Ridiculous contraption at 0500, the 5hr Hospital drive (1way) and a new oven..

Woke with the roosters at 0500... sun was almost up anyway... and I woke up with a crazy idea -- "I thought to myself, we don't have to buy one, we can build one."... and I went off to see what David thought.

At 0615 Amy, Kim, Jess and the two Sarahs (journalists from central CT and friends of Kim's), along with Dr Franco and Manu headed out for a 5 hour drive to a government hospital to help a number of patients there.  One of the physicians from that hospital contacted Dr Franco yesterday to see if he could come provide additional support for some patients there with a variety of ailments -- cholera, premie babies, victims of the January 2010 earthquake still in the hospital were among those Amy Kim and Dr Franco assisted.

I remained on the compound with the GoHaiti staff and the kids and I decided to begin work on the up and coming soccer field.  The idea I had when I woke up was to weld together a weed cutter hand tool. I'll post an actual picture of it soon, but it looks somewhat like the one pictured below... only much more primitive. ...you get the idea...

Upon finishing this contraption, Duvall and I spent the next couple hours chopping down the weeds in the field.  Before we had to break due to the heat, we cut down approx 100ft x 100ft section of thick grass, shrubs and weeds by about 10:30a it was over 100 degrees by then and too hot to continue... so we'll reconvene our weed chopping when it cools down some.

After David finished welding the weed cutter he left with Josin in a Tap Tap to go get a larger stove top with three huge burners.  When they brought in the new stove top I thought the ladies that work here would jump out of their aprons they were so overjoyed!  This stovetop will save so much time and energy for all the food they have to prepare for the children (they have only had one small oven until now) and for any volunteer teams that come from now on.  What a blessing!

David and Josin got to work right away installing it, but after realizing they needed two more hose clamps -- additional to what they'd already got -- they had no other choice but to go out again... another 2hr venture.

Well, Kenni just came in to tell me food is ready... I'm sure our evening will be just as exciting.  ;)