Filters

Throughout the day we see lots of dogs, goats, donkeys, cows, chickens, turkeys, roosters, some skinny skinny horses, a few birds (not many), and a few cats.  The dogs seem to be VERY quiet during the day often times laying down and milling around and then as soon as our lights go out and our heads hit the pillows the DOGS BARK like crazy!!!  We wake up to the roosters doing their roostering thing, and the Starfysh employees getting things organized and breakfast cooked for all of us to start our day.  Needless to say, we haven't needed an alarm clock at all this week.  5:15 the workers come in the door and this morning we woke up to someone screaming at someone else in Creole at 5:15am.  I cant complain, I cant complain really about anything.  We are all very fortunate to have three square meals.  The routine has been that we all make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and throw it in the cooler with our names on it for lunch.  Theresa has been in charge of making extra sandwiches for the workers, translators and drivers. Today, Kelseys group was last to get to the church for their sandwich and hers was gone.  She didn't get lunch, but she didn't complain.  "the workers need it more than I do, I'm fine".  We moan and groan about the 2 and a half hour bumpy ride but yet we are still extremely fortunate that we have vehicle to go up the mountain and don't have to travel by donkey or by foot like many of the locals do.  We cant complain about the wet shoes that we had to put on yesterday after getting drenched in the truck, at least we had matching shoes with soles on the bottom that didn't allow dirt to come through.  Our showers here are cold, but they allow us to get clean after a long hard day.  We cant complain though.  We will all go back to our lives on Saturday, actually we will start to get "back to normal" tomorrow when we go to the mainland and have wifi.  We will be back to texting, emails, facebooking and we will feel different.  We will feel like we should continue to do the work that we started.  Our circle of people will not change around us.  If you have even thought about a mission / service trip I urge you to try it.  Call Starfysh and experience what we have.   Drive through the streets here and wonder "what do they do all day long", "can 24 dominoes and 4 teenagers really have that much fun for that long?" "they really have fun with a stick and metal bicycle hoop".  I will do my very best to not complain, to slow my life down, to appreciate the food that I eat and the clean water that I drink.  I hope to come back, I hope to have more opportunities to continue to share my laughter with others, I feel like it is my little gift.  Theresa and I were doing the hokey pokey with a bunch of school kids today - I am sure they thought we were crazy.  I really didn't care, we knew we were at least making some of hem smile and to me that was more important than giving them clean water.

Each installation team (today it was me, Kelsey and John - each family was together today), consisted of three people.   One person asked questions to the woman of the house - Family Name, How many people in the house (this ranged from 1 person to 11 people in one house but the average was about 6), how many children were under the age of 5, did they have a working latrine (most did not), did they do anything to the water to make it safe, where do they store their water, and if anyone had diarrhea in the last three days.  The other two make sure the installation is properly done.  I love the part where we talk to the woman of the house and educating them about what they are receiving.   The joy that is felt in the words that they say, even though I cant understand them I still feel the complete appreciation they have in what we are doing.   They are a very religious culture, so after the installation a prayer is offered from our interpreter.  We all have different religions and different beliefs but we all have agreed that this is where we are supposed to be and we have made a difference with this small Starfysh.   We are fortunate to be involved with Rotary.  Rotary does amazing things, look them up it provides you with amazing opportunities. 

There are many more stories from today  - a former mayor of La Gonave was our interpreter today, we laughed a lot today, 40 filters were installed, we gave out 6 soccer balls, took tons of pictures, went to a bakery, went to a grocery store, Kelsey bought her first pint of alcohol, Miriam got her hair braided, a great day!

Love to all and thanks for reading...