Housing the third world - one block at a time.

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Custine and Cavaillon Haiti, November 2012

November 2012 trip to Haiti Veteran’s Day: The flight from DFW to Ft Lauderdale and the flight from there to Port Au Prince I was blessed with aisle seats. Not because of the generosity of AA’s ticketing program but happenstance. I was ticketed to sit in the middle of a group of women flying togetherContinue Reading

We Are In Haiti, Again

We arrived yesterday, Sunday, Veteran’s Day.  The flights were on time and uneventful.  When we arrived at customs Marlene Mathurin had arranged VIP treatment.  Anyone that has flown into Port Au Prince knows that one of the great frustrations of Haiti is going through customs and collecting baggage.  It was a breeze because it wasContinue Reading

Haiti….Here we come….

“We ( Ubuntu-Blox) are going to Haiti this coming Sunday thanks to The Memnosyne Foundation. We will be working with At Risk Children (http://atriskchildren.org/) The objective of the ten day trip is to assess working with atriskchildren a… nd the community to build a library and.community center http://atriskchildren.org/index.php/our-work/soveyo-village-project. There is so much potential for good inContinue Reading

We can use polypropylene pulling twine instead of wire for making the blocks

There are two reasons to consider using the polypropylene high strength pulling twine instead of 14 gauge wire for making the blocks.  First is because the twine is so much easier to work with than the wire.  No special tools are required and it is less physically demanding.  The second reason is the cost.  TheContinue Reading

The reality of it all

It’s been 5 months since I left Haiti Communitere and Haiti.  I expected to be back in Haiti working with the community down at Wharf Jeremie where We Advance has their clinic and Hands Together has their school by now.  My plans were to get the women working on building their own  houses as aContinue Reading

Haiti Communitere is building an Ubuntublox factory!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.483211538371693.126170.347684995257682&type=1 Read all about it on Facebook at the above link.  They also have some great pictures of the Ubuntu-blox house we were a consultant on in their compound. The great thing about ubuntublox is it is open source.  That means the idea belongs to the world.  Anyone can do anything with it because noContinue Reading

Local television videos about Ubuntublox

http://www.nbcdfw.com/video/#!/news/local/Turning-Trash-Into-Treasure/140642633  this video went all over North America in one form or another.  A lot of stations picked it up. http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Earth-Day-Dallas-2012-Kicks-Off-148393025.html this was from this year’s Earth Day Dallas. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/02/27/plastic-bag-house-could-be-answer-for-haiti/Continue Reading

I’m putting updates with photos up on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/UbuntuBlox/Continue Reading

Haiti Communitere

One of the things visitors to Haiti Communitere are first to point out is the enthusiasm of the women of the community have towards the work.  They are a wonderful bunch.  Hopefully by next week we will be in a situation were the walls will start going up and we will get to see theirContinue Reading

Mistakes are opportunities, righttttttttt

2/29 we left the house for the airport both of us asking the other if they had gotten this, that, or the other.  It wasn’t until we were checking that we realized we had forgotten what was one of the more important pieces of luggage.  It was a box 8″ high by 12″ wide byContinue Reading