Building for the Future

Boniface Toussaint sat in the shovel of the bulldozer. The cigarette smoke spiralled into the bluest sky. He squinted at me,

'You want a cigarette?'

'I don't smoke, nor should you.' I said.

Toussaint looked around: half dug footings, pallet-ted and strapped breeze blocks, cement mixers. Everything we might have needed for a building project. Except cement. A three-legged dog was pissing atop one of the huge piles of sharp sand. 3 or 4 primary school-aged children were running and diving onto another. The screams sounded like desperate fun.

'It's something to do.'

I took out my mobile. Thank god for 3G, I had one bar.

'3rd World Solutions.' The voice sounded bored and harassed at the same time.

'It's still not here, Rick.'

'What isn't? Are you the steel?'

'It's John, Rick.'

'So? You've no idea... it's...'

'Difficult, yeah. You said that last time. Cement, Rick, where's the cement?'

'Look. You're up at... Verrettes, isn't it?'

'It's the Jacmel Project, Rick.'

'Yeah, right. Look, I'll get back to you.' The call ended.

Toussaint blew a smoke ring and speared it with a forefinger.

'Hey, at least the 'phones work now,' he said.

He was right, they did, but it didn't actually help much.

I looked over at the gang, mostly locals for labour, taking advantage of any shade and smoking, like Toussaint. The contractors, mostly from Stateside with the odd European, were nowhere to be seen.
They'd waited an hour and gone back to their hotels in the town itself. They were a 'phone call away, if any cement ever turned up.

'Thirsty?'

Toussaint stood up. 'What have you got?'

'C'mon, lets have a look,' we went over to the Nissan. I opened the rear door, reached into the cool box. Toussaint caught the Budweiser with an easy grace. The ash didn't even fall from his latest cigarette.

'Why here?' I asked him.

'A new start, a new location. Why not?'

I looked out at the non-building site, 'Some things don't, start, that is.'

He snorted and shrugged, took his beer off to his former seat in the 'dozer shovel.

My beer finished, I retrieved Toussaint's empty from the ground and put both empties in the back of the 4x4. All of the Haitian workers stood up and set off down the road. It was 2.30. I looked over at Toussaint.

'You can go too, I'll wait until 7, see if the cement turns up.'

'I'll stay here, thanks.'

I wondered where he was keeping the packs of cigarettes.

At around 7 it was pretty dark already.

'Let's go,' I said. 'We'll go for a drink in town.'

He looked into the darkness.

'Why do you call it the Jacmel Project, John?'

I could see figures coming up the road.

'Why not? It's what's on the plans.'

All the labourers were returning.

'It has a real name, like any school.' He was smiling, perhaps for the first time that day.

There were around fifty adult males in the labour gang. They were all carrying a bag of cement over one shoulder.

'What is it then?' I asked.

'It's a good name for a school. It's called the Hope Elementary,' he said.