Day 8- Chris

This morning Kevin and I woke up early to get our gear ready for the day. The night before we prepped and staged everything that we might need for the barge onload to ensure that we would be prepared for anything. It was still dark out and there wasn’t a lot of movement around Vacation Village besides the farm animals and a few workers. Over breakfast Kevin and I continued to go over the plan for the onload and the possibilities of what could go wrong.

While waiting for our interpreter Tiere we did our final gear checks loaded up our equipment. We planned on getting as much media as possible while on board to bring back to the rest of the group. When Tiere got there we thanked the staff for breakfast and walked to Bill’s house. Bill was member from “Just Mercy” and was going with us to help with the onload. His ability to proficiently speak Haitan Creole and English would be a very useful tool.

Our first step was to take his zodiac out to the barge that was meeting up with us off the coast. The barge ran a little late but showed up in time to meet our time hack for the offload. We then cruised from the zodiac to the barge and jumped aboard to a lot of confusion. The barge was a very old vessel without a lot of space to move around efficiently. The ride took about 40 minutes and slowly the ship started to come into view.

As we came along the starboard side of the ship we started to see the ship lined with cadets as if they were manning the rails while coming into port. I was able to recognize many familiar faces as we pulled to the bow of the ship where the crane was located. After ten minutes of setting up we were ready to being the onload process. The first thing to come over was the 3 pallet saw mill, which swayed heavily while coming on board. Once it touched down and the straps were removed I knew the rest of the process would go smoothly. While Kevin and I had hard hats and our bodies covered from the sun, the Haitian workers had barefeet, shirts, and shorts as they offloaded the equipment.

During the offload I took as many pictures and videos as I could with the Go Pro AJ provided me that I tucked between the middle of the life jacket with a chest strap. We spent most of the offload communicating with our liaison Robert Krupa on the ship to organize what was coming down from the crane next. After about two hours all the cargo was on board and we said our goodbyes to the ship and sailed back to the island.

When the barge arrived back at Port Morgan the job was only half over. We still had to offload and organize the cargo to ensure it went to the right place. The barge refused to dock until it got confirmation from the government on the island so it would avoid any legal issues that may be stirred from the drop off. after a half an hour on the barge we finally got the okay to begin offloading, but then there was another dilemma. The mayor needed compensation in order start to offload so he looked over the manifest to pick out what he would determine would be his tax.

After some disputing and a lot of confusion the first buckets started to come off. Everything but the three pallet saw mill came off the ship and was given to the stakeholders that we had been working with for months before hand. With all the people that were there it only took half an hour to offload the entire barge and properly distribute the material.

At this point we thought we were done except for one large obstacle that still stood in our way; the saw mill that needed to be transported to a house along the beach of the island. The barge then moved to a beach head along the island in the city of Kaykok. It lowed the mill onto the beach and then the real fun began. Luckily Bill had researched the saw mill and what could be taken off to make it later. Understand that there are no cranes in Haiti and the only way it was getting to its location was with man power.

After some of the components were removed, we devised a plan to get it to its new home. A large branch would go under the center of the saw mill and we would carry it all the way. Luckily there were many locals who were willing to help and after many stops and team switches it finally arrived to the destination.Once the saw mill was set down a feeling of a job well done was felt and there was a lot of relief from everyone who had helped. The entire group then went with Capt. Lennon for a debrief of the situation at Port Morgan. We all went to bed exhausted and satisfied with our hard days work that months to prepare for.