A Future Not Our Own

1.28.19

  

We woke up with a twinge of sadness, knowing that this is our last “normal” wakeup of this trip. One of the tents full of sleepers decided to take down their tent last night because it was dry and there was no guarantee it would stay that way.  We folded it up this morning and closed that chapter of our journey.  The other tent stayed dry in the night, but came down this morning in anticipation of our 4am departure from our house tomorrow.  We got a lot of our packing done, but we still have a lot of stuff to manage.  

We told the San Isidro folks not to prepare too much for lunch, so that we could bring our leftovers and eat them up.  This group has had the strangest tastes ever.  They wiped out their 500 or so Clif bars almost a week ago, but still have loads of Nutella (usually among the most precious of DIRT food items) and peanut butter and jelly.  The Ritz crackers almost lasted through the trip, as did the hot sauce.  

On the non-food front, we ran into difficulties by skimping on our Poo-pourri supply, which ran out in our last 24 hours.  We had plenty available; someone just decided not to bring it all.  This may be the end of our harmonious relations; we shall see how things go up until 4am. We did NOT run out of personal wipes, which is sometimes a near calamity, as we develop quite a dependency on them during these trips.  Megan had made clear rules about how to use them and how not to use them, which seemed to help us conserve them. We will have to remember her spiel for future trips, as it was quite effective.  

Tick Tock Tom got to yell out his time cues one more time, though he might be able to get a little more mileage out of his skills in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.  We all ate oatmeal and cleaned out the caked on pots with ease because that’s another important skill that we have picked up.  

We headed to San Isidro and hit all of our jobs with everything we had.  One set of five women got sent to mix concrete on a site we hadn’t worked yet.  The guy who had requested help said, “Women?” in Spanish and conjectured that they couldn’t do the work.  HAHAHAHAHA. That guy doesn’t know our women, or our “jobs have no gender” agreement.  Our five women truly left no stone unturned (that’s a hilarious pun for those of you who have mixed concrete before) and changed that man’s mind about what women can or should do.  

Others cleared more debris and got more families to zero.  We have worked so many houses now, we have lost count.  And the debris piles out on the edge of the road are a testament to our impact on the land of our San Isidro friends.  

At Jose’s house, we painted every single inch of the interior and exterior walls, even up into the rafters.  He had put most of the roof on the bathroom on Sunday, so he was ready to pour the floor, which meant that this group, too, was mixing concrete.  Happily, Jose had access to an electric mixer, which made that job much easier than we might have expected.  We helped him cut drain holes for the shower and toilet and then poured a floor to the height of the short side of a 2x4 while he smoothed it nearly perfectly.  Once we had poured the last bucket of concrete, it was time to go.  

That group held a little ceremony at the house with Jose, all touching the house and touching each other either by holding hands or laying a hand on a shoulder.  We all talked about our hopes and wishes for that house and we all got really choked up, even Jose.  We hugged and cried and took some pictures, then gathered up all of our water bottles and tools and walked away for the last time.  

We joined the rest of the group back at Jossie’s house for lunch, and learned that the concrete group with the five women still needed a little more time to finish its job. Whoever was ready headed out with them and the rest of us installed our second water purification system at Jossie’s house to serve the community that circulates through her common space, using it as a de facto community center.  This system, too, was donated by Karl and Mary Beutner, parents and in-laws of two DIRT vets.  

We all gathered to head away from San Isidro for the final time, so we did a little ceremony there too, all in a circle, touching some part of the gathering space and touching each other.  We expressed our best wishes for the community and all of the people we had met (and those we haven’t met, too, of course).  They talked about how long they had waited for help and how much it meant to them that finally someone had come.  We cried a bit over this farewell too, especially when Sophia and Molly provided us with some text to help us think about our experience (see below).  

We talked about the transformation we each have experienced personally at that house and we prayed together that the community would have a similar transformation that meant it was reaching its highest aspirations.  We marveled over the strength we developed there and we expressed our admiration for the strength of the community that welcomed us.  

When we left San Isidro, we did our usual huddle and cheer (“Tres, Dos, Uno, SAN ISIDRO!).  As we drove away we were pointing out houses and paint jobs and debris piles and potholes that were different now because we have been here.  

On the way home, we revisited each of our SBP houses from our first weeks here.  At each one, the primary team that had been assigned to that house led a reflection about our time here.  The first house at which we stopped currently has four of our PLs (project leaders) all in one place.  So two of our house teams got to talk the rest of us through the experience with those leaders.  Lindsay helped to guide us through the house where she worked and wished for the love and laughter that we felt and experienced there to live in the walls and the windows and the panels and the paint.  We each wished for happiness, health, and safety for the family there and we expressed our hope that generations could carry on there without suffering another disaster.  More tears fell.  And as we left, we modified our cheer to “SBP!”

At the next house, we showed where we had demolished the second house and talked about how the house had changed since we first saw it.  Related to the demolition, we acknowledged that we hadn’t actually saved the owners from ghosts or snakes by taking down that house that spooked them, but we had at least relieved their fears about what that space might hold. Our young friend Ropniel showed up and we played a quick game of basketball before hurrying back to the bus. While we were there, Viviana (the owner) called her son Giondi, who asked to talk to his “best friends,” Alex and Paul.  More tears. 

The team that had been at the third primary site had already seen their PLs, but they wanted to see the house itself one more time, so we swung by.  The homeowner Ana saw us coming down the street and started jumping up and down and waving her arms in the air.  She ran down the stairs and greeted us all.  We circled up and spoke our blessings to her and her house, including her beloved dog, Chispa.  When we left that house, we changed our cheer to “Tres, Dos, Uno, CHISPA!!”

When we got back home, we decided we had time for one more swim at the beach.  We all went.  The water was strangely more emerald than it has been and the waves were warm and welcoming, not knocking us off our feet as they sometimes do.  Even Kresha went all the way in, which was a first for her. We celebrated, this time without tears. 

People were shooting interviews and reactions for their final videos, and more tears came into play for that part too.  We have heard that there is bad weather in the mainland and that our flights might be affected.  We are fantasizing about getting stranded here . . .

But we will get all of our goodies together and behave as if we are leaving.  Wrangling all of these bags (even when we are leaving food, tents, air mattresses, and lots of paint-covered clothing behind) is a total nightmare.  But we have Megan, Lauren, and Hannah heading up the crew and everyone carrying their weight in supporting the plan.  

Speaking of Megan, we had our final Purple Bike ceremony tonight, with no surprise at all about whom we were honoring, as Megan is the only one who has not yet been celebrated individually.  But we are all constantly celebrating Megan because she has been the most essential student leader of the trip.  She began months ago being Shawny’s #1 support person and has done enormous amounts of work for all of us.  She is incredibly humble in her leadership style, just going along behind everyone picking up the pieces and keeping everything humming backstage.  She was described as a primary role model by many of the women on the trip and all of us expressed our deep admiration for her and for all she does.  Along with her great organizational strengths, she is fun and funny too!  And she can roll with whatever comes, as we saw in San Isidro the other day when one of the kids threw up on her and she just cleaned things up and kept on going.  Today Jose declared her an excellent worker and said that whoever marries her will be lucky because she will do all the work.  We imagine she’ll share the load but we definitely see why Jose was so impressed.  Thanks, Megan, for all that you are and all that you do.  

And now it is approaching midnight here and we need to get up just after 3am to start our scramble for the airport.  No one is asleep yet.  We have a long trip and will no doubt find a way to sleep on the planes (or in the Atlanta airport, where we have a long layover).  But we will be sorry to leave Puerto Rico, where we have experienced big changes in ourselves and in the communities we visited.  We will be happy to return home, but we will be thinking of the palm trees, and the sky, and the mofongo, and the concrete, and Chispa, and our friends here, and their families, and their homes.  And we hope that they will all always feel our love in the paint, the concrete, and the debris piles . . .

We hope to see you on February 20 at 7pm when we will show some of our final videos.  We will clean up our pictures and missing daily videos sooner than that.  Thanks for following us and supporting us throughout our time here!

Here’s the text that Sophia and Molly used to help us think about our role here; it’s a portion of a prayer called “Prophets of a Future Not Our Own,” credited to the late Oscar Romero, a priest from El Salvador:

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Happy Birthday, Nils!

1.27.19

It’s Nils’ birthday! It started with a beautiful sunny day, which we haven’t seen early in the morning for quite awhile. We actually got some dry house towels off the line yesterday, so we were off to a good start.  We got to sleep in past 8:30 today (woo hoo!) and then eat pancakes started by Jesse and Shawny.  The breakfast team eventually picked up the job, especially the sticky cleanup.  We were on high efficiency mode through breakfast, because we had a special appointment this morning: we had an invitation from the Mayor of Loiza to visit one of their cultural sites, so we loaded up and headed to Parque de la Cruz.  

At the park, we first had a demonstration of the traditional headscarf that is worn here, which is considered a form of a turban.  The uses of them are based in African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures. For men, the scarf is worn pretty much like a headband, while for women, there are a few different ways to wear them, all of which help to manage unruly hair and also communicate specific messages.  The directionality of the knot can communicate that a woman is single, widowed, coupled, or just plain friendly.  

We then visited a small Loiza-focused art gallery, which had quite a few pieces by our artist friend Samuel Lind.  There were also a few pieces by his cousin Daniel, with whom we were not yet acquainted. We learned about the special characters that are related to Loiza folklore, including the villain, the hero, the crazy woman (sadly, there is no non-crazy woman), and the saint.  There are specific images that go with each of these characters and we learned pretty quickly how to recognize them in the mix of visual images in different art pieces.  

We then learned about bomba, the local dance form that we saw on the beach a couple of weeks ago. In bomba, the drummers follow the dancers rather than the other way around.  There are some steps that each dancer is supposed to know, but there can be a lot of improvisation too.  We learned our steps and practiced with each other, even playing the drums ourselves at times. 

We moved on from bomba to a rock formation that they called a cave.  It wasn’t underground or anything, but the limestone formed a big curved arch that we could walk into/under.  There were bees that had established hives overhead and one wall of the rock seemed to have the image of a face in it.  

The park staff served us lunch and then we headed to a beach in a town called Fajardo. It was on a huge curved cove in the sea that helped to break the waves.  We floated in the unusually salty water and sunned ourselves on the coarse sand.  Some of us walked the beach but none of us ventured terribly far.  As dusk began to fall, we realized that we had to go home to the first of two big packing pushes.  We lingered a bit when we should have been leaving, but we just couldn’t tear ourselves away.  We took a million pictures and even flew our drone a bit to capture this last lovely afternoon of momentary leisure. 

We came home and added two new purple bikers: Molly and Sophia.  Molly is completely warm and happy, always willing and able to do the job that needs to be done (even if it involves tarantulas), full of love and happiness, easy to get along with, wise in her observations, and positive in her perspectives.  We have never seen her mad at anybody ever and we have never really detected that she is even annoyed with anyone (which is an easy state to reach based on our living situation).  She just really genuinely accepts each of us the way we are and values whatever that may be. Wow. 

As for Sophia, she exudes transcendent levels of pure joy.  She glories in the beauty of the mundane and sees every experience as a complete privilege that she should cherish.  She is truly happy to do the job – whatever it is – to the fullest extent that she is capable.  She shines a bright light on whatever context she enters just by being the person that she is: warm, loving, giving, hopeful, helpful, eager, and insightful. And she brought and played her ukulele!  Jesse pointed out that every once in a while, a newcomer comes along that just seems like they were destined to be a DIRTy.  Sophia is one of those people.  Lucky, lucky us!

We had one more celebration to hold tonight: the continuation of our enjoyment of Nils’ birthday.  He had mentioned casually today that he isn’t really into cake but likes ice cream cake. We had seen an ice cream store that sold cakes in the first place that we ever ate once we arrived, so Jesse and Jessica made a beeline from the beach to that place and sneaked in a chocolate ice cream cake for Nils.  Before we cut into it, Nils expressed his utter happiness at being in Puerto Rico and especially about being here with all of us.  We say, “right back atcha.”  Happy birthday, Nils!

Bathroom Down, Bathroom Up

1.26.19

We got to go to work without rain pouring down on us.  We tried to put some fresh laundry out in hopes that it would dry for once.  We shall see.  We also ate more leftovers for breakfast.  Our fridge is full and we need to empty it.  Strange combinations emerge.  Lots of rice and beans.  

Our workday stretched beyond a half day to an almost normal workday.  As has been the case lately, some of us stayed focused on Jose’s house while some of us bounced from job to job trying to meet more of the requests of the community.  We won’t be able to do all that we are asked, which is unfortunate but is also a sign that we have built some trust here in our short time in San Isidro.  

Our plan was to work until a slightly late lunch (1:00 or so) and then knock off for the day and do some souvenir shopping.  But we got into our jobs and Luis got excited about some other things that could get done and the next thing we knew, we had set our workday end as 3:00.  Of course, that time stretched over closer to 3:30 or more.  

But we got to do some cool new jobs, including installing a water purification system at a local spot where the neighborhood comes to collect water from a hose.  We attached a solar powered water purification system to that tap and showed the neighborhood how to use it to get clean water.  They tasted it and said it was definitely better than what they had.  Special thanks to Karl and Mary Beutner, whose generous donation funded this system and two others (including the one that we use to be sure our water supply is safe!).  

Some more of us also got to do demolition, as we ripped out a bathroom with only two hammers and our bare hands.  Demolition is unfortunate when it is a sign of decay or neglect, but when it is necessary and desired by the homeowner, it can be really fun.  

And at Jose’s house, we framed out the bathroom, put up the walls and actually cut the doorframe from the main house to our new addition.  Don’t get too excited, because what we built is pretty simple, but it was really exciting to make the move that truly meant we had added a room to the house.  

We have one more day in San Isidro (more like a half day on Monday, as we have lots of stuff to pack). We have lots of loose ends to tie up before we can say farewell there.  

When we left today we returned to Old San Juan, the scene of last weekend’s festival of San Sebastian. Things were MUCH quieter this time and our main focus was on quick and efficient souvenir shopping over dancing and people watching.  We ate our dinner in town too, but most of us did so pretty quickly so that we would have more time to walk around.  

We found some shops filled with only arts and cultural items made in Puerto Rico and we found others that had piles and piles of stuff that most of us could afford to bring home for ourselves and our loved ones.  We spread ourselves across both kinds of shops to see how things played out.  

We tried to come home really early (around 7:45) but Luis (who is our bus driver as well as our community liaison in San Isidro) couldn’t bring the bus to our arranged meeting place due to some kind of public event, so he had to park it and walk in to where we were and walk us back out.  That long delay meant we didn’t get home until about 10 and most of us just decided to hit the pillows as soon as we could.  A few went to the seaside to soak in the night vibes on the beach (but they should also remember how many sand fleas we have encountered there after dark). 

We aren’t working tomorrow (unless it’s on advance packing) and we have a couple of cultural events on the agenda.  We’ll tell you more once we make final decisions.  Our time is ticking away . . . !

The Beauty of Local Art

1.25.19

More rain.  After we woke up.  If we don’t get a dry day sometime soon, we are going to have a real laundry crisis.  We won’t even be able to burn our disgusting clothes because they will be too soaking wet! 

We still got going despite the rain, as we knew this was our last full day of work. We made every leftover we could imagine eating for breakfast (even pasta) and headed out to San Isidro. 

We fanned out to a number of different jobs again, with general cleanup of debris scattered throughout people’s lots at the top of the list.  We found another nest of tarantulas and screamed just as loudly as we did yesterday, even though they were just as non-threatening to us as they were yesterday.  

We moved tons of wood and plant debris (mostly palms and banana trees) and got several families’ lots cleared in a way that had not been true since before the storm more than a year ago.  We got to do a lot of our beloved “bucket lines” that may or may not involve buckets but that definitely involve the entire group at a particular site passing goods from person to person to move lots of material faster than we could move it by carrying it individually.  It also means that we all contribute roughly the same amount of effort to the overall task, which is nice symbolically and even physically.  And it was raining through most of this work, which meant we got to do everything in our raingear, which is necessary, but just a little too hot based on the temperatures around here these days.  

Most of the crew at Jose’s house was spared the use of their raingear, because the majority of that group was painting the interior of the house.  Because the walls are plywood, the paint soaks in quite a bit, so it takes layer upon layer upon layer upon layer to get something approximating color. That crew had already gone through one five gallon bucket of white paint a day or more ago, but when Jose got the next bucket, it turned out to be light pink.  They went ahead and painted the light pink onto the living room knowing that it would be absorbed into the plywood and today a new five-gallon bucket of white paint showed up so they just kept on painting and covering up the pink. 

A DIRT vet named Marlina (who spent four months or so working in Puerto Rico this fall) helped us to get some perspective on the importance of painting by writing in to let us know that painting plywood helps to prevent mold and leakage, both of which are constant threats to residents of homes with low construction costs.  We’ve been constantly reminding ourselves of the importance of the little things and that it’s the elements that improve the mundane parts of people’s everyday lives that matter most.  We are happy to get the chance to see paint as more than just an aesthetic choice and to see it as a factor that will really improve quality of life. 

The other big news from Jose’s house is that the structure of the added-on bathroom is almost done. Even though it rained most of the morning and about half of the afternoon, our intrepid crew kept venturing out when it wasn’t pouring down too hard and putting up a support or two whenever possible.  The mud around the house was nearly impassable, so they built a little land bridge using debris and banana leaves to help make a path to carry the materials around for the bathroom. They built a platform supported by concrete blocks anchored in cement, framed out the shape of the bathroom (about 4’ x 8’) and put up three of the four wall panels that constitute the room.  The fourth will have a window in it, so it will take a little more engineering tomorrow morning, as will the roof.  By lunchtime tomorrow, there should be the shell of a bathroom on the existing plywood house.  

We had locally caught tilapia for lunch (remember yesterday’s cleaning session?).  The fish were prepared whole, with eyes, tails, and all, which was fascinating to some of us and disgusting to others.  We hurried through lunch to get back to work, because we had to leave earlier than usual for a special trip to a local artist’s studio in our community.  The artist’s name is Samuel Lind, which is coincidentally the name of a faculty member at Saint Mary’s.  

If you were making a film about a Caribbean artist, you would work hard to create a set that looked just like the place we visited this evening.  It is all wood-paneled with lots of windows and art is everywhere, including stacked on some of the surfaces.  Samuel does sculpture, painting, and screenprinting, and has prepared the promotional posters for many local art and culture events.  He is a Loiza native whose family has been in the neighborhood where his workshop is for many generations.  

His art focuses on local imagery and folklore, as well as the African roots of much local religion and tradition.  He is also an activist who uses his art to resist overdevelopment of the community, particularly in the form of resorts and condos that destroy native palms and mangroves.  

We were joined on our tour by our friend Jessica and one of her friends from the university, as well as our friend Katia from SBP.  Our landlord from our house, Marta, also came along.  We wandered from room to room and up and down the stairs, staring quietly at times and talking excitedly at others. Some of Samuel’s prints were for sale, so a few of us spent some time picking out things that we want to add to our permanent collections.  

We were entirely content until our warm vibe was interrupted by a surprising intrusion: a tour bus. We never expected to run into a bunch of mainland tourists, but that’s what happened.  Their tour guides were pushing us out of the way and shushing us, even though we were being respectful and quiet.  It was quite jarring to run into the tourist version of ourselves and find how differently they behaved than we did (at least in our perception).  We barely managed to get out with our purchases before they completely took the place over.  

We understand that Samuel is very popular and is widely respected even outside this area.  When Jesse stopped yesterday to confirm our plan for today, one of the stars of Hamilton was there checking out the studio. So it’s not surprising that a huge number of people would want to visit; we remain proud of the way that we visited and experienced the place as compared to some of the practices that we observed.  

Samuel allowed us to take pictures in his place, so some of them will no doubt appear on the blog soon. 

We invited Jessica and her friend to join us for dinner, and our night got too late to do our usual reflection time.  We will fit it in either during breakfast or lunch tomorrow, though we have lots of plans – including a half a day of work in San Isidro.  We also have to begin our packing process, as it takes quite awhile to wrangle all of our stuff into the smallest possible number of bags (to save money on airline baggage charges).  

So, our next few days will be bittersweet, as we are trying to soak up every possible experience – both on this island and with each other – while also keeping an eye toward our imminent departure.  We miss you and look forward to seeing you, but we are already getting lumps in our throats imagining leaving this place that we have come to love so much . . .

You Light Up My Life

1.24.19

Special Note: Hope, Kresha, and Angel each put in some time today to backfill pictures.  We still have a few missing ones and no doubt have a few misplaced captions, but we hope you will click back through the days to discover images that you might not have seen yet.  We will keep trying to get them right day by day, but today there was a big push to get things where they belonged.  Thanks, Hope, Kresha, and Angel!

_____

Oh, the rains!  The sound in the night of the rain falling from the sky was incredible. The tent people were obviously aware of it, but even those sleeping in the house were very clear that it was raining hard.  We slept in an extra half hour and asked Luis to pick us up a bit later due to the sleep we lost from the sounds of the rain. 

We arrived to find Jossie in a particularly festive mood, apparently fueled by 70s music, including “Loving You” by Minnie Riperton and “You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone. Shawny joined Jossie in singing this last song, which was a quite fitting representation of our partnership with San Isidro.  While Jossie was singing and dancing, Luis began to clean some fresh tilapia he had bought on our way to work this morning.  We (almost) all joined in, scaling and gutting the fish under Luis’ instruction. 

We then fanned out into a range of new (and old) worksites.  One bunch went to our new friend Carmen’s house to help reclaim her backyard from the storm.  It had fallen limbs and debris throughout it, along with some unwelcome fill dirt.  As it turned out, it also had a nest of tarantulas, which was quite a surprise, even though once they surfaced, they just scattered away from us and posed no threat. (That result doesn’t mean that we didn’t scream and scramble madly when we saw them, because we most certainly did.) 

Another group gutted a house across from Jossie’s that has not yet been brought back to its prior function following the storm.  Its owner is living diagonally across the street in a rental and has finally decided that it is time to get back to his own house.  So our team cleared it of everything that has accumulated in there since Maria, including piles of lumber, enormous amounts of sand, and lots of random items, including a toilet that probably came from somewhere else. By the time we were finished, we had gotten it to zero, meaning it is ready for its owner to begin reconstruction. 

A big chunk of us returned to Jose’s house and took up the job of digging a trench and bringing pipe water from the street to the house.  Like Tom and Sarah yesterday, this group didn’t realize it could figure out anything about plumbing but suddenly, they had brought water onto the property.  They didn’t do the plumbing for the bathroom-under-construction (yet), but they still had a great victory. We kept working on that bathroom today and got the floor put down by the end of the day.  We also kept painting and got a full coat on most of the walls (interior and exterior).  We filled some holes around the pilings that support the house to make it easier to navigate our way around from the front to the back.  We are sorry to say that the rebar nest is still haunting us; we think that a small excavator may be the solution to that particular problem.  

The afternoon brought two more jobs, which were painting an entire house (a lovely robin’s egg blue color!) and clearing another storm-tossed yard.  The amount of debris still haunting the residents of San Isidro is unbelievable.  We know that we are making barely a dent in this enormous problem, but we also know that we are making a world of difference for these individual families. That’s why we are here, so we’re okay with this work as the labor that fills our days.  

Tonight we faced the fact that our time is winding down and got some plans together for how to maximize our work without entirely foregoing sleep.  We also got plans together to see some of our local friends again before we leave and to be sure we get some souvenir shopping in (for ourselves and for some of you!).  Tomorrow will be our last long work day, so we will hit it pretty early and do as much as we can in our final full day.  We intend to work a half day on Saturday and a half day on Monday, but we have a lot of stuff to deal with as we pack to go home, so we have to reserve some time for those tasks too.  

In the meantime, we got a new purple biker today: Madi M.  Madi has shown incredible strength in many ways.  She is actually physically strong, which is quite evident when she is on the worksite, especially if there are sledgehammers involved.  She is also pretty flexible in moving from site to site and doing the work that needs to be done without question or hesitation. She made one of the greatest dinners we ever had without having all of the ingredients she thought she needed.  She is also the only person who has ever, ever, ever cleaned our bathrooms properly on this entire trip.  She has also taught all of us a lot about personal commitment, especially as she maintains her strong allegiance to her vegan lifestyle.  Many of us piped up to sing Madi’s praises tonight, as we talked about her loyalty, her dependability, her humor, and her ability to be inspiring. We are fortunate to have her with us. Yay, Madi!

Jesse's Birthday!

1.23.19

It’s Jesse’s birthday!!! It’s his 11^thDIRT birthday, though the overall total is a bit higher than that.  We are extremely grateful that we get to circulate in the same atmosphere as Jesse for at least these few weeks. Jesse is one of the most impressively worldly people most of us have ever met. He is a fascinating storyteller with a million great stories to tell, most of them from the incredible experiences he has had in his own real life.  We aspire to live lives half as interesting as his. We also aspire to have beautiful loving families like his, and we thank Nanda, Gui, and Shelley Maeve for sharing him with us this month.  Happy birthday, Jesse!

We had pancakes for the birthday breakfast, with real Vermont maple syrup for Jesse because he is really very serious about his syrup.  We also had mangoes and some kind of oatcakes for the vegans.  Tom has become our new timekeeper, as he has spontaneously started calling out, “We are leaving in 45 minutes!” and then giving similar time checks until we actually walk out the door.  He got us out in the street promptly at 8:30am, which was our goal. 

We got to San Isidro and learned that the community is becoming aware of our presence and interested in our efforts.  We were approached by seven new families who need some kind of assistance that we might be able to offer.  Those jobs will go on our agenda for tomorrow. As far as we can tell, there has been little response from FEMA and not many other aid groups have filled the gap. The Techos group (who build prefab houses like the one where we are working right now) is the only clear presence we have seen in San Isidro. So, the residents aren’t used to getting help or asking for it. 

Luis and Jossie have helped to introduce us to the neighborhood but it is all on us to earn the residents’ respect and trust.  A couple of people approached us yesterday with small requests, which we addressed today. And then as we said above, seven families approached today, giving us a number of jobs to do tomorrow on top of the work with Jose that we have already begun.  We couldn’t continue our road crew work, as the rains had left too much water on the streets for us to move.  

So we distributed ourselves across three worksites in the morning, continuing the work at Jose’s house but then adding some cleanup work at the home of another of Jossie’s neighbors, and some “plumbing” work at another nearby woman’s home.  In the afternoon, we continued the first and third jobs listed here but flipped to a fourth house after the second job was done. 

At Jose’s house, a lot of us were painting in the interior of the house, as it was raining intermittently outside. We also had Scott and Alex continue to tack down the plywood exterior through their method of standing on the blind side of the plywood wall and trying to find the right place to drive a screw into a stud.  They continued to amaze.  We also tried to untangle the rebar web, but didn’t get as far as we expected.  And we continued to clear the yard area, in preparation for the continuation of the construction of the house next door.  In the afternoon, we began an ambitious new task at Jose’s house: the addition of a bathroom to the prefab floor plan.  More on this tomorrow.  

As mentioned above, we met up with one of Jossie’s neighbors (Berton – pronounced like “bear-TONE”) and heard fascinating stories about his experience of the storm.  He said he had ridden out a number of hurricanes before, but that this one (Maria) was very different.  He lost all of his possessions but did not lose his concrete block home.  In fact, his was one of only a few intact structures in the neighborhood so it became a de facto staging area for others to gather, organize, cook, and sometimes sleep. The job that this homeowner needed done was removal and sorting of debris that had accumulated on this lot. There is still debris everywhere in San Isidro so it is becoming a normal part of the landscape.  But people are ready for it to go away and today was the day for Berton.  We were glad to be of assistance, especially because we had the privilege of hearing his stories and learning more about his experience of Maria.  

And our third job was “plumbing.”  Many of the houses here have rigged their own PVC pipe systems to channel municipal water into their homes.  Some of these systems are put together in unusual ways using available parts and it is not unusual to find that they are supported by sticks and rocks underneath the house.  Carmen’s system was no exception and Tom and Sarah were surprised to learn that they could actually be of assistance by climbing under the house and figuring out what had gone wrong.  They could see where supports had given way, meaning that there were low spots in the pipes, keeping water (and other things) from moving in the appropriate directions.  They could see connection points that needed to be repaired and they gathered the materials they needed to repair them.  

In the afternoon, the team that had cleared Berton’s yard in the morning cleared another family’s yard in the afternoon.  At first, we all wondered how meaningful this work truly is.  And then we thought about how annoying it would be to have storm debris in your face for more than a year, with the feeling that it would take months to clear it away.  Our group can clear it pretty fast, so it counts as quite a moment of progress for us to tackle these piles.  By the end of the day, we didn’t still have questions about whether what we were doing mattered.  

In the late afternoon, we gathered a new set of kids to play and do art projects.  They made bracelets out of pipe cleaners, drew, and played games on paper with us.  A few of them still ran around and played tag and hide-and-seek.  We kept it up until darkness began to fall, then headed home. 

Once home, we had a visit from a local pastor who had heard about us through one of our SBP friends. He took Jesse and Shawny to see some of the projects they are working on in Loiza and then stopped by the house to tell us a bit about Loiza.  He mentioned that this area has the highest concentration of Afro-Puerto Ricans on the island.  In particular, he said that Loiza is the keeper of the artistic flame for representations of the African diaspora in Puerto Rico.  We told him the name of an artist that we will meet on Friday (Samuel Lind) and he pointed out that Samuel will be a great introduction to the African-based culture of this community. 

We celebrated Jesse’s birthday with our friend Jessica and a great store-bought cake.  

And we awarded someone with a new membership in the Order of the Purple Bike: Tom.  But due to his aforementioned timekeeping tendencies, we now think of him as Tick Tock Tom.  We also think of him as a bright shining light of happiness that buoys all of our spirits.  He drives us nuts sometimes, but he also shows authentic curiosity about us and our lives and he always brings a smile to our faces.  He keeps us organized and helps us with our tech needs.  And he videotapes nearly everything he sees/does. We have tons and tons and tons of footage because Tom is with us.  He supports video editors from all teams, and he moves around within our group to sit with different people at different times.  We can’t imagine this trip without him.  Congrats to Tom!

Sophia painting the porch area of Jose’s house. 

A gorgeous rainbow view from our house this morning. 

Lindsay, Grayson, and Nils clearing out pieces of zinc roof panels.

A car steering wheel found in the midst of hurricane destruction. 

We celebrated Jessie’s birthday! T’was wonderful night to eat cake and celebrate our amazing leader and friend. 

BRANDO and Tom posing!

A little fluffer we pass daily on our walk to the work sites.

Game of tag after work, CORRE CORRE!

The joys of painting!

Rebar

1.22.19

Special Note: We finally have a date for our final video presentation night: Wednesday, February 20, from 7-8:30pm (or so) in Galileo 201 on the Saint Mary’s College campus. We look forward to meeting all of the families and friends of our amazing DIRT team.  Each of our teams will present at least one of its three final videos (maybe more than one if there is time).  Please join us!  

_____

Work day.  For real.  CalTrans, look out!  We headed out to San Isidro after a lovely breakfast combining real eggs and powdered eggs so well that we couldn’t tell that anything was different.  We added tomatoes and red peppers and garlic paste and olives, along with gouda cheese freshly grated by Steph.  We even heated up the leftover tilapia and some people ate fish breakfast burritos.  The vegans (we have two, plus one vegetarian) ate yucca and broccoli.  All of that great food prepared us well to hit the worksite with gusto.

We had two primary jobs: prep a recently-constructed plywood house for occupancy and deal with the enormous potholes and ruts in the San Isidro roads.  Both of these jobs are going to be doozies.  

On the first one, we are doing follow-up work on a house built by an organization called Techos, who came through after Maria and helped build a large number of small homes on lots where existing homes were lost.  The way we have heard it, the homes cost $400 to build and are all the exact same model.  They have piers that support them, small raised porches, and three rooms that are probably seen as a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living room.  They do not have bathrooms, but many people add bathrooms after the initial construction is complete.  Others no doubt use outhouses.  They do not have windows either.  But practically everyone adds vented windows.  Some add trim and almost everyone paints them.  

This particular house belongs to the grandmother of our friend Joshua, who has been riding in our bus with us when he is not in high school.  His grandmother is blind and will need some special accommodations to make this house work for her.  Joshua’s grandfather Jose is a contractor and is our supervisor on this project.  We have yet to figure out whether these grandparents are (or were) a pair or not.  Maybe tomorrow. 

“Our” Techos house has one window already and we will help install at least one more.  It needs some interior doors and it needs a bathroom.  It needs an entrance ramp to replace the steps that come with the house.  It also needs some yard clearing, which is a bigger job than usual because someone seems to have used this particular yard for their debris pile.  There are lots of debris piles that have never been picked up throughout the city and San Isidro is no exception. 

We hope to help with all of this work.  Today, though, we began by fastening down the outer plywood on the highest walls of the house.  We also bagan painting the entire exterior of the house a light taupe color.  We suggested that maybe the porch could include a pop of color and Jose came back with a gallon of purple-ish lavender paint that did the trick.  We also wrestled with that debris pile, including lots and lots of rebar that is tangled into a web in a way that we just don’t understand. We took on that web today, but didn’t conquer it yet.  Still, we made big progress for one day of work. 

On the roadwork, we were aware that we were going to help repair potholes.  We were not aware that they had access to a bobcat and an excavator, and imagined that we would just be filling holes with rocks, trying to cement them in some way, and maybe not improving things all that much.  HA!  

We were a full-on road crew, taking a rutted, janky, uneven surface and turning it into a smooth, flat, passable road in just a few hours.  We were mad people with shovels, digging channels for water to run elsewhere and bringing in fill for the machines to smooth.  And we were FILTHY by lunchtime.  But that road had turned into a legitimate throughway for the community. Unbelievable!

At lunch we reorganized a bit and a few people flipped from the house job to the road job and vice versa. Both jobs went in largely different directions after lunch.  The house crew had a few people doing siding and painting but the majority of us worked on that debris pile and the web of rebar, trying to make a pathway to the side of the house.  Perhaps one of the most important points that this group learned is that the word is “rebar” and not “rebarb” (or “rhubarb”) or “barbed wire.”  

And Scott and Alex became a siding machine, doing precision work from the blind side (exterior) of the house, with Shawny inside calling out instructions and rough measurements of where they should drill.  The Techos folks give no leeway in their use of materials, obviously having figured out the most economical way for things to get done as quickly as possible.  So the plywood siding sheets have to be screwed perfectly into studs/crossbeams that are atypically far apart, meaning that things only attach along the extreme outer edges, with no wiggle room. No professionals could have done a better job than Scott and Alex did today. 

As for the road crew, things weren’t quite as smooth (pun intended) as the morning crew’s work had been. The part of the road they were fixing was full of rainwater, so they were channeling it away as the morning crew had done.  Our community partner Luis, however, added a new twist to the afternoon job when he dug a hole for the water to drain toward off of the side of the road.  Though to us it appeared that the hole was in an empty/abandoned lot, the neighbors of that lot seemed to disagree with that assessment.  A forceful argument ensued between those neighbors and Luis, who is seen as one of the primary leaders of the community.  We didn’t catch the whole argument, as it was in Spanish, and none of us has good enough language skills to follow a very heated discussion.  In any case, the road crew suddenly found itself putting more time into undoing Luis’ new drainage hole than into the road. As far as we could tell, Luis kept the conversation going with the neighbors throughout our work, and the other main leader of the community, Jossie, also joined in. It was clear that both Luis and Jossie considered it important to continue the discussion with those neighbors for as long as it took to come to an agreement of some sort. We’re not sure what that agreement was, but we expect to learn tomorrow.

We talked a lot about this exchange in our reflection session tonight, as we at first couldn’t believe that anyone could object to something that was so clearly making the community better.  But then we kept thinking and talking about who gets to decide what’s “better” and when that “better” thing happens.  We know that the community has expressed a deep desire for the roads to be improved, but on the day that it actually happens, all of the noise and commotion might not be totally welcome.  We also acknowledged that this community has experienced high levels of frustration and there every reason that “roadwork day” could spark those frustrations in new (or old) ways.  In any case, pure consensus is quite difficult to achieve and we had good evidence that the expressed will of the community did not necessarily come in at 100% support.  

In the late afternoon, we packed things up and hurried back to the community center where we distributed Kings’ Day presents, as we expected some kids to show up for our planned games and workshops.  Only five kids came today, so we made this afternoon all about the games.  We played tag, hide-and-seek, and “steal the bacon,” all of which had both the San Isidro kids and us running around laughing and smiling for a full two hours or so.  When dusk started to fall, we realized that we needed to let the kids head home.  We started to do a little huddle to send them off, and Angel had the brilliant idea to countdown and yell “San Isidro!”  Hopefully you will see it in the video. 

We awarded the purple bike tonight to another person who already has received this great honor: Scott. His work on the siding today had all of us in awe.  As it turns out, most of Scott’s work has all of us in awe, especially because, as Jesse noted, Scott is so consistently excellent in all that he does.  All of us talked about how impressed we are with him and his leadership style and the newcomers in particular were effusive in their descriptions of him as a role model.  Alex, our Stillman colleague, gave a particularly touching tribute to Scott, pointing out that when they first met, it was already clear that they would be friends.  Scott has been central to all of our successes in preparing and pulling off this trip. The fact that he is quiet and humble throughout all of his impactful contributions just makes working with him even better.  Thanks a million, Scott!
Photos from Tortugas

This is the kitchen where Jossie and her team cook lunch for us.

Scott and Alex busy screwing in the wooden walls at Josè’s house in San Isidro. 

The team is painting away the inside and outside of Jose’s house.

This was one of many things from the ground after cutting a bunch of leaves from Josè’s house.

Tom and Stephane piling up lots of weeds that’s been cut throughout the day in San Isidro. 

Maddie stirring the paint before we paint the outside of the house!

We found a centipede while filling the holes in the road!

Lindsay moving dirt around!

Louis driving a bobcat to smooth out the road!

This was one of the holes we had to fill today!

How Could We Forgive the Water?

1.21.19

The morning came WAY too early after our late night of festival and lunar eclipse action.  We only got about five hours of sleep even though we pushed back our usual schedule by a half hour.  And right when we got up, it started to rain.  Ugh.

But then our day took a turn.  We were eating oatmeal and drinking coffee and our driver suddenly showed up.  We were panicking that we needed to jump up and run out the door.  But really Luis wanted to come by and say that we shouldn’t actually start this morning, as he needed some time to gather some materials for our projects.  

We were, of course, heartbroken that we didn’t get to run out the door and start lifting and loading rocks and bags of cement (HA!), but we managed to adjust.  Once we realized we had some time to get things done, we decided to make use of some of it to award two new purple bikes: to Jenny and Sticky, who flew back to New York today.  They, of course, were inducted into the Order of the Purple Bike long ago, but they get new recognition on each new trip.  On this one, we each said a few words about each of them and their impact on us and on our trip.  We agreed that they are true role models for all of us in the warmth of their approach to leadership, their compassion, their sincere curiosity about all of us and our interests, their health and first aid advice, and their general likeability.  We each had meaningful conversations with each of them, which is hard to make happen in a very short period of time among relative strangers. We are very glad they made time to join us; we know our trip was improved by their presence.  

Once the purple bike ceremony was over, we got on with plans for the day.  We capitalized on some of our newfound time to clean up our house, which had once again gotten out of hand.  At the same time, a contractor came to replace the whole door and doorframe for one of our bathrooms, as the frame had given way and left us operating with only one hinge (the bottom one).  We managed pretty well to keep the door intact while it was barely hanging on, mostly because that level of privacy was pretty important for us to maintain. We look forward to using the new fully functioning door for the rest of our stay. 

While the contractor was using a power saw to custom cut the door pieces, we made a chart of our program for the workday, including agendas for “workshops” (lessons?) for the kids. Each team came up with a song to sing, a game to play, an English lesson, a health/nutrition/fitness item, and an arts/crafts idea.  We made little flashcards and got the pieces together for the games we wanted to play and the exercises we needed to do.   

We were so quick about it that some of us got to squeeze in a quick morning nap to help supplement our minimal sleep from last night.  The camp crew had to deal with house towels and bathrooms, but others got to luxuriate a bit on their air mattresses before our lunchtime pickup.  

Once we got picked up, we headed for San Isidro for lunch.  Today we had lasagna, rice, vegetables, salad, dressing, and juice. They also brought out a big huge can of peaches in heavy syrup for desert.  

After lunch was complete, we headed off into the neighborhoods to try to promote our afternoon programs this week.  We walked around with some students from the university, who helped us to get some new perspective on the area.  They also translated for us with the families and helped to make us seem less alien to the community.  Because we got a late start, we didn’t do any workshops today; we just laid the groundwork to be able to do them on other days.  

We find this time in the community to be an important component of our partnership. If we just show up and immediately start swinging hammers and wielding shovels, we might seem like an invading force.  We don’t want to seem that way.  So, we come to the community, share a meal, walk around, look at things, let people look at us, ask questions, answer questions, and talk about the community’s hopes and dreams.  Doing all of this helps to ease our entry into the context, both for us and for the residents. 

Today’s walk through the community gave us a whole different perspective from our experiences this weekend in the city center where the tourists tend to be.  We appreciated our time downtown, but found that the contrasts between the commercial areas and the residential areas are very jarring.  

In our reflection session tonight, we noted that city centers tend to be placed on land that is highly desirable, perhaps because it is defensible against both human and natural assaults.  The residential areas, then, especially those that house the poor, are elsewhere. Sometimes those areas have vulnerabilities that seem untenable and that would convince most of us to live elsewhere. But we talked at length about how important the place one lives is, no matter what the deficits or detractions. 

We talked about our affection for this house, even when we just lived for a few days with the bathroom door hanging by a thread.  We noted how much we love it and feel attached to it after only a couple of weeks, making it more clear how difficult it would be to have generations of families occupy an area and then face the risk of losing that home.  

As we continued to ruminate on these important issues, we also awarded another purple bike: to Kresha. Yesterday we walked nearly nine miles in total as we made our way to the festival. Kresha had let us know that sometimes her knees give her trouble but she also let us know that she wanted to attend the festival.  She endured the full distance that the rest of us covered, as there was really no other choice.  Beyond this act of endurance, Kresha has been quite a force in our discussions and reflections.  Many of us detailed the conversations with Kresha that have really opened our eyes and helped us to see things in entirely new ways.  We also acknowledged her bravery, as she took her first plane ride ever and joined our already-existing group for a grueling one-month commitment. She is also hilariously funny, especially when she is describing experiences, whether good ones or bad ones. And further, she is a gifted poet and writer.  Tonight, she and Sophia did a performance piece featuring one of Kresha’s recent works. It might show up on today’s video, but here is the text of the poem itself:

How could we forgive the water?

How could we begin to sing with the salt and dance in the sand when in ’89, ’96, and ’17 it baptized us without our permission?

How could we forgive the water, when it didn’t listen?

It washed everything into complete submission and now these waves that once killed are healing?

But if these waves could speak I’m sure they’d cry out: intent was never to drown but to cleanse.  I’m sure they’d apologize.

For they have no control over whether they hurt or heal.  They just obey the commands of the wind. 

We have been afraid to trust.  To get in. We have been afraid to let these waves that once washed away everything wrap around us.  

But aren’t we all the ocean?

Aren’t we all hurricanes?

Intending to cleanse but drowning?

Aren’t we all hurricanes wanting to water the flowers but the aftermath of us leaves their petals floating in different directions?

Aren’t we all hurricanes? Trying to come like spring but we are fall.  

Aren’t we all Christopher, stealing but calling it discovery?

Aren’t we all the ocean?

Aren’t we all hurricanes?

Paving a road with good intentions, yet no one can drive on it?

So I guess the question isn’t how can we forgive the water, but how can we forgive ourselves?  How can we love after we have caused destruction? How can we look at the aftermath and forgive how we’ve been complicit?

We are the hurricane we need to forgive!

These waters drowned the land but we colonized it.  We are the hurricane.  Let’s step into ourselves, forgive, and let the reparations begin.  

--D’Kresha Adams, January 2019

On our walk in San Isidro, we saw many house with blue tarps. This means that they get aid from FEMA. 

A destroyed building from the aftermath of the hurricane that has not been rebuild

Surrounding San Isidro, you have beautiful views of agricultural lowland 

A local café/bar that is in the San Isidro community

The hurricane not only destroyed homes but it destroyed nature surrounding San Isidro.

As you can see, Stephane was ready to go back to San Isidro today!

Shrapnel from a house that will never be completed.

The blue tarps signifying FEMA aid.

 Houses torn from the earth, leaving only shadows from past lives lived.