Time to Get Involved!

As we continue to mourn the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who died in last month earthquake, many more of their brothers, sisters, parents, children, and good friends have been leaving their destroyed homes in Port au Prince to seek refuge with their family in other parts of the country – many people returning to the small city or village in the countryside where they were born. It is these people that remind us that this catastrophe was not just a natural disaster, but it was and continues to be a disaster of Agriculture. It has been the inability of the sons and daughters of Haitian farmers to find a living in Haiti’s mountains or plains that drives them to the overcrowded and poorly constructed capital. And now as these refugees return home, rural Haiti is challenged to provide for even more families than it was already struggling to sustain.

During our time here in Haiti, Meredith and I have met many people who are stepping up to this challenge. Their answers have been school garden programs, vegetable cooperatives, a youth farm, research on jatropha bio-diesel, composting toilets, and much more. It is with this sense of optimism towards creating a better and more sustainable rural livelihood that we have been working with the Nativity Village. This community of twenty families, about a half hours walk outside town, was built this past year by one of the largest charitable organizations in Haiti. Its new residents were given a house here because they had none to call there own before; however, a nice home does not help you feed your children. That is why we, Seeds of Self Reliance, have decided to partner with the Nativity Village to help them develop their agro-ecological resources in a way that will provide them with a quality livelihood for generations to come.

We believe that animals are an integral part of any agro-ecosystem. They eat food inedible to humans, create fertility for vegetable production, and most importantly provide a rich protein source that is greatly lacking in the Nativity Village. One animal that performs all of these functions magnificently is the rabbit. The rabbit needs only weeds and leaves, it creates one of the best organic fertilizers, one of the healthiest meats, and can produce upwards of 20 offspring a year! We are working with Makouti Agro Enterprise in Cap Haitian to set up 5 interested families with rabbits. The new producers will partner with us by building a structure against sun and rain, purchasing the rabbits on credit (they’ll pay them back with rabbits they produce), and providing rabbit for other families in the community to eat or raise. The Makouti technicians will be giving trainings on rabbit biology and future cage construction, as well as 4 follow up visits to make sure that this project is a sustainable success.

We are asking for your help to buy the metal cages necessary for healthy rabbit production. Each family will receive one large cage with 4 rooms that will allow them to raise one male, two females, and the offspring for meat. Each cage costs 100 US dollars, so if each of you give just 10 or 25 dollars we can reach our goal of 500 dollars, which will allow us to start this project before we leave Haiti.

Last week I biked out to the Nativity Village for a meeting to discuss how the community can finish the barbwire wire fence which will allow them to begin growing crops safe from free-range cows and goats. The fence was supposed to have been built by their large charitable organization months ago. After the barbwire is finished they will line it with a living fence of cactus, which will last as long as it is maintained. Until then the women and kids have been tilling small gardens and fencing them with piles of thorny branches - yet unfortunately the cows still break in. The president of the Village Committee, a young father named Willa, has been planting dozens of trees all around town. He protects them with small circle of metal or branches, but the goats eat them despite this. These people desperately want to be able to make a living from the land of their new home. They do not lack skills or motivation, only a little means to be able to begin.

Please help us raise the money we need to get this project started. A tax deductible donation can be mailed to Seeds of Self Reliance, 3727 RT 15
Jeffersonville, VT, 05464. Make sure to write “rabbit” on your check. Thank you so much.

Peter and Meredith

Pictures

We will try to get another post up soon but in the meantime some photos from around town here




A proud mama with her brand new baby girl Wilna, born at home with a midwife I work with, she is my age and this is her fourth child!



Peter and John at the farm in January during John's visit! We miss you Chef Juan Dulez!



Women selling firewood at the market

Life goes on

Hi everyone,

Just a few quick updates… Life keeps on plugging away after the earthquake but the affects we fear will still linger for a long time. There is an estimated 400 families now here from Port Au Prince and most of them came with nothing so there is a lot of pressure on their families here in Terrier Rouge to feed them and provide for them. This is not easy since people living here already struggle to feed their own large families. A few days ago we saw a food handout set up by the UN. There was barbwire fencing to keep people in line and there were UN officers with those shields they use during riots to keep the crowd under control. The whole process seemed very organized and calm though and I think people were thrilled to get a little support.

Some schools have started to reopen. But not all the children have returned to school yet, we hear that a lot of the parents are still nervous about sending their kids to school in a big building, for fear of another quake. We are still unsure of what this all means for the kids here from Port Au Prince, since school there will not open until March and many of these families do not necessarily plan to go back to Port Au Prince, since they have no home to go back to. The schools in Terrier Rouge can take some new students but not all. The church across the street from us has been having lots of special memorial type services in the evenings. We have enjoyed sitting up on our roof listening to the singing and drumming. The other evening we heard the singing start down the road, and hundreds of people flooded the streets carrying candles and they ended their march at the church. It really was a beautiful and powerful sight.

These last few weeks have been very busy for us both. Meredith got to work closely with a US group doing cataract surgeries and helped them with translating and even got to scrub in and watch a surgery. The clinic has been busier than ever and she continues to head out to Paulette once a week to help run the small clinic out there.

Peter has been living and breathing rabbits. He is working with a village outside of town and an organization in Cap Haitian to try set up some other families with rabbits too. We think it is a great animal for Haiti because it can eat only weeds, reproduces like a … well …a rabbit, its meat is some of the healthiest, and there is nothing sweeter than rabbit poo for the garden. Stay tuned for more rabbit updates and how you can get involved too!

We planted some roof top containers so we hope to be getting some fresh greens in the future. Peter’s garden continues to grow, all of his cilantro was sold at the market, and his tomato plants look beautiful! We got to eat some fresh green beans a little while ago. We are both looking forward to the idea of eating more vegetables! The weather continues to be hot hot hot. Everyone says this is the hottest February they can remember, lucky us. We fear that our little winter has already come and gone, it was 88 degrees the other night as we tried to go to sleep with no fan. Since the earthquake we seem to not have power as often. So we ran outside dumped a bucket of cool water over us then got right in bed and tried not to move. We may have said this before but there really is something amazing about bathing outside in the tropics in February under a blanket of starts, we will try to get a picture of our shower up on our blog so you all can picture it.

Love, Meredith and Peter