Day 3. All of the water.

Best news: the water truck was fixed today!

Today we were able to make 3 different trips into Cite Soleil to deliver clean water. Our first stop was rather quiet. I was pretty surprised with how quickly we made it through all of the buckets to fill. Usually we run out of water first. We guessed they either had plenty of water from the recent rain or they got a water delivery recently. This obviously is a good thing for them.

After a short while at this stop, we wandered to a plot of land where the new church will be built in Cite Soleil. For those unfamiliar with Cite Soleil, it is the slum of Haiti. Most people here live in tents or tin shanties and don't have access to clean water, among other basic life necessities. I learned this trip that most other missions/service groups are surprised we go to help those of Cite Soleil. Why? It's not a safe area. Have I ever felt unsafe in a trip to Cite Soleil? Never. It's amazing how God's protection can be felt when we visit here. I cannot imagine not experiencing this part of the trip, or not being able to help out the poorest of the poor in some way.

Since our first stop was rather quiet, we walked to another stop nearby. This location seemed to be a little more in need of water. Some of the kids from the first stop followed us over there. As Americans we always struggle with "should these kids be following us?" The sad reality is: for the most part no one is really looking out for them.

At our second stop, there was one boy in particular (I'm guessing around 4 years old) who was hanging out near Nicole while she was trying to help with the water hose. Another little boy had tried to take a woman's bucket from her. She got upset and ripped the bucket out of the boy's hands and the bucket clocked the other little boy (by Nicole) right in the head. It looked like it would have hurt bad. He immediately started crying and it broke my heart that the woman just continued on her way. None of the neighborhood adults watching even moved, even after witnessing what had happened. No one consoled the boy until I went and picked him up. I can't even bring myself to entertaining the thought that someone consoling him is a foreign concept.

I held on to this little boy until he stopped crying. We took a picture together and after a little while, he was ready to jump down and be with the rest of the kids. Soon after, Jill brought out the jump ropes that we brought along. These simple ropes have brought so much laughter and so many smiles to our first 2 days here. Before we knew it, there was a whole crowd of people laughing, chanting, singing and smiling around the jump rope. It really is the simple things.

We had one final stop for the day before returning to the guest house for the night. This third stop is always the most busy. It's in a close, crowded alley-like street. At all of the stops it can be hard to get a good process going with lining up buckets, filling buckets, then moving the buckets out of the way. This is one stop where we literally just run out room and it gets a little crazy.

Most of my time at this stop was spent with a little girl who pegged me as her person right after we got off of the tap-tap. This stop seemed to go by really fast. Either we had too much fun taking photos with the kids, or they cleaned us of water really fast.

At the end of the water truck day we are all 110% spent, physically and emotionally. It's really an experience that's hard to summarize in words or photos. Until you experience it with your own two eyes, hands, and feet... and take in the sounds and smells, it's really hard to get it. This is my second trip and I still am not sure I really get it yet, it's so much to process. It's hard to understand how people can live like this and so many people not appear to care or help.

--Angie