The rain is here and it’s LIVREZON (tree distribution) season and I love it! (It’s just about tied for fun with Degroots Nurseries in May only here I get to walk through waterfalls on the way to tree nurseries and in Sarnia I get to eat my Mom’s cooking.) The cell phone alarm went off at 3:20am and by 4 Nahomie was with me and then Meleck on our way to Valere where we left the truck at Michelet’s house and he joined us on foot down to the river and up to and down to the Chanpyon tree nursery to hand out trees to the community. I didn’t fall in the mud and only fell once on 70 degree slope down to the tree nursery while Michelet made us laugh with his announcements in the megaphone: Get out of your beds people! Come and get trees. In 2 hours the 3 of us with the 7 Tree Nursery Committee members including Ketly and her 7 month belly, handed out 15,000 trees (100 per person) and sold a couple hundred. On the way home Bwanando invited us to his lakou (yard) where they brought us chairs and plates of rice and beans and juice. It was 8:30 AM. . . yahoo! I was stoked. . . we still have the whole day ahead of us. We crossed the river where I couldn’t resist jumping in for my morning dip and we were back in Dezam pronto and back at the office where I ran right into this adorable scene.
Lusilya wears many hats (most are lovely red) including one as a professional toilet trainer and we all love her — there’s no doubt she’s from heaven. Haitians are "top" on toilet training and it must be part genetic.
Hmmm...how long would it take me to plant 100 trees? And I was off on my bike with a case of kasya up the hill to the piece of millet field we’re transforming into a forest. Hoes moved rhythmically up and down making music on the rocks in the soil, the people swinging singing gently while I planted in the morning sun. Here’s what planting looks like.
You dig with a hole with a pikwa, a little deeper than the tree in the bag. You put the tree in and compact the soil behind it leaving a bowl shape around it so when the rain falls, water falls and sits in the hole keeping the tree fresh. The rocks mark the tree for those who will be hoeing the millet (on the left) and might not see the tree. Last year’s millet stalks will provide the little fertilizer these tough little kasya, that everyone loves but the goats, need to survive. Thank goodness b/c goats are the principal agents of deforestation at this point here in and around Dezam.
Back to the office where I put some clothes on Gabri and we were off to the dispensary hoping we could find her vaccination records, which we lost, maybe because we are not always sure we believe in vaccinations. Luckily when I showed up the nurses asked me if I wanted to weigh her so I didn’t have to fess up right away. We figured out our vaccinations and Gabriela weighed in at 19.3 lbs. I couldn’t resist the photo opp. so I borrowed a phone and called Matt to bring the camera. “No problem” he said and a minute later Wodline arrived with the camera.
That’s right, today Gabri’s nanny Lusilya came over to play with Gabriela while her sister Sonya cooked lunch and their niece Wodline made juice and ran errands for me and Matt!
Lunch, corn and beans and Creole sauce with fresh avocado slices and passion fruit juice, was waiting and so were my colleagues, so we ate and then half the team went to count trees at nurseries that will hand out trees tomorrow. Nahomie and Frantzo and I stayed back and we discussed how to follow up on the trees that students planted. Then they ran home before the rain came and then Madame Mamou who sells the BEST little fat bananas came by with a bunch of 24 just when we were on our way out to get bananas. We bought on credit b/c Matt walks around with all the money and he was out counting trees. Gabri and I were stir crazy when he got home but the sky was rumbling so we went to Bel Fanm’s (the women who pumps a bottle of milk/day for Gabriela) to borrow back our umbrella and then up to Madame Mamou’s where she took our 52 gouds ($1.40) and reprimanded us for walking in the rain. “What rain !?”, I said, like I just arrived on this Carribean island, and that’s when the rain really started : ) We walked down the long way to buy some gingerbread from our old neighbour stopping to watch a soccer game and a dominos game and the rivers forming in the road and EVERYone called us in from the rain: “Come sit with us out of the rain!” but we didn’t because we love walking in the rain.
I’m sitting here typing in my raincoat because it’s a cold 29 degrees : ) and I’m procrastinating from having to take a rainwater shower b/c it’s even colder up there where the rain starts. Gabri is playing with Katya and Samantha who came over to get food for little Rocky who needs a little help and extra food to make a full recovery from malaria.
There will be fruit salad with dinner and CBC on our Sirius satellite radio and we’ve already downed a pot of Rooibos tea. Re: news, you may have heard on the news about the under 17 Haiti National Soccer Team? They were in New York, in transit, on their way to a tournament in Korea and 13 team members disappeared into clandestine life in the US. But you might not have heard that there are people waking up with the birds, growing trees and raising children, and saying welcome, come in, drink some juice with us, and there are some dancing too. Life is good here in Haiti in many many ways. So if you see one of those 13 players, talk gently b/c they're likely missing home. And like us, and/or our parents, over time, they'll get used to their new home too. Hope life is good where you are too!
love Esther and G and M
PS. Check out the girl's T-shirt in the photo above to understand this post's title.
