Little By Little The Bird Makes His Nest

Several of my Haitian friends have come over to see our little fish project.  They are always excited to come and get a look, but then when they see how tiny the fish are, they laugh at me.  Mind you, they are not laughing WITH me, they laugh AT me.  There is a big difference.  Even Tikilene, when she first saw our 400 little minnows, completely dismissed it as a ridiculous idea.

I tell them all the same thing,

"We've prayed over these fish. God's gonna make them grow, and in 8 months or so you'll be inviting me over to your house to have a fish fry, because there will be more than you can eat."

Finally, a pastor friend of mine came.  He looked down into the well at all the baby fish. 

"They call them tilapia."  He said.

I was surprised he knew that from such a quick glance.

"This is a good thing you're doing....and there is a Haitian proverb I have for you, my friend."  He smiled,  "Little by little, the bird makes his nest."  

And these are in fact some seriously happy fish.  I've watched them for a week and already they are almost triple in size.  

The idea is beautifully simple.  We fastened a taller pipe on the artesian well/bathing hole on the road, which now gives the people in my village a place where they can shower standing up as opposed to having to kneel down.  That built up the pressure to our well, where gravity then feeds the cistern in our back yard. Duckweed grows on top of the water and gives the fish food, and as they "dirty-up" the water with their poop and pee, we open up a valve and rotate in fresh while we jettison the nutrient rich dirty water into my neighbor Wilber's garden. This in turn makes his soil rich, causing his bananas and yams to grow like crazy, and I'm telling you, one day we're all going to sit down to a feast.  

Maybe next Thanksgiving will be fish, yams, and a little banana for dessert. :)

We don't need power and we don't need to pump.  Everybody is happy, and the fish do all the work.  Praise God!

Here are some shots from Kari as we brought the fish to their new home (our former cistern).  The kids and I decided to go for our first and only "swim" in the well since the water was as clean as it was ever going to get.   That water is cold down in the ground.