For the housing project portion of the trip, we will be building a home for a homeless single mother and her child.  We will be improving on an architectural plan first tested and implemented this past January. We will visit the original home and discuss how to improve. For example, the original design lacked rain gutters and had a wooden floor, which will quickly rot. With every house we build, we will develop stronger strategies for water conservation, minimizing impact on the environment, and maximizing safety, efficiency, and comfort. We hope that all participants will feel free to share all their ideas on ways we can improve . 

Intro to the Power Pack Production Team and processes. Today we will meet Kenia, Marie, and Wodeline, the Allways trusty team of seamstresses. They will show us how to use foot-powered pedal sewing machines, called treadle machines, and all will be invited to practice on the machines and make our own fanny packs from scratch. The sewing workshop is Kenia's house, next door to the orphanage, so that Kenia can cook and care for her family and friends alongside helping. 

The next day, we will learn embroidery, so if you do not have a fanny pack to embroider and are not interested in making one, feel free to bring something sturdy to embellish, like a towel or tote bag. 

Alternatively, all are invited continue working on construction for the house and/or ride around with the mobile clinic to witness first hand the need for the nonprofit, the Dufresnay Haiti Foundation. 

Sewing on a treadle machine is harder than it looks. 

Today we will continue practicing on the machines, working on our art, building the house or spending time at the orphanage, where the young ladies are eager to practice their reading or writing in English, French, or Creole. 

Final filming for the yoga dance Power Pack promo video on the roof of the clinic. 

We will organize and participate in an embroidery workshop, open to the community. We can embellish our handmade fanny packs (everyone on the trip will receive one, whether or not they make them themselves) or whatever we want!

Alt. options include traveling with the mobile clinic, continuing construction, hiking around or hanging on the clinic roof.. 

Happy All Saint's Day! Jacmel is an amazing beachside community full of artists some three hours west of Saint Rock. Getting there by bus is always an adventure and once we arrive, we will be greeted by brilliant beings of otherworldly experience and expertise! This will be a full day for travel, landing at Joe's oceanfront family resort. There are far too many fabulous things to say about this place. 

Interested in surfing or learning to surf? In making your own coconut oil with the finest, most powerful single mother masseuses in the city? In helping Joe with a construction project? Taking a dance class? Teaching English or whatever you like at an art school? Want to have your tarot read by a female Haitian shaman on the beach? Maybe you'd rather sunbathe the day away. Or, visit the Good Threads LLC workshop with me for Market Research and explore future collaborations. We will decide together as a team how we would like to divide and conquer our second to last day in Haiti. 

Today we bid farewell to our marvelous hosts and head back to Port-au-Prince, where we spend the night at the infamous Haiti Communitere, a resource center, clinic and guesthouse, which also serves as an alternative construction laboratory and display site. We will stay in any number of alternative eco-friendly accommodations, share a meal with others traveling through Haiti, and digest and discuss our transformations and trajectories.