Kisa sa ye? Sa samble ak yon moun...

After a restless night in Miami I arrived at the airport in Port-Au-Prince to find that there had been some noticeable improvements in the airport - specifically the baggage area.  What was once just a huge pile of bags from every incoming flight was now a bit more spread out  and seemingly organized they even had baggage carousels (which weren't running when I got there but looked like they'd been well used).

I was met by my friends Morgan, Kenley and Lucho who brought me back to the house in Delmas 33.  We caught up on all the news and had a big meeting about how were are going to approach some of the upcoming projects and what could be done about Madam Lucien  and Good Samaritan orphanage. The good news is that she has quite obviously lost interest in the orphanage  and will likely stop working there soon but the bad news is that there is a comity that is full of people lined up to take her place- all of which have similar motivation.

The street power was out all night so a good part of the meeting was done by the light of a kerosene lamp - it also  relieved us of any of the jobs that were dependent on internet or power.

Artibonite River

The next morning we woke up at 4:30 to get ready for a seminar day in Artibonite which is a region north of Port-Au-Prince that is predominantly farming communities.

We picked up a few people on the way: Harry Ha - from south Korea who is working for a group in Toronto that's developing Eco-Tourism in Haiti, Anjti Ouanechee a Native American from Canada who had been in Haiti for over 12 years working on Land preservation projects and Jean Baptiste who was our local contact there.

It took us a good 5 hours to get there and  the gas worked out to be about $4.50 USD per gallon. Once we got to the region our map showed that we should us to turn off before the real exit  so we ended up going along a very small road that was full of fallen rocks, up a huge hill then down into a valley. At the bottom was the Artibonite river (the same river where the Cholera outbreak originated). When the road became too dangerous we parked the car and gathered all our gear for the seminar. We made our way down to the river and took a small wooden boat across.

There were about 10 other people in the boat with us along with all their supplies from the market and 3 horses that swam long side us. From there we walked for another 2 hours along a small dirt road before finally reaching the small village called Deslandes. The CIG school we were doing the seminar at was nestled in amongst a small market community where people's only mode of transportation is by foot or horse.

Compost Toilet Structure

Old Toilets

Mr St Juste, greeted us enthusiastically at the entrance and gave us each a bottle of cold water.

The seminar went really well. It was well received and met with great enthusiasm. At the break we were given lunch which was all locally produced food- Artibonite rice, fried bread-fruit, beans and pickliz. SO Good!

After lunch we continued with the other material and Anjti presented his stove that uses dry organic materials that are easily found on the floor of the market and burns more cleanly than charcoal. Each of these stoves cost just $25 USD (a small fortune for a family there) but the investment could mean free fuel for all of their cooking.

It started raining quite heavily at about 5pm, so much so that we had to stop the presentation a few times because the noise from the rain on the tin roof was so loud. It became apparent that we would likely end up spending the night in the village as the Artibonite river frequently floods and there is no other way across.

We decided to give it a go but Mr St Juste insisted that we take one of his horses to transport our seminar materials and that I ride on one. I was terrified as the road was already in pretty terrible condition when we had walked on earlier but from the rain it now had huge parts missing and was either really slippery or full of very soft mud. Along the way we came across a young girl who was maybe about 9 or so. She came up to Pierre (one of our colleagues) and asked him what that thing was on the horse and said that it looked a lot like a person. Pierre laughed and said it was a person. Completely oblivious to what has just happened I passed by not even a minute later and said bonswa to her- eyes wide and mouth open. Needless to say we made it to the river after about 2 and a half hours.

We finally arrived back in PortAu-Prince at 10:00pm completely knackered.


I'm still exploring the options and am not sure if it's a real possibility at this time but if anyone has any ideas on how to go about improving the condition of the road for them it would be so beneficial for that community. Having a more easily accessible road would not only benefit them directly but also benefit of surrounding communities so that transporting the produce they grow could be the least of their worries.


So sorry for the delay more to come!
Love & Light