All Hands in Ofunato: Ditch Diggers

The rainy season will soon be here and the system of drainage ditches and canals in the tsunami-affected area is important. Of course, all the ditches are full of mud, gravel, and debris from the inundation by tsunami.

One of All Hands' public service projects is to help clear the drainage system. The backhoes, bucket loaders, and grapples have been used to good effect to clear much of the affected area and to get bigger items such as cars, trucks, refrigerators, and houses out of the canals. But the detail work can't be done by machine. Gotta be done by hand (that's us).

Every morning the crew bus takes us down the hill from the Fukushinosato Center to Sakari base. We all join up with our teams, break out the wheelbarrows and tools from the tool storage, and board the buses for our work sites. (Note to Haiti vols: our tap-taps have heat, AC, individual reclining seats with padding, refrigerator, stereo, GPS, and cup holders.)

Half our crew work on the drainage ditches, which are about a foot wide and 10 inches deep. The other half, clad in Wellies and tyvek suits descend into the canals. These are about 6 feet wide and 8 feet deep. (Not a good job on rainy days.) We use pikes, shovels, hoes, and wheelbarrows to clear the filled ditches. The canal crew fill sandbags and buckets with the muck and debris and pass it up by hand to the waiting canal-side crew who wheel it to designated dumping spots.

It takes about 4 days to clear ditches around one city block. The canals take way longer.

Lunch is sent out to us and consists of generous bento boxes filled with a variety of tasty items, a different selection each day. (Note to Haiti vols: so far, we haven't had the same menu twice.) For the last couple days, we've been invited in to the local neighborhood center to eat at table and have hot soup, tea, and a siesta.

Here are some pictures. Sorry that they're all mixed up but Google's blogger software really sucks when it comes to arranging pictures.

All Hands Sakari Base