Haiti in December 2011: 2011

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

I went to Haiti

I just got back from Haiti after a two-week volunteering experience with All Hands in Leogane. I am fortunate to work at a school with a year-round calendar so I had time in December to travel to and volunteer in Haiti. All Hands is an amazing organization responding to disasters in the U.S. and around the world. In 2006 I volunteered in New Orleans with Hands On New Orleans which is connected to All Hands. This past year was busy with efforts in the Catskills after Hurricane Irene, Joplin, MO and Minot, North Dakota as well as Japan. In January 2012, they announced plans to help out in the Philippines after a deadly typhoon struck in December.

In Haiti, I worked with 70 plus international and local volunteers on school construction. All Hands will have built 20 schools in Haiti before it leaves in June. I worked on Schools 18, 19, and 20. On 18, we rendered and painted the school which was completed and celebrated in a nice opening ceremony while I was there. On 19, teams worked mostly on the framing and I helped make windows for it. On 20, everyone helped with the foundation pour, a huge effort that was completed in record time one day with 70 volunteers.

I also worked on the Bio Sand Filter program cleaning sand one day. This program is going to be the bulk of All Hands' work for the next few months and is vital for people to get clean water.

I'll post some photos of my experience to give you a taste of it. Before I went, I had to sign a waiver about potential dangers but my time there was incident-free and rewarding. I stayed on a base in a communal environment with volunteers from all over the world. I got to work with many Haitians who are either working with or volunteering with All Hands. We had Creole class on Monday nights which gave me some tools to communicate (along with remnants of my high school French class.) The people in Haiti have overcome so much and yet are strong and proud. They were consistently grateful to volunteers for coming to help out but also excellent teachers, generous and fun as well.

Local Volunteer Graduation December 2011

Local volunteers participate in a months-long program to learn skills, work on projects, and earn a certificate upon completion. Some continue to work or volunteer. I helped set up for the event and got to know the volunteers a little bit. We had lots of fun and it was a proud occasion.