My fellow Peace Corps volunteers and staff really came through for me and Canaries. The Navy was set to arrive at 9:20-10:00am but they did not actually arrive until 1:00pm due to docking issues. It was pretty much Peace Corps volunteers doing the work until then and a great amount was accomplished in that time laying the groundwork for the Navy volunteers from the ship USS MITSCHER (DDG 57).
Here we are getting instructions from Michael.
The basic goals of the day were to rebuild the old church doors and fix the window shutters and secure them along with the rest of the building so vagrants would no longer break into the church along with repair of the stairwell leading up to the balcony.
Nick and Michael tearing out a rotten section of the old door.
Tameron, notice the safety glassed Remey and Marina, safety is always first for PCV's. :)
When the Navy did arrive they did great work particularly in repairing the stairwell and securing the windows along with all the other work.
We also had some great help from Canaries people who repaired some of the mortar and chopped down some fig trees that were growing into the mortar of the church.
One of the young men from Canaries mixing cement for mortar repair.
Short Video of the Navy volunteers working along with everyone else.
You can see the work here of basically rebuilding the entire door.
Props to John for coming out and helping.
Your first question in this picture may be, why are they cutting up an old wood pallet. One of things you will quickly learn in the Caribbean is to use all of you availabe resources. We tore apart the pallets to provide filler wood for the door frames. This saved us from cutting up good expensive wood for this. Alex and Dre are taking care of the demolition of that pallet here.
Another clip showing everyone at work.
One of the Navy volunteers repairing the church window.
Me and the Canabelle ladies who were on site selling their soap.
Here is a shot of one of the bottom of the doors where the rotten wood was cut out and replaced with new.
LANDO, fellow Hoosier extraordinaire! Notice the door on the right, it was completly repaired and painted white.
Here are some great shots of the Navy volunteers handing out toys and presents to the needy children. The first one is of down syndrome boy, he is an incredibly sweet kid, I hope no one took his bunny from him.
One of the local fisherman came over and wanted to help, I told him its the dirties most dangerous job, he said give it to me, so we placed the latter on the side of the church and we went up with my cutluss and chopped out the tree that was destroying the buildings mortar.
I would like to thank Michael first for supplying a large amount of tools and bringing his expertise to the job by breaking people into work teams.
I would like the thank these PCV's who came and supported me and Canaries.
Lando
Alex
Dre
Nick
Megan M. and her man John
Tameron
Megan G.
Dallas
Not the greatest group picture, I am the person you cannot see at all with the sun behind me.
I would like to also give a big thanks to Kate the EC director for meeting the $400 US need for the project when funding fell through, thanks for stepping in with that.
I would like to thank the new Deputy Assistant Director Helen. Thanks for getting the Navy donations to Canaries.
To Sharmon I know you would have loved to come, we missed you, thanks Hillary, and Hermina and also Remey.
Thanks to Community Club for providing the other matching dollars to make the project possible from the Poverty Reduction Funding. Thanks Erickson for drawing up the plans and material lists and respect to Edsel, John and the other members.
Thank you Navy volunteers from USS MITSCHER we really appreciate your donations and time that you gave to this little fishing village.
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