Haitian Diaries: Broken Pump And Saxophone

Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The past week up to yesterday was a break from school for everyone because of Passion Week (or spring break, I guess). So six of the older children (two of them are son and daughter of Mrs. Kang) went to school. We took the younger six to Fontain (the site of new orphanage).

When we arrived, we found some parts of the fence and the water pump broken. The water pump that Pastor Baek built is open to the community, but it's made of PVC pipes, and kids use it very roughly, so we weren't surprised to find it in a few pieces. A part of the pump (a long pipe) sunk down into the well, so we used another pipe and some metal poles to fish it out. It took many tries and quite some time, so we were all excited when we finally got it.

Then we sang some songs (I played the guitar) with the local children (there are always kids around when we go there). Many of them don't go to school because they can't afford it. Figaro gave a message, we sang some more and gave out some bread. We'll be going out here more often.

Jude plays the saxophone during Sunday services. He was practicing it this morning, and there were two saxophones, so I tried the other one. I used to play clarinet during middle school, but I pretty much forgot how to play. To my surprise, I could pick it up pretty fast. I hadn't played an instrument like that since middle school, and I quit clarinet for percussion because I didn't like clarinet. But now I really like saxophone (actually I always wanted to play sax more than clarinet, but the band needed clarinet players). I'm going to try to practice often.