Hell on earth
by David Darg
BALAN, Haiti – The village of Balan is as close to hell as you can get in this hemisphere.
There are children I saw today that will very likely be dead before my next visit.
It is a place that makes even Haitians cry when they visit. There are few jobs and crops won’t grow because the soil is bleached with salt.
Their water source lies miles away and the villagers trek for hours every day to collect water in dirty containers only to get sick when they drink it.
The water does flow to the village but as you can see in the photo below - by the time it gets there, it is so grey and polluted you can’t even see the bright yellow jerrycan through the filth.
To be continued…
*Operation Blessing is partnering with Lifesaver to help distribute the world’s first ultra-filtration jerrycans to communities with no access to clean water. Each 5-gallon capacity jerrycan has a built-in filtration system that can purify up to 5,300 gallons of water. Beginning with pilot projects in Haiti and Peru, OBI and Lifesaver will provide more than 100 of these unique jerrycans to communities in each country.
Tags: Balan, Caribbean, clean water, David Darg, Haiti, Lifesaver Jerrycans, Lifesaver Relief, OBI, Operation Blessing, Peru
Entries (RSS)
January 19th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Very interesting, thanks so much for sharing…
How high up is Balan? What are the primary sources of pollution of their stream?
February 5th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
where is Balan?
February 12th, 2010 at 10:05 am
This is obviously a terrible situation in Balan and other areas where clean water is scarce. Thank God there is a solution like these jerrycans, but it seems that these are a short term solution. Are there any projects under way that will provide a more permanent solution to address the problem?
February 15th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Thank you OBI for your ministry to these people and your coverage of these conditions so we can do our part to help. God bless you abundantly for your service.