Last weekend was my second "konbit" here with MCC Haiti. Konbits are meetings we have, three times a year, with the whole staff altogether in one place, and not divided between Port-au-Prince and Dezam, as we usually are. The word "konbit" refers to a Haitian work crew that's assembled for a specific task, such as hoeing a single onion field. Crews like this can be seen all over Haiti at all times of the year, sometimes working to the beat of a hired drummer. For our konbit, the city folk went out to Dezam, located in the Artibonite valley, the place where I did my month-long homestay. As soon as we rolled into town I got all nostalgic for those early days of breathing clean air, walking for about two hours of each day, and struggling mightily to understand what people were saying. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle to understand, just not as mightily.
It was great to have a break from Port-au-Prince. We spent a day checking out some of projects that are part of MCC's reforestation program. But to get there, we had to cross the Aribonite river:
Here's a couple photos from the tree nursery, which was our first stop. We had a time to sit down and try and identify trees (I failed miserably, hence the confused expression).
Then this guy and others took turns explaining what each species was good for, be it fruit, wood for houses, or using the leaves in medicinal tea.
All of the baby trees in this shot are growing in little clear bags, as you can see.
In Haiti, the quickest and easiest way to get drinkable water, unless you live by a spring, is to buy a little bag of it for a few cents. Bad news is that this creates lots of litter. Good news is that the bags can be picked up and used to plant trees, in fact they're perfect for it.
MCC is also active in the schools in the area. We visited these students who were using the bags in a mini-nursery they had set up next to the playground. We ate mangos together and the students taught us how to cut open the pit and get the seed and plant it.
You know, sometimes as an outsider who's working alongside Haitians all day, I feel like I'm wearing two hats. And other times, I feel like I'm wearing two hats because I'm wearing two hats.
Here's us coming back from our visit to the other side of the Artibonite.
Here's the official staff shot:
And how could I not throw in this picture of Gabriela? This is from Easter in the pine forest. Check out the needles on the ground!
That was a great couple of days, which I haven't yet written about here. We played games by the fireside and went on long walks through the misty forest. We played baseball with only improvised equipment and we visited the local market which was jam packed and lively, in spite of the rain and mud.
Fortunately, I was able to spend both the first and the last weekends of April in a pine forest. This last weekend I returned to Seguin, which is perched up at the top of a mountain range from which you can see all the way to the southern shore of Haiti. I was there for two days after Christmas with Matt and Esther and Gabriela. I returned this time with those three as well as a couple of their cousins, Nate and Dan.
The day began at 4am. We drove uphill from Port-au-Prince for an hour or so and then parked and started walking. It's a four-hour hike, with very steep hills, both up and down, to arrive at the pine forest. There are only little pockets of trees along the way. Mostly you're looking at rocky slopes where every inch of decent soil is ploughed and molded into rows. In many cases you see multiple crops planted together. I should have pictures, but something always keeps me from pulling out the camera. Maybe it's because I know the image could never do justice to the sight of mountains beyond mountains, nearly treeless, covered with thousands of little farms, which are pressed together into an asymmetrical, organic quilt.
At the bottom of the last big ascent, we started looking for somewhere to take a break. Haitians love coffee, and some of the world's best grows here. But outside of Port-au-Prince or a nice resort, it's hard to find coffee that isn't presweetened. Normally I take it straight, but after trying some of the sweet stuff during my homestay in Dezam, I drink it when I get the chance. Andeyo, people brew it up in cauldrons roadside, sweetened with a heavy dose of sugar cane syrop. I knew it would hit the spot before the last big climb.
Our hiking party decided to park it at the next little cluster of houses. When we did, I asked if anyone was selling coffee. No dice. But then Esther started talking to a woman who lived there, and she said she had some she could reheat. A man brought a steaming mug out to me a few minutes later. It was delicious. When I asked how much he wanted for it, he just shrugged and said, "whatever you pay me."
A couple hours later we had arrived at the lodge - a guesthome maintained by the Seguin Foundation, which exists to protect the pine forest and ecourage other agricultural innovations. One such innovation is the bamboo forest they planted a few years ago with the aid of Taiwan. In addition to all the good work they do, they run this lodge which, though very rustic and almost electricity-free, has hot showers. These come in very handy on those chilly mountain mornings. They also feed you meals that use mostly local products. They guys that run the place are incredibly laid back. When a bunch of French people showed up (without reservations, I might add, ahem) the director came and asked us if we wouldn't mind sleeping upstairs in his house. Not only did we get a free meal out of it, the attic was even cooler than the lodge. When it's clear, you can look out the window and see the ocean, 6000 feet and many mountains below. When it's misty outside, the clouds blow right in through one window and out the other.
After some food and a nap and some more food and a sudoku, four of us hiked to the actual town of Seguin, which is a 45-minute trip from the lodge. Halfway there, across a few acres, we could hear a semi-musical racket coming from a little wooden shack. We went to investigate. We found a squad of about 8 kids dancing and singing, some banging on cooking utensils or beating their palms against the planks of their little room. The kids themselves seemed almost miniature. I don't know if it's the climate or the diet (or lack thereof) or what, but there is a marked difference in the size of people up in mountains. They were singing church songs in Creole. Esther danced with a couple of the little boys. They sang and sang and sang, excited to have some strange, large visitors, but really more excited just to be singing. Eventually we decided we should keep going and left the party, walking along little picturesque gardens as their voices grew faint. I though to myself, if I saw that scene in a movie or a painting, I would think it was cheesy and sentimental, some lame attempt to romanticize the poor. But it was real, and it was one of the more enchanted moments of my life.
But that was Saturday. Sunday, for me, was a bad day. Not bad like where you lock your keys in the car. That would have been easy. Sunday was comically bad. It started after breakfast. I walked back to the director's house, where we slept, and walked upstairs to my bed. There I found my wallet sitting on top of my shorts, though I thought to myself that I wouldn't normally leave it out like that. I picked up my wallet looking for the sixty American dollars I brought. It wasn't there. My heart started thumping and I looked through my bag and all my other clothes and all around the bed and over and over again in the wallet, and found nothing.
The first thing I thought, was that I should just ask to borrow some money from Matthew and forget about the whole thing. I was terrified at the thought of confronting the director, who trusted us enough to let us stay in his house, who treated us like family. But after a while, I decided he would want to know that it had happened, and I would still pay for my stay there, without question.
Esther and I went to talk to him. She explained the situation, and he very calmly expressed regret and surprise at what had happened. I felt like a jerk for even bringing it up. They started talking about what could be done and I ran upstairs to get my things together. When I saw my wallet again, I thought, you know I should really make absolutely sure. I opened it up and quickly discovered those three twenty dollar bills crumpled into a little side pocket. I was mortified. I actually considered not mentioning it - saving myself the embarrassment. In hindsight it isn't quite as serious, but at the time it felt like I had just informed someone that their house had burned to the ground, and now I had to go say "just kidding!" So I bit the bullet and ran out and apologized a million times and still felt like a mean, distrustful person.
Eventually we took a walk to the local waterfall. We stopped at the stream and took off our boots and waded upstream until it was deep enough to plunge into the cold spring water. It was, like everything else in Seguin, somehow perfect. Eventually I forgot about the ugly business with the money. I was feeling good. Then I walked back to where we had left our stuff. In the place where I had left my socks sitting on top of my hiking boots, I found only socks. Just as with the equally horrible revelations of that morning (I've been robbed; I haven't been robbed, but I said I was), it was a moment that made me stop as my mind churned through the awful implications. But it was also so perfectly fitting, that it was hard not to laugh at the whole thing. Still, I thought, the car is on the other side of a four-hour hike on a rocky, steep path. I can't just stop by the nearest Payless Shoe Source. Plus I'm taller than pretty much everyone I meet here; what are the chances that I'll find something to wear?
I walked barefoot back to the lodge, which was probably about a mile. Fortunately the trail was mostly surrounded by a soft bed of pine needles. But when I got there, I had to go to the director, humble as I've ever been, and tell him that my boots were stolen; yes, I looked really hard and am sure about it this time; and can you please help me?
That was the end of the awful part of the day. By a great stroke of luck, the guy that cooked our meals for us had boots that fit me perfectly, and he said I could use them for the hike down. Undeserved grace.
The return trip was as pleasant as could be, and Sunday night we were back in Port-au-Prince eating at the fancy pizza and gelato joint. Even with a big plate of tabouli in front of me, I was already missing the mountain.
Wow it's late now. I've got some pretty cool photos from a tree distribution I participated in yesterday. I hope to get them up soon. Until then.
