It's a regular Food Week around here.

Tchaka!

I've been in Haiti for almost two years, but last week was the first time I ever had my new favorite Haitian food. Serve with a warm sourdough loaf, and wait for the rave reviews to pour in.

A note: this recipe might be for more advanced cooks, since everything is proportional (i.e., I was given no measurements) and therefore everything is to taste.

Haitian Tchaka
Prep time: maybe an hour?
Serves: flexible, but if there are only two of you you're likely to have leftovers.

Pressure cook red, butter, and black beans (choose two) until soft.

In a separate pot, boil chopped pumpkin, scallions/onions, cloves, and garlic together until pumpkin is soft. Puree.

Return spicy pumpkin puree to pot, and add chopped green peppers, carrots, potatoes, and corn* (it seems like you could really add any vegetables you have around). Cook until vegetables are soft.

Add cooked beans and salt and pepper. Let simmer until flavors are blended. Serve hot.

*Our cooks here use dried corn, which I would identify as popcorn. If you choose this route, add the corn to the beans and pressure cook until soft.

Enjoy!

The goods.

Okay, just to counterbalance my recent criticisms about being a foreigner here, following is a list of things I especially like about Haiti:

The trees. The big ceiba/mapou trees, mangoes, avocados, citrus, neem...so many really interesting trees. Here's to more in the future!

Beaches. I've enjoyed some very nice tropical paradises here in Haiti.

Seau Kontrere. The river/ravine in Desarmes. One of the coolest places I've ever been - and I think it's almost completely void of tourists. Except MCCers.

Mountain biking in Haiti. I've been on some really fun sections of singletrack here.

There are more. I do have a tender spot for Haiti, but I just want to be sure the tender spot does not rely upon the poverty of the country for me to enjoy it.

Yumness you don't want to miss.

Last weekend we were invited up to MCC's guesthouse in Kenscoff (yes, our former home) for a tres delicious breakfast of homemade eggs benedict, garnished with edible flowers.


Pancha, Alexis, and Rachel did the heavy lifting in the kitchen, making irresistible piles of toasted croissants, sliced avocado and tomato, poached eggs, and homemade hollandaise sauce:


Bryan, Margot, Joel, and I were the most enthusiastic fan club ever:


Especially Margot*:

* although she would not, could not be convinced to taste even the tiniest nibble of nasturtium.

Since there's always a weekend a-comin', I have re-posted the recipe here for your brunching pleasure. The original can be found at Joel & Rachel's blog.

Egg Benedict with Yogurt Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

1 cup plain yogurt

3 egg yolks

Juice of 2 key limes (or 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

Ground pepper

Other ingredients

Poached eggs

Toasted bread (English muffins, croissants, Turkish bread, etc.)

A BUNCH of cooked bacon [I left this in as part of the original recipe, but avocado & tomato are much better...]

Beat together the egg yolks, yogurt, lemon/lime juice in a double boiler. Cook for about 15 minutes until sauce thickens. Keep stirring - it might become thinner then thicker, but just stay with it.

Remove from heat and add the salt, pepper and mustard and stir it in.

During all this I would start cooking the bacon or slicing the veggies. Then poach the eggs and the toast the bread.

Serve like this: Place a piece of toasted bread on bottom, then add veggies (you could also use wilted spinach or a favourite roasted veggie), then the poached egg, then pour the warm hollandaise sauce over everything. Enjoy!

Meet Mother Necessity: A blogpost in five acts.

I promise this is going somewhere, so stick with me...

Part One
Here in Haiti, everyone has to get by with very little. One of the most endearing things about Haitians is the way they can find solutions for almost any problem. A few examples:

1. A car key snaps in two in the door. After fishing the key from the door and realizing that the car can't start with the key in this condition, a Haitian finds a scrap piece of aluminum and a file and starts making a copy by hand. The improvised key works and everyone got home safe and sound.

2. A car gets a flat tire. The passengers realize there is no lug wrench and flag down other cars. One stops and lets them borrow a lug wrench, but unfortunately all four sizes on the lug wrench are too large. Someone finds a large washer and a rock in the dirt and shapes the washer around the lug nut. The lug wrench is pressed on, and after a few tries the nuts are freed and the tire is changed.


The list goes on and on. I love this kind of stuff, and really think it's cool and amazing.

Part Two
Over the last few months, a lot of MCC Haiti alumni have been coming to help with post-earthquake-related activities. They reminisce of their time here, and the question always comes up: Do they miss Haiti?

The most common response I've heard: they miss the daily adventure. Life in Haiti is always so interesting - the examples above happen fairly regularly and most people living here have these stories to tell and retell with great enthusiasm.

Part Three
Often foreigners see the countryside as the "real" Haiti.

- When the paved road ends and the dirt road begins, I hear "Now I'm in Haiti!"

- When we are indoors and the lights go out: "Yup, this is Haiti!"


- When you see a huge truck broken down and the driver has the entire transmission laid out in front of him on the side of the road, a smile comes to our faces: "Now this is Haiti."

- When we watch the tire repairman beat a tire from a rim with an old axle and patch a tube with a few scraps of metal and an old piston into which he pours a flammable liquid and lights it and few minutes later your tube is patched - MAGIC! Haiti is amazing!

My only problem with all of this is that I wonder: do we like Haiti for these reasons only? If Haiti is to develop and tire repairmen become obsolete along with the potholed roads, will foreigners still be interested in the "culture"? Or is the culture so entwined with poverty that the eradication of poverty is the end of Haitian culture? No longer will people carve keys out of scrap aluminum, they will simply go to ACE Hardware down the street and have a copy made.

Part Four
Why are we as foreigners here? If adventure is part of it, isn't it just a little selfish that we are here to enjoy all of the Haitian inventiveness that is in reality a result of necessity (i.e.,poverty)?

And why are we so boring? Why is it that life in North America is so boring we need to come to Haiti to have an adventure?

Adventure is around every corner in the U.S. Buy an old car and when it breaks down, fix it yourself. Instant adventure. Ride a bike to work and I'll guarantee you will almost die at some point.

Instant adventure. Go camping and don't bring a tent - adventure.


Go for a walk in a new neighborhood. Adventure. Is this so hard?

I guess I am just questioning my reasons for being here. Sure, some good is being done, but is that enough?

Part Five
All the sustainable development theory we have learned over the years has pointed squarely at the need to change systems, trade policies, and politics. But to really change Haiti, advocacy is still seen as blah by many North Americans: "Advocacy? Not interested. But if you need something done, like building an orphanage or wiring a church or sending old clothes to Haiti, sign me up."

Theses things are all tangible but also finite. Very finite. I feel like I've seen too many schools/orphanages/churches started by a Generous Gift from a church in North America only to be abandoned a few months after the sponsoring church ends its support (or as we like to say, "hands off the project to local leadership").

Was that real development? No. Am I critical of people that have great ideas and some money but very little skill in planning for the future, for sustainable development? Yes I am.

A friend who visited a few weeks ago pointed out that Haiti is the place Americans come to make them feel grateful for what they have. Pay a couple thousand dollars for a missions trip to Haiti and you return home thankful.

As development tourists, we come, have an adventure, and leave, rich with "souvenirs": these stories of the resourcefulness of Haitians. And apparently we wouldn't want it any other way.

These things always happen in twos.

Sharon has a theory that all bad things happen in pairs. This means that whenever something bad happens (speeding tickets, oversleeping) she's immediately ready for the same thing to happen again in the near future.

So yesterday evening I headed out on the motorcycle. I saw another moto coming, but I saw that I had plenty of time to pull into the opposite lane. As I pulled out, he decided not to continue going straight but instead turned to avoid me. Unfortunately, and weirdly, he veered into my lane...and crashed right into me.

Well, his moto was torn up a bit, and I heard plastic bits hitting the ground and saw a brake line come off his front wheel. My moto and I were knocked over. I stood up and looked it over, and all was fine. A small group of people were ridiculing the other driver for driving into me on my side of the road. Since the only advice I've received about getting into accidents in Haiti is to get away from the scene as quickly as possible, I took the opportunity to start my moto and get out of there before the gathering crowd changed their minds. I hope the other driver is able to fix his bike without too much trouble.

This morning while in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the motorcycle with Sharon, I had to stop behind a tap-tap. These are the small pickup trucks that serve as public transport here, and suddenly the driver decided to reverse...what?...into us. We yelled for him to stop, which he fortunately did. But who reverses in traffic (#1), and if you do embark on such folly, why wouldn't you look to see if there is a car or motorcycle behind you (#2)?

Anyhow, this cycle of misfortune has begun and ended fairly quickly. I'm happy neither I nor Sharon were hurt, but it adds a new level of fear to the daily commute when I can't trust other drivers to keep their eyes open and stay in their own lanes.

Hey, solutions!

Grassroots International has added an updated preface to a 1997 report on Haiti's situation entitled "Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy." I haven't been able to download the original report yet (thank you, internet - if anyone can download this and email it to me, I'd appreciate it), but the summary is worth reading partially because it briefly outlines many of the issues facing Haiti today AND because Camille Chalmers of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (with the Creole acronym PAPDA), one of MCC Haiti's unofficial partners, actually proposes solutions to problems (!).

From the preface:
"What would a holistic rehabilitation and development plan of this nature require? Much more than money! It would require a reversal of policies which are at their heart counter to healthy, sustainable development. It would mean a stop to attempts to pry Haiti's economy open to imports; it would mean an end to balancing Haiti's budget by cutting health and education spending; it would mean implementing policies for environmentally-friendly food sovereignty so that Haitians can eat the food they grow in fields that hold the soil; it would mean a massive virtuous circle of support for both the governmental and non-governmental sectors so that they can grow strong together."

Biking in Haiti

Ben and I have been mountain biking the past few weekends and this is the result.