"Running water", Haiti style...

"Running water", Haiti stlye is the talk of the village, when I, Mdme Kiki come flying down the path on my red, Yamaha Rhino!!! Dogs, people, goats, cows, horses, guineas, and a duck with seven little ducklings behind her, scatter like flies with my approach. The boys, Bob and Lele, quickly fill the gallons with water from our huge reservoir that Wilckly built and that provides water for most of the community. Today my task was to carry water up the hill for the masons who were laying some cement blocks in preparation to cover one of our buildings. Fortunately I only had to make two trips.

Maybe you are wondering why in the world would I be carrying the water in these gallons. Our water truck is broke down at the moment. We have no source of water up the hill where we are establishing. We will have it we just have to "hurry up and wait for it", because that is what we do in Haiti. In the mean time, any water I need for washing dishes, mopping the floor, taking a bath or flushing the port-au-potty, has to be carried up from down the hill.

You could say there are things in Haiti that are a little less than convenient. For example, imagine the misery of watching people take hours, days and weeks to cut some weeds or clean the whole yard by hand instead of mowing. Now, however, thanks to my husband seeing the need, we now have a push mower. If you saw what we had to mow, you would say, "She's kidding, right?". No, I am not but I thought you would at least enjoy hearing about how I mow my "yard". I have five of our boys/young men, who are 15 to 20 years old. They walk in front of me with a long machete and hack at the tall weeds. Another one is responsible to remove any sizeable rocks from my path as to not ruin my mower blade. Another is responsible to remove any plastic, trash, bottles, cans or other unidentified objects from my path. It's quite a sight to see the line of us "mowing" as I come along from behind with the push mower. I must say that it is looking pretty decent around here. The boys are hard workers if I can keep them on the task and they've been doing a good job of it lately.

Just another day in Haiti. dee