Sonje lapli sa ki leve mayi ou

Remember the rain that makes your corn grow.

Having finished up the first stage of the fountain upgrades project, I've had some time this week to catch up on a few other items on my list. While I could use this post to write about the report on our recent Latrine project or balancing our budget, I thought I'd save those subjects for another time. 

Yesterday, I was approached by Hermane, a leader/spokesperson from a remote village across the lake from where I am living in Haiti. He told me that he needs us to check out the water system there.

The history behind this water system is interesting and probably too long for this short post. Basically, we repaired/rebuilt their system about a year and a half ago now. Ever since its completion, we have been having trouble with the system, mainly with the caps at the top of the mountain gathering sufficient water.

In the past few months, DINEPA, the Haitian department of water and sanitation, began to work with the village to help them with their water needs. I'll address our relationship with DINEPA in my next post but historically, villages enjoy working with us more than DINEPA because we build better systems and are more responsive. DINEPA would not be happy about us critiquing their work or entering their domain.

Not knowing exactly what to expect, I embarked on the arduous journey across the lake by dugout canoe this morning. Here is a picture of the lake. While it may be worth a thousand words, it does not speak to how beautiful and ridiculously hot it is on the water with no shade from the sun.

At the moment, the water system in the village is not delivering enough water. The first reason for this is obvious. Someone had cut the 2" PVC pipe going to the cistern with a saw to see if it had water. 

Here is a relatively awkward picture of my trying to measure the pipe. It was in a small hole surrounded by mud, due to the fact that it was gushing water.

The second reason for the lack of water is a little more complex. The village gets its water from two capped springs at the top of the mountain. After a decent hike up and peering into both caps, it was clear that no water was being gathered.

We have always had issues with these capped springs because their recharge rates during the dry season are always low. In addition, crabs have burrowed around them which affects their ability to gather water. In the United States, we would have no issue taking measures to eliminate these crabs but the community believes that they are the spirits that bring the water in the first place. Tampering here would only make the problem worse.

Here is a picture of one of the capped springs with Hermane standing next to it.

Our conversation here went something like this (translated from Creole):

Hermane: "What can we do to get water again?"

Me: "We can fix the pipe down below, all we need is a saw, a 2" coupling and some PVC glue, but the bigger issue is that it's the dry season. There just isn't enough water."

Hermane: "Well what can we do then?"

Me: "We can do a rain dance.

We both laugh.

Me: "If the springs are dry, I don't know what else we can do."

These are the worst conversations. When you have to tell someone that there is nothing we can actively do to help them at the moment. Providing water to these villages year-round can be a Herculean task; adequate sources during the driest months are few and far between. That being said, in a few weeks, it will start raining again as the long dry season comes to a end. The springs will be overflowing and the pipe will be fixed and people will once again have easy access to fresh water. 

I got back from my excursion this afternoon. After prepping for our trip to Port-au-Prince tomorrow (we are buying the last few materials we need to finish our first project), I went and got my haircut. I don't think you can really say that you've lived somewhere until you've gotten your haircut there. 

It was 75 goude. That's less than two US dollars.