Can someone please do this? Pretty please?

I've noticed how "process" blogs and books are all the rage now, like The Year of Living Biblically, Julie & Julia, or Simply Me: A Year of Eating Locally, Mindfully, Simply (highly recommended, by the way).

I would LOVE to read a blog tracking someone's page-by-page progress through the projects in this amazing 1981 Reader's Digest publication:*

Basically (get it?), it covers a wide array of survivalist and hobby skills, from organizing your garden to candlemaking to to basketry to the fine art of scrimshaw.

Our office copy here is a little beat up, but it still asks helpful questions...

shows you how to beautify your environment...

and have fun while working:

You can even learn how to look great - because "For Well-Dressed Hikers, Fashions Never Change":

But the book also throws down a few challenges:

Well?

- with proper surveyor's tools, of course.

Now there's nothing stopping you from having your dream barn!

And as if all this wasn't enough, it even tells you how to harness the energy of the sun.

The person blogging through this book would be one of the most inefficient people ever, but man alive. You could do anything.

* I can't start the Back-to-Basics blog because I'm in the midst of writing My Year[s] of Being a Foreigner in Rural Haiti, aka this blog.

After a mere 8 hours in the kitchen:

Yes We Can!
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Esther and I spent Saturday making leek potato soup and black bean vegetable soup, and this is our half of the bounty (okay, we did eat some over the weekend). You might be surprised to know that this was our first time canning anything - it's easier than you would think, fun, and a good way to not only save seasonal food for later but have a nice alternative to Ramen noodles on the I-don't-feel-like-cooking nights.

Another thing we CAN do: check out the cargo bike Bryan and Ben made!

worms

One of the things we brought back with us from our trip to MPP the week before last was about a pound of red worms. I've been thinking about vermicomposting for quite a while now, but the thought of buying worms on the internet and having them shipped in the mail just seemed too excessive. So when presented with an organization that has an abundance of them and will give you a bucketful of worms for about $15 we figured...why not? We split the cost with the Depps, so half went off to Port to be city worms and the other half are here with us in Dezam.

MPP fed their worms a steady diet of horse droppings and then used the worms to feed their chickens. I've heard a lot about how worms can eat a lot of kitchen waste. We cook with vegetables almost every day and produce a fair amount of organic waste. Despite our best efforts, our other methods of composting haven't been able to keep up with the amount we produce. So I put the worms into a smallish Tupperware container (hopefully temporary, as I have read they like lots of room to roam around - they like to be able to escape hot spots or excess water or dry spots or whatever they don't like at the moment). After a week of feeding them cabbage, beets, bananas, and tomatoes they still prefer horse droppings (which I have been, um, gathering from the road).

I'm not sure if I should try to wean them from their addiction or just let them indulge in their sweet tooth as there is plenty of horse poo around for them to chow down on. The only problem is that our compost predicament gets no help, but now we can have a bunch of nutrient-rich fertilizer for our garden.

Well, next time you need a laugh you can imagine me walking the streets of Dezam with a bucket and little shovel looking for horse droppings - when people ask me what I'm doing I tell them I'm looking for food for my worms.

Another funny/sad thing: I was just informed that Haitians generally hate worms and will kill them when they see them in the garden because they look similar to snakes. Really? Isn't that a bit excessive? I heard this a few days after I heard that farmers in the area are killing honey bees because they don't like them. I asked them why and explained that without pollinators every garden in the area would be in a lot of trouble. Response: smiles and nods. A little piece of my hope for environmental recovery was lost.

Anyway, here's to living bees, thriving worms, and a Haiti developing into the lush tropical wonderland it could be.

Thanksgiving redux.

Well, although yesterday was not a Haitian holiday, Bryan and I did things up in style anyway:


Eggplant Parmesan! Edamame! Pie! Yum!


Since our suppers are usually one-pot wonders, we were both overstuffed after eating dinner and sampling this faux-apple pie made with a local vegefruit called meleton:


In lieu of sharing our table with anyone this year, Harvey and Reginald kept us company:

The meal was delicious and pushed us into Thanksgiving food comas, but the best part of the afternoon was being able to talk with family at home. Hi everyone! See you in a few weeks.

A honey of a day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

No, it's not a holiday in Haiti, but it's hard to shake a day like that from your psyche after celebrating it for a few decades. Say hi to a turkey for us.

Anyway, the most exciting thing happening this week is that the bees who had been living in MCC's storage shed for the past six weeks were finally moved to their own home by Miguel, a local miel-man. (The other beekeeper in Dezam is named Millefleur. Amazing.) Miguel got stung about 30 times, but we got to enjoy the fruits of his labor:

(I will admit that the little dead bee-grubs you can see there are not that appetizing. I think I'll stick with our refillable bottle of cleaned honey.)

When was the last time you chomped down on a sweet piece of fresh beeswax? It tastes better than those weird little candies that still linger in some grocery stores, but the mouth-feel is similar.

Bon appétit!

A Tale of Two Papayas

Last Thursday, the environmental education team trekked to the Central Plateau to visit Mouvman Peyizan Papay, a 36-year-old peasants' movements in the town of Papaye. We are planning to bring all the teachers in our program here in December, so we came to check out MPP's work and make arrangements for our excursion with their staff.

We started with a tour of their experimental gardens, learning about their soil mixture, irrigation systems, and permaculture strategies:


Their small-animal husbandry addresses the problem of elvaj lib (in which goats and other animals roam freely and eat what they like from various gardens). These goats are fed from the farm - the woody stems they don't eat are later used to build erosion barricades on sloped land.


Tire gardens protect plans from ranging chickens and provide a more controlled environment for managing the soil:


The mandala garden was bursting with garlic chives, cabbage, chard, peppers, and spinach:


This horse was not technically part of our tour, but isn't this one of the greatest saddles you've ever seen?

I think our teachers are going to have a terrific time.

The second papaya is a little closer to home. Our neighbor/landlord let us know that she disapproves of our rooftop garden:

"Why are you growing those papayas? You know they won't do anything."
"Yes, but it's more for fun [and shade] than anything..."

Pilgrim's Progress-fashion, we've nicknamed her Madam Pa Renmen (Mrs. Doesn't-like) because of her many complaints. If she can see us do it, she doesn't like it. It's hard to take her seriously after a while. This is a situation we're trying to improve with a spirit of humility and cooperativeness, but in the meantime I've realized that "love your enemies" and "love your neighbors" are basically the same commandment.

Happy November 18!

What, you didn't know today is Fèt Batay Vètyè, the day that commemorates the last battle of the Haitian Revolution? Time to brush up on some Haitian history:

- On this day in 1803, Jean-Jacques Dessalines led Haitian forces to victory against the French at their fort in Vertières, near Cap-Haitian in the north.

- Because of this blow to the French forces, the Haitians were able to declare independence a mere six weeks later: Haitian Independence Day is celebrated on January 1 and is the biggest holiday of the year.

- Whether Haitians actually achieved their independence in 1804 appears to be a matter of ongoing debate. In 2005 Fondasyon 30 Septanm argued that
"Just as Napoleon's Army in 1803 was a multinational army with soldiers from many European countries, so today's MINUSTAH, the UN army, is composed of soldiers from Jordan, Chile, the US, France, Canada and 15 other countries -- with the same objective, to crush the aspirations of the Haitian people and re-establish colonial rule. The Haitian people have the opposite objective -- to complete the liberation begun on November 18, 1803. That's why Haiti Liberation Day is so relevant today, and why we are encouraging demonstrations, teach-ins or other activities on or around November 18th."
I'm not totally sure I agree with this perspective, but MINUSTAH's mandate in Haiti is one that surely merits attention and further questions.

- As far as we can tell, no one in Dezam is doing much to celebrate, other than taking the day off. We are marking the occasion by sleeping in, making lots of yummy food, and catching up on various odds jobs.

- More productively, Amnesty International is honoring the spirit of independence by launching a campaign pressing the Haitian government to end child slavery and protect the rights of child domestic workers throughout the country. The restavek system is a major human rights issue in Haiti - let's hope this campaign helps make a difference. (Isn't it almost 2010? Shouldn't we all be alarmed that this type of problem still exists in the world?)