These are the hills above Christan. 60 years ago they were thick with tropical rainforest. Now the trees are gone, which even affects weather patterns. Less rain falls now in Haiti than ever before.
Here's a photo from the rice harvest. What you do is cut down the stalks with a sickle, then pile them up, and this guy bats them against that stone a couple times and shakes off all the little husked grains. I took a turn at batting myself, which was, of course, hilarious to everyone.
Here's some photos of my wonderful host family. First, my host uncle Miguel, who in addition to managing a bunch of little crops, is a beekeeper. Those are bees in his right hand and a little smoker in his left which was full of smouldering wood shavings. He gave me a bottle of delicious fresh honey as a going away gift.
Here's his daughter Midgline. She would beg me to sing songs like the national anthem, the alphabet, stuff like that. Her friend with the notebook is Sandrine.
Here's Sandrine braiding Denise's hair - always a community activity.
The littlest kids just wail the whole time this is happening. It's very painful apparently, but it's the only way to manage such kinky hair without relaxing chemicals (expensive) or dreadlocks (incredibly rare in Haiti, even with Jamaica just a few miles away). This is why most boys just shave it off periodically. But here's little Bechi, my host brother, with his hair waiting to be braided. For a while he had it ultrapoofy and going straight up, and he looked like one of those troll dolls.
Here's Rosalie, my host mother, with Bechi, and grandma. Grandma scared me a little at first, the way she would sit on the porch and sleep, snoring with her eyes open. She used to be the town butcher. The last MCC homestay person went to wash clothes at the river with Rosalie. She offered to scrub some from Rosalie's load, and got handed the bloody meat dress.
Grandma again. She really grew on me.
On my last Saturday I went on a hike with Matt and Esther and little Gabriela in tow. We walked up along the side of a river for a mile or so, until steep walls of limestone rose up from the bank.
From there, we were hiking in the river, through a winding gorge and all kinds of beautiful gnarled rock formations.
On the way back I noticed this. It's a bean crop. There's a little bit of dirt down below, but these stalks are pretty much just growing up through rocks, fed by water from the river flowing on both sides.
