first impressions

Friday stars with a 3 am departure from my home to Chicago's Midway airport. Temperature: a mild 30 degrees. Color palette: varying shades of gray, black overcoats, dirty snow, pewter skies, and dark bare-branched trees.

A stop in Atlanta joins me up with another 30 or so people on this adventure. Many from Michigan, including Mom and Dad Van Dyke, some from Pennsylvania, and a few from Chicago. Energy levels are high, people are excited to meet others with the same passion for bringing clean water solutions to the world.

I doze off on the second flight until my seatmate wakes me up with a tap on the shoulder. "You wanted to see sunshine?" he says. "Take a look." Out the tiny porthole window, azure sky stretches endlessly. Below, dazzling sunlight reflects off the surface of the ocean. Verdant green hills are already visible as the large island comes into view. I realize I am seeing the Dominican Republic as well as Haiti, as the Puerto Plata airport is only 150 miles from Haiti's eastern border. My seatmate has told me earlier that he travels to the Dominican twice a year and he has never seen an airplane as large or as full as this one. "Must be all the humanitarian stuff going on," he mutters.

We land on the airport's one runway, exit the plane, speed through customs and immigration, and emerge outside into color, light, and heat. The over-80 degrees brings instant perspiration to us norteamericanos, but it is not long before our luggage is loaded on buses, tips are solicited, and we are on our way to the hotel.

Eager to learn more about this country, I watch the flashing images out the bus window. The landscape rolls by in hills and mountains, impossibly lush vegetation, fields of sugar cane, and tall palm trees. Concrete buildings painted in pastels, corrugated tin roofs, strung-out lines of laundry, coconut vendors, pickup trucks piled high with bananas. A busy scooter-washing station, barefoot children darting between cars, an entire family riding one motorcycle.

Election posters are everywhere, though voting time is in May. We pass a rum factory that has been in operation since 1888. A rocky cove is full of colorful windsurfers. We pull up to our hotel around 4 pm. After a group dinner in the dining hall and a text message home to let my family know all is well, I prepare groggily for bed.

Although a sign on the bathroom mirror clearly says the water is "no potable", old habits die hard. I start brushing my teeth, as I rinse, I recall the instructions not to let this water enter my mouth. A tourist guide I read earlier said in case of such an occurrence, one could kill the germs with vodka, and since my room comes handily equipped with a liquor dispenser, this seems the best fix. I fill a cup with vodka, dip my toothbrush in it, and swish some in my mouth. I do not recommend this.

After a long drink of water from the jug provided, I end this 20-hour day falling to sleep on a rock-hard bed, wishing I could share all these first impressions with David and the kids.