After lunch, we took a AWESOME walk through the Haitian countryside. I will never forget this day! Our walk would be over 2 hours each way. The destination was a 100ft waterfall. It was a great hike. We started out from the mission and walked through town. About 20 minutes later, we arrived at the river at the edge of town. We had to walk across the shallow, wide river. Most decided to spare their shoes and walk across bare-foot. After we had crossed, Matt told us we had 5 more crossings to do. He "failed" to mention this before we left. By the river was a large, noisy, open-air market, even on Sunday. Little tables were everywhere with people selling fruit, dried fish, dishes, and charcoal. The charcoal sellers are the poorest of the poor. These are mountain people with no other source of income except cutting down and partially burning wood to sell as charcoal (sidebar: Haiti has almost no electricity and no natural gas companies. Charcoal is the only way to cook food.) The Haitians were also using the river for bathing and doing laundry. Many kids and some women were naked and taking baths in the river. Several boys were washing mopeds and bikes in the river as well.
After crossing the river we walked for a few miles down a long dirt path that followed the river for the most part. It was too small for trucks but a few scooters would go by. It was VERY heavily used for foot traffic. Hundreds of people were using the path. It really struck me here that the vast majority of Haitians walk to wherever they need to go. We ended up crossing the river 2 more times (with shoes on this time) before coming to the waterfall. It was beautiful! Several of us climed about 15' us the falls and jumped into the river (led by Neal of course!) It was fairly murky and shallow enough that my jaws clacked together when my feet hit bottom. I was holding my sunglasses but the force the dive ripped them right out of my hand and they were lost at the bottom. It was incredible to be jumping off a waterfall in Haiti! We went to another spot (large rock) about 12' high that went into a deeper part of the river. After this we walked back to the mission. Along the way we stopped in a town called LaForge to see one of the other churches planted by NWHCM. So much good is being done here.
We walked through the river for the 6th and final time as we came back to the open market. Seeing the charcoal sellers right in front of me was surreal. I have read so much about the crushing poverty of Haiti and here it was, right in front of me. We ended up in a tap-tap for the last bit to the mission, saving us the tricky ascent up the steep hill to the mission. We had been gone about 5 hours.
The people and this land are beautiful. Yet they have virtually nothing by worldly standards, oppressed for centuries by greedy and ruthless dictators, oppressed by its rich and wealthy neighbors (mainly us) who choose to ignore these people because they offer us nothing. (sidebar: WHY did the US send hundreds of millions of dollars to the ruthless Duvalier regimes and the feared Tonton Macoutes in the 60's - 80's and to the brutal military junta that followed, yet when the people elected democratically a man, Jean Betrand Aristide, who promised to help and empower the poor, the USA led an international embargo that still continues, withholding over 500 million in foreign aid. There is NO ARGUMENT that thousands and thousands of lives have been lost to disease and starvation and violence that this aid would have prevented.)
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