Bread making

Dan giving a helping hand to the bakers this morning. It's the last time we use that table.

This is the new table that Father Bal and his crew made for our bakery. We asked him for a solid and sturdy table and that is exactly what we got. It is beautiful, too.

Earth bag house- Update

Shot taken late this afternoon. That's TiWawa stamping away.

The guys are getting more proficient. Here's an example: they fill a bunch of bags, sew them shut and than lay them out.

Jackson

Jackson with his new glasses ! They are the latest in ecological design and are biodegradable. Can't beat that !

Reforestation

This is our Agronome Brice speaking to a class of elementary school children about the challenges of reforestation. We are working with AVSI, an Italian non-profit, in an effort to plant 100,000 fruit trees here in the south. AVSI provides the seeds and some funding. We provide the nursery (labor, compost, water and earth) which produces saplings ready to be planted. We are looking for a way to videotape the project that would be narrated by Agro. Brice in Creole and put on the local television station or made into DVDs to be distributed in schools. Education is certainly a major part of the challenge in addressing the huge loss of trees in Haiti (98% by government stats).

Our daily bread

It's not quite daily bread but we're getting there. Three times a week Matante (in the pink blouse above) distributes fresh, baked bread. It is still raining and overcast so that prevents us from making the bread daily. We are indebted to the Woodstock Rotary Club and to HERO, a wonderful non-profit helping Haitians, for the two Village Solar Ovens.

Oops, almost forgot

At the staff meeting yesterday it was decided that we would go with the uniform that I liked. No, I did not unduly influence the decision. What happened is that there was a mistake made in the calculations and the uniforms were all about the same price. The quality of two of them was superior so that eliminated one. No one felt strongly about the other one and Nancy concurred with me so there you have it. When the announcement was made the high schoolers were miffed and I found out later that they liked the choice we made but wanted it for themselves. So you see that our teens are not all that different from others around the globe.

Prep work

Here's Berthony directing the work this morning right after we got word that the container from New Jersey would arrive within the hour. We emptied out a forty foot container that we use for storage and consolidated its contents with another so there would be room for the new stuff.