Next we had some down time before our afternoon activities so we loaded up and headed to a project where UCI is helping a woman by building a new house. We got to work up a good sweat with some manual labor prepping for the footings of the house. Pick axes and shovels were the tools of choice although a bowl works in a pinch.
After lunch we continued with English lessons at the elementary, this time working with the 4th graders on English. As we have advanced through the grade levels it has been great to see the development and ability to speak English grow! Following English we made our way to the university to have a discussion on soil nutrition and plant production. Great emphasis was placed on building the soil and its productivity. Many ideas where exchanged and we challenged the Haitian students to pick one of the practices we brainstormed and experiment with it over the next couple months. We are working on a way to share their results to keep up on their progress.
Following our discussion with agrculture students we moved to a larger classroom so we could combine medical and agriculture students for a presentation by Julie Grunklee on the importance of bringing agriculture and health together. It was great to have participants with Community Health Initiative (CHI) join us for the presentation and the rest of our time in Haiti. At the conclusion of Julie's presentation we made our way to the roof top of the university to change out batteries in our weather station sensors and watch the sun set over the Haiti landscape.
We enjoyed pizza for dinner before the men's choir from the area joined us to perform many Haitian numbers before inviting us to join them for their final song in English. At the conclusion of the singing we enjoyed a final Coke by our tree out front and reflected on our experiences and got to know the folks from CHI a little better. We prep for a long time of travel over the next day and a half.
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