You can imagine the difficulty in teaching developed nation construction techniques to build teams in one of the most impoverished nations still recovering from a disastrous earthquake. We realize it's easier to bring in a foreign construction crew to raise a building, and it's hard to dispute how fast a building goes up when instruction is not simultaneously given, and errors corrected, to make that building properly strong against future disasters. But of course that's not how Haiti could rebuild. It takes some pioneering on our part bringing on local construction crews and patiently, very patiently, walking them through the best construction practices we know. Anything less would be unacceptable, as I'm sure the examples below can illustrate. We'll take a look at some recent SMH (shaking my head/our heads) moments at the project schools.
Project manager Gerry Reilly probably didn't anticipate Montrouis taking so long to finish when he got back to Haiti after break - yet at the close-out of a project, all the details come to light that need attention. Take, for example, an exasperating back and forth conversation he's been having with the contractors regarding the second floor metal balustrade (railing). The team began troubleshooting the anchoring of the balustrade after the second floor slab was poured without all the hardware in place. Now the balustrade base plates risk sitting unevenly on the slab, making the railing is wobbly and insecure. The problem can be resolved with mortar, but it's a tricky concept to explain. Gerry takes advantage of this correspondence to remind the contractors to patch gaps in the metal connections with putty (lest the balustrade rust out). He's found a way to explain things with "overlay illustrations."
Gerry is also making sure the metal overhangs, soon to be painted as a spectrum of fins, have minute details like filed edges, taken care of. Continuous site inspections and check lists help our team and the builders make sure they're not forgetting anything.
Over in Pele, Burtland has been having troubles of a different sort. Well, first it's worth mentioning: the enormous perimeter wall is finishing, and footings for the classroom block are being poured. Good news.
Getting even this far has been a challenge. Apart from the high water table, the Pele crew has been delayed by its inaccessible location near Cite Soleil. Roads are crammed with vending booths, pedestrians and motos - that a truck could miss a delivery is not surprising, if extremely inconvenient. Last week a truck was two days late delivering materials for the footing pour-slightly confusing length of time. The battle for good concrete ingredients continues. Instead of receiving metallion-sized stone aggregate, the stone was delivered in the form of giant boulders! The construction crew then had to reduce the boulders with sledge hammers, a not-uncommon way to pass the time in Haiti.
At Elie Dubois, architect Kate Evarts announced the school's new construction crew (the previous one was sacked due to repeatedly and inexplicably missing deadlines):
"M+L Construction began work on Saturday January 21, 2012. They discovered that some of the re-bar steel sitting in place in the foundations has been stolen. They will purchase and install new steel. They have been cleaning the base of the footing excavation and expect to pour concrete on Wednesday morning. Architecture for Humanity will stake the latrine building on Wednesday so that the bio-digester inlet junction box can be moved to the correct position, and work on the latrine can begin."
Theft has been a recurring struggle on the Elie site. There have been numerous attempts to take materials, rebar especially. In North American cities you hear a lot about bike theft rings - bikes are easy to turn around (re-sell) for quick cash. In Haiti, construction materials offer the same temptation. We've built a shed at Elie to store tools and materials, but recent theft included people hopping the perimeter wall and removing bar that has already been tied into the project and awaiting a concrete pour. The new contractors, fortunately, are ready to shrug off the loss and get the project moving regardless.
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