The Gift of Water meets Marbial

This a wonderful correspondence to Mike Mercurio from Pete Murphy of Gift of Water. If you have a heart and soul then this is a must read...

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From: Pete Murphy
To: Mike Mercurio
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 1:19 PM

Subject: Re: Gift of Water in Marbial Haiti

Hi Mike,

Thank you for the note and thank you for the continued support. I will get you the update cost in the next day or so. I wanted to share with you a passage from our Country Liaison Lamothe Lormier's recent trip report. It has to do with his recent visit to Marbial. I found it enlightening and it really gives you a good flavor of how tough things are at the minute.

Please feel free to share this with the rest of your team if you feel it is warranted.
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Text from Lamothe Lormier, Gift of Water Country Liaison trip report to Marbial December 2, 2010:

"After taking two units for demonstration purposes, we left Port-au-Prince at 12: 30 p.m. and we made it to Marbial at 6:00 pm. To our great surprise, we already knew the pastor of Marbial, Fr Bertrand. We met him many years ago while he was a seminarian in Thiotte (Sacred Heart Parish twinned with a sister parish in Baraboo Wisconsin) which is in the same diocese.

Fr Bertrand is very familiar with the GOW system since it is a close parish in Bodarie ( Bodarie is twinned with a sister parish in Illinois). We did a presentation for the workers at the rectory about how the system works and went to bed in order to be ready for the next meeting with the community.

On December 3rd at 9:00 am, around five hundred people were present at the church for the meeting on water that was broadcasted live on two local radio stations in the community.

Like we did in our presentation in Plaine Mapou we explained: the functioning of the two bucket system, the rapid growth of microorganisms in a country like Haiti, the formation of a water committee to oversee the program, the training of a Water Technician, the selection of the families, and finally we talked about the cholera that raised a big fear in the community of Marbial.

When we opened the microphone for the public to ask questions, we were amazed to see how smart some kids from the schools in the area were with their questions. The best moment of the discussion was when a mother confronted us with the following question. She asked “What kind of hygienic precautions should I take for my 15 month old ( and for many mothers like me in this room) baby with no cement floor, no diapers, no clean water and no latrines in the context of cholera?

With deep and profound emotion in his voice Fr Bertrand decided to share his thoughts in reaction to such a question. He could not hold his tears and said that the elite treated the people like trash. He continued to say, Jesus would have reacted the same way I am feeling today, you deserve a better life

Finally we took the microphone back because Fr Bertrand could not stop crying. As we understood Fr Bertrand’s frustrations, we told the people that this is unfortunately a systemic problem that will require a holistic approach.

We finally concluded our mission in Marbial with an interview on one of the local radio station about clean water, hygiene and cholera.

We left Marbial at 1:30 pm to get to Port-au-Prince at 6:00 pm because of busy traffic."

Let me know if you have any questions. I will be back in touch with costs shortly.

Pete Murphy