First day in Gramothe

First work day up in Gramothe today, and at 7:30 tonight, several of us have already gone to bed and the rest aren’t far behind.  This sunny, hot, work day exhausted us, in a good way.  

We headed up to the village this morning, riding in the back of the pickup trucks.  All the first-timers riding up to the mountain, learned quickly to hold on tight - its quite the steep, bumpy (and also pretty cool to experience) ride.  Once in Gramothe, we split up and worked on various different projects.  School was in session and so while we worked there were usually several curious faces poking their heads in to watch.

Lots of cleaning and prep work happened today.  The computer lab is now clear of any non-working equipment, has been dusted down, and is ready for laptops to be set-up tomorrow.  Dave got a great start on building the laptop storage cart, and Wayne started an impromptu project of cleaning & organizing the woodshop (which, by the way, looks great and will be a huge help for future projects!).  Bryan was our lone- construction worker and spent the morning working away in the hot sun with a group of Haitians working on the floor for a house.  Bryan doesn't speak any creole; the Haitians didn't speak any english and it sounds like there was a ton of laughter shared by all.  (Those of you that know Bryan, know that he had us all laughing tonight recalling his time).  The medical team did some exams this morning on ~20 students and then spent the rest of the day prepping medicine for the clinic that will open later this week.  Esdras has proven to be an incredible translator for us (seriously, incredible - lots of potential stress at the airport yesterday was bypassed due to his help) and got to know many of the kids & others in Gramothe better.

I'll leave you with some pictures and then I'm off to bed too - roosters will start crowing early :-)

Good night,  

Molly & the Team

Claudia, April & Bekah in front of our extraordinarily nice guesthouse.

A Haitian woman in Gramothe.

2 of our computer lab helpers.  The high school students are taking exams this week and so they got out of class early.  These 2 speak english fairly well, and chose to use their off-time helping us out.  Here they are posing with some of the non-working equipment from the lab.

Esdras sorting pills in the clinic.

Dave & Jack working on the laptop cart.