New Photos!

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!

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!”

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peter and Meredith

Pictures

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




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



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



Women selling firewood at the market

Life goes on

Hi everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Meredith and Peter