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!