Cat on a hot tin roof

Friday 16 July

The country community around the school seems lucky to have a really caring and popular young pastor (Evangelical of some sort) who lives with his wife and family in 2 rooms each about 10 foot square. We also store our generator, cement and nails in there. His wife cooks our lunch every day. HODR supplies the rice and beans, and they supply everything else - it's always been delicious - and there's enough for the local young men and a couple of older ones - all unemployed - who supplement our team, and embarrass us with the speed they learn and their stamina. Francois, an older man, is a carpenter and as skilled as the 3 we have in the team, but he also saw me sweeping up the inside yesterday and quickly grabbed another brush and joined me. The bulk of the community live in tents and other shelters. Some of the older children go to the main road and on to Leogane to school in the morning while the younger ones seem to help with the smallholdings. In the afternoon most of them are watching us and playing around. We play football with them as we're waiting to be picked up.




This week so far we have put on and fixed the roof trusses. fitted wooden louvre windows (no glass) and ventilation panels, run wire mesh around to take a cement render, packed underneath the frame with concrete and then started putting the corrugated tin on the roof. The concrete packing was my main job for a couple of days and was needed because the slab was 5 inches lower at one end. There are no laser levellers and the foundation team had to use short spirit levels and a water level, or at least that's their excuse.

The concrete has to be hand mixed with poor quality sand that has to be sifted first, and goes off very quickly in the heat. Can't remember if I said, but contrary to expectations, it seems even hotter in the country. It may be that the vegetation traps the heat and raises the humidity. Yesterday 10 of us got through 15 gallons of water.

Yesterday and today we have been fitting the tin roof - now I understand the Tennessee Williams title. It's thinner and lighter than corrugated iron andhas a shiny finish to reflect the sun. I've been trained as a tin monkey, climbing around the trusses nailing down the sheets. My partner today was a young New Yorker, Angie, who is an actor and also writes children's books and has offered to show Janet and me around when we get to NY in September. We should finish the roof tomorrow so that a new team can start the rendering. Although that is still to be done, and the doors fitted and the furniture installed(built at base), it still feels as if we will be leaving a finished job tomorrow.

Last night I managed to fit in my hospital orientation visit so that, if I offer to do the dishes quickly enough on Monday morning, I can sign up as a hospital runner for my last 3 days. Remember MASH? Well the hospital is 2 side by side H shaped tents with a central corridor and each leg is a ward or supply store. There are A&E, maternity, medical, intensive care wards and an operating room, in use when there is a surgical team resident which is not all the time. More on this next time, but understandably no photos.

Less than a week left so off for an ice cream now.