Water in Haiti: a journey!

Drill rig

Tapping so it keeps going

Keeping mud out while digging

Francois, Maud and Fenal with the newly capped well

Witny finished the roof over the well house

Ray installs the pump

Everyone helps feed the pipe into the well.

Sister Denise admires the new water.

“Water is life” that cliché is such a vibrant truth!  To get water is not a simple task and it is a journey that has taken over a year!  Maud had hired a “sourcier” who identified that there was water on her property at a specific spot. A year or so later, RT 1 comes along and with the generous help of Canadian donors gets a rig to drill a hole to 185 feet ( it took two weeks). The engine is an antique worthy of museums and needed prompting with stone tapping to keep going…water was discovered at 25 feet and so there is more than 150 feet of water which in theory means that the children will never run out  of water even during dry spells.   

A house to protect the well and the pump had to be built. Then Ray brought a submersible pump from the US including piping. ( he actually researched the size of the cargo door of the American Airlines flight he was taking back to Haiti and had the pipes folded so that they would fit through….. he won the argument with the AA agent J )and managed to install it in spite of not having the proper welding tool.

Now it was a matter of power to make the pump work and of course the generator we had, wasn’t strong enough. Ever resourceful Maud found a broken one that a technician repaired, then I found an electrician and talked him into dropping his current job to help set up the proper exterior wiring connection.  The next day Maud brought a couple of other technicians and VOILA…water is finally here…. It is clear and abundant…I never thought it could look so beautiful!

Creative Haitian boy

Ricarlens started talking to me across the fence: very shyly he came every day for about a week . Then one day he asked me for a piece of cardboard that was lying around. An hour later, he came back with a little house that he had made.  The next day, I brought him another cardboard box and he asked for my pocket knife. A couple of hours later he came back with my knife AND a beautiful two room house, with a door , window and a portico, all made of cardboard, twigs and wiring from an old broken radio. He also brought me drawings and when I asked if he had learned how to do this in school he said no. My pencil brought a huge smile on his face and when he lost it down a pit; his face expressed the deepest distress. His dream? A knife… so he can have a different tool to work with than the razor blade he currently uses.