Teeter Totter, Concrete, Mun Cheez, Gasket

The kids teeter totter is finished. Mr. Kyrk and I were the first ones to test it out - much to Kayla's disappointment. She was saying that she wanted to be the first on it. She was just over a little ways when we tried it out. I called her to tell her she wasn't the first and she ran over with Carter. It seems to be a pretty decent hit with all the kids around. It's a little big, but it's good.


Concrete

This is one way how Haitians get concrete above the first floor. There were guys standing on a homemade ladder in one place and they lifted the concrete up bucket-by-bucket to a chain of guys at the top who put it where it needed to go. They then sent the bucket back the ladder side of the place and sent it down using a rope. They were singing while they worked. We watch them for a little while right from our house. It was amazing teamwork and something that you just wouldn't see much (if at all) in the States. One guy in a cement truck would come and dump it all on the second floor using a pipe/big hose.


Mun Cheez

Mr. Kyrk and I had talked about going out to eat and we had picked yesterday to do it (our personal first time going out as a group of missionaries). We had everyone but Chris and Kelli who come back on the 30th. We had pizza at a place called Mun Cheez and it tasted very good. We ate on the second floor of an open balcony area that faced a pretty busy intersection. There were all sort of sights and sounds: Dominoes delivery motorcycles, fancy cars (Jaguars, Mercedes, Gen. 3 Rx7), loud motorcycles and four-wheelers (even one trying to do a wheelie on the main drag), and more. The vast distribution of wealth is pretty evident and those who have it seem to flaunt it - just like in America. Here is a shot of the menu: notice the biggest pizza size - "duperduper":


Boring Car Stuff...

Haitian Exhaust Gasket

I helped one of our workers work on his own vehicle. He had a broken stud that held the exhaust to the manifold so we cut the exposed part off, drilled the old one out and put a bolt through it. He then made a gasket out of oil soaked rope. He told me that it will last a couple years - he's done it before. A couple years doesn't seem like a temporary solution, does it? It rarely ceases to amaze me how ingenious they are around here. I don't think that I am that ingenious. I can put a square block in a square hole, but I don't know that I could make some of the things that they do - like make a square block to fit it in the square whole like they do. We'd just buy the right parts in the States. Buying the right part will lead to more reliability and length of life of the related parts, but when they don't have much money...