Un, deux, trois...Soley!

The first full day and last full day of my trip over Easter, I got to work in Canaan, the tent city where Awaken Haiti is partnering with a Haitian pastor, Nathan, to rebuild the area. They have already built a church, a couple of homes, are currently building a school, and have a medical clinic planned to begin construction this summer. It was the perfect way to bookend my trip because I love physical labor, I love feeling like (and being able to see) we accomplished something, and I love the people in Canaan! The team that was there in March built two homes, but the one home didn't get completely finished. So we were able to put up siding, paint, and wire the whole house in two days! It was pretty exciting. Below are some pictures of the work days:

 Here is a picture of what the house looked like before we started on our first day. 

This is a picture of a completed house that Awaken Haiti built.

Unloading the truck to get ready to work for the day in Canaan.

 Starting to side the house.

 Haitians and Americans working together - such a cute picture!

 Me using lots of nails to get the siding up. Check out my sweet tool belt!

 Apparently I had to learn to use a hammer correctly. Who knew you didn't hold it by the head?

 As the day went by, a lot of the kids from Canaan started to gather around. Here, a few of the boys wanted to be our helpers. They LOVED getting to wear the tool belts, even though they were swimming in them. You should have seen their smiles!

One of the things I love most about AwakenHaiti, as an organization, is that they are all about empowering Haitians; not just coming in and doing things for them or changing their system. It is really about coming alongside of them, supporting, and teaching them. As this picture shows, one of the goals of AwakenHaiti is to teach Haitians how to do certain things. For instance, one of the houses we are building is for a family in the church that Pastor Nathan counsels. The father of this family has been right there alongside AwakenHaiti as we build him a house. He is learning how to build the house he and his family will live in...how cool is that! The picture above is Drew, a member of AwakehHaiti, helping teach one of the boys how to use a nail gun. Now, I know I probably wasn't much better with the gun, but at times, it was such a funny sight to watch him learn. He would try to push the nail in and the gun would slide all over. Then he would miss the nail and drill a hole in the siding. Poor kid, he was trying so hard and didn't give up!

On my final full day, we finished our work on the house in Canaan by painting and wiring the inside. This little girl was there all day. She followed me around and literally spoke Kreyol to me alll day...like I understood what she was saying. She would just look at me and talk and talk and talk...I would just nod my head and smile. Now I know how it feels to be a foreigner here in the US who doesn't speak English!

 

 I found myself taking lots of 'play-breaks' with this group of kids. As I painted they taught me lots of Kreyol. They taught me how to count to 10, how to say: 'how old are you', 'what is your name', sit down, stand up, brother, sister, sun, and hot (see this posts title for my awesome Kreyol abilities) ! They were pretty amazing teachers, drilling those words into me over and over! We also tried to learn some American songs, but for some reason I could only think of "You are my sunshine."

We also were able to get the whole inside of the house wired! And by we, I mean, not me! I just took pictures because it looked pretty great when it was all said and done.

All in all, our work days were lots of fun, productive, and neat to see the results of our labor in the hot sun! It was also great to get to know and be around some of the people of Canaan, especially the kids! I'll be posting some of the more leisure activities I did soon!