Water worries

In order to operate a clinic in rural Haiti, you have to provide all your infrastructure.  This includes  buildings, storage, food, residential quarters, water, electricity, security, communications,  and so forth.

Of these, water can be one of the biggest challenges.  Even though we are connected to the municipal system, we also have to  collect rainwater from the roof, maintain a cistern for storage, and have pumps and a water tower to create adequate pressure.  Then, if you want to make it drinkable, you need to install a filtering and purification system (a project we have underway). 
 

Of course,  water has a way of going where it shouldn't.  So right now we are also dealing with a leak in a buried pipe and another in a roof.  Probably both were caused by the earthquake. 

Still there can be unanticipated benefits to having all this.  One is that you can climb up the water tower and get a wonderful view.  In the photo, we see the coastline, campus, clinic, and, expecially, the setting sun.  Almost makes it all worthwhile.