Haiti Trip 2013: Friday

No, I did not make a mistake on the title of this post. I got a little sidetracked (what, with Amy's cancer and all) and never quite got around to writing or posting most of my journal from last year's trip. I was finally able to revisit it on this year's trip and finished it while I was in Haiti in February. The combination of good notes and being in that environment again brought things back with a surprising amount of clarity. So, the next few posts that I do will be from my 2013 trip.

You might ask, "Why bother to post them after so much time has passed?" Well, partly to share them with other team members as well as the family and friends that helped to send me there, partly because there are lessons that I'm still learning from that trip, and partly because some of the settings I described in last year's journal showed up in this year's journal as well, only with less description.

So, revisit the first two entries from last year's journal here and here and then follow the next few posts to wrap up last year's trip. This year's journal has been finished and will resume here sometime in the next few weeks, so no worries, I won't make you wait until 2015 to share in this year's experience.

Friday, February 22, 2013

We were up early because we needed to get the team on their way to hike the mountains to visit a few of the more remote mountain schools that Mission Haiti sponsors kids at. The hike was definitely one of the more hyped parts of the trip as it would be several hours of climbing mountain trails that promised to be exhausting. I, however, would not be going.

One of the projects that I had been working on was providing a few basic bike maintenance classes with one of the schools close to the mission. Day one of classes was scheduled for today and, while I was bummed to miss the hike and the experience with the team, this was the project that was uniquely mine and that I had been getting more and more excited for as the trip got closer. If it meant missing the hike, I'd have to be okay with that.

Thankfully, it had not rained that morning which would make the hike for the team a little less arduous and the team set off at 7:00 leaving me and Scott (who had agreed to help me) to prepare to go to Millenium school at 8:30. The game plan was to wrap up by 10:00 with the class so that Scott and Patchuoko could take a motorcycle part way up the mountain and catch up with the team in time for their second school of the day.

Over the last month, I had been working to put together a wish list of items for the bike class that I wanted to take with and secured a few donations of tools from Scheels and my friend Chad Pickard at Spoke-n-Sport. Additional parts were purchased with funds from the team and Embrace's Missions fund. My wish list was whittled own quite a bit, but we had tubes, tires, brake cables & housing, brake pads, chains, master links, lubes, multi-tools, tire levers, chain breakers, spoke wrenches, two pumps, and some pedals. Anything we didn't use for the bike classes would stay at the mission where people would have access to come to use them and where they could be used for future trips by bike mechanics for continued training and other repairs.

At 8:30, Scott, Patchuoko, and I took the two bikes, a few bags with tools and parts, and my mechanic's stand that I had brought with me. In fact, when Adam went to check the bag that it was in before we left Sioux Falls, they asked him what it was and he had to admit that he had no idea.

When we got to the bottom of the hill, Patchuoko hopped on the bike we was herding to ride it the rest of the way (less than a quarter mile). Half way there was a small section of the road that was washed out and had water running over the road the entire time we were there. Patchuoko went to grab the brakes before hitting the water and it was at that point that I remembered that I discovered the brakes didn't work during my brief examination of the bike the night before. At all. Not even slightly. I wasn't concerne about it at that point because I knew we would be working on the brakes for Monday's session. I realized the brakes wouldn't work at almost the exact moment Patchuoko did. He quickly put his feet up and did his best to keep out of the spray he kicked up as he coasted through the water.

When we arrived at the school, the director of the school came out and we discussed our plans for the morning, Monday's schedule, and where to set up. The school had one small classroom visible that we knew probably was not going to cut it, so we considered going across the road to the director's home where he had a small porch with a little yard to work in. He decided fairly quickly that his place was his place was not going to be ideal either, so we crossed the road again and headed around the side of the school to a spot that he thought would suffice.

Photo courtesy of Scott Johnson

As we came around the corner, we saw a cement pad with a tin roof and a makeshift partition made of curtains and chalkboards that served as two outdoor classrooms. There were 20 or so students on either side of the partition sitting at tables, just a stone's throw from the water of the Caribbean Sea. I proceeded to set up fro the class on the north side of the partition while the director gathered the last few students that would be joining us.

The plan was to cover tires, tubes, an chains for the first class and brake cables and pads on Monday. I started with a few words of introduction while Patchuoko translated and told them what we would be covering. I went through some basics with tires and tubes by showing the students how to remove the wheel, tire, and tube and how to check the tire for anything that might be causing a flat so that it can be removed. I then told them to partially inflate the tube, put on a new tire, put the tube in, finish putting on the tire, and replace the wheel.

Bike clinic photo courtesy of Scott Johnson

Once I had done the full process, it was time for the students to get their hands dirty. I had enough tire levers that had been donated to give each of the students three of them to keep. The students took their new tools, grouped in threes and fours and set about removing wheels. Both Scott and Patchuoko helped students as they worked to put brand new tires and tubes on these bikes that would only be good for parts back home. We were going to do the best we could to recondition them with the parts available so that they could be safely ridden by the time we were done.

As I had been doing my demo, the director (who stayed for the entirety of the class) suddenly stopped me saying, "Stop! Look! Dolphins! Dolphins!" Sure enough, I looked out just in time to see the next one make an appearance only about 50 yards out. Judging by the director's reaction, this probably isn't a very common sight. In fact, when I mentioned it that night during our team time, Pam exclaimed, "Dolphins?! You got to see dolphins? I have always wanted to see dolphins here, but I never have!"

As the students worked,  took a bit of a mental inventory of things these bikes still needed to have done that I would need to do on my own. The only issue was that a lot of what I was seeing would require some creativity and I didn't exactly know what I had to deal with back at the mission by way of tools and parts.

The students were fun to watch as they were more than eager to have a part in the action. Some would furiously tackle wheel removal while others stood a the ready with tire levers ready to take the old tire off and still more unboxed a fresh tube and pre-inflated it so it would be ready when their time came. Thankfully, things rolled on without a hitch and Scott, Patchuoko, and I simply got to help by directing the efforts when needed.

Once things wrapped up with the tires, I showed the class how to remove and replace a chain. I explained why a chain might need to be removed, showed them how to use a chain breaker to remove the old chain, how to use the old chain to measure the correct length for the new chain, and how to install the new chain using a master link. I then spread out the chain tools among the students and gave hem a chance to remove pins from the old chain to get a feel for the tools. I opted to only do one chain partly due to time and partly due to the fact that I wouldn't be able to give equal time to the students if I let one or two help with the second bike.

All told, I felt like it was a good session and I had ideas already about what we would do for the next session on Monday. The students seemed to enjoy it, were respectful, and did a great job of diving in and getting their hands dirty.

The only challenge we really had was getting everything back. We had given the students the tire levers to keep, but had to track down a few of the other tools. We mentioned to the director that we were short a few things and while we looked around and students took turns riding the bikes, the director managed to "re-acquire" the missing tools saying that one of the students had been taking them to the office." I had been noticing this student pocketing pretty much anything scrap that he could get his hands on (I think he even wound up with one of the old tires and an old tube) so I wasn't surprised. I was glad to get everything back and get back to the compound.

Once we got back, Scott and Patchuoko set to work on getting what they needed to get out to the rest of the team. They planned to take a motorcycle part way up the mountain and hike the rest. They were underway in about 10 minutes and I was left on my own to continue working to make the bikes rideable. I set up my work stand on the far end of the porch where I would be out of the way of traffic and could keep my mess contained.

I realized very early that I would be improvising a lot of the repairs as I didn't have the right parts or tools for some of the issues I encountered. The only one issue that really gave me much trouble was that the rims were in pretty rough shape and the beads of the tires would not stay seated on the rims under very much pressure. That wasn't completely a surprise as cheap steel wheels can have that problem, but I couldn't even push the pressure of the tires (rated for 40-65 psi) over 30 psi or the bead would slip, the tube would bulge under side wall, and the tube would blow if I didn't catch it soon enough. The first time I did it, I wasn't expecting it and the tube blew about a foot away from my face with a loud blast that caused my ears to ring and lose hearing for about 15 seconds. After that, I exercised more caution and found I needed to keep the pressure extremely low (20-25 psi) to prevent it from happening again. They would ride soft, but since none of the students were anywhere near my size, they would be sufficient for getting from point A to point B.

I kept working on the bikes but left the brakes & housing unfinished on one of the bikes for Monday's class. I cleaned up, packed a small tool bag with what we would need for Monday and called it quits for the bikes for the day.

It was now approaching 2:00 and some of the other team members began trickling in from their long hike. Most (if not all) caught a ride on a tap-tap once they hit a main road and all were physically exhausted. As tey arrived, most congregated around the picnic tables or began considering when to hit the showers and almost all reached for a bottle of pop since they were the only cold drinks available.

Digging the well at Jabouin photo courtesy of Rachael Weiland

They hit two of the mountain schools (Jabouin & Toussaint) for photos, but I heard mostly tales about the hike which included some fairly steep trail climbs as well as a few chance encounters. The encounter that seemed to leave the greatest impression was with three gentlemen who were digging a well part way up the mountain. There were two guys at the top and one guy working 40 feet down to dig the well (by hand) with the dirt being brought up in a bucket that also served as their means of transport in and out of the hole. The hole was only about three feet wide (large enough for them to fit in) and they had been digging for four weeks at a rate of about ten feet per week. They were expecting the well to eventually reach a depth of 120 feet which would equate to roughly three months of digging for the three of them.

It also sounded like the mountain schools presented some unique challenges for the team, although I didn't hear too much about the details until we had our team time later that night.

The reset of the afternoon passed with showers, naps, and conversation while we waited for youth to start. Tonight's youth meeting would be a little different as it would also involve some preparation for the next day's 5K race. Last year, Gretchen had put the groundwork together for a team triathlon in Ti-Rivier complete with training programs along with other detailed plans to help athletes prepare and to help the event run smoothly only to watch those plans change at the last minute because of the sheer number of people that showed up to participate. They were forced at the last minute to scrap the tri and do a 5K to accommodate all that wanted to participate and it turned out to be a great event. So, this year, the 5K was the plan from the start and we were game to help out in any way that we could.

The evening started as we watched people begin to arrive. We knew we'd have a pretty good sized group, but the 80+ youth that showed up was a group buzzing with anticipation for the race and the evening ahead. Patchuoko again led worship and the number of voices raised in Creole was electrifying. Aubrey then followed with the second part of her lesson on Esther. It was a blessing to see Aubrey get to serve in this way and the hear the word that God had laid on her heart for this community that she knows and loves.

After Aubrey was finished, Gretchen laid down the ground rules for the 5K and let the runners know about the goodie bags they were going to get. The bags consisted of cinch sacks with a 2013 Mission Haiti 5K shirt, a few energy bars, and a water bottle for the older runners while the younger runners received a shirt, toothpaste and tooth brushes.

Gretchen, Taylor, & Seth feeding the crowd

Before we gave out the bags, we had a meal together. Feeding everybody that was there was crazy fun as we did our best to serve the Haitian spaghetti (pasta w/ peppers) in as orderly a fashion as we could manage with such a large group. The team members made their way through with plates, forks, and the huge serving bowls full of food. Youth were sitting on benches, standing, or even sitting on the ground to eat and some were sharing a single plate between them or sharing any extra they had so that everybody had enough to eat. It was quite a night that we capped off by giving out the race bags and made some other race preparations before highs/lows as a team.

It was at that point that I heard more about some of what had taken place at the schools with the rest of the team. The team was taking pictures for sponsorship packets and had taken bracelets with to give out to the kids after their pictures had been taken. Unfortunately, there were a lot of kids that were pushed and punched while older kids took their bracelets from them and team members had a hard time keeping order at times. It left several team members shaken and disheartened, but gave us a better understanding of some of the need in the mountain villages.

It had been a huge day with some definite challenges, some fun, and a lot that left an impression on us for the days ahead.