Evo in Haiti

[RagingSamster]

Here's the immunizations tray I was greeted with pre-trip

Battery life would have been great - no carrier, but I took so many pictures and videos!

Here's Dr. Evo, about as handy as a left foot - but I did it without killing myself or others

The house in the back of ours collapsed as we were putting the house together

No shortage of cute kids willing to cheese it up for the camera

After putting up 6 houses in 4 days, we travelled to the other side of the island and woke up to this

This is working on one of the houses, the grey haired gentleman is the new owner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DCH6rJ7k34

 

[BenChase7]

^
Thats cool! And the photos and vids turned out nice.

PS. Great signature... I used 10GB's last month alone.

 

[RagingSamster]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbDJjvlPG4k

This is the trip from the house we were staying at to the construction site in the video above

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ4tuGY29uc

And this is the rest area, we got to spend an extra day because we completed the houses so quickly. The Haitian people are remarkable and resilient, they are hard working ( whether employed or just surviving) Their children are full of joy and curiosity. I went down there with a whole bunch of preconceived notions about what the people need and how we can help them. They taught me that what we have here is great, but we pay a price to live with all this excess, we tend to lose track of what is important. and when you don't have to be a rat in the rat race, you can focus on being a human.

 

[RagingSamster]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7OBqTENIFo

This is the tent city on the way out of Port au Prince, the energizer bunny of KOA camp grounds: It just keeps going, and going - going through a hurricane in those would suck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0wgvcXq-k8

The slums, these folks made it through the earthquake OK, the houses fell down, but they clambered out and put them back up. Corrugated steel doesn't quite do the damage that cinderblock does. The earthquake basically decapitated the country, a lot of the business owners, doctors and government workers were killed in the buildings that collapsed. and because there is so much of the government that needs to be rebuilt, the people are wary of anything politicians say - and most likely that's a reasonable reaction. If ou want to know more about the organization that I went down with their website is RMI Homes for Haiti

 

[Frisco]

May God bless you for your work there, Dr. Evo.

 

[Roze]

Wow, that's amazing What organization/charity did you go with?

 

[RagingSamster]

The group is call Reciprocal Ministries International. Originally my church used their organization to develop sister-church relationship with a Haitian church - a great way to do outreach as well. After the earthquake RMI and all their churches got together and agreed that we should help rebuild homes, but didn't want to put up "tarp" homes and wanted to put up sturdy "transitional" homes. The 10X20 dwelling size is actually pretty good for the culture and usually 3 or more generations will occupy the homes. If you go down there looking to help the people, you will come back feeling like they've helped you.