Team Journal 6

Thursday, July 4 
Written by Nicole Kliewer 

The day started off with the American team bursting into a lovely rendition of 'The Star Spangled Banner' to celebrate their independence day. 

After a delicious breakfast, we headed out with Arrivo and Anderson, our Haitian translators, to a garden where they talked to us about their agriculture.

At one point we had to cross a river and soon a water fight and race broke out.

All four guys took off down the river and Zach, Philip and Stephen all ended up falling down. It was quite hilarious! 

After dragging the drowned rats out of the river we headed over to see a demonstration of how a water pump works. It took several tries to get it going, but with the help of a garbage bag it finally worked! 

Our job while we were there was to help prep the demo field. We were supposed to take the hoe and make little trenches...it was harder than it looked!

When the demo was over we headed back to UCI and had a late lunch of rice and beans...yum... 

At 2:00 we were able to buy souvenirs from the locals who had brought their stuff to UCI’s soccer field. 

Bartering is always interesting and the women kept calling out 'Missus' or 'Sister' to get me to look at their stuff. 

After we all finished shopping we decided to go on the long hike to a cave that our Haitian friend Kelly had told us about. 

So with Kelly as our guide we started our hike with several other Haitians joining us. One of the Haitians was Donald and once I told him my name he kept repeating it, pronouncing it “Necole”. 

The hike up to the cave was around 2 hours long and by the time we reached the caves our water bottles were empty and we were dripping with sweat. The cool air inside the cave was sure a welcome relief! We didn’t stay very long in the caves though, as we needed to get back in time for dinner and we had a long walk ahead of us. 

On our way down we reached a point where we all stopped and stared. The view was amazing! From where we stood we could see UCI and the rest of the beautiful country side. Being able to experience that bird’s eye view was like giving us a glimpse of what God sees when he looks down from His throne in heaven. 

As we continued back we were greeted by thunder. Shortly after the heavens opened; we welcomed the rain on our warm skin. 

 As today was our last dinner in Pignon we had requested pâté, a meal that was so delicious! 

As it was the fourth of July, we had cake and s’mores for dessert to celebrate; so yummy!

Because it was raining we headed indoors to play a game called 2 people 2 questions. You get to know people really well playing this game!