We Survived!

Our plan today was going to be a bit strenuous both in body and mind. Before we left though the 40 pounds of chicken legs Joan got from the USDA needed to be separated into smaller bags and frozen.

Take a look at the name on the box, yep that says Koch just like Amy's last name.

Faith was asked to take the boxes to the compound incinerator and took me with her.

There is very little garbage that ends up here, most of the stuff is recycled and used over and over, even plastic wrap! Today Joan decided on taking us to a spring at the top of a mountain, then an old fort. The hike up, down and over the hills was not suppose to be too steep, just long but worth it as it ended at an ice cold spring. Now we haven't really felt ice cold water the entire time we have been here so really didn't believe Joan. As we headed in to town there was a man making charcoal right past our compound.

The smoke from these fires seem to permeate the air continually. Charcoal is something the Haitians can make and sell and it goes on night and day. They chop down a big tree, cover it with mud then leaves and set it burning. The picture below was taken a little later in the day but show the charcoal all loaded and ready to take to market.

In the next picture they are just ready to start the smoking.

We needed diesel fuel before heading to the spring and as usual there were lines of trucks and motorcycles waiting.

On the drive out of town there were men working in the rice fields, such a sloppy but necessary job.

There were many men plowing their fields today, this is done with bulls or cows and in most cases a wooden hand made plow.

Talk about hard labor, this is hard on both the men and the bulls. All along when we would complain about the roads in Haiti, the Reinhards and everyone else that lives here would tell us, "these are the good roads." Well today we drove on the bad roads. We needed to cross a river and there are no bridges. Joan wasn't quite sure where to cross but met a Haitian man who told us where to try.

We made it without too much trouble, it was deep but not deep enough to need a snorkel exhaust. We were thinking this wasn't too bad until Joan came to a hole in the road.

Looking down that hole was a mistake, I never should have gotten out of the van to look. Joan very carefully drove around it even though the road was narrow she made it. On the way Joan stopped at a church to show us some of Tim's jobs. The picture below is of a church the work team that Diane was on 4 years ago put a roof on and built benches.

The road up to the trail head was awful, Joan wasn't going more than 10 miles an hour but she kept telling us this was one of the good roads. We made it to the trail head and barely had enough room to turn around and park before getting our group out on the trails. Below is the group getting ready to head out.

I asked Joan what kind of fruit was growing on this tree?

She explained that is a type of gourd that grows very big and the Haitians use to use it to carry water. Below is a broken one we found on the ground.

The trail over looked the beautiful river and we couldn't help stopping and taking pictures.

The plants grow so tall here. Below is Diane standing next to colorful plant that grew as big as a tree.

The hike started out going up then continued to go up then down then up sometimes rocky sometimes muddy. Mackenson and I were a little ahead of the older group when we found this small cave. Mackenson didn't really want to go inside but did, there is a gourd for water and a small area where a fire is made. Not sure who was living in that sparse little cave.

The trail led to a very steep section almost straight up, Joan had told us this walk wasn't extreme she retorted, "I forgot about this section." We all made it no problem just had to take it slow to find toe holds. I didn't get a picture of this my hands were too busy hanging on for dear life. Below is Diane on the trail, just look at the huge rocks we had to traverse.

We were dripping with sweat by the time we finally arrived but it was all SO worth it. The water really was ice cold, and so blue and so clear. I'll let the pictures below share the beauty of this amazing place. The deep cave, the hard current coming out, the bottomless depth, the deep blue color and clearness of the water was just not what we expected when we started this climb.

It didn't take long for the kids to start climbing the vines and jumping off into the freezing deep clear water. Below is Bethany and Jessica.

David Sauder climbed up for a shot at jumping.

As we were watching them jump I happened to look farther up the cliff and there in a crevice near the top was a huge honey bee hive. The camera I was using is the cheap one but zoomed all the way in we could see the thousands of bees zooming around.

We had 8 little Haitian boys follow us up the path and were watching them jump, check out the shorts on the cute kid below.

We broke for lunch which was shared with our Haitian visitors. After lunch we started back with one detour, this one was just too much for us old folks although we all made it down to the water, just not over the cliffs to the jumping spot.

At one point trying to get back up the cliff I was crawling on my hands and knees and by the time I made it back the Haitians started laughing, there were lots of burrs in my hair from crawling. They were glad to start picking them out.

When we finally all made it back to the van it was time to drive higher up the mountain to an old fort. That sounds so easy to say but so hard to do. This road going up was narrow, steep, rocky and just plain dangerous. Joan never got out of first gear. There are no words to describe how horrible this road was, this is a road every American needs to experience! If you survive this road you will never ever complain about a road in America again. Just in case you are not getting the point this was down right scary. There is no guard rail and the road can't be more than 6-8 feet across. I asked Joan what will we do if we meet traffic? Well we did meet traffic. Two donkey's coming down the road. One was so over loaded there was no way for it to fit between the car and the rocky cliff.

We had to wait until the donkey owner took the donkey back up the road to find a place where the road was just a little bit wider. Even then it was a tight fit.

Near the top there was another over loaded donkey on strike.

This donkey refused to get up until everything was unloaded. We made it to the fort (I really don't know how, just by God's grace and Joan's driving) although she did say after a very scary place where we were thrown violently sideways as she tried to climb over some huge rocks, "I didn't think I was going to make that!" Oh great, my brake leg was already spasming from trying to help even though there are no pedals on my side of the car. It really felt good to get out of that van but the thought kept coming back, we have to go back down, we have to go back down the same road. Below are a few pictures of the fort.

As we were hiking up to the fort Diane turned to me and said, "this really IS fat camp, all the exercise we have to do to get any where and we are too guilty to eat much lunch when there are such skinny Haitian kids staring quietly at us. Diane packed lots of flashlights to give out to the children later which came in real handy. Once we were done with them we bartered them away giving them out to the locals. As we were giving them away we were asking the boys if they wanted their picture taken. One took off running, Rhoda chasing him and once he was caught and his picture taken he had a good laugh.

Another boy thought that was a fun game so she caught herself another.

We gave out a couple of boxes of tender mercy packs at each of our stops today. The rest were loaded unto the roof of the van where the roof riders gave them out on the road back. We got to one switchback and a couple of boulders had fallen into the road. Rhoda jumped off the van to start moving them but before she got off a Haitian man grabbed the first and rolled it off the road.

She started with the second then he helped her.

Joan was pretty desperate to get across the river before dark and it was close. Trying to cross at night is just downright dangerous. At one point coming home we were heading up an embankment so high there was no traction at all on the front wheels. By the time we arrived back at the compound we were hungry, tired but so grateful to have survived! After driving over 5 hours on terrible roads Joan pointed out the gas tank, not even an 1/8 of a tank gone. Lots of hours not many miles. These 4 wheel drive Toyota vans work well here. Don't even think about trying to drive on these roads without 4 wheel drive. After a dinner of left-overs we headed up to Joan's roof to watch the meteor shower.