Hello from Haiti: Tue, Nov 21, 2006 Update

Dear friends,

It was wonderful to receive the outpouring of support in response to my illness. Nothing brings out the sympathy like a little bout of malaria! All is well, and life is good again.

Let me wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving: we've got everyone scouring the neighborhood for a turkey, so that Anna can show the folks here how we celebrate. Somewhere there's an oblivious turkey who's got a surprise coming....

We're "recovering" from the visit of two groups, one of 13 people (led by CFI's Director, Scott Mandl), and the second of 8 (led by the President of CFI, Ray Jackson). Today the second group departed, which means that it's time to get back to work on my own projects. Some of the things I worked on with this last group included

• rewiring some confused solar panels (we still have one unsociable one);
• rerouting some gutters to collect rain water (rather than to pour it into the mosquito sanctuary);
• helping in renegotiating some salaries of the Haitian help; and
• sending out the fourth load of "fair trade coffee" with my new buddy Andy, an English professor (and Lutheran pastor) from Eastern Kentucky University.

Anna did most of her work with a nurse from Nova Scotia named Vanessa, who stayed for two weeks, and overlapped both groups:

• Anna translated for Vanessa as they collected biographies of teachers sponsored by supporters of CFI;
• they worked in the clinic one day;
• they spent time finishing the ear cleaning of all the students in the school, a task that the previous group had started.

Marvelous things have been happening, and I'm getting very excited about several projects. The arborloos are coming along for the school: we'll hope to inaugurate them on Wednesday the 29th. Then I've got folks lined up to receive the next batch (which we're going to start cranking out like a factory), and the line gets bigger every day.

One of the things I keep harping on to the folks associated with CFI is that the campus needs to become a show-place. Ivy has done a great job of developing the campus, and now CFI needs to do everything it can to keep it beautiful, and to plan for its future. Ray Jackson has suggested that three of us (me, George Derval, and Franz Pierre, an agronomy student in Cap Haitian) form a committee to oversee planning on campus for the next year. George and Franz work on the reforestation project, so will help to bring more harmony to the campus.

Personally, I'd like to see this campus turned into an agricultural demonstration center, including arborloos, solar pasteurization, solar dehydration, coffee growing techniques, etc. People could come from all around for pointers, and to see what is being done here.

I accompanied Ivy and the rest of Ray's group to the plane in Pignon. As we waited at the airfield, I met a group of folks from another project, called "Bright Hope". Their focus (or one of them) is on job creation, so I told them what we're trying to do with fair trade coffee. Their director was very excited about that, saying that they've not been able to get a stable supply. So if I can get together with people in Ranquitte, maybe we can make fair trade work through Bright Hope. Ray Jackson was also very interested in fair trade coffee: CFI groups generally go back essentially "empty-handed": the tubs loaded with goods that they brought in are left behind. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they could go back loaded with products of Haiti! So we'll look into that. I'm looking for a coffee supplier for all the groups coming up in the near term: I'd like to find one with vast hillsides covered with coffee, so that we can do a lot of business together (rather than deal with lots of little growers, which is a reasonable back-up scenario).

It will be quite a change to have Ivy in the States for the next two months. She's been a constant presence in the house, and will be missed (especially after dinner, when the Scrabble usually comes out).

Fortunately Thad continues to be care-free, fun-loving, and much-mothered. He's trading in his English for Creole, and I'm amused to imagine what his grandma and uncle will think of his communication when he arrives. Here are some recent Thadisms:

• Gade, Ketia! (Look, Ketia!)
• C'est pas vrai! (That's not true!)
• Tand mwen! (Wait for me!)
• Ou pas zanmi mwen! (You're not my friend!)

Thad's a five-year old now (we celebrated his birthday on the second of November), so there are frequent tears when the teasing gets too intense, or when he can't keep up with the others. But he's still our sweet little boy. He gets plenty of attention from the people in the groups, too.

The constant activity of the groups makes it a little hard to get to my pet projects, so those have had to go into "shallow background" for the last couple of weeks. Next time I hope to tell you about my third (and probably final) "major" project: solar pasteurization. By that time my prototype model should be in operation.

Thanks and thanksgiving to all,

Andy

Some Photos:

• Bois de Lance - we went to this tiny outpost with a "Young Christian Fellowship" group. They wanted a service project, so they helped level out the dirt floor.
  • Dirty work...
  • Everyone pitches in
  • Anna served the kids food
  • Here's the group who pitched in. One of these kids died recently. I won't tell you which one: realize that it could have been any of them. One diagnosis we heard was "satanic influence". The kid had a fever....
• Arborloo progress
  • Here are the arborloos going in (these for the girls) at the school (closeup). The concrete rings must weigh 100 pounds -- a bit of overkill, but we're hoping to run a lot of kids through them (or over them)....
  • The arborloos will be covered in style (but any old thing will do: two others will be covered in old sacks, rather than the interlaced branches that you see here; the one for the volunteers who come to visit will be covered in the skin of an old palm that was cut a year or so ago -- I just chopped it up today!).
• Dehydrator progress
  • The beast on its hill (I used Google Earth to pick out a mango in the distance, and we lined it up facing south using that! Google Earth is wonderful...)
  • Showing the power behind the dehydrator: the plastic over the black painted chute, which sends the hot air up the chute and into the dehydrator.
  • Door side
• More Coffee:
  • Nanotte pounds the coffee to get the beans out (mpeg video) (This is on the day of Ivy's birthday, so guess why we invited the chickens....)
  • Now Nanotte swishes the beans to separate the chaff from the good stuff (mpeg video)
  • Now I'm planting coffee. I'm working with an agronomy student to bring more planning to the campus, including tending those plants already on campus, and helping neglected or stressed areas recover from yahoos who don't care what they do to a field....
  • Just so that Steve knows, there's a really smokin' pepper plant ("bird pepper") right amongst the coffee -- I'll save some for him, for when he comes in January!
• More Moringas:
  • We've eaten a salad made from the flowers, and drunk tea brewed from them. The salad is great; the tea is a little like green tea (so not my favorite). Maybe I can discover an Earl Grey variety of moringa....
  • My first Moringa tree, which I started upstairs on our balcony. When it got too big, I gave it to Fedrina and asked her to plant it for me. It's looking great!
  • We found a new moringa on campus, while looking for the best site for our arborloos. It provided the flower salad and tea we drank. It will also provide more cuttings.
  • Moringa's can be chopped up and replanted, as we see here: it was just a stick when I put it in the ground. Now it's leafing out nicely. That's coffee growing behind it: I planted this moringa because I want it to shoot up and shade the coffee, so that we can get the "shade-grown" label on our coffee. Moringa's can grow 2 to 4 meters in height every year (but are usually pruned low so that one can get at all the good stuff).
• Around the house:
  • Thad's five! Birthday shots We had a whale of a good time, as you can see. It's all in the silly hats....

• More details on our Solar Dehydrator
• If you're looking for ways to help:
  • Come for a visit! CFI is always running trips.
  • Remina Belle-Amour still needs help getting through nursing school.
  • An arborloo toilet is currently $25. I'll make and install one for a happy family for that.
  • CFI has a "Teacher Sponsor" program, which is at the heart of how they pay their teachers. But why not an "Agronomist Sponsor" program? There are lots of beautiful trees, and plenty of opportunities to show folks in the area how to do a better job with their land (where to put their arborloos, etc.); but we need someone to create the showplace. We might like to put a nursery on campus, for example, and the agronomist would run it. Let me know if you're interested.