Mr. Pierre standing in front of his house, under construction, on Tuesday.

Work continues to go very well on the second house. The crew is working hard and we’ve improved on some of the details that were missed last week. The trusses and purlins are up, the front and back doors are installed, and we’re looking at a good chance of finishing up tomorrow, ahead of schedule. Work days here tend to follow a routine. People are up early, around 6-6:30. There’s no full breakfast, but the family serves bread with very sweet strong coffee and sometimes hot chocolate as well — all grown right here. We work until lunchtime, have a simple meal, usually noodles, and then work a variable number of hours until we reach a good stopping point, most often around 4:00. Then it’s time to wash off and relax for a few moments before dinner around 5. Dinner is the big meal of the day and usually consists of rice served with stewed vegetables, black bean sauce, or a red sauce with onions. After dinner, the Haitian crew likes to play dominos, which is loud and competitive activity. Then, once it gets too dark to play, people drift off or stand around and chat. Sometimes one of the guys will break out his battery-operated DVD player and we’ll watch a movie, which could be anything from a comedy in creole to an American action movie. Then, around 10 at the latest, everyone’s off to their tent to sleep, and the next day it all starts again, until the house is done.

I’m now in my third week in Haiti, and today was the second work day on the second of six kays (houses) I’ll be building. This will be an interesting week. It’s the only week for which I’ll have no American volunteers, just the Haitian crew. That’s fine, it’s just an extra challenge to have no recourse to English if a complicated issue comes up!

On the other hand, I’m learning a lot, both language-wise and about the greater context in which I find myself. We took a long walk through the mountains after work today, and the homeowner proudly showed me the work he and his wife have done through the CODEP program to earn the house we’re building.

They started by planting rows of vetiver grass and eucalyptus trees on the deforested mountainside. These hold the soil in place, reducing erosion and allowing fertile soil to develop. Later they plant a wide variety of plants and trees — mango, avocado, soursop, oak, sour apple, chocolate, coffee, lime, orange, papaya, and more. It’s amazing to see the difference between the CODEP fields and the still-bare hillsides surrounding them.

In order to attach my “mystery build” to the trailer, I have two main problems to solve.

Most utility trailers are built to a maximum total width of 8′-6″. That’s the widest allowed dimension for road travel. And that’s measured to the outside of the wheel wells. Unless the trailer bed sits on top of the wheels (which mine does not), the actual trailer bed is smaller — typically 7′ or slightly less. To get the widest possible structure on the trailer, therefore, it needs to extend past the trailer frame on either side. But I didn’t want to cantilever floor joists, which would make it tricky to transfer the various loads between the framing and the trailer frame.

The second problem is to design a system that allows the structure to be one day separated from the trailer if necessary. For example, the structure could be installed on a permanent foundation and the trailer reused or sold. This rules out permanent and/or destructive solutions, such as welding anchor bolts to the trailer frame itself. If these anchor bolts terminated inside the walls, detaching the structure would require a lot of cutting.

The solution that I am pursuing is to add 4×4 pressure-treated pine “bumpers” to either side of the trailer frame. Attached to the U-channel steel frame by 3/8″ galvanized hex head bolts, the bumpers extend the frame to 7′-10 1/2″ — just short of the 8′-0″ that I am aiming for, so I will run the floor framing 3/4″ long on either side. 1/2″ bolts will extend up through the floor framing and sole plate, attaching the walls securely to the bumpers.

Drilling through hardened steel isn’t easy. I’m using cobalt/tungsten bits, predrilling with a 3/16″ bit and finishing with a 7/16″ bit. The key to drilling through steel is going at the right speed (slow) and using a cutting oil to prevent overheating. After about 5 holes, I’ve pretty much ruined the larger bit, so perhaps my technique isn’t that good yet.

Assuming I can finish the holes, I should be able to securely attach the bumpers. If the trailer needs to be removed, the 3/8″ bolts could be taken out and the whole structure jacked up by the bumpers. To make this work, something needs to be done to address the wheel well area, where there are no bumpers to support the floor and wall framing. I’ll expand on this more in a future post.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Today I got the first piece of a new project. I’m calling it the “Mystery Build”, because what I will be building is a mystery to others (and also to me).

However, the first piece is not a mystery. It’s a 7′ x 18′ flatbed utility trailer, with a double axle and a total weight rating of 12,000 lbs.

More to come.

I returned this past Saturday from my week-long trip to Haiti with the Building Goodness Foundation (BGF). The trip was a great experience, although there are plenty of challenges involved in working in the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Not least, I was sick and well below 100% for three of our five work days, but luckily we had a great team of American volunteers and Haitian carpenters and the construction went without a hitch.

The house is small by most standards, 12′ by 20′, although not too small because many aspects of Haitian life, such as cooking and socializing, take place outdoors. It’s a fairly simple structure made of wood, yet it should withstand both hurricanes and earthquakes. Its few details include front and back doors, four windows, one interior partition wall, and a covered front porch.

Construction of the house follows a detailed plan that BGF has developed over the years. There is no floor platform to work on; instead, eighteen wooden posts are set into poured concrete footings, and the house is plumbed and trued as the plywood wall panels are attached. This is a tedious and slow process, but it’s worth taking the time to get it right. The roof trusses are built on site and then raised, and the corrugated metal roofing installed on purlins.

Camping at the work site made for very basic amenities, and being sick wasn’t all that pleasant. At the same time, the location was beautiful, balanced on a ridge overlooking a small river valley in the Haitian countryside. The area is extremely deforested, like the whole country, but the lack of trees does create some spectacular views.

Next week I’ll be traveling to Haiti for seven days to build a house with a group of volunteers from the Building Goodness Foundation (BGF).

The house is called an ‘incentive kay’ (kay means house in Creole). In Haiti, BGF supports an excellent project called CODEP, short for COmprehensive DEvelopment Project, run by Haiti Fund, Inc. CODEP’s reforestation efforts in the mountains near Léogâne, Haiti, have helped repair the ecosystem and support economic development, education, health and hygiene, and other improvements. Participating Haitian families can earn a variety of incentives, including a new house—the incentive kay.

With four other people, two BGF staff members and two other volunteers, I’ll be hiking into the mountains between Léogâne and Jacmel and camping for 4-5 days while we build the house. We’ll have a generator and power tools, but we’ll also be living in tents and without many amenities. With luck, my recent hiking trip on the AT will have prepared me somewhat for the strenuous hike, although this time I’ll be carrying my hand tools with me as well! And I’ve also started picking back up on learning Haitian Creole, so I hope to know some of the basics by the time I’m there.

Wish me luck! Also, please consider supporting the good work of BGF and Haiti Fund, Inc. They can use it.

We left the project substantially built but unfinished — lacking paint and many finishing touches. Well, the local community stepped up to finish the job in style. The new tourist welcome center was inaugurated in March, in a ceremony that included the mayor of Terre-de-Bas, Fred Beaujour, and one of the mayors of a large neighboring island.

Here’s the best picture that I’ve been able to find so far. It looks great. If anyone else has pictures, perhaps from this year’s VISIONS trip, please let me know as I would love to post them here!

As promised, here is the house in Seattle that I am working on. It is a partial renovation; the existing house, which had no foundation to speak of, is being supported on a temporary structure (one of the wooden beams is visible under the house) while we pour a new concrete foundation. In this photo, the concrete footings have been poured, and the metal sticking up out of the ground is the steel reinforcement that will tie into the foundation walls.

The new house will keep features of the old, while expanding in front and gaining a second story as well. Therefore, almost everything that is visible in this photo — the brown siding, the roof — will be taken out, leaving just the stud walls behind.

Also visible in this photo are measures that prevent even a little bit of disturbed soil from being washed away by the rain: white plastic sheeting over piles of dirt, a temporary canopy on the left side of the house, and gutters that pull the water away from the construction area.

There’s little that’s conventional or simple about this house, so its construction is a real adventure. I have a fair bit of experience with basic wood framing, but I’m learning new things every day about all kinds of aspects of construction. It’s fun!

The first step was to build three additional walls, one solid wall to display the large map of the island and other information and the remaining two fitted with windows that open during the day to give a stunning view over the port. Once these walls were completed, the team turned its efforts to building the counter, which stood about 120 cm (4 ft) high and ran 3.5 m (11 ft) along the front and 3.5 m (11 ft) along the side to enclose the office space. This counter and the built-in desk behind it required thoughtful planning and careful, precise carpentry work on the part of the students. Finally, the finishing details could be put into place: a half-height door for the office space and awning windows across the front of the counter to secure the office at night.

The pavilion was handed over to the community with the rough carpentry work completed. Our local partners will finish painting the interior and will add details of their choosing, such as a set of aluminum doors, pulleys to operate the awning windows, three glass display windows to show products of the island, and an interior finished floor.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent six weeks as a summer program leader in Guadeloupe for VISIONS Service Adventures. It was great! The work was very intense and often stressful, but it was worth it to experience a new and special place alongside a great group of staff and participants.

(Bilan is the French word for assessment or report and in Guadeloupe it also referred to our group debriefing and sharing session, held every other day.)

Read on for more pictures and words!

The Good:

It was a summer of new experiences. Aside from a trip to Belize when I was thirteen, I’d never been to the Caribbean before. Guadeloupe is part of the ‘DOM-TOM’ — France’s overseas departments and territories. I had just spent seven months in the southwest of France, but Guadeloupe is very different. Almost everyone speaks both French and Creole fluently, and we learned Creole expressions regularly — pa ni pwoblem!, the catch-all phrase, like the Aussie no worries!, or ka ou fé? ça va?

Guadeloupe is tropical, and that means wonderful fruit, excellent beaches, lots of sun, amazing scenery, and a very relaxed way of life. On a small island far from any supermarkets, we lived among goats, chickens, fruit trees, and other elements of Guadeloupean life. There were fruits we knew, like mango and passion fruit, and ones we didn’t, like corossol (soursop) and pomme malacca (Malay Apple). The fruits were fresh and overabundant, so Pierrette made juice of mango, guava, and corossol.

Our island had one main road, two towns, five small ports for fishing boats and one dock for ferries, three hiking trails, and two or three frequented beaches. Hiking into the steep, uninhabited center of the island, one comes across wild fruits, goats, and spectacular views over the neighboring islands and the sea. There are a couple of bars, two or three restaurants, a library, police station, fire station, city hall, two internet cafés, small corner stores, and about 1,000 residents. People know when they see us that the saison des Américains (American season) is here, and they smile and say Bonjour on the street. It’s hot, so, like most of the locals, we end our workday around noon — although we begin work only around 7am, not 5 or 6, like they do. (I’ll post separately about our service projects.)

We were lucky to have a great group of kids participating in the program. They were smart, upbeat, and outgoing, and quickly made friends among the local kids and teenagers. They had lots of opportunities to speak French, both in these informal interactions and in the context of worksites, internships, and dinner stays with families on the island. They got to experience local music, particularly through our in-house band Melody Vice, and local food. Thanks to the great group, the summer went very well.

The Bad:

Work was tough! To be clear, it wasn’t bad, but it was a lot of responsibility and stress. We had to deal with a lot of complications and unexpected difficulties in order to make the summer as fun and seamless as possible. In part, it felt like being the parent to 25 children, with all the accompanying issues: lost passports, illness, injuries, general mayhem. The logistics were the hardest part, living as we were on an isolated small island, doing business in French, and working with unfamiliar systems and limited resources. As the carpenter I struggled constantly to get tools and materials ordered and delivered on time, to coordinate drivers and other support, and to keep our projects on track.

We worked hard, made some mistakes, and found local friends who could help us, and in the end the summer was very successful. Our two toughest projects, the carpentry project and the mural, both made great progress. When it rained, or when the schedule unexpectedly changed, we found other things to do, and the kids were very positive about it.

The Ugly:

These freaking things!

More:

A couple of people on the trip were dedicated enough to blog through it! Check ‘em out: Jackie  |  Rose