August 2018 - Day 5 - Haiti Mission Trip

Today is a day off from camp. We have scheduled a water truck delivery in the mountains of Titanyen, Haiti where after the 2010 earthquake many survivors went to the mountains to live but do not have access to running water. Many other missionaries in Haiti are part of water truck delivery where you purchase a semi tank of water and hire a driver to deliver it the area needing water. Teams meet up with the water truck and help disperse and carry water that comes out of a huge hose.

What an experience this was! The road up the mountain was gravel and dirt with several 2-3 foot holes every couple yards and our vehicles were stick shift, which even made it even more of an interesting challenge. The homes up the mountain ranged from 20 x 20 shacks made of tin to small tents made of canvas and sticks. We finally arrive at the top of the mountain to meet the water truck that hadn't made it yet. As we got out of our tap tap we saw many young Haitian kids come from their homes to greet us, they knew we were coming with water! Since the truck hadn't arrived yet we passed the time with some teenage Haitian boys from the mountain who played a round of basketball and soccer with Sammy, Ben and Davidson on a playground area that was built from another American missionary group. Alongside of the basketball game, Beana was greeted by young girls from the neighborhood who gave her some fancy hairdos!

Water truck finally arrived and things starting getting CRAZY! People came running from everywhere with their buckets for water. The water truck driver jumped out of the truck and filled big barrels with water. Many Haitian women were in a frenzy to help scoop out the water into the 5 gallon buckets for the children and other members of their family to carry to their house. Our job was to help carry them to their home. This was certainly a work out! Insanely amazed that some of these young children could carry this water further than we could.

During the water transport we also had kits of baby items such as diapers, soap, clothes and washcloths that we handed out to the families. The baby items were donated from Crystal's generous families of Showcase Dance Studio! Another set of donation were flip flops that came from Malia Casner and many ladies from Carrollton, MO. This was a sight! We decided to distribute these from the tap tap like we were setting up "shop" and the swarm quickly came. So many children needing shoes. Our tap tap van was a popular place for about 10 minutes until we ran out.

This was a gratifying day for the team as we left feeling like we really did valuable work but oh, was it heartbreaking!  Shoes and water, something we so easily take for granted, were such a scarcity among the Haitians living in these mountains.

We finished our day at the beautiful Wahoo Beach with our team!