***I have been out of e-contact for the past week, and am only now able to post this entry. Ooops! Life in rural Haiti!
I’ve barely been here a week now, but it feels like a lifetime ago that I arrived. I started out at Port au Prince at the Grassroots site until Monday of this week, at which point I was unexpectedly picked up to come out to the Artibonite Valley region by Lordes. Lordes works with Osprival from the Centre d’Intervention Jeunesse, the Haitian organization I will be working with. I thought they were coming to pick me up on Tuesday, but this was just the first of many unknown details of how the week was to unfold. So, I grabbed my belongings and made the trek, a mere 2 hour drive, out to Verrettes. The first leg of the trip was on pristine roads- really good condition roads, which surprised me, since to date, I had only been on pothole-ridden roads. Of course that changed mid-route, and we resumed the regular crazy pothole roads I’ve become accustomed to here.
At one point, driving on a switchback road through the mountains, there were two dumptrucks, broken down, sitting there in the middle of the road. I asked if this was a common occurrence, and was told yes. The night life in cities, towns and villages is quite vibrant; despite it being late at night, there were always people out there walking along the roadside, some carrying loads, others just walking. The really odd thing was to see people sitting on the edge of the road, just sitting around talking. Fast vehicles driving by don’t seem to phase them. The sitting on the porch/roadside talking thing seems to be quite a regular pastime.
When we arrived at Verrettes, we went to a local hotel- quite an ornate and large establishment- complete with plastered columns, and beautiful tile work. The riverside setting is about as beautiful a view as you could ever hope for. I wasn’t feeling very well that night, so I stayed at the hotel and the rest of the gang joined me there the next morning for breakfast on the terrace. I didn't manage take photos of this paradise, alas, but will attempt to do so when I return!
Our next journey was out to Deslandes, the village where the earth block school has been built. It wasn’t very far to get there, but the road in to the river was quite something- it may not be passable for much longer, with the rocks that keep tumbling down, and the erosion happening on the sides.
The car could only travel a portion of the way, and then we hiked down to the river, where a young boy met us in a skiff, and using a long branch as a pike pole, ferried us across to the other side, where I was to experience the final leg of the journey- the craziest motorcycle ride of my life. Not crazy in a dangerous way, but just crazy! We had to go up some steep rocky bits, and were constantly honking to get goats & cows to move out of the way. We went blazing through a market, narrowly missing people, cattle & goats.
The view of the Artibonite River is astounding- truly breathtaking. From the other side of the river, you could see the constant foot traffic traveling along the well worn paths that have likely been used for hundreds of years.
Deslandes is a large enough community- there are 350 students at the Centre D’Intervention Jeunesse school, and apparently another 200 or so students at the private catholic school. I’m not sure how people with seemingly little money can afford a private school, but I suppose you can always make something work if you try hard enough.
Apparently there are many many children in the mountains who don’t come down to the school, as they can’t afford shoes & uniforms. The kids are delightful, of course- curious about the ‘blanc’. Several kids followed me down the road yesterday morning when I was going for a walk- I asked them if they should be in school (they were wearing uniforms), but couldn’t understand their answer. They sang songs and then asked me to sing for them, and they thought that was just the funniest thing!
They used to feed the kids at the Deslandes school from food grown on their own property, but after a big hurricane in 2008, their 5 acre farm was wiped out when the river swelled. So, some of these kids don’t likely eat before coming to school- the school doesn’t have the budget to feed them. It’s heartbreaking to imagine how many hungry souls are walking around here, yet while we’re here, we’re being fed well.
I am constantly amazed by the the incredible loads that people carry, usually on their head. People are so strong! Resilient keeps coming to mind.
Jeff arrived here at Deslandes yesterday. He works with Instituto Tierra y Cal (earth block builders) and has come here this week to work on plasters at the earth block school. Jeff had come here last year to teach a local crew how to make clay plaster, apply mesh and plaster the earthen block building. There were some issues with cracking in the finish coat of the plaster, so he came back to address that with the crew. In the end, what happened was that some of the students had been engraving graffiti into the earthen plaster walls, and various people gave their opinion about how to avoid that in the future, aso they added more cement. The cementitious plaster overtop of the earthen plaster expands & contracts at different rates in curing, and this caused lots of spiderweb shrinkage cracks, with some sections that delaminated.
We talked about various solutions, with lime wash & a painted clay alis being possibilities, but then Brandt, the crew leader, mentioned something that some other villagers had told me about. He said we could use the slag left over after welding to make a limewash. Someone brought some over, and it was so awesome to see. He added citrus juice to it, as the acid activates and starts the chemical reaction that will turn it into calcium chloride. The powder is grey, kind of like putty. They mixed it with some water, and then added the citrus juice (from freshly picked oranges!). He painted it onto the wall with a whitewash brush, and as with a limewash, as it cures, it whitens up. It seemed to fill in the cracks, so it’s a viable solution to fill in the cracks here.
The night was topped off by yet another meal at the hotel (where we met a group of Cuban doctors & nurses who are traveling around the country to deliver cholera medication and to educate remote communities about hygiene and treatment. The Cubans were going to a dance club, so we all hopped into the car and went out. I got to try to dance to several different styles of dance, with varying degrees of success, but had a blast regardless.
