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21 July 2022
We did it! We finished with the ramp construction. It was not an easy process but we finally did it. We couldn't have done it without the amazing support from everyone who has donated to the project. Thank you so much for your support!
Haven't donated yet? There is still time! We are still raising funds so we can build the safety fence.
Donate to our GoFundMe Here
The short story is that we finished the ramp construction! The ramp is over 180 feet long and 5 feet wide. It includes a 120 feet long and 6 feet deep stone retaining wall. Along the section of the ramp that leads up to the school, we included a channel for the water to run away from the ramp. There are 4 flat resting places at different spots along the ramp. Alrick and Rajay did a test run of the ramp and it works perfectly! We finished the project with a few weeks before the start of the school year.
Continue reading below for the longer story.
July 4 - August 11, 2022
This was my fourth time going to Jamaica to work on the project. I was excited and optimistic that this trip was going to be the trip where the ramp gets built, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. I thought for sure by now the project would be finished. I look back and laugh at how silly I was to think that the project would be finished on my second trip to back to the island. But finally we did it. The community came together for a few work days and we built a useful ramp that is going to be used for a long time.
Similar to the last three trips, it took a few weeks of being physically back in Jamaica for the project to gain momentum. I spent a few days in Kingston where I met up with Travis. As usual, he gave me the card to the bank so that I could withdraw funds from the account to start buying last minute supplies and paying the contractor. It was great to catch up with him and his family. My friend Denae and I went to a jerk center with him to get some local cuisine.
I got a phone call when I was in Kingston with great news! The representative from Carib Cement, Jerome, called me to inform me that Carib Cement would be making a donation to the project. I was so excited! It was back and forth for a few months, they said they wanted to help us out but they didn't know if they could. When I got the phone call I was so relived, mostly because we were coming to the end of our funds. The 60 bags of cement that they donated (over $500 USD value) helped us complete the ramp part of the project.
July 9 we went up to Hayfield. It's always great to be back in the community. We stayed at the Dean's house and it was like I never left.
July 14 I organized a truck to drive to Kingston to pick up the donation from Carib Cement. We needed some extra supplies so I went to the hardware store in Port Morant to buy them. The idea was to get a ride from the truck when it was driving from Kingston, through Port Morant to end up in Hayfield.
I got to the hardware store before 10am and checked in. The supplies were ready. As soon as the truck arrived we could pick them up and be on our way. The only problem was that the donation wasn't processed in Carib Cements system. I got a call from the truck driver who arrived before 9am and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to troubleshoot with Jerome on how we could resolve the problem. Luckily there was a cook shop and a bar across the street because it was hours until the truck was able to pick up the donation and begin the trip to Hayfield.
It was dark by the time we made it back to Hayfield with all of the supplies. It took us another 30 minutes to unload the heavy cement bags off of the truck. Carrying the bags up to the school wasn't even an option in the dark. We put a tarp over it to protect it from the rain. The next day my friends Worrel and Jermaine worked to carry them up to the school storage area.
Over the next few days I talked with the contractor, Ricardo Nicholas (aka Bigga). I wanted to get the project started as soon as possible. My fear was that I would spend a month in Jamaica and the project wouldn't get finished. I kept calling him on my Jamaican phone and most of the time it would go to voicemail. On one of the times that he picked up the phone, we picked July 20 as the date that he would come up and set the ground for the ramp.
July 20 comes around and I walk down to the school. There are a few men from the community that are already there and ready to work. We need to set the ground and place the 2x4 board so we could cast the concrete ramp. I look around and Bigga is nowhere to be seen.
It is around 9am and I call Bigga. He tells me that he is on his way. For context, he lives down at the bottom of the hill which is about 8 or 9 km away.
An hour passes by and he hasn't shown up. I call him again and he tells me that his car tire is broken and he is at the shop. I hand the phone to one of the workers and Bigga gives him instructions to start digging. Bigga tells me that he is going to come up as soon as the tire is fixed.
We start digging and after an hour, we get to a point where we can't go any further without guidance from the contractor. I call Bigga back and he tells me he is getting onto a motorcycle to come up and he will get to the school soon. Then I didn't hear back from him for the rest of the day because he stopped answering his phone. Long story short, he never came up to the school that day.
We worked as far as we could and we got quite a bit accomplished, but we could have gotten a lot more done. Still, I was happy that we at least started on the project.
The next day (July 21) Bigga came up to Hayfield. It was in the afternoon when everyone arrived at the school to finish setting the ground. There were only a few teenagers there to help him work this day. It was a small group of people, but everyone worked hard to put sand down as a foundation for the ramp. The plan was to cast the concrete ramp on the next day. We worked all day. It was getting late when we got to the part of the ramp behind the playground. Bigga decided we could set that part the next day with more people working.
We were done working for the day and I was getting excited. Tomorrow (July 22) was the big day! We were going to cast the ramp! I talked with Bigga and he said that he needed to check with the person who has the cement mixer. The day before we were going to cast the ramp, he was going to check and see if he could use the cement mixer. I ignored that and hopefully the next day we had a cement mixer.
July 22 and I woke up early. I was so excited! I had my breakfast and went down to the school. I was relived when there was a cement mixer at the school as well. There was quite a big turnout too. I think there was around 20 people.
Then the work started. The whole process was like a well oiled machine. Everyone had their role. Some people shoveled sand and gravel, some people operated the wheelbarrows, and some were in charge of transporting the mixed concrete.
Bigga and Shaquile were the ones that were doing the mason work. The workers would carry the concrete mixture once the machine poured it out and those two worked to flatten it.
Two hours into the project, Bigga tells me that we ran out of sand. We had more sand for the project, but the sand was hundreds of yards away on the football field. This was something that Bigga failed to mention in the days and weeks before we started building. It would have been nice to know before that we would need to bring more sand down from the play field to the school.
We picked four men to be on the sand duty and they worked to bring the sand down to the school, while everyone else were tasked with bringing the sand, gravel, and cement bags to the mixer. The process was slowed up a little bit, but ultimately, we got back on track.
It was in the afternoon when Bigga started setting the ground for last part near the playground. This was the most challenging and technical part of the ramp. It was a steep part, starting at the end of the retaining wall and leading up to the bathroom. There was a 90 degree turn and then it led up to the school.
Bigga started to set the board for the ramp. I took one look at the proposed construction, and I said there is no way that is going to work.
There was a slight incline, then a flat resting spot, then a very steep incline, and then another flat resting spot. The steep incline was easily over 20 degrees and maybe even 25 degrees. There was no way someone could push a wheelchair up that slope. I told him that and he started to complain about how I was wasting his time and other colorful words. But I stood my ground and made him rebuild the entire thing.
Because we raised the ramp up, we had to fill in the area with dirt before we could cast it with the concrete. Bigga was upset with me and I was upset with him. I spent the day filling in the casting with dirt. We had extra stone, so we used the stone to fill in the area. This was the part of the ramp that we should have fixed properly in the two workdays before the casting day. But nonetheless, we were here now and we worked on getting it fixed properly.
Finally, we get to a point where the ground was filled in enough that we could put down a layer of sand and metal wire before we put concrete on it. It was after lunch before we started to fill in the last part of the ramp.
When we got to casting the very last part of the ramp we were running out of supplies. It was just starting to get dark. We managed to find the materials that we needed to finish the ramp and poured the last of the concrete into the path.
Then we were done. I walked back to the house to get the money to pay for the construction. I was so excited I couldn't believe that we were at this point. It was a long day but it went by pretty quickly.
When I got back to the school I met privately with Bigga. We talked about the project and I told him what everyone advised me to do - I would give him part of the money now and the rest when the project was done. The school was a mess, the 2x4 boards were still attached to the sidewalk, and the last 60 feet of the ramp was not finished. It was built on soil and sand and the sides needed to be reenforced with concrete. He was not happy at this. It was a bittersweet moment because all of the hard work to get to this point was muddied by the rising conflict.
Bigga proceeded to curse at me in front of the entire work crew. I stood my ground and pointed out that he would get the last of the money once the work was completed. I pointed to the ramp where the soil was showing. I even pulled out a loose rock from underneath to make my point. He decided that he was going to hastily fix the problem. He had the workers mix up some more concrete to reinforce the side of the concrete ramp.
Everyone worked for another 45 minutes. It was dark and people were using their phones to light up the work site. The concrete was used to reinforce the ramp that was leading up to the bathroom. Without the reinforcement, one heavy rain could wash out the foundation of the walk way. At that point, it didn't matter that we put steel wire in the ramp. If the bottom washed away, then the concrete path would break.
It wasn't pretty, but they finished to a point that I was satisfied. It was dark and everyone, including myself, was ready to go home. I gave Bigga the rest of the money under the condition that he would come back and clean up the site. He paid the remaining workmen. Everyone went home.
I made it back to the house and sat down for dinner. I was exhausted but I shared a smile with everyone because the ramp was done!
The next morning, I went down to look at the ramp in the light with fresh eyes. It looked good. In fact many parts of the ramp looked amazing. But there were still some faults in it. I called Bigga to ask when he could come up and finish the ramp. He told me July 27.
Between then and July 27th, it rained. This is nothing new because it is Jamaica and it rains a lot. I was worried though because the ramp was in danger of its foundation being washed away. The last 60 feet of the ramp was not protected from the rain runoff.
On the morning of the 27th I called Bigga. To no surprise he did not answer the phone. In fact, he didn't answer my calls or text me with an update. To this day I haven't heard back from him.
I had to find a new contractor to help patch up the ramp. We had to do something about the water.
Mr. Dean recommended the man who lived down the road, Mr. Whittle. I met with him at the school and we went over a game plan on how to fix the ramp. Because the retaining wall was a few inches higher than the ramp, it caught all of the water and directed it towards the road. We needed to cut channels into the wall for the water to drain.
The last 60 feet of the ramp needed to be fixed as well and reinforced if it was going to last. The sidewalk sat above the soil and one heavy rain could wash it out. In fact, the few times that it rained had already started to wash away the lose soil. We needed to take away the 2x4 boards and reinforce it with concrete.
Over the next couple of days I worked at the school to clean it up. I had some help from Mr. Dean and others, but it was hard work. I carried wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of stone across the school field. We worked to take the 2x4 board out of the ground. We cleaned up the field from all of the extra gravel and concrete that was on the play field.
It wasn't until August 4th that Mr. Whittle came to the school for the workday. Mr. Dean and I met him there and he had already started working. My friend Vince was walking by the school and we recruited him. The teachers also came up that day to work on the school and get it ready for the upcoming school year. They also wanted to check out the ramp progress.
I asked my friend Nick to come up to the community to cook some of his famous curry goat. He was working hard in the kitchen while we worked to get the ramp sealed up. We got pretty far by the time we stopped for lunch.
We would have gotten further had the water pipe been working properly. This meant that we weren’t able to mix any concrete. Sunny, who is responsible for the water at the school, worked quickly to get the pipe unclogged so we could use the water to mix concrete and get back to work.
At the end of the day, I was happy with the state of the ramp. In fact, I am really pleased with the ramp, and I can smile while I write this blog because I know it is going to last a long time. Mr. Whittle did a great job fixing up the ramp.
Even though I had a conflict at the end with Bigga, I still think he did a great job. All of the workers who helped build it did amazing as well. We moved yards and yards of sand and gravel across uneasy terrain. Each bag of cement weighs 90 pounds. All of the rocks had to be moved and individually placed. We couldn't have done this project without each and every person who helped along the way.
August 7, the day before I left Hayfield, I met Alrick and Rajay at the school. It was time to test out the new road. Alrick pushed Rajay along the ramp. The whole time Rajay had the biggest smile on his face. At the base of the stairs they turned onto the ramp and smoothly coasted down the long stretch until they came to the first 90 degree turn right behind the swing set.
Alrick pushed Rajay up the first incline with no problem, paused at the flat part, and continued up the second incline. They made it to the last turn and then went all the way into the top part of the school compound. It worked perfectly!
The three of us stayed at the school and talked for a little bit. Alrick was appreciative for the project. I hope that it makes it easier for them and everyone else to get to school. I had my drone and I let Alrick fly it around for a little bit. Then after a while, we said goodbye and everyone went there separate ways.
I stayed at the school for a few minutes to reflect. There was a cool breeze that kept the heat and the mosquitoes away. I felt so relieved. For the past year we have been working on this project but now the ramp was finished. It was finished just before I left but more important it was finished before the start of the school year. The wheelchair ramp can now be used for this school year and future school years.
The next part of the project is the safety fence. We are going to install a chain link fence around the perimeter of the ramp. This is important to keep the children from falling off the retaining wall and hurting themselves. The fence will keep the balls from rolling down the hill when the kids are playing. Once we are done with the fencing then we will be truly finished with the project.
We are almost there!
Thanks for reading and thanks for the support!
-Joel
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