Photo's from biology lab and house...

Flat Stacy visit

Plastering of walls

The pig.. for Anna's advanced biology dissection

Cory's yacon...a path was made over it but it survived. Now rescued.

Clean up started.

Crew leaving after we prayed with them. 

Walls continue...

Electrical and Plumbing in the walls.

I've not done much this week on the house, mostly because when trying to move a big stone that I wanted for a small interior wall I smashed the end of my left ring-finger between two rocks.

Now sporting a purple finger in a metal split I'm focused on school, correspondence [but spelling isn't helped with missing one finger to type with] and mental work.

I'm thankful that the Embassy visit for visa fingerprints occurred before squashing my finger...but in the next couple of weeks we may need to go to a Haitian office for prints so we can pick up our Haitian residential visas. Praying for fast healing.

I'm starting to try to plan for trips but they all hinge on getting Fritzlin's visa so that we can travel as a family.

We pray to soon hear about the US visa, and then getting his medical exam done.


So even traveling to northern Haiti to get our household items can not be totally planned at this point because we don't know when the medical exam will need to be done.

Meanwhile this week there are 5 Haitian men working on the walls, along with Cory.

 Thankful that our water cistern still has water for the plastering.

Special cement "Base coat" powder mixed with water is applied to the foam in a thin layer.

Next the orange fiberglass mesh is cut and pushed into the first layer...and a second thin layer added on top.

By the next morning this has harden into a strong layer.

The next step is to apply a thin coat of Haitian mix of mortar

Cory is nicely working to remove small splatters from the rock walls that occurred the first day.

Now taped up pieces of plastic help to protect my rock walls.

In addition to this work the inner door frames were put in this week.  

Praying that my nice wooden doors will fit as it appears it will be a very tight fit. 

Off the Veerhouse Voda web site, the company who sold some of the supplies and gave Cory and Eli a tour of how the wall system works.....the advantages of this system include:

• while comparable to traditional systems it is faster and cheaper

• hurricane resistant to category 4.

• earthquake resistant

• fire tested to 1,500 degrees centigrade

• flood resistant-no mold

• non caloric-no insects or rodents

• no wood needed

• housing lifespans 70+ years

• and no heavy machinery needed to put it up. 

Interior walls...first steps

During the busy medical clinics a small crew of three men continued with our interior walls.

Very exciting to see something you worked out on paper be transformed into 3-dementional, full size rooms.

• Step One: measure, dream and plan.

• Step Two: Rethink, remeasure, plan again....

• Step Three: Measure in the house, putting down tape or boards to help you visualize the walls.

• Step Four: Crew cut and put 1"x2" hollow metal support bars in place with screws.

• Step Five: Cut, measure, put styrofoam in place.

Foam cut with a tool that has a heated blade but it is slow so most is done with handsaws. 

• Step Six: Screws with plastic disk tops screw into the iron frame to hold the foam in place. 

• Step Seven: spray expanding "glue" foam along the joints. Cutting smaller pieces to completely cover the support bars. 

• Step Eight: Peel off or trim off excess glue once dry. 

• Step Nine: Draw on foam where electrical plugs, light switches and water lines will be placed. 

This next week...putting the electrical and plumbing in the walls.

Cover the joints with with plaster and fiberglass mesh, then the whole wall gets a layer of plaster, mesh and another coat of plaster.