Risky business

Posted by evildayball on

An interesting past week.  I spent a few days working with a demolition crew -- basically, the demo team goes to partially intact homes & structures that are too dangerous for habitation or for a rubble team.  This is usually determined by a structural assessment team.  The main focus here is taking down roofs, ceilings, walls, or other vertical structures, as well as identifying and minimizing/eliminating potential hazards on the job site.  The come-along is a crucial tool for these jobs -- it's a manually operated winch with a steel cable that can be shortened, lengthened, and locked into place.  We use come-alongs to bring down structures from a safe distance and to make them fall in the right direction.  Often, damaged walls are left leaning towards another intact structure -- if allowed to fall naturally, it could severely damage an intact building.  Many of the sites are in neighborhoods where the homes are in close proximity to each other, so it's crucial that the walls fall where you want them to fall.  Needless to say, it's quite hazardous work -- a lot of time is spent standing on a shaky & damaged roof or wall while swinging a sledgehammer or cutting out rebar.

Usually everything goes without a hitch, but on Wednesday there was an accident.  One member of the team was atop a partially intact wall, sledging out cement from the top to expose some rebar that we needed to cut.  He thought that one overhanging section was reinforced by rebar, since the rebar column was visible -- it turns out that it was attached to the rest of the building only by cement, which falls apart quite easily.  He smashed out the piece of cement that was connecting the two rebar columns.  The outer column collapsed, and he fell with it onto a pile of rubble on the ground ten feet below.  Luckily he was OK, escaping with only a few small cuts and scratches, but it could've been much worse -- there were plenty of sharp & dangerous things upon which he could have fallen.

On Saturday, there was an altercation at work.  We were working on a local rubble site, and on our team we had four local Haitian volunteers.  One of our guys, E, had some prior beef with this kid who showed up towards the end of the morning.  Nobody else knew about this at the time.  At some point, the kid got in the way of E's wheelbarrow and was talking trash about E working with our organization.  E pushed him out of the way with the wheelbarrow, which escalated the situation.  E apparently punched the kid in the stomach, and the kid retaliated by throwing a rock, which missed E.  E is probably five years older than the kid and a good amount taller & bigger.  The kid started crying and ran away, so we thought everything was finished.  About 15 minutes later, the kid returned with several other angry-looking local guys.  The kid was walking at the back of the group with a large rock in his hand.  The group went straight for E and backed him towards a dead-end alley with the clear intent of kicking his ass.  There were enough people around who had an idea what was going on, so some of us jumped into the middle of the group to defuse the situation and warned E that the kid had a rock in his hand.  The kid threw the rock & missed again, but no punches or blows were thrown.  Right away a couple of our guys took E and hustled him out to the street, put him on a motorcycle taxi, & sent him back to base.  The group of guys had followed them out to the street but there was no more conflict.  At the same time, the team leader called base, explained that there was a fight, and requested an early pick-up.  We packed up our gear and got out of there.

It's easy to forget how dangerous things are here.  95% of volunteers here are amateurs -- only a handful have professional experience in construction, demolition, or carpentry.  Many have worked with Hands On in the past doing similar work and have a lot of knowledge from past experience, but few actually do this sort of thing professionally.  The safety paradigm shifts drastically upon leaving the developed world and arriving here, or any other developing nation for that matter.  For example, in the United States, I'd never dream of getting on a motorcycle driven by a stranger whose language I don't speak with two other passangers wearing no helmets; here, it's the fastest & easiest way to get about town.  Most volunteers here speak little or no Creole, and when we're working we often don't know the history of the home, of the neighborhood, or of any pre-existing tensions.  Most of the time, Leoganians are extremely friendly & appreciative of the volunteers, but sometimes you get the evil eye on the street.  I think there's some misunderstanding about the fact that none of us volunteers get paid. I'd be pissed off too if my hometown was destroyed and I saw a bunch of foreigners clearing and rebuilding when there are thousands of able-bodied locals fully capable of doing the same work if given the proper tools.

Luckily -- and I'm going to knock on some wood right now -- I've had no accidents or conflict here aside from some minor scrapes and cuts.  Common sense is the best safety measure here -- there is no safety inspector to randomly drop in on your work site and no security guard to keep somebody from throwing a rock at your head.

In other news, our project here has been extended until mid-January -- if you are interested in volunteering here, go to www.hodr.org and navigate towards the Project Leogane section.

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