The black boogers of a dusty nation

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Day one: orientation. Post breakfast we were regaled withpresentations from hospital staff including a particularly long one from thedirector of the hospital and a not long enough one from the program manager ofthe Haiti Tree Reintroduction Project (HTRIP). We were then given a tour of thehospital, the prosthetics lab and the community services building including thetree nursery. I am not a too huge fan of hospitals and it felt particularlyawkward to be tromping around one that only caters to the seriously ill. Theprosthetics lab was fascinating. It was explained to us that after theearthquake resources could not be distributed well in Port au Prince so theclinic and lab was set up in Deschappelles by the Hangar company. Not only canthe prosthetics be made in a few hours but they also funded and designed the“Haiti knee” built especially for the hilly terrain of the country.

Wall art in the hospital

The cashier

tree nursery!

Day two: much walking. I woke up on day two with both anklesswollen and a sore knee. Despite this, we hiked up to a community called SousDupon to see one of the original HTRIP plots and basically interrogate thetechnicians and property owners. We were told that it was about an hour walkbut it quickly became clear that Haitian time doesn’t nearly approximateGreenwich mean time. (In fact, the true calculation is: HT = 2GMT + 7 minutes.)The soil of Haiti has been severely degraded and in many places all thatremains is the limestone base so this means that the dirt roads are a blindingwhite.
The demonstration plot was terraced and protected by livefencing and the trees were in good condition. However, other plots had noticeablylower tree survival with no move towards replanting. It seemed like the farmerswere discouraged because without fencing the goats ate all the trees. What canyou do?

I was particularly impressed by Ruth the intern. She had areal rapport with all the technicians and was able to translate and phrase ourquestion in a culturally appropriate way. There were certain concepts that westruggled to convey in Kreyol, particularly money and time. In trying toquantify the money lost in exchanging food plots for tree plots, we asked, “Ifyou planted one field full of pigeon peas, for how much could you sell thepigeon peas?” and the answer was generally “Who the heck would only plant onecrop?” We also tried to ask more basic questions like what was their income andwhat did they sell to earn money and were they earning more or less now. Wewere generally met with “I don’t know” until Ruth asked “How you pay schoolfees?” So our brief attempt at a socioeconomic study of reforestation projectsmet with a bit of a roadblock. It would be very important to have someone veryfamiliar with the language and culture design the questions if you wanted toget real answers.
Later that afternoon heading back into town we saw two hugetrees. The technicians explained to us that these marked boundaries betweenlandowners but now hold voodoo spirits that prevent the tree from being cutdown. In fact, if you tried to cut them down, your hatchet would be swallowedand you might be killed. It was possible to communicate with the spiritsthrough the trees, leaving offerings and such. One technician then said hedidn’t believe this because he was Catholic. Haiti, like Bolivia actually, is afascinating example of syncretism, where Catholicism (or whatever dominantreligion) is adapted to feature aspects of the native religion and people whogo to church and call themselves catholics might also make offerings to voodoospirits.
That evening we went to the pool and played sharks andsardines (although what self-respecting shark eats sardines). The notes I tookin my journal include the phrase “the black boogers of a dusty nation.” Ishan’t expand but I will leave you with that image.