From the headquarters in Port au Prince, we rattled our way down country lanes along the water to a joint ICC/Pure Water outpost on the outskirts of Port au Prince, where we witnessed their water filtration devices in use as well as got the opportunity to meet some of the orphans and children from the school that they help support on the grounds. This visit was followed by yet another to the actually factory where their cheap and effective filters are manufactured and where sanitation education is disseminated to community members through a sequence of seminars and peer training.
Lunch saw us at Wall's guesthouse again, with us traveling afterwards back to ICC's inpatient clinic to enjoy our last afternoon with the children who are staying there currently. After roughly two hours of play and companionship, we met with ICC's director who thanked us profusely for our time spent in Haiti, and said he and the rest of ICC very much look forward to a productive, fruitful relationship with William and Mary and these particular members of our compact over the coming years. As the first university group that has worked with ICC, we all have high hopes for a future of partnership.
At reflection, we discussed the future of the compact in the coming year, along with avenues for growth, challenges we will face, and where we see ourselves in the larger puzzle of university involvement with Haitian community partners. All went around and shared affirmations with other team members, as well as one large take away from their time in Haiti that will impact them moving forward, followed lastly by one thing everybody has realized about themselves during their time in Haiti.
It's evident that the Haitian people are open, kind, gracious people who share a compelling brotherhood amongst themselves. Industrious and entrepreneurial individually, they live in a nuanced country broken and abandoned by the international system as well as the internal inability to govern themselves without corruption. The personal connections all of us have made, due to our small and selective team size, have only reinforced how memorable the faces and stories of the people working to make Haiti more viable are.
As we return to Haiti we recognize the importance of relationship building as the bedrock of all our interactions with community partners on the ground. For most of us, a return trip to Haiti in the upcoming year seems to be very much in the cards.
It's been a pleasure to lead such an impressive and compelling group of students to a country very much in need of our partnership. Together, we've struggled through the complications and questions that arise as a result of nuance, language barriers, a history of abuse, and being in the small minority on an island of Haitians, both in skin color, socioeconomic status, and purpose. We've seen a wide swath of the country, participated in deep, moving conversation with Haitian partners, and grown as individuals in the process. In doing so, we've definitively launched a new brand of alternative break at the College that focuses on a small, dedicated group of individuals working in tandem not only with partners on the ground year-long, but also with other universities across the United States to address the pressing questions of Haiti in our time.
I look forward to returning to Haiti in the near future, hopefully amongst many other members of the Compact, in an effort to continue the good work we've so earnestly started here.
Tomorrow morning we fly from Port au Prince at 12:15, land in Miami at 3:45, and expect to arrive back in Washington DC at 7:45 p.m. EST.
From Port au Prince,
Brian Focarino '11
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