First off, thank you all again for supporting my volunteer Permaculture work in Haiti.
There were a couple of Kossacks in particular who really helped make this scouting trip possible.
I must continue fundraising in order to keep this work going. There is little money out there for people who seek to help the Haitians prosper in an independent way. Please, if you know of others who may want to contribute, use this post to fill them in. Each trip down is going to run approximately $1500 for 10-14 days. Right now I have $600 in the bank for the next trip in September.
Ways to contribute?
Via PayPal or through a purchase my art
Here is how it went on my first trip.
From June 26-July 5, 2011 I was in Haiti working with the Centre de Inspiration Jeuness and Partners in Progress on stage two of a soil health project based on Permaculture principles. I am a certified Permaculture designer and run a small (very) consulting company from Taos, New Mexico.
Here are photographs of some of the farmers I am working with:
Le Geste
Monsieur Clobert
The Women of Duvut
Farmers Taking a Break
The ten days I spent in Haiti was a whirlwind and I realize now that it was much more of an introductory trip than anything else. I met the people I needed to meet, I gained a much better understanding of the complexity of the issues face in the community of Deslandes and I came away with a list of the needs and the areas to which I can contribute.
Rich Gosser of Partners in Progress and our driver (he is actually much more than that) Lord Angervil met Mike Neumann and I at the Port-au-Prince airport the morning of June 26. Lord is an extremely hard-working, funny and fascinating man who sat with his six-year old son for several days as the boy died slowly in the ruins of their home after the earthquake. There was no help to get the boy out.
We drove immediately northwest to the edge of the Artibonite River across from the remote community of Deslandes. We crossed the river in leaky, wooden pole boats operated by several pre-teens. Its the only way for the people of Deslandes to get back and forth across the river. Next we walked several miles to the village where we slept in the house of a young farmer named Clobert. We ate across the muddy path (that became a river with each afternoon's downpour) at the house of Charles St. Geste, a college-educated Haitian who runs the local school.
The school is a whole other story that I will relate at another time.
The whole community of several thousand is very poor and totally dependent on corn and yam agriculture. The men are in the fields at dawn and work all day with little food or water. The women and children spent most of the day in pursuit of clean water and other food sources. Of course, I am generalizing here but this is essentially how the community runs.
The people of Deslandes were very kind, gentle folks are quick to smile but living very much on the edge. I saw no signs of malnutrition but its clear that one hurricane, one drought...one rough year would push them into a very bad state. Despite the smiles there is a stress that pervades the community. The whole of Haiti in fact. These human beings are on the edge in a way we can't understand.
The veterinarian we met on the first day was in the hospital with cholera a few days later. They are that on the edge.
We spent three days visiting the farmers, analyzing the soil and crops and getting to know how things work. Not only are they challenged by the clay soil, climate change-induced shifting weather patterns, the bare hill-slopes and the lack of clean drinking water but also by a lack of farming know-how. I know how imperialistic is sounds for me to say but these farmers worked very hard for little return because they do not know how to feed the soil, they dont understand poly-culture and erosion control and so on. They are very inefficient for all their hard work. And they dont save seeds.
There are also significant land ownership problems. Most of the farmland is owned by wealthy absentee landowners so many of the farmers of Deslandes are essentially serfs working for the company store so-to-speak and it makes them unwilling to invest in their land. Why plant a mango tree if you may not get the lease on the land next year?
Another significant problem has to do with us in the USA thinking we are doing good there. American rice farmers are making a fortune selling our rice for SUPER cheap down there. So cheap that we are undercutting the local rice farmers. All that cheap and free food we are sending down there is actually undercutting the economy and making things worse.
And still another problem is the American corporations trying to get the Haitian farmers hooked on special seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. They get the farmers to sign contracts agreeing to not save seeds and to buy new seeds from the corporation every year. This breeds dependence, another form of serfdom. Its indentured servitude to a giant corporation. They donât need that. These guys dont need tractors, fertilizers and all that crap. What they do need is knowledge. They need to know how to intercrop, poly-culture and compost. They need to own their own land so they will invest in it.
That is independence. Most of the aid we do down there is actually making things worse. And you have to understand. These people donât want aid. They donât want ties that bind. They want to work hard and to prosper. The same thing each of us wants.
We need to support these peoples desire for independence.
We aren't even at the point of buying trees for this project. We need to get some basic Permaculture techniques to work on these little farms. If we can demonstrate some success by getting erosion under control, improve soil health, get some poly-cropping into practice and some trees planted in some demonstration plots, other farmers will drop by and take a look and go home to put some of these things into practice on their land. That will be success.
Cultural change is very slow and should be at times.
The one farmer we visited who does own his own land lives on a little paradise with high trees, poly-culture, good erosion control and water management, abundant food and tens of thousands of dollars in mangos, coconuts, avocados and papayas hanging in his trees. He and his elderly father are well off for rural Haiti. Permaculture in action.
Another thing that I noticed is that the knowledge of plant uses is not being passed down from the elders to the kids. I have an idea of how to work on this below.
After Deslandes we spent a night in Port-au-Prince then went to the south to visit a very successful farming and reforestation operation near Le Caye on the south coast. We learned a lot from their operation, both for the good and the bad. Two things that were very interesting there was the bamboo being used both for erosion control andconstruction materials. The other was the mango grafting. They are grafting export mangos to trees adapted to the local environment with great success.
Next we were back to the big city for a few hours then north again for a meeting with the Haitian planning committee for the Deslandes operation. This meeting was, thankfully, on a cool beach with a nice breeze. The downside was that I ate something there that has messed up my belly a bit.
We went back north to Verettes for a night then back to Port-au-Prince (Haiti is so centralized on this one city that you can do little without going there. All the roads pass through the disgusting city) to fly out. Once I got on the plane I was stunned at how fast the whole thing had passed.
Haiti was MUCH more expensive than I thought - the UN and international presence as driven up prices in a huge way. Based on this trip, I can now make the educated estimate that that for me to go there and work 10-14 days with the farmers costs about $1500. That is no pay for me. 100% volunteer on my time and knowledge, which is fine.
I mentioned above the need to pass plant knowledge down from the elders to the youth. I've put together a proposal (I figure it will cost about $5000 total) to buy some small digital cameras and train 10-20 kids some basic photography skills as well as detailed, scientific plant photos for publication. Then we would send them out to take the photos and to interview the elders on the uses of the plants. We would want to know the French, Kreyol, English and scientific name of the plants, the uses, the habit and so on. Then I would take the photos and the info back home and create a plant book that could then be dispersed in the community for free and also sold to organizations working on farming issues in Haiti. It would be a high-quality resource that would go to the national library and so on. Not only would we get the published resource but also we get the kids out talking to and learning from the elders. And the kids would get full credit.
Any profits from sales would be plowed back into the knowledge exchange with the farmers.
Radio Interview
Take a listen. This interview with me was recorded on 1340am KVOT in Taos, New Mexico, July 11, 2011. (Hat Tip: John Mata for the audio)
Next
I hope to go down again in September. Like I said, it will run around $1500 and I have just under $600 in the bank.
For now, I HAVE to continue to solicit donations to keep this moving. Thank you all so much for your support thus far. I could not have done it without you. Please, if you know of anyone else looking to make an EFFECTIVE contribution to Haiti, have them contact me. Another great way to support this project and get something out of it is to buy one of my travel photos) .
ALL PROFITS FROM THOSE SALES GO TO THIS PROJECT.
Thank you again and feel free to ask any questions. I will answer to the best of my ability