Bonjou Ayiti

2011-03-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

Haiti is a country that has deep beliefs in magic and voodoo. A lot of the time in the clinic these beliefs clash with western medicine. At times I find myself very frustrated and I just want to yell, no that is not true! Today though I have a new appreciation for magic. When you are faced with the numbing loss of a loved one for no apparent reason and you have no knowledge what actually caused this person to die, why not believe it was the work of dark magic? Tonight we visited the home of young Rodlyn, a sweet little boy that passed away this afternoon. He has been a long time patient at the clinic and I have gotten to know this quirky little fellow quite well. He has been sick on and off for quite some time, but he recently came down with bad stomach pain resulting in a swollen abdomen, swollen feet and vomiting. He went to a hospital and they said that someone had put a curse on him and he was going to die... After suffering all night his grandmother brought him to the clinic and he was already in bad shape, he did not make it through the day. It is so hard to witness this loss which seems to happen here all the time. But life goes on...(sorry for the morbid story but that is what is on our minds right now)

We spent two incredible weeks down in the south west of Haiti. We had a few nights up in the mountains in a town called Kazal (where we met up with Kimball) with our friends Cissy and Fenel and their beautiful healthy boy named Christopher. We then headed to Port au Prince for a bit then up to the high mountains of Douchity. Kathryn, Donna and two other UVM students joined us at this point for the next week. While in Port au Prince we spent a day at the school VHP sponsors and spent some quality time singing with the kids trading some American songs for Haitian songs, I think Peter has a future as an elementary choir teacher. After just a few days in PAP we were feeling ready to get to the mountains and out of the chaos.

We really enjoyed being up in the mountains. A real change from Terrier Rouge, it rains there every afternoon and actually gets quite cold at night! We spent sometime working on a garden and helping Despagne plan his future technical school. This is a project that Peter and I are especially excited about. This is a real dream of Despagne’s and Vermont Haiti Project is assisting him in getting his dream off the ground, he will run and operate the school but VHP is trying to help raise some funds. Peter and I see this as a future place to bring people to explore and appreciate all the beauty the culture, people and land that Haiti has to offer. Peter and Fenel spent nine hours hiking in the mountains one day with Pierrevy, Despagne’s nephew, who is trying to start exporting the coffee he and many others are growing. When they got back to town that evening they (Peter and Fenel) could barely walk their legs were so tired. One of the highlights from Douchity was that we were their during carnival so there was a band that played music during the night and all day long. They were all wearing red and blue and playing the drums and other homemade instruments marching around town chanting,singing and dancing- it is hard not to dance since the music truly enters your soul.

After Douchity we finally got to the ocean for a quick swim before returning to the dusty polluted city of Port Au Prince. We have been back in TR now for a week and it feels good to be back home. Things here keep marching along. We both have some work here we want to finish before we leave for an unknown amount of time. Peter is working with friends building an arborloo (movable shallow pit toilet where, after its full and moved, you can plant a tree). Meredith is still working on conducting a survey on family planning for the clinic. Mostly though we will try to remember to spend our next two weeks doing what we love most here. Which is, talking with people in the street, telling jokes, and experiencing a life, its good times and bad, that is still so different to us. The “work” that we do is at best an excuse for these interactions, and we are grateful for it.

The run-off election is held Sunday and former President Aristide returned from exile this morning. Let us all pray that everything stays calm.

Recent Pictures

2011-02-25T01:54:00.000-08:00

Teaching about flower parts

Big tree by the river

Driving out to IDDH Farm

IDDH natural farm-made insecticide experiment

SoSR retreat in Terye Wouj

2011-02-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

We have had another busy past few weeks. Our most exicting news is that we just had a great visit from John Hayden and an awesome group of Vermonters! Maggie Donin & John Smith came over from the DR with John Hayden as well as two teachers from Cambridge Elementary School Mary Fiedler and Michel Piché. We spent the past 4 days with them showing them the various agriculture projects here in Terrier Rouge. We spent two awesome days in the school doing some hands on science learning with the group of students who are also involved with the pen pal program that was set up last year. It was very cool to be apart of the kids getting their hands dirty with art projects and a plant experiment. These kids are used to sitting and repeating as a form of learning so the goal was to expose them to a more hands on and critical thinking approach. All parties seemed to enjoy the experience, espsicially Mary, it was her first time in Haiti and she is so exicted to bring back photos and stories to her students in Cambridge.

We also spent a couple afternoons working along side the kids at Jardin Florans- which is always a fun time. In Haiti there always seems to be some set backs, a few chickens died and some gas was stolen, but these kids and especially the director of the program, Onel, truly never get discouraged. We had a nice visit with the GAFAT group who makes the jams and jellies, everyone got to bring some home... hopefully they will remain intact for the plane ride. Having everyone here was a real boost for Pete and I, it was so nice getting to talk and reflect on our time here with our fellow Seeds of Self Reliance Volunteers across the border, we are missing them all already!

Other happy news- my friend here in Haiti (also named Maggie) who was on bed rest ( she was having some higg blood pressures with really bad swelling) delivered a healthy boy at home Sunday at 4am. I was so happy to hear that all went well and I got to check up on mom and baby at their home on Monday morning. It was such a relief that they all are well after having my friend Clesia loose her baby last year. Also on the health care front we have started to do pap smears at the clinic and launched the program last week, we are the only clinic other than in the city of Cap Haitian, in Northern Haiti that is doing this.

We leave for Port Au Prince on Friday- we are both looking forward to seeing our Vermont Haiti Project family and to have a little break from our routine here in TR and to see a different part of Haiti for a while. We will be spending a few nights up in Kazal with Fenel and Kimball and then Donna will be joining us in Port au Prince. Then we are off to the mountains of Douchity to work on collaborating with a VHP project and hopefully working on getting a garden going and composting toilet, Kathryn (Meredith’s) sister will be joining us for that adventure! We will write again when we are back home in Terrier Rouge.

Fun things to note we went to a Baptism last Saturday and Meredith had a spaghetti and carrot homemade popsicle at the clinic today, only in Haiti!

Grapefruit jam, midwives & a funeral

2011-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

It seems like the weeks have been flying by and it is difficult to get around to posting a blog, but here is my attempt to update you all with what we have been up to.

I (Meredith) recently had the opportunity to visit the organisation Midwives for Haiti in Hinche with a group of midwives that came to work in the clinic from Georgia. This was quite the trip because from TR to get to Hinche you have to fly to Port au Prince then take a 4 hour drive into the mountains arriving in the Central Plateau where Hinche is located. The locals will say Hinche is 2 hours form PAP, but not true at all. It was really interesting visiting this program and seeing the great work they are doing with educating women who are already birth attendants to become certified midwives. They go through a year long program and are then able to work in hospitals. Esperance et Vie is in the process of developing a women’s health center and I have been lucky to be apart of that planning process, visiting MFH gave us an opportunity to see what their program was like. There are two Haitian physicians who are the true motivators behind the development of the women’s health center, they already come out to TR once a week and volunteer their time seeing ob/gyn patients. They feel their is a real need in this area to develop a
“one of a kind” center that offers consistent quality care. They ultimately want to turn it into a birthing center but we are starting with pap smears and family planning. My plan for the next few weeks is to develop a survey with these physician to do in the community to help organize and focus the development of this project. Hopefully by next week I will start going door to door and begin this process!

I really enjoyed having the group of midwives here, it was great collaborating and learning from my future colleagues. We saw lots of ob/gyn issues as well as the regular skin, GI, fevers and all the tropical illness jazz. My favorite part of their trip was the midwifery seminar that we put together. We had a two day seminar with the home birth midwives from the community. Most of these men and women I knew from last year so it was a great way to give back to the community of midwives. These midwives do have some training but it was great to go over things like positioning during labor, shoulder dystocia, breech delivery and review the different reasons to transport to the hospital. They have a lot of experience and knowledge already but it was great to review and strengthen their existing skills.

Last week we had a small group here with a physical therapist and x-ray tech. We got an x-ray machine donated and the tech was so amazing she basically learned how to do the film processing and we went from having this machine in the closet to taking, processing and casting fractures in 2 days! We had an elbow fracture, wrist sprain and pelvic fracture all in 3 days. I worked along side the PT translating so I also got to see some interesting cases, we also had our first case of sickle cell anemia. The clinic seems to be getting busier and busier each day and I am leaning something new all the time! I have also been busy with home visits, following another pregnant woman who is bordering on pre-ecclapsia her BP remains stable on bed rest for now.

Peter, who will from now on be referring to himself in the 1st person, has also been busy. Lately I have been spending ever afternoon at Jaden Florence, our youth community garden. We have started up the program with about 15 middle and high school aged students who will each have their own garden plot to manage. We have all been working together after school to form our nursery beds and seed vegetables that we can transplant into the main garden once we get some rain. We have also finished building our chicken coop and just bought three hens and a rooster. The chickens will provide fertility and also (hopefully) help to support the program financially. We also repaired an old cement water basin that we are going to use to make worm compost. In the Nativity Village the rabbits are starting to take off. We’ve had three does give birth in the last week, with 8,7, and 3 babies respectfully.

One other group I work with here in a women’s group called GAFAT whose main activity is transforming local fruit into jams, jellies, liqours, and were hoping to keep experimenting on solar dehydrating. We’ve been working on a business plan together and we gave them a micro loan so they could produce a few cases of several products, which will allow us to do some local market research. This has been an enjoyable project to work on because of course we need to be taste-testing the product. So far we’ve had grapefruit jam, orange marmalade, candied peanuts, and I know they’ve also made passion fruit and pineapple jam which I’ll try to get my hands on soon.

Other interesting things to note- we had another Cholera campaign up in the mountains this past Sunday. That really is Meredith’s favorite type of nursing here, having the time to sit down with a family and do prevention work is so important and rewarding too. Going up in the mountains is a whole other world compared to TR. There are children everywhere! It is getting us excited for our trip to the southern mountain village of Douchity in March... more on that later.

On a sadder note we attended our first Haitian funeral this past weekend. It was the brother of the pharmacist from the clinic and he was also a member of the group Peter works with IDDH. We had to borrow the appropriate attire from friends since I ( back to Meredith typing now) did not have a black skirt and Peter needed a tie. The affair started at the families house where we paid our respects then everyone walked to the church. This was a very well liked and respected individual and the church was packed, we stood in the back for the 2.5 hour ceremony. The music was incredible and there was incredible tropical plant and flower arrangements everywhere. I know people talk all the time about the resilience of Haitians, their determination to endure and prosper and their incredible ability to be so hopeful and spirited. Being at this funeral just reaffirmed that cliche. Here was this 50 year old man that died on his way being transferred to Port Au Prince because he was having trouble urinating, the first hospital he was seen at was unable to give him any answers so he was being transferred and died in the car. He started feeling sick in December and died January 25th. His family still does not know why he died and his wife is left behind with no children and no parents or siblings, all of who have passed away (including their daughter). The health system has failed this poor man and his family, but he is only one of the many many out there continually enduring this injustice. And here all these Haitians sat and stood singing and crying for this tragic loss of life, enduring the heat and discomfort of the packed church. As people flooded the streets after the funeral to walk to the cemetery for the burial the road was shut down and all you could see was a sea of white and black. The inequality that exists in our world is truly astounding- let us never settle for this inequality.

Thanks for listening,

M and P

Aba Kolera, Viv Lasante

2011-01-22T17:45:00.001-08:00

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

2010-11-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

kids in the Nativity Village

this is how we travel

little trouble makers

A new partnership is formed with the farmers of Jagua Clara

new rabbits!

the composting project Peter was working on has continued to progress independently!

happy to see old friends

John and Ramon under a cocoa tree

more photos to come...

2010-11-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

kids in Batay Saman

In Hagua Clara

Tomas is coming... in the garden at the IDDH farm in Terrier Rouge

return to Haiti and the DR

2010-11-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hi Friends,

We just returned from a whirlwind tour of current and prospective Seeds of Self Reliance projects in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. This was supposed to be a longer trip but was cut short by Tropical Storm/Hurricane Tomas, hence the whirlwind. Accompanying us was our friend and colleague, the SoSR director, John Hayden.

We arrived in Santiago, D.R. last Thursday afternoon and spent the night at our usual, el Hotel Colonial. Friday morning we were off to Batay Libertad, a mostly Haitian community in the agricultural Cibao Valley, where we spent two weeks last October. Batay Libertad was the original SoSR community garden in the D.R. It was great to see our friends and many more familiar faces, especially our young friend Cok, who during our stay in the Batay last year left to live with his Grandmother in Port au Prince, and we had heard no news of him since the earthquake. The garden here, which is 4 years old and made up of 14 family plots, looks more productive every time we visit it. The gardeners here grow staple crops: sweet potatoes, congo bean, corn, and cassava to supplement their families’ diets. Papito, a community leader, oversees an area of plantains which is irrigated from the creek which used to be choked with garbage but is now lush with rice almost ready to be harvested.

In the Batay we met up with two new friends who we would be traveling with for the next couple days ... Mercedes is a Dominican American from Mass. who runs the non-profit Emancipation Project in Santo Domingo, which works with poor schools to help lift Dominican children out of poverty, and Kenyatta is an entrepreneur from New York who has adapted a pre-colombian Dominican rum drink made with the bark and roots of native forest plants to make a vitality tea, “Palo Mama Juana”, which he is now selling in NY. Kenyatta is looking to collaborate with SoSR on a project to give back to the country where he developed the recipe and buys his ingredients, and our imported local guide Mercedes had an idea of a place to start. We headed north and up into the mountains above Joba Ariba, which overlook the Atlantic ocean, where Mercedes’ Tio (uncle) Antonio and countless cousins live. Tio Tony is an artist and restores art for a living, and so he is looking for something to do with two beautiful tracts of edible diverse forest, because he is not interested in farming it and his niece, Mercedes, has persuaded him not to cut it down to graze cattle. We met with a group of local campesinos who are interested in farming his land. We talked with them about forming a cooperative and farming the forest without cutting it down. We are now in the process of brainstorming markets for tropical fruits and vegetables, cacao, and coffee. In the mountains here we were really treated to true Dominican hospitality - our first real immersion in the culture of the Dominican countryside. We felt engulfed in this huge family as we went on caravan trips to the river, a pig roast, and late night dancing at the local pool hall.

We came down from the mountains on Sunday and said goodbye to our new friends as they dropped us off in Montellano. Here Dominicans and Haitians alike struggle in the shadow of a sugar cane factory which has been shut down for years. Much of the work here now is in the nearby tourist towns of Sosua and Cabarete: working in (or building) hotels, restaurants, and gated ex-pat communities, braiding hair and selling trinkets on the beaches, or at worse, prostitution. Saman is a Haitian neighborhood in Montellano of about 100 families. Peraulta is a middle aged Haitian Dominican man who learned community organizing working with Papito in Batay Libertad. He saw the community garden in Libertad a few years ago and approached John about starting a garden in Saman. This smaller seven family garden is really starting to produce now, and the harvest from the plantain trees is spread around to the whole community. We were also happy to meet Joe, a volunteer from Virginia who has been living in the Saman community center for the past 3 months. He has done some excellent work installing rainwater collection systems to provide a cleaner back-up to city water. Joe also built a small chicken coop and has been keeping chickens and ducks and selling the eggs locally to raise money for a fund to helping families with medical bills or other crisis. The birds have become the coolest thing around as Joe has a flock of children to help him collect eggs everyday. After spending a night in Saman we helped Joe with his English class, and met with Caitlin who is the director of Project Esperanza. Project Esperanza works with Haitian street kids in Puerta Plata by providing them housing, school, and other support such as a soccer team. We discussed helping the boys in their residential program with urban gardening.

Monday afternoon came the activity we’d all been secretly waiting for: jumping in the warm Atlantic surf of Cabarete to bodysurf and wash the travel grime off us. We used our little repose in this tourist town to replan our trip around Tropical Storm Tomas, which was strengthening and aimed to directly hit Port au Prince the day we were supposed to arrive there. We decided we would have to leave for Haiti the next day to have time to get back to the DR and fly out ahead of Tomas. The next morning we met with Tricia, the director of the Mariposa DR Foundation, who partners with public and private schools in Caberete to improve education for local kids, but mostly is focusing on supporting girls and young women to finish school and become strong community leaders, and maybe even professional kite borders. Tricia is a powerhouse of ideas and energy and since we first met last October has gone from compost ignorant to the compost queen of Cabarete. We are so excited to work with her schools and young women to help nurture a new generation of environmentally literate leaders. Squashed under our bags and wedged between fellow bus riders we slowly then made our way to Dajabon, the border town, where we would spend the night before crossing into Haiti the next morning.

The border of the DR and Haiti is the Massacre River which flows between the towns of Dajabon and Ouanaminthe. This border has been a place of conflict at least since 1937, when the Dominican dictator Trujillo ordered the killing of 20,000 - 30,000 Haitians and and Dominicans of Haitian descent. Recently their have been riots at the border because it has been closed to trade due to the recent cholera outbreak, causing prices of food such as eggs and meat to rise in Haiti. We crossed the border Wednesday morning and took a bus to Terrier Rouge, where we lived last year. We had a very warm welcome from all of our friends and co-workers there, even though they were shocked to hear we were there for only two days. We visited the clinic where Meredith worked last year and saw it was doing well with two new employees. We also visited Jaden Florence, the youth gardening program that SoSR helped to re-start this year after it lost funding. They had just had the garden plowed and were about to start the program with 15 teenagers who would be growing vegetables to sell to local schools and markets while learning about agriculture.

We were also very happy to see lots of progress at the IDDH experimental farm. IDDH is the group of local agronomists and agriculture technicians who volunteer to run a school garden program in 5 schools. The objective of the farm is to try out new techniques and crops and to raise money for the school garden program. Since we had been they had planted a reforestation demonstration and citrus orchard using the compost Peter had made. They also continued to make compost the same way, by paying local kids to collect cow manure. They also built a small house for a guardian and his family to live in so he could provide security and weed the trees. We next visited The Nativity Village where we started the Rabbit Project. We were really encourage to see the members (Andre, Willa, and Christian) were taking really good care of the rabbits and they had no food shortages during the dry seasons. They had had some trouble breeding the rabbits so far with only one successful litter of 3, but they did not seem discouraged. We had an idea to try to raise laying hens underneath the rabbits to get twice the use from our rabbit structure, we think we may be able to feed chickens from the Black Soldier Fly larvae which grow in the rabbit manure. Developing a low grain input layer system is something we want to focus on when we return in January.

After our whirlwind tour we are feeling more excited than ever to return to Haiti and the DR this winter. The focus will be on strengthening our existing rabbit and gardening programs as well as starting to add in the chicken project. There is also a group of midwives coming to TR in January that Meredith will collaborate and work with, the clinic is in the process of planning and developing a new prenatal initiative to get women to seek consistent care during their pregnancy and Meredith hopes to focus on this during her time. We also plan to get to Port Au Prince to meet up with the Vermont Haiti Project since that portion of this trip was cut short, and our goal is to get out to Douchity (in the mountains on the southern peninsula) where there is a plan to start a vocational training school and some agriculture collaboration opportunities.

We hope to arrive in the DR after the holidays and then on to Haiti after that. We want to thank everyone who has contributed to Seeds of Self Reliance, you all are making these projects possible, thank you!! Stay tuned!
!

Back from port Au Prince

2010-04-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

We are back from Port Au Prince! We had a great trip along side Kimball and Donna and the VT Haiti Project gang. It was wonderful to connect and see our friends in the city but also a very challenging time as the situation there is still a mess. One of the biggest problems right now is that so many people are still living in tent camps and underneath tarps. These tent camps are all over and people are living like refugees in their own city. Some camps get water dropped off and some get food too, but there are still many that get little to no aid. Some do not have toilet facilities at all which creates a huge long term health concern. We got to team up with one of the Vermont Haiti Relief teams and work in a community hospital. As we entered the hospital there were people crowding around the doors to get in, but the hospital limited only 100 visits inside and 100 visits at the outside tent clinic. This hospital still had Haitian staff but was also being supported by a lot of groups coming from over seas. The biggest issue we see now in Port Au Prince is planning and action for the future. We got to start a small roof top garden and some urban composting as well. We are hoping to continue some urban agriculture efforts there and make it back to Port Au Prince later this year.

It was nice to get back to Terrier Rouge and see our friends here. These last few weeks we are trying to get of our projects organized before we head out. Meredith continues to work with her midwife friend, Madame William Pierre, they have been busy with laboring patients and post-partum check ups. We have many exciting updates about the Rabbit Project. Before going to Port Au Prince we carried our rabbits down to Jaden Florence, the youth collective garden which we are working with in Terrier Rouge which will be raising rabbit to complement their vegetable production. The Nativity Village finished their rabbit house last Wednesday and Makouti came with 5 rabbits to give the initial training. In addition to the five families who are starting the project, many other interested people attended, including our friend Onel, a monitor at Jaden Florence, and one of his most interested students, Stephanie aka Agronom LaLa. The training covered rabbit biology, management, and slaughter. We are very excited to have these projects up and running. We want to thank everyone who has donated so far, we truly appreciate your support and involvement, this work would not be possible without you!!!

We only have a few weeks left in Terrier Rouge and the computer we were using is now in Port Au Prince so we have limited internet access. We are not sure but perhaps our next post may be coming from the United States... This is an exciting yet sad thought, we have had such an incredible experience here it is challenging to put into words. We will be sad to leave but we know we will be back, we are already planning a return trip, so Haiti will always be apart of us. But with that said family and whole wheat bread with raw vegetables awaits us!

New Photos!

2010-03-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

We hope you enjoy a few photos (and silly videos at the end!)

Meredith and Nounoush at the Baptist Church clinic on Saturday morning. Shelly (right) received two stitches in the head - and didn't make a peep!

Norm's Place! Pete checking out the scene from the water taxi

Royal Caribbean... docking for the afternoon Peter and Meredith at Norm's Place!

Au Cap on the way home

Peter in the garden at Raboure

Patricia! Mere and Hill outside Esperance et Vie

Making the trek out to the Nativity Village - you can see Berry's car in the background

Meredith and Hillary talking with the community about their health, nutrition, water, etc.

More from the Nativity Village

Pete's solar dryer The famous roof!

The not so famous latrine... Hill taking her first bucket shower!

Pete and Mere making egg sandwiches Yum!!! (PS- get the Klinger's bread ready!)

Meredith making a home visit

Peter and the rabbits!

**It's not too late to make a donation to the Rabbit Project!! Tax deductible donation can be mailed to Seeds of Self Reliance, 3727 RT 15Jeffersonville, VT, 05464, and write “rabbit” on your check. Thank you so much.

A few silly videos:

Hillary visits Haiti: Brings Dunkin' Donuts!

2010-03-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

For the past 10 days we have had our friend Hillary here visiting us in Terrier Rouge and getting a little glimpse of what our life is like here. She is helping us write this post and here are some stories from the past week…

Last Saturday was her first full day in Haiti and we started the day off with doing some laundry, peeling mangoes and sipping coffee of the roof- a true Haitian morning. Peter has been working on a solar dryer in hopes to perfect the drying of mangoes here, we peeled a bunch and let them dry throughout the day. Then we were off to the clinic with Nounouche, a Haitian nurse that Meredith has started to work with on Saturdays who runs a community clinic at the Baptist Church. We saw an array of patients from a motorcycle accident, malnourished toddler with diarrhea and a young girl who needed stitches in her head from a rock injury (no local anesthesia and she did not make a peep!). And we got to do a prenatal check up on a 24 weeks pregnant woman. After clinic we were off to see one of the garden projects. Garden Florence is where Peter and Seeds of Self Reliance is working to re-start garden for youth to work and learn- but it is not directly related to one of the schools.

Meredith and Peter’s Haitian mom, Lizmani turned 20 last week. (By “Haitian mom” we mean that she cooks lunch every day for Mere and Pete). To celebrate, she threw a birthday party on Saturday night. By golly, we had no idea what we were in for! Because Lizmani was preparing for her party all day, we skipped lunch and were just planning on eating at the party. The party was scheduled to start at 7pm, so we arrived around 7:30 – only to find that we were the first to arrive and nothing was ready. Probably an hour later, the generator got going, the lights came on, and the music started. The whole time we were wondering when the eating would begin. To our dismay (and growling tummies), we learned that dancing comes first and eating comes much later. It is important to note that from 8:00-11:00pm, massive platters of food were out and ready, but completely untouched. Finally, we had to awkwardly ask for a plate of food at 11:15pm and left at 11:30pm. Overall, the night was an interesting lesson – and we got to drink, dance, and eat.

We were able to sneak away to the beach for a night (our first time going to the beach in Haiti). Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early to start the trek – starting by jumping of the back of a tap-tap. We made it as far as Trou du Nord, where we boarded a school bus and waited an hour before it filled up. Then we arrived in Cap Haitian, took a taxi to the other side of town, and then boarded another tap-tap that was heading to Labadee. This was a beautiful scenic drive along a twisting road overlooking the ocean. Our last bit of transportation was a boat taxi (so cool!) which dropped us off on the beach steps in front of Norm’s Place. The bed and breakfast is an old French fort owned by an American-Haitian family. The stone house and rooms are tucked into a quiet cove along the north shore of Haiti. We arrived around noon – just in time for a long swim in the ocean (we looked like sea otters) and steaming mugs of coffee with magical cream. We spent the rest of the day lounging in hammocks and reading. It was a well-deserved and needed reprieve for us all. Monday we awoke to the blasting of a horn; opening our front window we were saddened by the sight of the “Navigator of the Seas,” a Royal-Caribbean cruise liner pulling up to Labadee beach around the corner from Norm’s Place. The cruise ship comes in three days a week, but never stays overnight. They have their own port with a razor-wire fenced in beach and play area (zip line, sky walk, inflatable toys in the water). It was nice to be staying at Norm’s quiet little family-run place, but it was a huge culture shock to see the Royal Caribbean bubble down the road from such poverty.

After our night at Norm’s it was back to business as usual in Terrier Rouge. Some of our other highlights from the week included a trip out to Raboure to see the garden, we picked tomatoes which we had later that night with lettuce we grew on the roof…yum! Hill and Meredith did some walking around the town to show the market and to see some of the different areas of Terrier Rouge. They also got some home visits in, including Clesia who is healing well and looking great, a young boy with cerebral palsy with vomiting and diarrhea, and a blood pressure and counseling visits to a woman with chronic hypertension.

We have started the process of doing an informal health assessment at the Nativity village to get a sense of the overall health and needs of the community before the rabbits get introduced there. Meredith and Hill set up some chairs and met with individuals, asking some overall questions as well as taking blood pressure, heights and weights. At first the group was very organized, patiently waiting in chairs, but as afternoon turned into early evening, the meetings were surrounded by a tight communal circle. It seems that in Haiti, a person’s health is everyone’s business. During the meetings, Peter spent time surveying the status of the rabbit house which is coming along nicely!
Before departing, Willa, a community leader requested that Meredith visit a sick elderly man who could not walk. Upon entering the dimly lit house, Meredith could tell that he was showing signs of heart failure and faced with a dilemma, how do you help someone with a complicated health disease that has no money and lives so far from care? In the end the family really wanted him to come to the clinic to see if there was anything that could be done. They were able to find a motorcycle and get him to the clinic the next morning and he was started on a diuretic to help with the excess fluid. We will just have to wait and see how things go with him… Our time at the Nativity village was very difficult- in that people there live in such poverty and it can be draining hearing over and over again how little people have and how their lives are filled with constant struggle with such limited access to resources, but on a positive note we are so excited about the development of the rabbit project and what it will bring to the community. We are hoping to continue this relationship and find other ways to support this community.

Meredith’s work at Esperance et Vie continues to be a learning experience – and full of chaos! Hill was able to see the inner workings of the clinic, ranging from triage, determining which patients are exonerated, how much to charge for drugs, meeting with the new pharmacist, and running labs for malaria, typhoid, CBC, etc. Hillary got to really experience things first hand and was very fortunate to shadow Meredith for two days.

Days in Terrier Rouge are simple. Hill has had a small glimpse into daily life here – and there’s a lot to report back. Meredith and Peter live in a concrete house (very open), with special accommodations including a latrine, bucket showers, mosquito nets, and a pee bucket for night time urges. The best part of the house is the roof. Hill remembers Mere’s phone calls from “the roof”, but it is completely different than expected. About 20x50 ft, the roof is a huge open space with a clothes line, Pete’s solar dryer, and plenty of space for plants. Many evenings have been spent on the roof, eating dinner, singing songs, and looking at the stars. Entertainment has included Pete’s new Skittles(thanks to Hill for brining a pack of skittles down!) tasting/guessing game, and many good discussions about improving the public/community “unhealth” in Terrier Rouge. Pete and Mere are better than ever (if that’s possible) – it is hard not to join in their crazy songs (they could easily write a musical about rain and patés-their morning breakfast food which is fried bread with cabbage and salami) and laughter! Meredith and Peter are very modest about their impact –it is truly inspiring to see the relationships and trust that they have built in Terrier Rouge. “They are becoming Haitian!”

2010-03-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

Approaching the Nativity Village

Women washing clothes beside the lake built to water free range cattle

Three community leaders on a planning trip with Peter to look at a rabbit structure just built a few towns away

We started work on Saturday! Here Andre is placing stones for the foundation

Heartbreak in Haiti

2010-03-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

The first part of this post was taken from Meredith’s journal, written on March 10^th.

Clesia had her baby today. I have been looking forward to this day since I met her. Her smile drew me in instantly and I felt a bond with her that is difficult to describe in words, a connection shared by two strangers from different cultures. Right as she waddled into the clinic at 31 weeks pregnant I knew we were going to be friends. I was struck by her beauty, her kind manner and her infectious smile, despite being a refugee from Port Au Prince. I have mentioned Clesia before since I work with her brother Obed at the clinic and when he told me 16 family members had arrived at his door after fleeing Port Au Prince- and one being his pregnant sister, I told him to have her come for a visit. Clesia arrived from Port Au Prince with literally a pair of clothes and her son Samuel. She had no paperwork documenting any sort of care during her pregnancy. She said her due date was Feb 28^th but she walked with a saunter that left me thinking she was closer to term than 31 weeks.

After her initial visit I continued to follow up with home visits, taking her blood pressure, making sure she was eating well, screening for pre-ecclampsia, talking about breastfeeding- but mainly just to spend time with her and her beautiful belly. Her baby was always so active, “l’ap bouje” (that means, she’s kicking!). She would say to me all the time and I would just rest my hands on her belly feeling the movement and getting to know the little one inside. Visiting Clesia became one of my favorite things to do. Our conversations were simple, focused on her and the baby, but our time together was so sincere and sweet. She would greet me with a hug and kiss and grab my face in her hands. Being a victim of the earthquake cast a dark shadow on her life and I could see the stress of the situation through her brother. He would confide in me all the troubles they were having, so many people under one roof, struggling to buy food and no idea what the future would hold. Clesia’s husband remained in Port Au Prince because he did not want to be a burden on Obed up here in Terrier Rouge.

Obed’s wife also had family arrive after the quake. Her sister had been in the hospital during the quake and was being treated for an infection a few weeks post partum. She was able to make it out of the building alive but returned home to find her house destroyed. By the time she and her three children made it to Terrier Rouge days later she had a 103 fever, typhoid and malaria. I first met her at the clinic when I was asked to start some IV fluids on her. Her health was only the beginning of her problems though. While in the hospital her milk supply dried up so she was forced to buy formula for her baby. On one of our house visits, we found out that her baby had been only given tea for the past three days because they were unable to buy formula. Seeing the tea in the baby’s bottle filled my heart with a sadness and rage that left me feeling helpless. We were able to give them some formula from the clinic- but as that supply was finished they were back to tea. I gave them some money the following week and tried to stress over and over again the importance of formula. Now she is living in Cap Haitian with her parents and three girls. I hear they are all doing okay but her malaria is still causing fevers, as it was resistant to the chloroquine- but she could not find another drug to treat it. All I can do now is hope and pray the baby is drinking milk and she is finding better treatment for her malaria- a difficult task for a family with nothing and no money.

Last night was my most recent visit to this burdened household and I am sad to say matters are only getting worse and more difficult. Clesia was 1 week over due, according to her memory from care in Port Au Prince, her ultrasound in Terrier Rouge confirmed this, but ultrasounds at 31 weeks are not as accurate. As soon as I walked through the door I placed my hands on Clesia’s belly and asked how her daughter was. She looked at me with concern and said the baby had not moved since yesterday morning. My heart dropped to the floor and I just knew the baby was dead. The rest of the night was a bit of a blur. Thanks to the fact that Berry was in town we had a car to drive to the hospital. As we piled in the car I was overcome by that same sense of sadness and frustration, why is this happening? Has she not been through enough suffering yet? Could this have been prevented?

We bumped down the road- avoiding the wandering goats and cows and made it to the hospital about 40 mins away. We were forced to wait outside in the dark parking lot, as it was late and no one but patients were allowed in Maternity. My suspicion was confirmed as Obed came out to tell me there was no heartbeat. Because we had a connection with a doctor at the hospital we were able to have Obed’s wife stay with Clesia for the night. Clesia came out of the hospital to see us- and we just hugged. The doctor came out too, some questions were answered and it was time for her to be admitted and us to leave. We stood outside for a bit with the smell of urine in the air and the site of family members getting ready to sleep outside the hospital. I looked at Clesia and she had her hands clasped against her chest, eyes closed, swaying side to side. She said to me, “god still lives, we have not lost the battle.”

As I said goodbye I held her close, feeling her belly press up against me with her little girl inside. This little amazing person I had been feeling kick and wiggle for over a month, but I would never get to know more than that. After hugging I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I stepped back to look at her. Her face for the first time was cold and sad, she looked at me holding back tears and I could see the pure pain in her face. She turned and walked up the ramp to the hospital alone, to await the delivery of her daughter. We loaded back in the car to drive home, everyone exhausted. I thought of the task ahead for Obed, calling his brother in law in Port Au Prince, who has lost everything, to say he has lost his daughter. How can any one person bear this much weight and pain? When we finally arrived home I was too tired to think, I climbed into bed to put my mind to rest, the reality seemed too sad to believe. Clesia is one small story of women in Haiti, one small story of the life of a refugee from Port Au Prince. She is just an example, there are so many more out there who have lost parents, friends, sisters, brothers, children and will continue to lose them from infection, cholera and malnutrition. She is also one story of maternal infant health and what it means to be pregnant in Haiti. I realize this happens too in the US, but needless to say our ability to detect and prevent such tragedies from occurring is far better than here in Haiti. I bet her daughter had Clesia’s smile.

Switching gears now to a more uplifting topic. The rabbit project is advancing! We are really encouraged by all the interest we've received so far from you all. On Monday morning we held our planning meeting with Village Nativity, the Makouti agronomist, and IDDH to finalize the details. We discussed how this project can benefit the whole community, since only five families out of twenty will be receiving cages to start. We decided that the rabbit producers would provide rabbit meat for the whole village. We have also been planning a structure to protect the cages from sun, rain, and theft. The village has recently been having problems with outsiders stealing anything from their streetlight’s solar panel to the fish in their pond. The house we designed will be built from stone, cement, chicken wire, and metal roofing, and will have room for eight 4-chambered cages, so that there is room for growth. (Future producers will be able a buy cages on credit that can be repaid with rabbit). This structure is part of the project that will end up costing more than we originally thought. Despite that all the labor will be provided by the rabbit producers, from making cinder blocks to searching stone for the foundation, this structure will cost 750 dollars. But we decided that this is something which is worth doing right. We don’t want to leave this project’s success vulnerable to theft, or build a shoddy structure that needs to be replaced in a couple years.
This raises our fundraising goal to 1,250 dollars. So we can start this project now Meredith and I are paying for the project up front, and Seeds of Self Reliance will reimburse us with any donations for the rabbit project that they receive. Once again, a tax deductible donation can be mailed to Seeds of Self Reliance, 3727 RT 15
Jeffersonville, VT, 05464, and write “rabbit” on your check.

Thank you!!!

Time to Get Involved!

2010-02-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-21T14:47:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-10T15:21:00.001-08:00

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

Back in Terrier Rouge

2010-01-26T14:37:00.000-08:00

It is hard to sum up the feeling of Haiti right now. When we returned back to Terrier Rouge last Sunday there was a definite sadness in the air. The whole town felt a little different. Every family in the whole country has a member living in Port Au Prince, or at least friends or distant relatives. Everyone has a story to tell about how the earthquake has affected them personally. Everyday T.R seems to grow a little bit more as family households fill with people leaving Port Au Prince. Obed, a man Meredith works with now has 16 people living in his house and more want to come. It is difficult to imagine how one city really does affect the whole country. There is a woman here who was in a building in Port Au Prince during the earth quake and was the only survivor in her family, she was pulled out of the rubble and saw that her sister, mother and son did not make it. She was so distraught she was just screaming and crying and saying how she was afraid to go to sleep. Another young girl rode all the way from PAP in a bus with a broken pelvis up to T.R. One of our friends lost both of her sisters and another friend lost her cousin who was in medical school there … and those are just a few of the stories.

Meredith has been very busy with the clinic, due to such an increased population. She has also been doing home visits and follow-ups with Berry Rice, the RN from the states who founded this clinic. Berry’s NGO received some relief money so we are able to treat those coming from PAP for free and offer them free medication – since the only thing they came with was the clothing on there back. One woman was in the hospital during the earthquake and was able to get out before the whole building collapsed, she returned to her home in City Soleil to find it completely destroyed, she has a new baby not even a month old and a 10 year old daughter, they came to TR to live with her sister. She came to the clinic with a 104 temperature after arriving the previous night by bus, her older daughter had cuts on her face from the falling rubble.

On a lighter note, we bought rabbits this week! John, our fearless leader, returned to Haiti with us after we said goodbye to the UVM class at the Santiago airport. He’s a little obsessed with rabbits (so is Peter now too). So we now have two does with four kits to start a little rabbit project here. Peter has been spending the rest of his time this week getting his garden back in shape and building a compost pile at the IDDH farm.

We know some of you at home may be a little concerned about our safety here, probably due to the cable news reports of people looting Port Au Prince and starving refugees pouring into the rest of the country to search for food. People we’ve heard from in the Capital say that it is one of the most horrible things they’ve ever seen; however, they also say that reports of looting are very over exaggerated and they are struck by how calm everyone is and how much people are working together. The resiliency of the Haitian people is unbelievable.

That is all for now, thank you everyone for all your thoughts.

Earthquake in Port Au Prince

2010-01-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

As most of you have probably heard, a 7 point earthquake hit Port Au Prince yesterday afternoon. We are thankfully in the Dominican Republic right now, and the quake we felt here, while significant, did little damage. Our home, Terrier Rouge, is far from Port Au Prince, but as all phone lines in Haiti are down, we do not yet know how Terrier Rouge or our friends in Port Au Prince have been affected. The magnitude of this tragedy has yet to settle on us. There are likely more than 100,000 people dead, and the services, infrastructure, and homes of a city already living on the edge of survival have been flattened. Our hearts go out to the people of Port Au Prince, and all of their family and friends.

The Vermont Haiti Project has set up a special disaster relief fund, which we will link to here: www.vermonthaitiproject.org

Please give all you can.

We will be returning to Terrier Rouge on Sunday and will update you with our future plans as soon as we can. We appreciate all of your concerns. Thank you Hillary for spreading the word that we're safe.

Lots of love,

Peter and Meredith

Rain!

2010-01-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

Where to begin… it seems like a lot has happened since our last post. Christmas week we had our first real rain, which lasted three full days, was very needed! We headed into Cap Haitian on the 23^rd despite the threatening sky – Peter wanted to pick up parts for a drip irrigation system he is wants to experiment with at two of the school gardens and in his vegetable plot. We traveled to Cap Haitian in the back of a truck, it is about a 40 minute trip. We counted 14 people in the truck at one point. The trip was just fine except when the rain started to pour and we all got soaked, the fellow lady riders were very helpful though when Meredith attempted to wrap her hair back in a bandana, they all jumped to show her how to do it. Then we had to walk to the bank in Cap Haitian and our shoes were soaked through within minuets. We did have the pleasure of getting a little holiday shopping done, we purchased a few candy bars and cookies at a little grocery store. We headed out of town to Balan to meet the Agronomist who has the irrigation parts. It was very beautiful there and the only downside was all the mud! When it rains here the mud afterwards is unbelievable. We went to the market after the rain last Thursday and people just end up taking off there shoes and wading around in the mud because there is no way to avoid getting dirty, it is a total mess. Everyone gets a real kick at seeing us walking around in the mud and everyone asks us if we are afraid of it.

We enjoyed our Christmas at Marieva’s (the Canadian nun we recently met) home up in Grand Basen. We went up with another nun who lives here in Terrier Rouge. There was a handful of Haitians there as well so it was quite the fun crowd: Americans, Canadians and Haitians. The afternoon consisted of good food (even stuffing!), good drink, a few fun games and even Christmas music, we felt right at home, except it was in the 80s and sunny. Christmas here is definitely more of a party; people eat and drink a lot, but there is not really any gift giving involved. Everyone cleans there houses and sees family and cooks a lot of meat. Our landlord had his family home for the holidays and they skinned and cooked a whole goat Christmas day, we had the pleasure of eating goat head stew!

On our way back down from Grand Basen we stopped at a soccer match and watched for a bit. There were two groups of men playing drums, maracas, and a wind instrument made from bamboo. It’s the music that we sometimes here in the middle of the night or early morning. This was one of those experiences that cannot be described in words, but the music reverberates in the center of your bones and chest. It’s the type of music played at voodoo ceremonies, and it came from West Africa, and has existed for God knows how many years before that. It was not just hard to keep ourselves from dancing, but I could’ve danced like I was in a trance or possessed by a spirit. But then I remembered that it is not my music to dance to like that, and try to feel grateful enough to have heard it.

After Christmas we spent the next few days in Terrier Rouge getting things organized before we went to the Dominican Republic for our real Christmas gift, a two week visit from Kathryn (Meredith’s sister). We headed to the DR this past Tuesday and picked up Kathryn from the airport Wednesday. Then we all headed up the coast to Rio San Juan for a little beach time before Haiti. The goal of these three nights at the beach was to enjoy the toilet, running water and to fatten Peter up. I think the trip was very successful and Peter ate bacon every morning. Rio San Juan is a pretty quiet little town that does not see many tourists but it was a perfect place to be right on the ocean and read a book, which is exactly what we were looking for. We spent New Years Day at a beautiful beach and Meredith finally got her pina colada, made with and served in a fresh pineapple. Saturday we started to make our way back to Haiti, but because it’s a long trip we spent the night in a town called Monte Cristi and crossed the border Sunday morning.

Kathryn was welcomed to Haiti with a nice little stomach bug and got well acquainted with our latrine – all in the name of understanding our life here better of course. The rain fell Monday making it a good day to rest and recover. Today we toured some of the school gardening projects and showed Kathryn around Terrier Rouge. We will be on the move again Thursday back over to the Dominican Republic, we are meeting up with John Hayden’s class trip (Peter did this trip two years ago, and Kathryn went on it last year). Every year he brings a group of UVM students to the DR for a service-learning class centered around community gardening. We are excited to get back to Batey Libertad and Batey Saman to see some friends from our time there in October. We will travel with them until the 17^th and then return to Haiti. Kathryn will travel too until the 14^th. It has been wonderful having Kathryn here to see our Haitian home, but she was a little scared when she saw the goats tied up and hanging off the back of a truck.

If we get time we will try to post at some point in the DR but more than likely we will update you all when we get back. Happy January everyone, lots of love to you all!

Meredith and Peter and Kathryn too!!

Merry Christmas, photos from Terrier Rouge

2009-12-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

Students from a 5th grade class in their school garden

Collecting manure out at the IDDH farm

Tilou and Loudwidge, hanging out at our house, Tilou was chilly so Peter gave him a sheet and his sister thought it was hilarious!

Mangoes and Manure

2009-12-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

Bonswa tout moun,

We think maybe winter is actually arriving in Haiti after all. It gets really windy here in the afternoon and that seems to bring cooler air in the evening, it is so wonderful! A few nights ago we sat up on the roof and for the first time we were actually chilly! Yes chilly in Haiti, we thought this day would never come. But chilly to us means about 75 degrees in the evening. We normally shower before bed to cool off, but that is now not as enjoyable, it is a bit more of a task working up the courage to dump the bucket of water over your head in the dark. The thing we are missing the most lately is fresh air. There seems to be an excess of trash burning lately. In preparation for the holidays people clean up their yards and homes and this results in a lot of fires. The thick nauseating smell of plastic burning seems to be nonstop since that is the only way to dispose of waste here.

We had a chance to explore two new villages this week, Paulette and Phaeton, out on the coast. One of the Canadian Nuns, Marieva, who has worked here for twenty years brought us. She has set up a great kindergarten / early ed. program in each town, and a health clinic too. As you drive out there it is like driving to the end of the earth. It is so dry the only thing that grows is a small thorny bush. The cows just roam around searching for something to eat, and a huge cloud of dust follows the truck. These are some of the poorest villages in this region. In Paulette pregnant women were coming to the clinic for food rations donated by the World Food Program. Meredith is hoping to start coming to this clinic every week. She is excited to learn from Sister Marieva because she is quite impressive and also happens to be a nurse.

One highlight from the week was eating a beautiful papaya. Mondays and Thursdays are market days in Terrier Rouge so people come from all around to buy and sell goods. Women walk down from the villages in the mountains with basins full of mangoes, charcoal and oranges, of course carrying them in typical Haitian fashion, on their heads. There are a lot of material goods, like shoes, clothes, household items, but there are also vegetables and fruits you can’t get at the market on a typical day. Meredith did some bargaining and purchased 12 grapefruits and 1 huge papaya for 50 gourdes, or about $1.25 USD.

IDDH has an experimental farm a couple miles outside of town. It’s next to a small man-made lake which we use for irrigation. Also situated next to this lake is an interesting new community called the Nativity Village. It’s made up of about thirty or forty small well built light blue concrete houses. The whole village was built out of nothing by a large charitable organization, and funded by a church in the U.S. The people who live there now were given the housing because they previously did not have any. The town looks like something out of a science fiction book, a lunar colony that’s even equipped with a solar street lamp. The charitable organization is trying to provide some kind of employment opportunities but right now there ain’t much.

Peter was visiting the farm Friday and was invited to go for a walk to gather mangoes with some boys from this village. The mango trees only grow in groves on land that is too far away for people to cultivate crops, but when it is too dry to grow anything else, mangoes still give fruit. So they walked 3 or 4 hours. The boys were pretty good at getting all the ripe fruit from each tree – sometimes by throwing sticks or sometimes climbing up a branch and shaking it hard. It was one of Pete’s favorite days in Haiti.

Today, Saturday, is the day the IDDH members work collectively on the research farm. We seeded carrots, set up irrigation, watered the tree nursery, and fixed the fence. Today we also started the process to make compost. There are a lot of cow pies around the farm and Nativity Village because the animals come to drink at the lake. We started paying village kids, today it started with the mango boys, to collect the manure around the area in sacks and pile it up in the compost site. A good start.

We are sending warm thoughts up North as we heard VT now has snow on the ground.

Love,

Peter and Meredith

ps- Happy Holidays to all !

2009-12-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

Jacques, the president of cooperative Raboure, plowing with his oxen

Meredith watering the garden

Hello Everyone,

Things continue to go well here in T.R. We seem to really be getting in the swing of things. Meredith had a little bout of illness and a visit to the clinic, but we are happy to report we currently BOTH are feeling healthy and are very thankful for that. Peter continues to work on his garden and in the schools with the school garden program. He is currently working to set up a partnership between two schools here in T.R and a school in Cambridge VT. Meredith has been busy with clinic related activities as the founder of the clinic from the US was here this past week. She also had the opportunity to work with a midwife. The midwife did some healing work on a pregnant woman (this consisted of rubbing some oil on her belly, and tying pieces of cloth around it). Meredith was not really sure what was going on most of the time, but it was an interesting experience to be a part of. They also worked together supporting another woman through early labor, but she ended up having to go to the hospital to deliver because of a complicated previous delivery. It was nice though to get a little more hands on with the midwifery community. We thought it might be nice just to talk about life here a little since we do not have too many exciting updates to provide, we both just seem to be plugging along with our respective projects and enjoying our work here. We are continuously learning here, in everything we do.

We have discovered here that the month of December means that everyone morning around 5:30am, before the sunrises, youth from the Baptist church hit the streets banging drums and playing various instruments, yelling and singing in preparation for Christmas. A little different than the Christmas carols we are used to at home. The first time I heard this parade I thought it was some sort of riot, and Peter thought it was a voodoo ceremony. But now I am used to the sound waking me up, right along with the church bells from our neighbors the Catholic Church. They ring every morning at 5:30, 5:45 and 6am – but surprisingly we haven’t made it to mass yet.

This morning (Sunday December 6^th) we headed to Raboure to water Peter’s garden. Peter has a bike here that a friend loaned him to fix up. We also put a little seat on the back. So once a week we’ll ride out to the garden together (a long dirt road up towards the mountains) Peter does all the work and Meredith gets to ride along. Everyone gets a real kick at us two ‘blans’ riding along on our bike. The ride out there is beautiful. There is a lot of agricultural land towards the mountains and we pass cows, horses, and donkeys along the road. Pickup trucks drive by every now and then with as many as twenty five people standing in the back, it is so weighed down the truck sags with the weight – just like the bike.

Even though it is December the sun gets real hot here after 8am, and today seemed hotter than usual. After watering we walked/biked back to town to make a delicious breakfast of French toast (thanks for the syrup Mom!) it is quite the luxury. There is an outdoor market here where we do some of our shopping – but we have yet to do a lot of heavy cooking. Normally we buy bread, eggs, peanut butter, and fruit. There are at least two bakeries in town that make a pretty good white bread. Meredith got a tour the other day – it’s pretty much like Klingers expect the bakers don’t have to wear shirt or shoes. They roll up little balls of dough and squeeze them onto a big pan. Each little piece costs 1 Goud, about 2.5 American pennies.

There are also some vendors that hang out on the main road selling snacks (horse meat is the local favorite) to people in the taptaps and trucks that pass. The main road connects Dajabon to Cap Haitien so it is very well traveled. We often just buy oranges or bread right here too. Later on this afternoon we washed out sheets, and then washed our feet in the rinse water with an old toothbrush. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

It is 8pm right now as we write this and 89 degrees in our bedroom. Luckily we have electricity in the evening to power a fan and one light. We are really looking forward to January when everyone says it cools off here. We’ll believe it when Meredith’s upper lip stops sweating constantly. Until then, N’ap boule nan Ayiti! We’re burning in Haiti It means we’re chillen – but nobody really chills here.

Lots of love,

Meredith and Peter

Picture success...finally

2009-11-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

Members of IDDH and VT-Haiti project meet at the office in Terrier Rouge

The hike up to the Citadel

Home sweet home, this is the entrace to our house here

Peter and I on top on the Citadel

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T16:03:00.000-08:00

We went from a slow quiet week of healing for Peter to a busy week filled with gardening, teaching, clinic work and yes cheese! This week seemed like everyday was full and active with lots going on. We are happy to report Peter is feeling 100% better and back to his normal self, lots of energy and eating two servings at lunch.

The first week here Peter was introduced to a cooperative Vegetable farm, Raboure. He has been visiting the farm every Tuesday, the day the cooperative works together on their collective land. Last week they offered him his own parcel to work while he’s here, giving him a fantastic opportunity to learn how to grow vegetables in Haiti, experiment with some new techniques and varieties, and they’ll sell any vegetables to benefit the cooperative. Raboure also has a large flock of laying hens and two large ponds for fish farming.

The real excitement of the week was our visit with the Vermont Haiti Project group. It was so wonderful to see some familiar faces and meet some new friends as well. We had a total of 11 visitors, 3 Haitians, 7 Vermonters and 1 Californian. They arrived Thursday evening in time for a good meal, and some showers after an 8 hour ride in the back of a truck from Port au Prince. Thank you for making the long journey, Peter and I really appreciated you coming all this way! Friday we visited three schools in T.R. that have school gardens, we met with the IDDH folks to talk about their organization and then headed to Milot (about 1 hour away) to check out S.O.I.L, another NGO that makes composting toilets. It was fascinating to see the compost they are creating. We are hoping to keep working with S.O.I.L and maybe do some research using humanure compost or urine on gardens here in T.R.

Saturday morning we delivered a treadle pump, brought here by VT-Haiti Project, from Seeds of Self Reliance (John Hayden), to IDDH (complicated, huh). The pump traveled from Vermont to Port au Prince in a shipping container filled by Vermonters who have too much stuff. We then headed back to Milot to see the Citadel. An old fortress built to guard Northern Haiti against ill-willed foreign powers after the revolution. We headed part way up the mountain in the truck and then walked the rest of the way. It was amazing to think about the actual process of building the citadel, a massive stone fort at the very top of a steep mountain. Every piece of the Citadel was carried up the mountain on foot, and our “guide” said around 20,000 people died in the process. On our way home we stopped by Raboure to see where Peter’s plot is and the different projects they have going at the cooperative.

The real fun started that night though when Peter and I got to have our first cheddar cheese in almost 2 months… pure heaven thank you Ali and Bob. Kimball, Donna and co. were nice enough to carry some provisions sent to us by our parents back home and it really was like being 8 years old on Christmas morning. We got cheese and chocolate. Yesterday for breakfast and dinner we had fresh grapefruit followed by Shelburne Farms Cheddar with bread and crackers. We really felt like we were on our honeymoon!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and we are sad not to be with family but at the same time we are feeling more thankful here in Haiti than we ever have. Normally at my house we try to say one thing we are thankful for at the dinner table while we eat our turkey. This year I feel like I could write a whole essay about what I am thankful for. Right now I am thankful for my and Peter’s health, having healthy food to eat everyday, and the access and ability to drink clean water. I am thankful that I do not have to use a pit latrine for the rest of my life. Most of all I am thankful for Peter and my whole family. We have truly realized that these things are all we need to be happy, the rest are just luxuries, but we am still thankful for chocolate and cheese.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, enjoy the stuffing for us, my favorite part, and the mashed potatoes too, and the pumpkin pie!

Love,

Meredith and Peter

p.s. A couple of you have asked us about an address here for us. The best way to send anything to us is to give it to Kathryn, who is coming to visit the end of December.

Tetris and Typhiod

2009-11-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

If our first week in Terrier Rouge was about settling in and figuring out our basic needs (housing, food, water), our second week has been learning how to enjoy our free time... not counting the day Peter spent in the latrine with typhoid. As we took the end of this week easy for Peter to get better we have had lots of time to sit on the shady corner of our roof, play cards, cell phone tetris, read, and most of all talk. We are finding that living in Haiti is giving us the perfect vantage point to reflect on our lives in Vermont, and what we want them to be like when we return.

Meredith has had success at starting to work at one of the clinics in town. It is called Esperance et Vie (hope and life). There is one general medical doctor, an eye doctor, and a dentist. The support staff runs the lab and pharmacy. Meredith's primary role will be as a triage nurse, helping the medical assistant who is currently filling that role. She is also continuing to meet some of the many midwives in Terrier Rouge in hopes of starting to work with them soon.
We have been busy with some projects at home. We started a garden in the backyard, and set up a worm composting bin on the roof that we smuggled here from the DR.

Despite what challenges we face as newcomers and outsiders here, we can't but feel incredibly blessed for the lives we have been given. Although it sucks being sick, our ability to see a doctor, pay for medication, drink clean water, or eat well enough to get better does not hinge on whether or not the rains fall this month, or how many shoes our mother or aunt can sell in the Dominican Republic. And while we have enjoyed our forced time to relax and reflect, it is not burdened by thoughts of missing a day of work, or like many here, not being able to find work at all.

We hope you are all well at home. keep the comments coming, we love hearing from you all! Lots of love,

Meredith and Peter

ps Peter really is feeling well now so please dont worry! sorry we tried to get pictures up tonight without success, we will try again next week.

First Week in Haiti

2009-11-10T16:11:00.000-08:00

We have been in Haiti now for a little over a week and everything is well! We are sorry for the lack of communication, internet is a real challenge here and we probably will only be checking it weekly, so bare with us!

We have settled into our new home, a great room that we are renting in a large unfinished house. The owner lives in a smaller house in the backyard, which is nice for us to always have someone around. The best part is the access to the roof, great views of the mountains and the stars at night.

This week has really been all about getting settled and getting to know our community and surroundings, this will be an ongoing process. We have been visiting lots of school gardens and community farms. Meredith has been starting to talk with midwives and community health workers, as well as make some clinic contacts, all of this takes time though.

Our second night here our friend wanted to show us around Terrrier Rouge so he pulled out a motorcyle and a bike, he told Peter to jump on the moto with him and for me to start pedaling. Peter was laughing the whole time at me, looking back as I pedal to keep up! But it was a beautiful little tour and it was a nice treat to see the full moon rise out in the bush of Haiti. Next post we will get some pictures up so you all can see what it is like here. Pretty dry and hot still, but we think the rains will soon be falling. Until yesterday this area had not gotten a good rain for months! The farmers are really waiting on the rain to start planting, water is everything here.

So in conclusion we are well and we are sorry this is so short we will try to write more soon!

We love and miss you all
love pete and meredith

ps HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY PAPPAS!! I was thinking of you on your special day!!

Last Day in the Batey

2009-10-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

Batay Libertad, Tuesday, 10/20

2009-10-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

Welcome

2009-09-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

We have finally set up our blog! This will be our way of updating friends and family of our goings on while in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We'll hope to update it once a week. Feel free to post comments to us here as well. Currently we are scurrying around getting ready to leave on Oct 7. Stay tuned . . .