We lost internet on the 2nd night and this is the blog that I wrote the next morning:

Well last night was 100 times better… I feel a lot better and though Cortni and I both sweated all night, we woke up refreshed and ready to go this morning. Yesterday was insanely busy as we drove into the nearby mountains to 4 CDP (Child Development Program) areas and really got a bird’s eye view of what these people live like. One of the interesting things was our mile walk to the clean water source. Up a mountain and down the other side the whole way we were passing children (8-13 yrs) carrying 5 gallon buckets full of water on their heads to take back to their homes. When we got to the water source we found several eye opening things.

1) The water source was under a Voodoo Tree (Voodoo is the major religion here) and no body wanted to get near it… they were so scared of that tree.

2) Apparently the water source doubles as their shower… because most of the women and children were bathing in the 2 inch deep water and that was a first for everyone in our group. Even in Africa we never encountered such a thing, and it definitely let us know that Haiti is a place that is in desperate need.

3) The water had receded since the earthquake to the point that one of the lower wells… about 100 yards down the hill had dried up completely. A problem that we later found to be rampant in the mountains… there are huge concerns that the water tables have been messed up and the people are worried that it might stop. (Scientifically unfounded or not, the people are concerned, and that makes it a HUGE issue.)

4) The people in these CDP’s are dealing with some huge health issues, the major one being widespread high blood pressure. Funny enough, high blood pressure is a solvable issue. It is caused by the fact that they are not drinking enough water. FH (Food for the Hungry) is poised and ready to face this problem head on… but they just just need the funding to do so. Building 429 came off of that mountain last night ready to end that issue.

The Child Safety Zones are pretty primitive, but they are so important. The children go to school for approximately $30 (US) a year and not everybody can afford it. But because of the earthquake most of the schools have made tuition free for the year… which sounds great, except the government of Haiti doesn’t pay teachers. The childrens’ tuition pays the teachers and obviously they’re not getting what they need to continue teaching.

Here’s an interesting side note… School only lasts till about noon, at which point the children have to go home for the rest of the day and fend for themselves. Most of the children are walking in excess of an hour one way to and from school and they’re on HUGE CLIFFS on the walk as well. The child safety zones are set up so that the children come in and play until later in the day. Yesterday there were some 50 children in each of the zones we visited and in spite of all the decimation that was around us, (fallen houses and over run grave sites,) they were laughing and singing and it seemed as though they were able to forget about the earthquake for at least a little while.

We took them lunch at one school, which was literally croissants torn in half and juice, and it was like a thanksgiving feast. I remember that they wanted to do a program for us and all we wanted to do was feed the children. But we sat and watched for about 45 minutes while the children did their program and eyed the croissants. Finally we were able to feed them and it was really cool. Afterward we all realized that we had fed them an AWESOME lunch meal in their eyes… and it was only ½ of a piece of bread.

Today we go to downtown Port-Au-Prince and we are going into the earthquake rubble and disaster zones… we are praying that our hearts will be prepared… I’ll update again tomorrow.