My trip to Haiti (pic story)

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

So for those of you who don't know, the last 7 days or so, I was in Haiti on a missions trip to build rain catchers for homes in the village of Seguin. ZoS and Waffles suggested I make a thread about it, so here you go. Lol. Wasn't really something I was going to do because of work, but the baby mama persuaded me to come with her and her church. Raincatchers are pretty much just rain collecting systems (gutters) that we designed with natural filters to capture rain, and give them water.

 

Haiti, for those of you who don't know is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and in most villages women usually have to walk miles every other day to grab clean water, and bring it back to there house.

 

Anyway I got some pics of the adventure for y'all, story mode.

 

Started off in the Detroit plane heading off to Miami, I had her take the window seat cause I got massive fear of heights:

 

 

Then we went from Miami:

 

To Port Au Prince (biggest city in Haiti):

 

Every street looked like this:

 

Driving laws?? Not existent, I recorded the LEAST busy street we drove on, and even this had me scared for my life. Lol:

http://vid285.photobucket.com/albums/ll79/number66_2008/WP_20150505_18_19_36_Pro.mp4

 

We went to a fancy hotel, and then the following day drove up a mountain for 6 hours. In this truck where we had to stand up and hold on for dear life because of bumps and holes on the roads up. No photos were taken of this unfortunately because my phone is huge and I didn't wanna drop it.

 

This was the scene we had to travel every day:

 

These were the houses we were working on. She did a lot of standing around while I did a ton of the work. >_>

 

The kids? They loved me. It was ridiculous, they often even left their homes and wanted to come work with me. They were the best part of this trip.

 

And what do they love to do? Sledding... How? Well...

https://vine.co/v/eKaa5uQeZd0

https://vine.co/v/eKaaUWQU5BL

 

The scenes from our clinic? Beautiful:

https://vine.co/v/eKaalDjgMVv

https://vine.co/v/eKaW5uh1jXA

 

We played a TON of soccer. Soccer is truly KING everywhere but USA.

 

The kids were often fed our leftovers, every night when we fed them I had nothing but goosebumps:

 

And finally, this was my favorite part of the trip. I gave this baby girl my breakfast snack before finally leaving. Watching her eat it legit bought a tear to my eye. This was toward when she was done eating.

 

http://vid285.photobucket.com/albums/ll79/number66_2008/WP_20150511_07_11_36_Pro.mp4

 

Anyway, it was a truly humbling and exciting experience. The village we were at had no toilets, so kids, naturally peed and pooped anywhere they could, along with the sheep, cows, donkeys, horses that lived there so I'm pretty sure I stepped on a lot of fecal matter.

 

We also didn't take showers while we were in the village to preserve water. I took 2 showers while in Haiti, first and last day. Ha.

[BradyFan81 404]

Dmac I see you picking the cutest girl to sit with on the plane ride.

 

But seriously this is awesome. What a great life experience you've had.

[Zack_of_Steel+ 3,014]

Thanks for sharing, Joel. I've always wanted to do something like this and I have a ton of respect for you for heading down there. I'm glad it was a positive experience for you.

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

Dmac I see you picking the cutest girl to sit with on the plane ride.

 

But seriously this is awesome. What a great life experience you've had.

 

Thanks, it was a great experience. But the person I'm sitting next to is my baby mama. Lol.

 

Thanks for sharing, Joel. I've always wanted to do something like this and I have a ton of respect for you for heading down there. I'm glad it was a positive experience for you.

 

Thanks for suggesting this. It felt good looking back.

[Cherry 1,302]

Good guy DMac It's insane how happy they get from you just being there. Proud of you dude

[CampinWithaMissingPerson 2,025]

Thanks for sharing, props to you for helping out Did you get to eat any local dishes there by chance? Or was it all food you guys brought?

 

I had a good amount of friends who were 1st gen American with Haitian parents growing up in south Florida here.

[RazorStar 4,025]

I would be so scared to do something like this, but it looks like you had a lot of fun. And If I was going with cute girls I could probably be a little less scared. :3

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

Good guy DMac It's insane how happy they get from you just being there. Proud of you dude

 

Thanks Cherry.

 

The hardest part about all this is kinda that feeling of helplessness despite all the work we did in building 31 raincatchers, there are still so many people who didn't get any help. But it was definitely exciting.

Thanks for sharing, props to you for helping out Did you get to eat any local dishes there by chance? Or was it all food you guys brought?

 

I had a good amount of friends who were 1st gen American with Haitian parents growing up in south Florida here.

 

We only got to try Haitian food on our first and last night in Haiti because we were in some of the fanciest hotels in Haiti. Plantains were the best to me.

 

Outside of that, one of the people who ran the operations rationed the food and water we had so that it would only last the 5 days we were at the clinic which was right outside of the village.

 

So we only ate sandwiches, and foods outa cans.

I would be so scared to do something like this, but it looks like you had a lot of fun. And If I was going with cute girls I could probably be a little less scared. :3

 

I was pretty scared going in, but more had to do with the planes and flights due to my fear of heights. And the driving because of how hectic the streets were. But I was assured he knew what he was doing cause he's done this plenty times.

 

The cute girls were a plus though. Lol.

[BC 331]

Awesome deed my friend and not a bad lookin baby mama either

 

did you do support letters to fund this trip? I bet a couple here would've chipped in. I want to give it a real try again some day, the last time I tried I couldn't really come up with the $

Edited May 15, 2015 by BC

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

Awesome deed my friend and not a bad lookin baby mama either

 

did you do support letters to fund this trip? I bet a couple here would've chipped in. I want to give it a real try again some day, the last time I tried I couldn't really come up with the $

 

I never thought about that, probably would of made it easier on me. Lol. It cost me around $500, the total price was around $1900, but the church paid the rest... I lucked out. Ha

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Still can't believe you didn't go sledding.

[Maverick 791]

We played a TON of soccer. Soccer is truly KING everywhere but USA.

 

Just highlighting this for all the TGP schmucks that still fail to realize this.

 

Really awesome of you, DMac. I have great admiration for people that go on missions trips like this.

[Zack_of_Steel+ 3,014]

Just highlighting this for all the TGP schmucks that still fail to realize this.

 

Really awesome of you, DMac. I have great admiration for people that go on missions trips like this.

Don't turn a good thread into some pissing match about soccer. Nobody here is delusional enough to believe that soccer isn't popular everywhere else, you dumb motherfucker.

 

 

 

 

 

Joel, did most of the population speak English?

Edited May 15, 2015 by Zack_of_Steel

[DonovanMcnabb for H.O.F 2,241]

Don't turn a good thread into some pissing match about soccer. Nobody here is delusional enough to believe that soccer isn't popular everywhere else, you dumb motherfucker.

 

 

 

 

 

Joel, did most of the population speak English?

 

Some of the older Haitian workers spoke English, the kids didn't though. They only spoke Creole. Since I speak French, I could kinda understand them, but most of the time we were just kinda communicating without understanding each other. Haha.