Kay Angel Orphanage’s New Temporary Home – Jacmel, Haiti

Wed, Jun 9, 2010

In 2 days, on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 May 2010 we build a temp house with the help of Dave Bird from Calvary Chapel and his group of 12 volunteers.

For weeks now the rainy season is in full gear. Lots of heavy rains, wind and too many problems for all of us who are living in tent camps. There is mud everywhere, the water with mud enters our Unicef tent every-time it rains.

The plastic roof that covers our daytime area does not hold up under the heavy rain etc etc.

To move the kids at night from the Unicef tent into the sleeping tents is very challenging and stressful under those heavy rains. So we had to come up with something better than our tent-site for now.

Obviously the construction of our new orphanage will take a few months before that will be finished. Dave Bird and his wife Darlys have moved to Jakmel post earthquake for a period of 3 years to help several projects, schools and orphanages to rebuild, be it temp shelter or permanent housing for the future.

Every 2 weeks they host and feed a group of volunteers and put them on local projects.

For 2 days and 2 nights we put our kids up in the basement of Leviya Hotel across the street from us, and worked from 7 AM till 7 PM to build this new temp house.

We took down our current camp site, and with the help of a bulldozer and many trucks of dirt mixed with rocks, we evened out our little piece of land and raised it quite a bit. After living on it for the past 3 months the whole ground had sacked, and it had never really been straight to begin with.

At first we had planned to build a strong corrugated roof over our campsite, but while building we saw many possibilities to make it more into a “real” home. Recycling materials we already had as well. What used to be our floors we now used for our new walls, and our former plastic sheet roof is now our new floor.

A week later we finished the details, like putting in a screen to keep bugs out, but to let some air in so the house will not be too hot under the strong Haitian sun. A few truckloads with river stones to fill in our front yard and keep it mud free, and a little wall between us and the public road to keep out the muddy river that road turns into every time it rains.

The Unicef tent is now connected to this new house and is our sleeping area. The house houses our dining room, the school for Youseline, Melinda and Estania, the tv / play room, our little clinic with all medication for our kids. And this new home is so much cooler than the hot tents we had before.

We are all super happy with this new home, life has again become less stressful to us.

A big thanks to the volunteers who build this for free for us, and to all of you who have donated to us, so that we were able to buy the necessary materials!!