There I'm happy, I'm planting trees -

Oh hallelujah, nature is more beautiful!

- so goes the song.

Today we hosted a konbit, or work day, to plant trees on a nearby mountaintop called Three Ravines. Mountaintop-planting is one of MCC Dezam's priorities for the year, and this konbit also gave our 4th- and 5th-grade "Environmental Agents" the chance to participate.

The kids marched through the center of Dezam carrying trees and singing before we hopped in big trucks and headed up the mountain:

I also think this kid in his sneakers is
adorable. He totally deserves to be line leader.

We parked the trucks and loaded up with cases of seedlings to continue upward on foot. There's no photographic documentation, but both Bryan and I carried cases Haitian-style. It's both easier and more tiring than it looks:

Most cases hold 96 trees, and we carried up about 65 of them.

Not even an official Agent, this kid was amazing:

He lives near where we parked the trucks, tagged along, and
was a tree-mendous help. (Ah, the pun was just too easy!)

A truly amazing Agent, Silmique can heft the heaviest loads without complaint:

This was him taking a break.

Several local officials and two community nursery committees helped organize the konbit:

These folks worked so quickly we could hardly get trees
in the newly-dug holes fast enough.

We headed back down the mountain for lunch:

In many community konbits, people work in exchange for a meal (the same way that North Americans are obligated to buy pizza for friends who help them move). What a beautiful valley it is, and how tree-filled it will one day be.

Mixed reviews.

Livrezon is finished! We distributed thousands of trees from 22 community nurseries in 7 work days. Phew. This morning I relaxed and slept in until 6:30am.

It was pretty interesting, actually, to have the chance to go on a condensed "tour" of the nurseries and see the committees (and communities) in action. Some committees ran the distribution like old pros, asking people to line up and calmly wait for each kind of tree. In other communities the receivers were less gracious, pressing impatiently against one another as they waited their turns - and even turning up their noses at certain species.

While on the one hand watching seedlings go out into the big wide world in the hands of people who will care for them is heartwarming, and makes the last year's work all seem worth it, there is something about the tree distributions that made both Bryan and me uncomfortable. We knew that some trees were sold and some were given away - but for some reason we thought that most of the trees were sold; in reality, the nurseries give away 90% of the trees and reserve only a few to sell. We thought that if someone pays for something, even just a nominal fee, that person is more likely to value and care for that thing, right?

As usual in Haiti, it's complicated. Since MCC has been giving away trees for most of its 25-year history, it's hard to change this strategy quickly (a former MCCer in Dezam pointed out that MCC nurseries only started selling trees within the last 5 years). The community members expect a certain number of trees, and in a way, not giving them trees is a vote of unconfidence, a gesture that would be perceived as a lack of faith in their ability to plant and care for trees. Also, if our primary goal is reforestation and not community development, it makes sense to take advantage of the thousands of volunteers willing to plant and care for trees on their own land.

Community development, however, is an overarching goal of the program. Even in the short time we've been here, I've noticed how people take pride in their work with MCC. Our teachers and nursery committee members are learning about community organizing, running small businesses, and getting students involved. As foreigners in Haiti, a country where many people have developed a mentality of dependency on foreign aid (with the accompanying expectations and attitudes of entitlement), MCC's emphasis on empowering Haitians to run this program has been its most heartening aspect. From this perspective, grand-scale distributions make us feel like just another couple of white people here to hand something out.

Last week, a few people frustrated with the number of trees they were getting (only about 25 each) told Bryan, "If MCC won't give us trees, we'll just grow our own!"

So, um. Wouldn't this be the best possible outcome, that the people living in these communities would start to improve the land on their own?

Maybe we should start to rethink the way MCC's program approaches the issue of deforestation, encouraging communities to think of our nurseries as a resource for their own endeavors.

-posted by Sharon, from Bryan's account

Confessions of a Hitherto Unknown Plasti-holic.

Well, there's nothing like hard data to destroy your self-image. Here I was, thinking that Bryan and I were doing a pretty good job of leading a plastic-free life - this might just be one of the few places in our hemisphere where it's almost harder to find packaged things than not - until I took stock of our week.

To wit, so far in June we have acquired:
- 4 toilet paper wrappers
- 3 plastic lids on cardboard packages
- 2 plastic bags (egregious. simply uncalled for.)
- 1 plastic bottle of Pepto Bismol (Haitian stomach-itis strikes again.)
- 1 soda bottle (ah, that Bryan.)
- 1 small bottle of travel shampoo (well, we stayed in a fancy hotel for our anniversary and it was just sitting there and it smelled so good.)
- 2 water bottles (also from the hotel.)
- 4 noodle wrappers
- The disposable plastic lid to our reusable plastic Culligan bottle
- 1 plastic gallon jug (although this one is technically a durable good, for buying milk.)

So, wow. It's been 9 days and I was sure we'd be 100% new-plastic-free. Piece of cake, right? Guess I learned a little something here.

Nevertheless, we renew our efforts and continue mostly undaunted...

Livrezon

Kreyol for "distribution/delivery," this is what we call the weeks of the year when all the trees our committees have been growing go out to make their way in the big world. Each nursery picks a day within these weeks to distribute, and MCC staff divides and covers each site.

This is how it works: the nursery committee estimates how many people from the community will come, and we divide up the trees among those people. Usually each person gets around 100 trees. If people want a specific species of tree or a specific quantity, they buy them. We also sell some of our trees to other NGOs that have projects nearby - this year we have a huge order to fill, so at every livrezon we separate the trees for this order and truck them away (well, in some cases after we carry them out over mountain and river).

Each livrezon starts at 5am, which mean an early day for everyone. Some nurseries are a 15-minute drive away, while others are a 30-minute drive plus a 30-minute hike and better yet, some are a 30-minute drive with a 2-hour hike which means waking up at the very unhealthy hour of 2:15am to leave the office at 2:30 to be at the trailhead by 3am to hopefully be at the nursery by 5am. Not much sleep this week.

Well, here are some photos of livrezon in a place called Chanpyon - it's about an hour hike after a 20-minute drive. Enjoy! More pictures to come.

Inside the nursery as the trees are on their way to the public.

A few ladies leaving with their new trees.

Every camera finds a ham.

Loading up buckets and baskets with seedlings.

Into the hills

Nothing says "Saturday fun" like a 5-hour roundtrip hike to see a fort built by Christopher Columbus's crewmates (or so our guide said). The hike was as gorgeous as the actual fort, and we were introduced to an enchanted village high above Dezam.

The people in this pretty place were hard hit by last year's hurricane's - some are still living in temporary A-frame shelters made of scrap metal or branches - and are especially focused on rebuilding their school. Our guide and one of the local villagers asked us if we would consider contributing to this fund, and ask our friends and families to help out as well.

Aside from my usual reluctance to throw money at a problem - it perpetuates dependency and does nothing to address unjust power structures - I felt hesitant to commit to this project. They weren't sure how much the total would be, and they don't yet have a plan for a hurricane-resistant building to replace the old one. My American fundraising mind wants that sort of data before taking on a capital campaign.

However, I recognize that I'm in a position of privilege to be able to say things like "giving money perpetuates dependency." Is helping people in a moment of outstanding need more important than proving a point? In a way, making a small donation could have been an act of solidarity. As our guide said, "If I give a gourde, and my friend gives 5, little by little we'll have enough." And despite what it can look like, it's hard to see communities in need and not reach for the instant gratification of the wallet ("I gave money. I helped.").

I know this is an issue wherever wealth and want rub elbows, but it's especially complicated in Haiti. Many people here are so used to receiving, receiving, receiving from foreigners that it's hard for them to think of themselves as capable adults who can work toward improving their own lives. From that perspective, not giving money has a larger payoff in the end.

So am I cold-hearted for not wanting to shell out cash to those who ask? Or am I wise for keeping my money off-limits? I think that what I should strive for, what I'm working toward, is finding the third way. Maybe I won't give money, but I can give advice and encouragement. Maybe I won't give a handout, but maybe I will create a small job so that the asker can earn the money.

In the end, that's what we did. We gave our guide a generous tip for his work that day, and left it up to him to decide how much should go to the school rebuilding project.

Across the ridge to the fort.

The school is temporarily holding classes in some of the fort's old rooms.

An ancient water-catchment system.

Roadside cemetery.

Passing under two huge mapou trees (or ceiba, as we learned they're
called in English and Spanish) on our way down the mountain.