 11:30am but I was waiting on Cola to arrive. He finally showed up around 11:45am and we started on our journey. I didn’t want to use a tap tap today because it was so hot so I rode with Cola on his motorcycle. It was a great time weaving through traffic, not getting stuck in traffic jams. I think I need to get Marconelle a motorcycle and just let him drive me around on that. Bad news though. When we got to Petionville we had a flat tire. I hopped off and waited about 30-45 mins while they fixed the tire. I arrived at my friends house around 1:30 – just in time for lunch. Lunch was amazing by the way. I was stuffed. Over lunch we talked about everything that is going on, what the government is doing/isn’t doing, other things we could do to help, how they could get involved with helping and lots of other things. After lunch we hopped in the car and drove up the mountain a little further to look at a piece of land that he owns. He wanted my opinion on it for an idea that he had. It is beautiful land on the side of the mountain. It was a fun drive getting back there to it as well.

I left my friends around 4:15pm and headed home. I made it home just in time for my meeting at 5pm. I worked everything out with the bosses and then joined everyone for dinner.

After dinner I rode with Pastor Luc to his house because I need to use his truck really early tomorrow morning. It was nice to ride out to his house. After we dropped him off, me and Byambison stopped at a fast food place and got a snack.

It was a relaxing day. This is going to be a busy week. The group here is ready to work. The goal is to build 8 roofs this week. I’ll keep you updated.

Gotta get some sleep now. Headed to St Marc in the morning.

Always with Love,

Stephen

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