Haiti, sometimes you shine up real nice.

We lucked out and were able to spend last weekend in a pine forest about a three-hour drive from Port-au-Prince.

It was magical - a green and misty wonderland where we were able to wander the woods for hours, soaking up the beauty of it all:


We waded in streams, collecting watercress and wild mint...


We stayed in an enchanting little cabin, one of about 20 scattered throughout the woods:

Bryan spent time lounging around with Ben and his still-busted knee:

- except when they tried to get the perfect hammock shot. I do believe this is the one photo the dignified Mr. Depp couldn't take himself:

And Kurt even showed us where to find wild strawberries and raspberries!


Rave reviews. I can't believe we didn't discover this place until our last weekend in Haiti.

What a week.

This time we do not plead laziness for our lack of blogposts - au contraire, we've been super-busy over the past seven days.

Last Friday my brother Danny came to visit for a long weekend. A whirlwind tour of our life in Haiti ensued, complete with a hike up the river to our favorite canyon ever.

In fact, Danny ranked this as a highlight of the trip (that, and a cookout in which we introduced him to most of the rest of the MCC crew). Lowlight: buying groceries in the Dezam market (too hot, too many people).

He left Monday, and we returned to Dezam on Wednesday for the weekly team meeting and Fritzner's wedding (!).

Only in Haiti is a wedding held on a Thursday morning at 8am...in the spruced-up MCC office.


Our entire team was dressed to the nines, Nahomie (left) and Denise especially. Even Jides, MCC's helper-kid, spiffed up for the occasion.


Frantzo (right) was the best man, and Fritzner and Frantzo looked great in their matching new suits.


They tried to keep it a small affair (so small, in fact, that Bryan and I were nearly not invited because we're in Port!), but people came in droves anyway.


After the ceremony the crowd filled four vehicles and drove up the mountain to the home of the bride's family. They were worried about having enough food for everyone, although the spread was impressive:

Felisitasyon, Fritzner ak Melita!

On our way back to the city yesterday afternoon, Ben and Bryan stopped at a national landmark for a little bike-video action.

To our entrance contribution we added an hour of entertainment for the gaggle of boys who came along.

I don't know if riding through an amazing waterfall has been a dream of Bryan's, but if so, check. Dream come true.

Haitian road trip

Last weekend, we hit the ole dusty trail with the trusty MCC truck to visit Bois-de-Laurence (Bwadlorens, for the Creole spellers among us), where MCC has funded a spring-capping project for the last several years. Our guesthouseguest, Leah, spent three years there as an MCC kid with her family and was eager to check out her old digs.

Bwadlorens is a long, arduous drive away, but Bryan and I agreed to go for two reasons:
1) It's always easier and more pleasant to travel in Haiti with someone who has connections.
2) As I've said, never say no to a change of scenery. Or a little adventure.

Bwadlorens is in the Central Plateau district in the northeast corner of the country, only a 2-hour hike from the Dominican border.

Did I mention it's in the middle of nowhere? It's easy for me to complain about Dezam being in the middle of nowhere, but I was amazed at our comparative population density. We actually managed to go whole minutes at a time without seeing anyone on this road.

We passed Lake Peligre, a construction byproduct of a the Peligre Dam/ hydroelectricity generator. It's gorgeous if you don't think of all the people displaced by its formation. Paul Farmer's hospital, Zanmi Lasante, was created partially to address the health care needs of this population.


Ah, electricity! I felt like a local yokel taking this picture, but power lines are not something you see in Dezam:


...along with tree-covered hillsides, although Dezam is getting there:


Leah made arrangements for us to stay with this lovely family. Niniz was one of Leah's childcare providers as a kid, and had the photo album to prove it.

Despite the fact that we were only in Bwadlorens for about 9 hours of daylight, we packed in conversations, walks, and visits.

(Did you notice that Bryan s wearing long sleeves in this picture? The
temperature was actually below 80 degrees!)

Bryan's knee also had a great time getting to know folks.

We also got to check out various embroidered projects, as this cottage industry can be found in nearly every household there.

After giving us a pretty rockin' garden tour (complete with samples of cocao, coconut, cherry tomatoes, and some kind of wild grain to take home with us), Niniz's sons showed us how to press juice from raw sugar cane.

Did I mention it was in the middle of nowhere?

All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. Be sure to click through to Leah's blog for more photos and details of the trip.

Fete Saut D'eau/Fet Sodo

Last Sunday, after a yummy birthday breakfast for Bryan (strawberry preserves! baked oatmeal!), we headed to the waterfall down the road for the annual week-long Vodou/Catholic festival. Yes, that's right: Vodou and Catholic. The Catholics celebrate the Vierge-Miracle, or the appearance of the Virgin Mary in a palm tree near the waterfall in 1847, while the Vodouisants come to pray to Erzulie, the goddess of love (often considered the Vodou equivalent of the Virgin Mary). Handily enough, both festivals run from July 7-16.

The waterfall itself is gorgeous enough to be a draw any time of year. We wore bathing suits and hiked up to stand under the rushing water, laughing with the dozens of people around us. It was the first time in a long time I've been around more than two ethnic groups (i.e., Haitians and me), since Sunday seemed to be some sort of UN/MINUSTAH visiting time.

Yesterday afternoon a few members of our team decided they wanted to check out the festival (for the first time ever, a fact I find somewhat astonishing considering that Dezam is pretty close to Sodo). Since the main part of the festival was supposed to be happening last night through this morning, we tagged along to see what we could see. What a difference a few days make! The waterfall was so loaded with people we didn't even attempt to bathe.

Along the road headed up to the entrance point, spur-of-the-moment rara bands sang and danced.

People stopped to light candles and leave offerings - rum, herbs, and plastic rosaries - at various places along the road.

We couldn't figure out what this carcass in the tree was - goat, perhaps?

Things were pretty similar last year, apparently, although it seems like the road has really improved since 2001 - now you can actually drive nearly all the way to the entrance point if there's space for a vehicle to pass.

I was glad we went yesterday for the sake of the experience, but overall it was one of the worst days we've had in Haiti. People were wildly aggressive: making fun of the blan, throwing things, telling us we weren't allowed there. I was cursed at more times yesterday than I ever have been in my life. I think our Haitian teammates were pretty surprised at the things people were yelling - and fortunately they went out of their way to look out for us.

Since this sort of unofficially kicks off the summer festival season in Haiti, many participants will head from Sodo to Limonad to Veret and onward. For me, though, this is the end of the party line.

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

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.