Celebrations!

On Sunday morning, we celebrated the dedication of the water systems at both sites. In Les Cayes, Rick, Chris and I attended worship at the Baptiste Church where we were treated as honored guests and invited to address the congregation. Both celebrations were joyous occasions with plenty of community participation. Rick spoke at the site in Les Cayes, Darenda spoke for Bower Hill at the orphanage. Most of our health/hygiene class participants as well as operator trainees showed up to receive their certificates at both sites. Then folks turned the attention to receiving their water. It was broiling hot, so toasting the water was highly appreciated - and many requested seconds!

I only have some pictures of the Les Cayes celebration - we spilt up with some team members attending one celebration and some attending the other since both were held at 9:30 am. I will post more photos later when I have access to those taken by other team members.

Folks crowd in to see the new system

Rick and Chris fill celebration cups at Torbeck

Folks from the community line up to receive pure water

Filling bottles and handing out water

More pictures . . .One of

Pat and a new friend at the orphanage

One of the girls at Pere Daniel's orphanage

Pumping water at the orphanage well

Our class of 30 in Les Cayes!

Pastor Daniel's education group

Darenda meets with the water board at Torbeck to discuss progress and possible improvements

A water customer at Torbeck

Our crack water system installation team in Les Cayes

Finishing up the work, then some recreation

Saturday found Betsy and me teaching our last class while the installation team participated in training the operators to run the systems. All the operators trained at both sites.

Betsy and I were pleased that our new young friend, Jackson Coudo, will be one of the operators for Frantzou's system. Jackson is studying agro-forestry at the American University of the Carribean. He was not originally involved at all, but became so because we held our classses at his aunt's house. His English is pretty good and he wanted to be more involved in what we're doing so we suggested he  talk to Frantzou. He did, and now he'll be an operator!

When all the work for the week was done, we took the opportunity for some recreation with our Haitian teammates - we all drove to Port Salud where there's a beautiful beach to hunt for shells, enjoy the scenery, wade in the warm water and watch a beautiful sunset. We were serenaded by a steel drum band while we enjoyed a delicious dinner on the beach. What a lovely end to a rather frenetic week!

Today we'll celebrate the installation of water purification systems at both sites. Praise God! He is good, all the time!

Photos are more difficult to post. I'll try to get caught up with them as I am able.

Another beautiful day in Haiti!

Today was amazing! With all the frustrations, all the roadblocks, amazingly both systems are done!!!! We haven’t got water to Frantzou’s cistern yet but Pere Daniel’s system has been shocked and water has been made there. What a crack Amazing Dayteam!

While all that frantic work was going on, the Red Sea parted for Moses and the Israelites once again. Well, at least in a theatrical sense Israelites in Valle where Pere Daniel’s orphanage is where Betsy and I started our training began today. Our original group of 9 today grew to 14. I hope that means the 9 talked to others and told them how great our educations sessions are so they decided to come, too! 

Our amazing cast of thousands act our Moses crossing of the Red Sea

After the morning session, we walked back to the orphanage where most of the kids were back from school. These kids were more shy than others we’ve encountered, but we overcame that with crayons, coloring sheets, paper chain making and by taking lots of pictures of them!

Proud makers of paper chains

Enjoying coloring sheets and new crayons

The kids show off their coloring skills in front of the huts they live in

Current housing for Pere Daniel's orphans - he's building them a permanent building

Then in the afternoon Betsy and I had our final session with the group of 30 at Frantzou’s – explaining how the system works. The day topped off with a class field trip to the water building to see the real thing. What a great group they’ve been!

Pictures!

The team gathers at PIT - 4:15 am on Tuesday

Checking out the water supply at the Carre Four orphanage with Crystal Funk. The water tested bad.

Rick with the water test at the Carre Four orphanage

The kids who drink the contaminated water at the orphanage

Our team poses for a pic at Crystal's before the 4 hr (supposedly) drive to Les Cayes

Stopping to work on one of the 3 flat tires on this Kia on the way to Les Cayes

Our team watching our Haitian drivers grapple with one of the 3 flats.

Meg with her work of beauty at Frantzou's water building

Alan, Steve and Chris show off their work

We're moving ahead

OK. So we found out that Pere Daniel’s building isn’t ready. So what do our guys do? They all throw themselves into doing the install at Frantzou’s building while Rick and Darenda went to Pere Daniel’s to see if it was as behind schedule as we’d heard. The result was that Frantzou’s system was pretty much complete by the end of the day – what a crack team we have!!!

Rick and Darenda found that, indeed, the building at Pere Daniel’s orphanage was not ready. Pere Daniel gets money in dribbles and drabbles, and he had spent some of the money for health emergencies and food for the kids. Can’t really argue with those priorities, but the fact remains that we are out of here on Monday. Pere Daniel assured us the building would be ready to go by Friday.

Today there have been further developments. Frantzou’s system is fed by a cistern filled by water from an intermittent city source. When they were ready for a test run the cistern hadn’t been filled because the city water source was not operating. So our crack team headed for Pere Daniel’s. The building is looking closer to being ready so they did all the work they could installing the system on the board that was not yet mounted in the building plus a lot of the wiring and it shouldn’t take long to finish up. What a team!

In the meantime, Betsy and I have been doing health/hygiene education at both sites. On Wednesday we arrived at about 11:30 am and began teaching the group at Frantzou’s site at 2:30 pm. We were amazed to find 24 people waiting to learn what we had to teach. In spite of the language barrier, the group was really engaged and participating. We were a little overwhelmed by the numbers and having to work at a private house in a small space, but it all worked out. Our first session today was 9 am at Pere Daniel’s with a group of 8 guys and 1 woman. They were also a thoroughly engaged group. Then in the afternoon we did another session at Frantzou’s with the big group – which grew by 4 or 5more people who showed up for the first time!

So in spite of the challenges, we think we are on schedule to finish both systems in time! God is good, all the time!

Reflecting on the challenges of the trip, Meg Kelly’s observation sent us all into gales of giggles. Her comment: “Bower Hill ain’t for sissies!” Is this fodder for a new Communications Committee ad?

Next post will (I hope) be pictures.

We had a great first night spent at Crystal Funk's house in Carre Four. It's great to have friends to stay with in Haiti! And some of us even got some sleep in spite of barking dogs, crowing roosters, sporadic heavy truck traffic and arguing neighbors. Crystal sent us off in the morning with a wonderfully yummy breakfast in our tummies. Thanks Crystal!

It's theoretically a 4 hour drive to Les Cayes from Crystal's which we made in 5 - due to having to make 3 stops for tire repairs on one of the Kias. At least we made it! We were met with good news and bad news. The good was our friend Frantzou's beautiful new water building and 24 eager students for our health/hygiene class. The bad news was that the secon building at the orphanage is not completed and not ready for the installation.

Note to Crystal - the water at your orphanage tested bad. I will attempt to post a picture.

Breakfast is served here so more on the unfolding saga of water system challenges later

Brief Update

I just want to get in a brief post to let you know we are all doing OK. I really did to post yesterday, but between a slow computer and bad Internet connection it didn't happen - in spite of a couple of hours of sustained effort. And then the computer ate (without any chance of recovery) the day's entry I had typed arrrrrrgh :(. Just forget photos! I'll try to get you a fuller report soon. As usual, life has been exciting here in Haiti!

Day 1 - arrival and challenges

We’ve arrived in Haiti and the challenges are still here! The first was getting out of the airport with our 24 suitcases. First I was taking photos of the team with all the bags and got accosted by a customs agent for photographing in the airport, and especially for him being in one of the pics – inadvertently but he didn’t care about that. Then they decided to inspect the contents of every suitcase.  I think they didn’t believe that we were bringing the stuff in for charitable purposes and not to sell it. I’m sure they had in mind taxing it – but thank goodness Rick managed to convince them our intentions were entirely benevolent. However, it was a pretty intense several minutes.

We were REALLY happy to get out to the parking lot and meet up with our drivers Lucson and Ronald and the 2 Kias so we could get out of there! Then we got into the traffic. It was actually worse one previous trip, but it was exciting enough – especially for our first-timers, Meg and Steve. We ran into it on the narrow side streets that were barely wide enough for the Kias, let alone the two lanes of traffic with huge trucks in the oncoming lane with cars parked along the sides of the streets and pedestrians and motorcycles weaving in and out of the traffic from every direction. All in the dark as only Port au Prince can be dark in the middle of such mayhem.  The big trucks squeezed by us with barely the width of a coat of paint in between us and them. And the motorcycles and pedestrians passed between the cars and trucks via spaces you’d swear were too tight for them to fit through.

 

All this was on the way to an orphanage, Life is Wealth, that Crystal Funk (Hearts United With Haiti) wanted us to evaluate as a possible site for a future water purification system. We arrived in the dark to a crowd of children, all but 4 of them girls from toddlers to teens, and all clamoring for attention and to have their pictures taken. Their water source was a cistern filled with collected rainwater or by a commercial water truck when there’s not enough rain. That water is used for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing clothes. After a search of multiple bags in the dark a whirly bag was produced and the water set up for testing. We should know within 2 days if the water is contaminated. What a visit, though! All those beautiful children and so much need.

 The rest of the evening was much less eventful – dinner and on to Crystal’s for devotions and good company. In the dark. Crystal’s neighborhood hasn’t had electricity for a week since the transformer blew. And no running water since the water truck hasn’t come to fill the tank for 3 weeks. Welcome to Haiti!

 

It's late and my 3 am rising is catching up with me. Photos tomorrow.

 

Two new installations!

Tomorrow VERY EARLY in the morning our team once again departs for Haiti to install 2 new water purification systems in the Les Cayes area. Our traveling team this trip includes Betsy and Alan Hohlfelder, Chris Robbins, Steve Boisverts, Meg Kelly (from Westminster Presbyterian Church), Darenda Lease, and Rick and Pat Jacobs. We'll be installing one at an orphanage in Les Cayes working with Divine Ministries in Hope for Children and another at the Baptiste Church of nearby Charpentier. As usual, we'll be working under a very tight schedule, installing two systems between Wednesday and Saturday with celebrations on Sunday then returning to Port Au Prince and home on Monday!

At the orphanage we'll be working with Pastor Jean Daniel who we met during earlier trips to Haiti. At Charpentier our in-country partner is our friend Frantzou Avril with whom we've worked on earlier trips and who visited us in Pittsburgh late last year. We had a packing "party" last Saturday - 20 suitcases full of system pieces and tools and 4 suitcases of personal stuff for the 8 members of the team.

Some of the team, some of the suitcases!

We would appreciate your support and your prayers as we go about the Lord's business of providing Living Water for God's children in Haiti.