Monday (Travel Day) & Tuesday (Water Truck/Soccer Day)

We're a bit behind on blogs as our internet was not functional until today (Wednesday). But hopefully we'll catch up! Here's our experiences from Monday and Tuesday as told by Angie N.

Day 1  Cite Soleil/Water Trucks

Today was our first full day in Haiti. Yesterday was strictly travel and settle in to the guesthouse day. This is my first time ever leaving the country, so it’s been an experience. Remembering never to run my toothbrush under the running water, always use sanitizer after washing your hands… and maybe think twice about drinking the Coke straight from the bottle. Thankfully, all of our travels went very smoothly. Our team consists of 11 of us, 8 of us from the twin cities, two from Kentucky, and one from Toronto, Canada. Monday there was a snowstorm making it’s way through Kentucky, which obviously was a huge concern for us that our teammates would make it out. Thankfully, they made it out early enough, just a few hours before all outbound flights were cancelled.

Tuesday morning, most of us were up early, well before breakfast. I was told it wouldn’t be like this all week, as we will get progressively more and more tired.  We started out our day with a delicious meal of French toast, oatmeal, eggs, and all of the fresh fruit and fresh squeezed juice. And the avocado: cannot get over it. We then piled into the tap tap (our vehicle that transports us around; think a truck with a cage to keep us all in) and made our way down to meet the water truck.  Our water truck was a bit late, so we sat on the side of the road in the tap tap and were just hanging out and talking. 

Not long after our water truck arrived and we followed it into Cite Soleil. I knew what my eyes were about to experience would be like nothing else I’ve seen in person. I didn’t really know how to prepare for it, or what my reaction would be. I’ve seen pictures and heard stories, but I’ve learned just how different it is to experience it first hand. It’s real. It’s really someone’s life and how they live. As we drove thru Cite Soleil, all the kids would wave and shout. When we finally got to our stop, I was already sobbing. I didn’t know how I would be able to keep it together and play with these kids who were just overjoyed to see us. They cling to your clothes. They begged to be picked up. They were just joyful. I almost wonder if they realize how desperate their situation even is. We spent our time there filling buckets of water, helping the people bring it back to their homes, and playing with and holding the children. This stop was pretty mellow. We figured they had a water truck come through the day before, as there wasn’t a line and the kids playing in the water and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

At the end of this stop, we walked down to the site that the new church will be built. Eaglebrook recently funded this initiative, and it was really neat to be a part of that back home, and also experience the location in person. As we walked down to this spot, I noticed some of these kids were wearing shoes or sandals on their feet. Some of them weren’t. The path we walked was filled with random trash, shards of glass and other “byproducts,” to put it nicely. I was nervous about where I stepped, but I had my Keens on. Some of these kids didn’t even have shoes and that’s when I realized I would probably be JUST FINE.

After the first stop, we went back to the water truck filling station and waited around there for a while. We noticed a teenage boy walking around wearing a red jersey with ‘Eden Prairie’ on the front. We all thought that was pretty cool to see a piece of home all the way down here.

Our second water stop was a whole lot more chaotic. We stopped in what felt like a narrow alley. Honestly, I have no concept of streets, highways and alleys here, as it’s just a free-for-all. People drive, walk, and bike wherever they well please.

At this stop, there was a long line of people and their buckets and barrels waiting for water. Lots of pushing, shoving, and our Healing Haiti (HH) leaders yelling in Creole to help people stay in line and organized. One of the first things I noticed when we arrived at our stop, the boy wearing the Eden Prairie jersey was there too! We have no idea how he got there so fast. He may have jumped on the back of the water truck. Maybe he biked. He came up to me right away and said “Hi. I am your friend. I speak English.” I told him that his shirt said the name of a city by where we were from. I don’t think he understood what I was talking about, as he didn’t really respond. What really struck me though, was how helpful this young man was – he was so helpful to others, helping to push their buckets out from the crowd once they were full and helping to hold the hose. No one asked him for help, he just had that innate leader tendency. I made sure to thank him for his help as we left. It was very nice to see a young man like that step up to help without even being asked. If you could see how the rest of the crowd was, it was each man for himself; dog eat dog.

We went back to the guesthouse to change after the second water stop, as we were quite muddy and dirty. We took a quick break and were going to go to Haiti Initiative, but before leaving found out it was closed because they are celebrating Carnaval this week. (Haiti Initiative is, how I would describe in my little knowledge, a soccer school for kids where they are fed meals from Feed My Starving Children.) Instead, we took 19 of the neighborhood boys, crammed them all in the tap tap and drove them to a nearby soccer field. We brought them water and snacks and played soccer with them. Those kids are GOOD. One little boy, Dickinson, started singing worship music on the tap tap. I told him later, “One day you should be a worship leader.” He replied, “I hope so.” I was amazed at how well some of these young kids spoke English. I was also amazed of just how proud they were of what they do have. Dickinson made sure to let me know that the kid who scored the first goal was ‘his brother’.

For my first time out of the country, I didn’t want to create any expectations. I wanted to be able to experience all of the feelings, sights, smells, and emotions as they happen. It’s been overwhelming, but so amazing. I can’t even begin to put into one blog post all of the different emotions I’ve felt in just the short while that I’ve been here. I don’t even think all of it has really soaked in yet. This is the first time in my life where I’ve actually kept a daily journal of the conversations I’ve had and the things I’ve experienced as they are all things I never want to forget.