They're Back!

Today the Rheto and Philo classes returned to campus for the day to prepare for graduation. It was weird to see the students back on campus, but their presence was definitely welcomed!

After Morning Prayer, we started work on a few projects before the students arrived. We started off shoveling and sifting rocks that needed to be moved. Once we finished going through one of these piles we headed to the backyard to work on piles of cement rocks. We have to sort these rocks by size, so that we can figure out which pieces can be crushed to be used later on to make more cement. It is great to witness the transformation of an unusable object into a useful tool.

Next, we worked in the trench that the PC group helped make. This trench is actually a French drain (a trench filled with gravel to redirect water) located next to a bathroom, so today the Maintenance Staff worked on knocking down a wall next to the trench. Once they knocked down pieces of the wall it was our job to sift and sort through the cement. Although relatively easy, sifting rocks and lifting wheelbarrows is exerting, and after a few hours you definitely start to feel like you have been working out.

In between helping out with cleaning up the remains of the wall, I also worked alongside a few of the Volunteers and students cleaning up the classrooms. After a full year of use, the desks, chalkboards, and some of the walls needed to be cleaned. Even though the walls were not that dirty, it is amazing how much cleaner they looked once they were washed down with soap and water. Although we did not get to all of the classrooms, it was nice seeing a noticeable change in the few rooms that we were able to get to.

In the afternoon I was able to look at my survey results again. Tomorrow I will be going to a few different businesses to survey their employees, so I went back and analyzed the results I already have just to see if there have been any noticeable trends. The amount of money that university students spend on their cell phones was shocking to me, according to my results, of those surveyed, cell phone spending is equivalent to one third of the per capita income of Haitians! This is an incredible amount of money when you consider what else that money could be going towards. I cannot wait to see if these spending habits are also shared by the workers that I will be interviewing.