A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, by Gozde Avci, Programme Director

Every now and then, I put my “Manager” hat aside and go in the field to work with the Cash-For-Work crews; it’s hard labor, but it’s something I enjoy enormously. So today, I helped the crews construct an Impluvium in the village of Godin; like many mountain villages, Godin seems lost in the Artibonite Mountains.

An Impluvium is a circular wall designed to catch rain water. We’re constructing 5 Impluviums within the HTRIP programme (Haiti Tree Reintegration Programme), in the mountains, where water is scarce and much needed for agriculture.

At 6am, I met up with the HTRIP team, and we drove to Godin on the tiny, bumpy mountain roads....we were grateful for the cool breeze as we climbed the mountain and got closer to the work site. We met with the Cash For Work team which consisted of 20 people, all of whom were already at work. 

I joined a crew of women who were in charge of carrying buckets of sand up and down the hill...sand which is needed to prepare mortar for construction of the Impluvium walls. Men, divided into three small groups, prepared the mix itself (sand, water and cement) and also carried big pieces of rock, then broke them into smaller pieces, and finally mixed it all together to construct the Impluvium wall. 

I have to say, that I admire every person who works at this site...after spending just one morning with them, I realized just how hard their job really is...working for 6 hours, under the unrelenting Haitian sun. 
I, by no means, came even close to the level of performance of my co-workers; I struggled to keep up with each of them as they climbed those hills, barefoot (and with enthusiasm!) carrying heavy buckets of sand on their heads....After a couple of round trips, I was already exhausted.

But even so, my Turkish stubbornness, and a feeling of responsibility kept me going;  seeing that I was struggling, the women I worked along-side took pity on me and helped me to carry my buckets....but I wasn't willing to accept defeat, I kept telling myself: “You DO NOT leave in the middle of a job!” I realized that I was fooling no one when the women kept on giggling, and asking me if everything was alright...each time, I’d smile and reply, “M’ap Kenbe!” (“I’m holding on!”) all the while, thinking to myself that I wished I had their strength, both physically and morally.

Towards the end, we started having mini-breaks; we chatted about the up-coming elections in Haiti, about the country I came from, about unemployment in the mountains, and about the heavy rains which had just passed through the region a couple of weeks ago…..

While we worked, men and women together, we all sang to the rhythm of schoolchildren’s songs which echoed from the hills behind us. Towards noon, the supervisor’s wife started a camp fire and cooked rice and beans for the whole team. As we quickly swallowed-up our food, we talked over our work and about just how far the Impluvium wall had advanced since we began working in the morning. I felt privileged to have had the chance to work with these amazing people, and to have done so, surrounded by those beautiful mountains, was truly a gift.