Sunday - The facility at Blanchard

The Blanchard compound (or L’Eglise Chretien Terre Noire) is surrounded by a high cinder block wall with a sliding metal gate painted red (there are a number of similar compounds for other schools or institutions in the area.) There are a few vendors with food stands and other people hanging around in front looking for work or passing the time. On Sunday you could get your shoes shined for 5 or 10 gourdes. Religious Haitians really make an effort to dress up and look nice on Church day.

Entering the compound there is a yard, the clinic with an arched entrance way on the left, and the long church A frame building on the right. All the buildings are neatly painted yellow and white. There is a storeroom behind the church with some crude unpainted concrete steps leading up to the red metal door. The driveway continues past the church and lets out into the school yard. A chain is drawn across the driveway to demarcate the school area from other areas. The school yard is flanked on either side by two more rectangular buildings stretching almost to the end of the compound. These buildings have the classrooms for about 400 students and offices for the staff. They are raised off the ground and there is a line of steps running the length of the building on the left. The well and hand pump are all the way to the back between the buildings. Latrines for the kids are on the right corner, kitchen on the left.