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.

Take the plastic challenge.

Litter is a problem in many countries, and Haiti is no exception. There’s little waste management infrastructure in our area, and often the best you can do is sweep your trash (plastic, metal, paper, whatever) into a small pile and burn it. As you can imagine, this presents its own challenges. A better strategy here is to either recycle your own consumer byproducts (using cans and bottles as planting containers, refilling the same bag of flour in the market) or avoiding waste altogether (choosing a refillable glass soda bottle over a plastic one). I know trash management is a large and complex issue, but becoming aware of how much we participate in the problem is an important step in finding a creative solution.

We were talking about this with a few of our fellow MCCers, and decided to step it up a notch. The challenge is simple:

No new plastic for one month.

No wrappers, no bottles, no lids. No see-through windows in cardboard boxes. No plastic buttons on clothing. No new flip-flops. I don’t even know if this will be possible, but trying will at least help us become aware of how much plastic we have in our day-to-day lives.

Why plastic? Even those advertised as “biodegradable” often don’t break down for decades, making our temporary containers a rather permanent part of our environment. Anybody for a vacation to the Pacific Trash Vortex?

Since I assume you’re all already doing things like foregoing Styrofoam, recycling, and using cloth shopping bags, I invite you to participate in No-Plastic June. You can keep the plastic you already have around the house, but don't purchase any new plastic for one month.

Then tell us about it! We’ll be posting here about our attempts to be plastic-free, so please feel free to leave comments about your own challenges and successes.

May Retrospective

Wow, how the weeks fly by! Here's a little of how we've been filling our time this month:

The Great Cherry Meltdown.
Our resources in Dezam are limited even compared to those of our coworkers in Port-au-Prince, so when I learned that there were cherries in Port's local markets I felt discouraged and more than a little jealous. But lo and behold, I found this in front of our house:

And this behind our house:

And this at the MCC office:

The lesson, it turns out, is to keep my eyes open to what's happening all around me. It might just be the thing I think I'm missing.

Visitors from the North.
Hooray for:
Beth & Jason! We had a fantastic time showing them our favorite haunts, checking out the local arts scene, and cooking up a tasty cherry crumble. After receiving B&J and Bryan's parents, and hanging out in Dezam with the Steckleys last week, we can say again that we LOVE having visitors (hint hint, for those of you weighing the pros and cons of trekking to the Caribbean this year...). It's really what makes it possible for us to keep living in the Artibonite Valley. Well, that and the internet.

Taking to the seas.

Last Sunday a group of MCCers, visitors, and friends headed to a small island off the coast of our small island home for a day of snorkeling and splashing in the waves.

For photos and details, click through to Rebekah H.’s blog.

Induction into MCC's Ajan Anviwonman Program.
Well, we didn't actually become Agents, but the Environmental Education Program welcomed 30 new students (2 from each partner school) as AAs. These kids were selected by their teachers based on their enthusiasm for protecting the environment, and MCC's program plans special activities throughout the year to encourage them to pick up trash (or reduce their trash creation in general), plant trees, and spread the green word to other kids.

Changing of the Season.
Goodbye dust, hello mud:
After months of hauling water from the river for our garden, the rains have come and brought everything back to life!

We hadn't realized how much we missed the sound of rain until we started hearing it again. This means that our water worries are over (no more driving to the river to find water for our garden) but our electricity worries have begun (less sunshine means less time for our solar panel to convert rays into power).

The arrival of Bryan’s first true love.

I’ve become a bike widow again, but I don’t resent for a minute the pleasure he gets from tooling around on two wheels. We cannot thank the many hands that made its arrival possible. Danny and Courtney pulled it out of their basement and got it boxed up, Beth and Jason lugged the thing around a few airports and Frazer Mennonite paid the oversize luggage fee. We can't thank you all enough for making this happy reunion possible – THANK YOU!

You never forget how.

May 1 is a national holiday (Agriculture Day), and we decided to spend the long weekend in Port-au-Prince for some always-needed out-of-Dezam time.Our friend Ben just bought a bike a few weekends ago in St. Marc, which brings the total number of bikes at the Depps' to 2. On Friday morning Ben and I decided to go for a ride. Port is built on a hill, so everywhere is up or down and we decided to go up first to get the hard pedaling out of the way.

I hopped on the Ardis Silver Bike, which bears a sticker proudly announcing that it was handbuilt in the Ukraine. Ben was riding his new, circa-1980 Trek road bike. We pedaled out to the main road and start cranking up the hill. Immediately my heart started thumping and my lungs turned to fire. As I was cranking up the hill I put my head down and just thought about breathing and spinning the pedals. Maybe I was taking in too many deep breaths of exhaust, but fatigue hit me hard and I asked for a breather. Okay, not so bad, I haven't been on a bike in 9 months so what can I expect? We stand, I breathe, we continue on.

Another mile up the hill - wham-o, I start feeling nauseated. I pedal over to the side of the road where I, um, expeditiously empty the contents of my stomach onto the pavement. What a milestone: first time I've ever experience exercise-induced sickness. I got it out of my system and drank some water. I didn't feel 100% sick, just the very urgent need to throw up. (I guess I didn't look too bad, as Ben told me he wished he had his camera. Thanks.) We continue to the top of the hill in Petionville where I chicken out, deciding that it's best we turn back as I don't want to throw up again.

We tear back down the road, passing cars and buses. The feeling of speed, wind and weightlessness from the top of a bike was amazing and I remembered why I missed biking so much. So it sucked to throw up from biking (and it's only the 4th time in my life I remember throwing up at all), but well worth it. In a few weeks some friends are coming to Haiti to visit us and they agreed to bring my mountain bike with them. Now I have this crazy nervous anticipation eating away at me, first because I can't wait to ride more and second because I'm not quite sure I can handle it. Ah, let's blame it on midday heat and lungfuls of exhaust.

Bring on the hills and the heat. It's worth it.