Shadehouse at Passe Catebois

Robinson’s Shade house


Written by Jaime Oestreich

I was privileged enough to travel with Lane Koneman, and our very first timer Chad Ellis. We met Bruce Robinson for the first time on the road near the salt flats of Northwest Haiti, A little junction in the middle of nowhere. Bruce in his Land Crusier, and a crew with a Ford Farm Tractor and a trailer behind. The team began unloading all the supplies for the shadehouse onto the trailer and our personal belongins and food went into the Land Crusier. And we were off! Bruce stopped at the Bakers home where another shadehouse project is to be built at a later date and we ate lunch, and then with Bruce’s wife Debbie now with us it was on to the Robinson compound. Passe Catebois was small but very plush green and Bruce told us that 25 years ago there wasn’t a single tree in this village, now trees were everywhere. The Robinson’s compound consisted of two sites, the first was Bruce and Debbie’s living quarters, fenced and walled in, that is where we put the new shadehouse, close to the house. And the second was the shop area and living quarters for visiting teams. The first full day was eventful as we started laying out and driving posts for the shadehouse, Chad and I were taking turns at driving posts with our new post-driver that was manufactured by Ron Lusk and his friends just for our purposes. Chad driving his third post, Struck WATER! Hitting a small ½ inch waterline that was crossing Bruce’s property, No one knew that it was there and Chad’s expression after water was boiling up out of the ground still makes me laugh! After the pipe was repaired, we were on doing other tasks and we had hoops up by the end of the day. Our concrete on the corner posts and door posts had to set overnight. We progressed each of the next two days just as planned with the very fine points taken care of Friday morning. All in all it went better than I had hoped for, with Lane only helping install one other shadehouse and Chad not knowing at all what he was getting into! Along the way of building, our host Bruce, mentioned that the two Haitian helpers where there to learn the secrets of shadehouse building, so they were learning to do step by step what we do. We shared the labor of all aspects and they got to use the tools we brought with us, and labored right beside us. It turned out to be a teaching process for Chad and the two Haitians as well. Friday our Ride came and picked us up and back to the Northwest where we melded into the rest of the Team there for the final week.