My pastor called me up and says he knows a guy who could use some help on a project in Haiti with a solar panel setup. I offer my help and tell him it’s OK to give him my information. I eventually get a call and some of the first few words out of my mouth are to the effect of “I’m happy to help you over the phone but I have no interest in going to Haiti.” We talked for a bit about two orphanages he worked with and he sent me a report from another fellow and I told him I’d take a look at it. No big deal.
So a few days later I get a call from my pastor, “Will you go?” I really didn’t want to. In fact my friend also got the invite and I knew I wasn’t going without him (body guard or something) and when he finally agreed, I agreed too, we purchased our tickets, and we were Haiti bound.
Along the way, another two friends joined the crew and we were set. This turned from ‘stepping off the edge of the earth’ experience to a guy’s trip to a Caribbean island! I was still very nervous, but I had enough familiarity around me to be comfortable.
So on the day we are all set to leave, my friend who was the entire reason I agreed to go, checks his passport, and it’s expired. I questioned not going for a few minutes then sucked it up and decided to go anyway.
The trip down there was uneventful, plane rides, customs, no big deal.
The ride through Port-au-Price was awesome! I had my phone recording video most of the time. The crazy driving, the people, the culture was all great. I never felt unsafe. We had about a 3 hour ride into the mountains to get to our first location. We picked up supplies along the way. Then we left the cars behind and got into two boats that were about 50 years old. I had my doubts they were going to hold us. We made it across about a 50 yard wide river, and then our hike began. About 45 minutes in the sun and we finally made it to the orphanage in Pourier. It was about 6 buildings smack in the middle of nowhere. Kids came pouring out of a building a greeted us very warmly. They were very interested in my friend’s tattoos, me not so much. After introductions and a tour, we got to work.
The orphanage had a water treatment system that provided some basic filtration and sanitization. It was a unit, which turned out to be common in Haiti, provided by a Christian outreach organization. It was working well, but they didn’t have a reliable way to get water pumped to it. The facility was also located next to a small stream, that apparently could be a large stream during the rainy season. It turns out they used to have a DC pumping system, but the pump had been stolen and they were using an AC pump system which ran off of their generator.
That evening we were presented with a church service. I had never been in a service that lasted close to 3 hours. It was crazy. It was also pretty cool. I ended up making friends with some kids sitting next to me. Among them was a young girl and her little brother that so much reminded me of my own kids. We couldn’t speak to each other much we mostly exchanged smiles and she enjoyed me taking pictures of her (apparently kids around the world are amazed with the iPhone).
An item which is worth mentioning here is that EVERYTHING is scarce in Haiti. Everything we take for granted like fuel, electricity, water, food, etc. If it’s around, it’s expensive. While you may think they had it made with a generator around for power; for one, they don’t use power, two, diesel has to travel in the previously mentioned boat over the waterway and on a mule for a 45 minute walk. It seems odd at first though, but a generator almost causes more problems than it solves.
Anyway, that being said, solar power is the only thing that makes any sense there if you are outside of a major city. As we continued our discovery phase, there were about 10 solar panels on the roof doing nothing and our guide had sent down two more and some small pumps ahead of us. They also had a single pump setup that would at least put water into their cisterns. We looked at our resources and proceed to put together a system which was able to run pump water from the stream up about 20 feet to the water treatment system at about 3 gallons per minute. This was significant as there was a certain rate at which it would not run their water system.
By the time we left, we were filling 500 gallon tanks of safe water and we were also filling a 15,000 gallon pool for a future tilapia farm. Side note, the pool was dug by hand. They also shared with us that before their DC pump was stolen they had provided safe water for about 20 square miles (by best guess given the description of the area as it was explained to me). During a cholera epidemic, their area didn’t get sick. When their DC pump system was stolen, they didn’t have the resources to supply the area anymore. Now that they had a solar powered pump system again, they could once again supply water for their community.
In all, it was an amazing experience. The people were very warm and inviting. In America, we tend to not ‘see’ God because we have so much. In Haiti, you can see God everywhere. I can’t wait to go back.