Here's what we've been up to lately:
Schools! It's satisfying to know that we're able to actually put something on the slabs which we've cleared. Last week we erected a large tent to be used as a temporary school donated by UNICEF -- dimensions about 40 x 20 feet. It's made of steel poles & covered by a large fitted tarp. Another volunteer and I were working with a team of local volunteers & put it up with not too much hassle. We were supposed to put up two of them, but UNICEF shipped us a container missing several vertical support joints.
We're also working on constructing more permanent schools from wood, which will be built upon concrete foundations. The one we're doing this week features three separate classrooms, each measuring 16 square feet. All in all, it's 48 feet long & 16 wide. I spent a day last week building furniture -- desks & chairs -- for the students (there will be about 100 students in this school). I'll be heading out to work on this job tomorrow -- we'll be working on putting up the trusses primarily. This is a pretty cool project, since HODR has been working on this site from start to finish.
As for the future of the school, one volunteer here has been talking about trying to set up a computer lab -- Haiti's only broadband internet connection comes via satellite as of now, but if the proper infrastructure were put into place (easier said than done I suppose)
Rubble! See the previous rubble-themed post. There isn't a whole lot to this, although we did clear the house of one of our local volunteers last week. She was telling us some stories about her neighborhood during the quake -- apparently one resident was bathing when it struck & ran outside nude. Some others commented upon her nudity & made her feel embarrassed, so she ran back inside ... and was killed in her home. Everyone in this country has a story about the quake, and I hope to have do some interviews with my friends soon.
Water Main Mapping! There's currently no running municipal water in Leogane -- everything comes from either a well or from water pumps. A water main does exist, but there's only one guy in town who (maybe) knows where it is. He says he is one of the engineers who laid the pipe. A few of our volunteers have been walking around the town for the past week & taking down GPS coordinates & later tracking them on Google Maps. When the rough maps are complete, we'll dig down a bit into the ground and find out for certain where the water lines really are, and soon after we'll install some pumps & hardware that I don't really know anything about.
Coordination with Leogane Mayor! There's a small team of volunteers getting friendly with the mayor's office -- there's currently not a whole lot of communication between local government and the NGOs, and it's important for both parties to know what the other is doing. They'll know what we're doing & are capable of doing, and we'll know what the community wants & needs from us.
Local Volunteer Program! Last week, HODR started a program where locals can come and work with the field teams in exchange for lunch (after morning work) & dinner (after afternoon work).  Currently there are about 10 local guys who are on the work roster, and it's awesome to have native Creole speakers on site to translate with homeowners & neighbors.
Children! Two or three times per week a group of volunteers go out into the community and organize playtime with the local kids. Activities include typical kid stuff: painting, song & dance, sports, English lessons (I taught two classes last Saturday), and general bedlam. Generally we play with one group of local kids and another group of orphans.
Garden & Compost! We're experimenting with different compost methods in aim of finding the best & easiest way to get the community into composting. Haiti has pretty arid soil due partially to massive deforestation, so compost could be a major asset to improvement in agriculture & nutrition. On top of this, we're working on securing land to start a large community garden -- many Leoganians don't own In addition to food compost, there are plans to set up composting toilets to eventually be used as public restrooms.
Lots of plans! It's really cool to see all this stuff put into action every single day.
And sorry for the lack of photos -- we've got a one gigabyte daily bandwidth limit & the internet runs extremely slowly.