We have been back on the Island of Hispaniola for the last two and a half weeks and we’ll try to update you on what we have been up to.
We flew down to Santo Domingo, the capital of the DR with our two friends Maggie Donin and John Smith, who are going to be volunteering in the DR through Seeds of Self Reliance. They will be working on different gardening projects all across the North Coast. We spent 10 days there with them to get them set up.
We got to Haiti last Friday. Saturday morning we loaded up with the Cholera campaign group and headed up the mountain to Perche. This small town neighbors an area that has been hit hard by Cholera, a river runs through this area which has been identified to be contaminated, so this area is a target for prevention. We found that most people get their water from the river so educating about treating the water and hand hygiene is critical. Most people in this area are already aware of the Cholera and know what needs to be done but this was an opportunity to reinforce and provide resources by going house to house and sitting and talking with the family members. This campaign was started by Father Bruno who runs the school where we are currently staying, he has put together an amazing campaign to prevent Cholera in this area and because of his efforts we are happy to report few cases of Cholera here.
So about this trip up to Perche... We loaded 56 people in the back of a flat bed truck that has a metal bar on top that everyone holds on to. We lumbered up a bumpy dirt road with everyone hooting and hollering like monkeys the whole time. We normally travel by tap taps here which are trucks with benches in the back, normally 20 people or so ride in the back of these trucks, but 56 people yelling to duck from the trees that brushed our faces and hands was a whole different experience. It was like a horrifying amusement ride, not able to see where we were going and just hanging on for dear life, we have never been so relieved when we finally arrived home at 6pm everyone in the truck chanting in unison “A ba kolera, viv lasante” (down with cholera, live health)!
Since then we have jumped right in to our projects down here. It has been great to hit the ground running, having more creole under our belts and already having meaningful relationships developed it has been so different arriving down here compared to last year. Our first month last year was about figuring out how to live down here, now we can just pick up where we left off.
Peter has already started working with the directors of Jardin Florence, the youth gardening club, on how to start keeping chickens at the garden. He is also working with his friends at the Nativity Village who are still raising rabbits. He is most excited about trying to grow black soldier fly larvae in rabbit manure or other organic matter to supplement chicken feed.
Meredith has been busy as the same clinic she worked at last year, Esperance et Vie. This will be more of her focus this trip. She has been translating and working with an American doctor who is down here for the week so she has been in the clinic each day since we arrived seeing a diverse variety of patients, from lacerations to malaria.
We have also started helping in an english class once a week for some of the teachers at the local Baptist High School. It was a pretty fun experience to see them converse and practice sentencing, so excited and eager to learn, the students have so much passion to learn english!
The return of Baby doc has not brought too much fuss to the north and things remain calm despite the Cholrea and the uncertain future of the government. The feeling of walking down the street and giving hugs and handshakes to friends here has been wonderful, it feels great to be back in our Haiti. We were at a church service last night and the singing and drumming was bursting through the seams of the room- it was a truly moving experience hearing the powerful voices in harmony with the steady drum.
N’ap Kenbe
M ak P
