3rd Day (08/21/08)

Haiti in a way is like the television show Survivor. Everyone arrives together and immediately, as a team, begins to figure out how to live in such a place where resources are very scarce. There are a few differences however. We are not ultimately against each other for our own good, there is no $1,000,000 prize, and some have been on this island before.

Today I learned a few things that I didn’t quite understand before. There are a few water systems at Sonlight. We have a well which is only a hundred yards or so from the shore so the water naturally contains a little salt. I had always thought that the water which comes out of the faucet felt like it was soft water; however this water is naturally salty. Aside from the well, there is a reservoir in front of the school which gets filled periodically. We have a plastic container which holds several hundred gallons of water that we use to get fresh water. This container is put in the back of a pickup truck and driven downtown to be filled. Once we bring it back, we transfer the water into the reservoir and add bleach (3 drops per gallon) to it and use that for the ice maker and a few other things here. As for drinking water, we all have water coolers which we fill with five gallon jugs. We keep one on hand and then return our empties to the office for refills. Periodically, someone will stop by and swap out the empties with filled jugs.

Another odd thing I noticed today is that Digicel (the cellular provider here) has small boxes that are constructed like an oversized power strip. The reason is that most Haitians do not have electricity at their homes, so they have these “power stations” so to speak where people can pay to charge their cell phones. This is quite necessary to survive as a business because their customers would not be able to use their phones for long if they didn’t have a means to charge them. I also notice that many of the Haitian teachers, aides, and the construction workers here also bring their phones to school to charge them. It’s a luxury that we have electricity nearly everywhere we go and with such ease.

Later this afternoon, I noticed that the power went out so I worked my way over to the generator to see if I could help out. There were some guys over there replacing one of the radiators so I stepped in for an hour or so and helped out with that. It was just long enough for me to get a nice sunburn on my neck. The radiator was a little larger so we were hoping that it would keep the engine cooler. It was nice for a while until later that evening the motor that turns the fan burned out. That’s the way it goes here…things don’t last too long before they need maintenance and then more maintenance.