Dad’s Perspective: Haiti
“When we got back from Zambia in late June, I signed up to do a class to be certified in asbestos abatement. The class was going to be the second week in July and was going to be three days. On the third day, I went to meet Mom at Chris Madrid’s off Blanco Rd. Some of her friends from work were going also. After lunch, I was heading back to class when I got a horrible pain on the right side of my lower back. When I got to the Babcock exit, the pain was so severe that instead of turning left at the light on Babcock, I turned right and went to the Methodist Hospital and went to the emergency room (after calling Mom to tell her where I was headed). I explained the pain to the receptionist and she said right away that it “sounds like a kidney stone”. They took me back right away and put me in a room. Mom showed up a few minutes later and said everybody from work was asking what I ate. The nurse in charge gave me morphine (which, apparently, I am immune to). Mom said I got really mean in the ER and nurses and doctors were going every which way.” (Jamie here to add that I don’t think anyone is shocked by this.) “I was taken to get a CT scan and coming back, I had to pee and I finally passed the stone. While lying on the gurney, another doctor came in with the CT scan results, showed it to Mom, and said something to her. Mom’s face went white and I asked what was wrong. The doctor said I had a mass on my kidney that didn’t look good and advised that I get it out as soon as possible (ASAP!)! So, on July 26th, I went under the knife and the surgeon removed my kidney, adrenal gland, and cancer. I was out in three days and was supposed to take it easy for a month to a month and a half.
On August 20th, my crew and I flew down to work at the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. When we got there mid-day, there was no electricity (no a/c) at the airport. After finally getting our bags, we were driven to the embassy by one of the embassy drivers. We were met there by someone who took us into the building and briefed us and then we went out to meet the general contractor we were doing the work for, (same contractor we did the embassy roof for in Vientiane, Laos) Greenway out of Helena. Montana. The Embassy was right across the street from the bay and it was beautiful! Then you would look to the left towards Port-Au-Prince and it was shack after shack built on top of each other all the way up the hill.
After looking at the job, we were taken up the hill to Petion-Ville which is another town outside of Port-au-Prince where the hotels/motels were located. We were booked into the El Rancho which was literally a block wall building with rooms consisting of a concrete floor with a bed, side table, lamp, and a bathroom. We met afterwards in the restaurant and bar where we met a bartender by the name of Ox. I think that is where I learned to like olives as they served those instead of peanuts at the bar. The only beers sold were Prestige (Local), Presidente (from the Dominican Republic), and of course Heineken (I think Heineken is sold in every country in the world!). There was actually a Domino’s Pizza a block from the hotel/motel too. It wasn’t anything like Domino’s here in the States but, it was what it was.
Once we got our locals hired and started work, things went well enough. There were huge rats running around the embassy ground and they kept cats around to try and keep the rat population down to a minimum. This is where we found out that cat is a local delicacy, as one guy was telling us he was going to try and catch a cat so he could take it home for dinner. Voodoo is also very much alive in Haiti, you see things all over mentioning things about zombies and such. One of the guys working for Greenway had the last name of Eastman and apparently was related to the Eastman clan of the Kodak camera.” (Jamie again. If you have ever heard my dad tell one of his stories in person, you get a lot of tidbits like this “clan of Kodak camera” one. It does make me laugh.) “He was really worried about the voodoo around the island. So, some of the guys sprinkled some baby powder across the bottom of his door late one night and the next morning he opened his door and literally freaked! Took two days to convince him it was just baby powder.
One day I had to find some hardware and got our driver to take me to the local hardware store. As we were driving along some of the streets, we saw a young boy lying in the middle of the street, apparently dead. I told the driver that we should get out and move him out of the street and he said “You don’t want to get out in this part of town unless you want to be like him!”. Well, that was very disconcerting! Driving around town, you would see people setting up shop on the side of the road, be it tire repair, welding, or whatever. The people would climb up a ladder and throw a bare wire over the high line wires to get their electricity to run the welder of air compressors. There were a lot of deaths from electrocution! As I hadn’t obeyed the doctor’s orders to rest, I didn’t climb any ladders or do any strenuous work (which I didn’t do much anyway). Apparently, Tiffanys of New York has a manufacturing plant there where they make the Tiffany lamps, some of the guys bought some of those real cheap. I bought an exact miniature replica of Captain Morgan’s Ship (pictured below) that I thought looked really cool. We also bought a bunch of paintings. We left to go back home after about a month and a half and would come back again when the next phase was ready to roof.”
