Yesterday I finalized a charrette compilation (document breaking down the initial feedback we got from the people living at the site and the work we've done to express those needs). It ending up being 11 pages filled with facts and maps of the site. I was happy because the staff here was pleased with my work, which made me feel good to get off on the right foot, so to speak. The only problem was I finished around 10am, and with nothing else to do (at least nothing I had been told to do), so I was stuck. But right when I came to the realization that I had completed the first bulk of work, Kate was walking outside to go somewhere. I was standing at the front door and asked, "Kate! Where are you going?" She replied, "To a school in downtown Port-au-Prince...want to come?" As soon as she finished the question I ran inside, grabbed my camera and sketchbook and met her at the car. She seemed happy to have someone come along for the ride as well.
We drove to the school, along the way seeing a whole part of the area I was not familiar with yet. She gave me a bit of background info explaining what I was seeing. There still is so much damage in the area, but not as many dilapidated buildings as I expected, just piles of rubble in it's place. We even drove by the Palace (Haitian white house) and there was still SO much damage left. You know a country is hurting if the most prestigious house here looks how it looks 20 months after the quake.
We got to the school, small all girls schools run by the Sisters of Mary. One of the buildings was to be taken down today, actually right now as I write. Workers were removing doors and furniture from the building in prep for the demo. Once again, so cool to go on site and see an area before construction begins, just to gain an understanding of it. Ecole Elie Debois is it's name, and there has been many problems throughout the design process, so during our weekly meeting, the whole staff was pleased to hear there was finally going to be something going on at the site.
After we returned back to the office, we grabbed some lunch and I asked what they needed me to do to finish out the day. Darren gave me the task to fool around with the site plan and come up with some potential ideas for the Villa Rosa project layout I had been working all week on. This was awesome! I got to put on my headphones and bust out some tracing paper and go at it. It brought me back to my studio days. I was able to make some cool decisions based on public walkways and open spaces for the site, and today I began formatting it in Illustrator. Fun stuff, even if it does not work out as I have it. We had our meeting, bringing all the current projects to light. It was great to see the current state of each one, taking notes in my sketchbook. After we touched base with them all, Clio, another volunteer I mentioned before earlier this week, presented where she is at with her thesis project and we all gave her some pointers and suggestions, which helped her out. Then we headed back to the house. Couldn't get online all night, so I just read, then went to bed pretty early to get up this morning. Since Saturdays are half days, I just worked on where I left off last night until I was called in to create some images for a community charrette set for next Friday at the Santo community. We are currently doing a school and community living quarters (both with support from Ben Stiller's Foundation: Stillerstrong) and a sports complex supported by Nike. The charrette is regarding latrine (toilet) decisions for the people living there. I am going to be designing "playing cards" with imagery to help them decide what system to use. Each card has objects on them which describe a specific aspect of the system, which there are four to choose from: traditional septic or "pit" latrine (just going into the ground) or Happy Hearts (the one I described last week) and Compostera (both being composting systems which require more work but offer up SO many benefits for an environment of this type). We are so used to standard plumbing systems back home it would never work in major U.S. cities, but definitely in rural environments. So that is what I will be doing over the next few working days.
Hope everyone enjoys their Labor day weekend. Unfortunately I can't be BBQ'ing down at the beach or on my deck, rather I will be sweating it up here in the office, working. Which is why I am here, so I can't feel too bad.
Everything is great here! Have a fun time back home...
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