The trip from Port Au Prince to Gonaives was 100 miles through the countryside on the rubble that Haitians call roads. The trip was not a scenic drive because all that could be seen was dust.

The plants, the ground, the buildings and the people where all coated with the dry gray sediment. At times the dust in the air was so thick that it reminded our group of whiteout conditions. It was obvious that this was not a place where people had any hope of supporting themselves.

Just as we were all thinking that we could not sit in the Land Rover any longer, the view out the window changed. It was like Dorothy getting out of her house in the Land of Oz. Suddenly there was color. Green pastures and farm fields were lining the roadside. We pulled into a small complex with a bright green gate with buildings that had green doors. It was one of the schools that Hands Together built and was operating.

As we were getting out of the car, we were surrounded by people curious about us and wanting to show us what Hands Together had done for them. The people took us to the well and cistern that was drilled and built by Hands Together. They showed us how it made the surrounding green fields possible.

Later in the week when we were touring a different school back in Port Au Prince we noticed that the doors of this school were green too. Someone in our group asked Fr. Tom Hagen why all the Hands Together doors are green. He said it was a color symbolizing hope for the people.

The well and cistern had turned the landscape of that village green. They gave the people in the village a means for survival. The water they produced gave them hope. In a country that is in as much disarray as Haiti, at times it seems that hope would be hard to come by, but at least there seemed to be hope among these villagers.

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