Last Day in the Batey

we wanted everyone to see we are alive and well, this is our latrine, aka bathroom, a little challenging at times, it reminds me how lucky we are to have indoor bathrooms and running water at home, and no cockroaches!

in our backyard in Batey Libertad, our last night before Haiti!

Are time here in the DR has come to an end, for now, and we are looking forward to heading to Haiti tomorrow. If anyone needs to get in touch with us here is our Haitian phone number 590 3481 3811

We are going to take a few days to get settled in and hopefully Meredith will start clinic work on Thursday. Peter will most likely start up gardening and his composting project this week as well. It takes time though to get projects started and to see what the different obstacles will be.

We are looking forward to a visit from Kimball and the Vermont Haiti Project group in November!! Once we are settled and find out where the internet is located we hopefully will be able to do a nice long post with details of our daily schedule and what not.

Today was a bit cooler,high 80s as opposed to high 90s, a real treat for us! We are thinking of everyone at home as it is probably getting darker and colder there! Happy halloween, eat some candy for us!

love, meredith and pierre

our home and neighbors in Batey Libertad, DR

Batay Libertad, Tuesday, 10/20

So we've finally settled down a bit. We arrived in Batay Libertad last Friday, just the two of us now, after a very nice relaxing day and night at the beach in Cabarette with John. Over the weekend we got settled into the house we are sharing with a fulbright scholar who is doing research here, and relaxing a bit so Peter can get over a head cold he got.
Yesterday Peter started working on a compost project in the Batay, kind of a dry run for the project we hope to do in Haiti. And Meredith has begun her domestic training, learning how to cook, clean, fetch water, shuck Congo beans - she is turning into quite the Haitian housewife. Thid provides a great opportunity to work on langauge since it is the only way to spend time with the women here, from who she wants to practice her Creole, because they are always working.

We have been cooking some, using the local ingredients, we eat about 2 avocados a day, plantains almost every night, and of course rice and beans for lunch. We eat a big midday meal with a family in the Batey, so we are not spending the whole day in the kitchen! There has been a short supply of water lately so we have been going to the river to get water for bathing and dishes. This morning the water was finally turned back on so Meredith fetched plenty of water at the local well site. Yesterday after a long hot day we went to another river to take a bath/rinse off with some friends we have met here in the Batey. It was a beautiful walk through the rice fields, and bannana plants line the road and walkway, quite the beautful picture.

There was a soccer match on Sunday, and Batey Liberetad had a huge win, there was drumming and quite the celebration to follow, it was neat to be apart of that. It has been interesting adjusting to the lifestyle and culture here, there is so much to learn every moment! It has felt good to be in one place for a while and get to know the local community.

Our plan is to spend another week and a half here, working on our language skills and cultural compitence, and then head for Haiti on November 1st. Keep posted, lots of love,sending warm air to VT!

First Week

Hello Everyone,
It has been an excellent and busy week here as Meredith and I are setting up are stay in the DR and Haiti with our invaluable friend and adviser John Hayden.
Its Monday afternoon and we are writing from Puerto Plata in Northern, D.R. We arrived last Wednesday into Santiago and the next morning took a bus to the border of Haiti, where we were picked up by our friends in Terrier Rouge (TR). On the way to TR we stopped at the Ministry of Agriculture for the NE zone in Haiti and was introduced to the director and other staff there. We then spent a lovely evening, night, and morning in TR, our future home. We toured the cooperative farm of IDDH (the organisation that Peter will be working with) and two clinics in town, with who we are currently trying to arrange for Meredith to work with (we need authorization from the ministry of health).
We then traveled to Cap Haitian in the NW to attempt to make contact with an NGO developing composting toilet technology, we couldn´t find them but, we did buy a phone so we should be able to talk to you all while in Haiti. The next day we traveled back to the D.R. and have spent one night each in Batay Libertad near Santiago, and Batay Siman near Puerto Plata. We will likely spend most of our next two or three weeks in Batay Libertad, but will visit Batay Siman at least once more. Stayed tuned for more news, and hopefully some commentary. Lots of Love to all of you, Miss you all lots,

Peter and Meredith