Are There Changes in RURAL Haiti?
An informal look five years later.
My partner, Mike Goodman and I, co-founded the charitable organization Yonn Ede Lot, operating in Haiti from 2007–2013. We visited Haiti recently to review the projects completed in those years. Our evaluation began with the changes we saw in Haiti — first, in the cities, and then, in the countryside.)
Lamontay, 50 miles square with 15,000 residents.
We drove the mountainous road to the area of Lamontay. Our car still hit the potholes and avoided the rocks as it did so often on our way to the central village. Here and there, sections of the road were newly paved. When we asked why weren’t any of the new parts longer than a few hundred feet, the answer came, “Politics.” Our driver swerved to avoid the donkeys carrying sacks of charcoal to the long-established Tuesday market. There, hundreds of locals, mostly women, sold their farm surplus or a small product purchased from a middleman in the city.
Initially, we did not see any significant changes like those in Port au Prince, Jakmel, or Les Cayes. The countryside did not scream “MONEY” like the cities with their influx of expensive autos, high-end hotels, and stylishly dressed citizens. No, the changes in the farmlands, where mountain beyond mountain lay in the distance, were more subtle.
Alongside the roadway to Lamontay, we saw new concrete posts erected along the roadway — phone lines, we were told — though it was unclear why lines were necessary in an era of cellular towers. Sadly, they did not attach electrical service to those same posts. New houses, built soon after the earthquake, did not include running water or sewage. There was no infrastructure to connect to.
Arriving in the main village of La Croix, we heard almost everyone speaking a bit of English. We could thank the continued visits (since 2005) of a medical mission from the U.S. that came twice yearly. “I’m Ricardo,” said a tall handsome young man to us. It was hard to recognize him as the scrawny nine-year old we knew.
Our long-time friend, Mario, constructed a new church in the village center. He married a nurse who started a small pharmacy and dry-goods store in their house on the main road. “Did you see my wife — she’s pregnant with our second! Did you see my two cars?” Mario beamed. He became a preacher and built the large, impressive place of worship just down the road from the Catholic church, which was undergoing its own renaissance. Damaged significantly in the earthquake, it was in the process of being taken down and rebuilt.
OPADEL became a star of the region.
We couldn’t miss the new OPADEL complex. OPADEL, a Haitian organization with which we partnered and provided $250 to build a chicken shed in 2007, expanded over the years in projects and presence. In 2010, it left its tiny community center of one building and one poultry coop and moved to another land parcel onto which it could expand. It constantly kept three aspects of its community in mind — agriculture, employment, and education. To that end, OPADEL, started a small manufacturing center, taught farmers techniques to improve their yields, worked with entrepreneurs to make the area an artist’s cooperative.
We saw ten buildings on OPADEL land — three for guests and workers, two for construction projects, one for agriculture, two for community meetings and administration, and two for education. The latter two housed a newly-formed university and a kindergarten, soon to expand into the primary grades.
When we left the main road and walked the worn paths that linked village to village, house to house, we saw a few of the 200 houses constructed by OPADEL. They partnered with the French-based non-governmental organization (NGO), Planete Urgence. Uniquely designed, they used rock (rubble, really), and a wire mesh to contain it to create a earthquake-proof structure, then plastered and painted. A tin roof covered wood trusses and floated a few inches above the walls. It ensured hurricanes could blow through rather than wrench the roof off.
From those construction efforts, the leaders of OPADEL acquired a multi-million dollar contract to build 6000 houses in another area of Haiti, using those same laborers from the Lamontay-area villages.
There, between the plentiful rows of corn and tomatoes, past the healthy goats and chickens, stood additional evidence of changes in Haiti.
Duchity, forty minutes outside of Les Cayes.
A week later, Mike and I traveled down the mountain, through Jakmel, and over the ridge that passed Fondwa and its amazing views of the ocean to the south and the verdant valley to the north. We continued down to the famous intersection of Leogane. You know it not because the roads to Jakmel, Les Cayes, and Port au Prince all meet here, not because there’s now a huge truck maintenance facility at the confluence, but because Leogane was the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake, known the world over for killing 300,000 people.
We took a left and drove four hours due west. The highway was smooth, moving us through small cities and the rice-growing lands that remain. It’s hard to find Haitian-grown rice as America gave it “free” or sold it at lower cost during the disasters. Sadly as our government tried to “do good,” we undercut Haitian farmers and put them out of business. Our rice now serves as the Haitian staple for every meal.
On the other side of the burgeoning city of Les Cayes, we climbed into Haiti’s most-southern mountain range, and then, left the highway into Duchity. Neither Mike nor I visited this area before.
Like Lamontay, there was no running water or electricity. Though Duchity escaped the destruction of the earthquake, it suffered the winds of Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and was rebuilding ever since. Market day took place on Thursday, and a couple of RestoBars provided adult diversion. The children, as in Lamontay, flocked to anyone who was new. Mike and I, the two new Blans in town, captured their attention; we were inundated with theirs.
Three changes to the community of note.
We were told three projects changed the Duchity landscape within the last five years:
1. The Port au Prince-educated doctor, Orcius Reginald, brought energy to the local medical clinic just over a year ago. For-pay clinics ran four days each week with emergency visits made to the doctor at his home as necessary. On market day, one of the clinic staff members traversed the main street with a loud speaker promoting the time and place for the free clinic. With some financial support of an American medical mission, the doctor worked hard. The day we visited, 50 people saw him or his staff — two nurses, a pharmacist, and a lab tech.
2. The Despagne Vocational School, started by Duchity native Despagne Felix, opened its doors in 2014. It served the people of the area rather than encouraging them to go to the larger cities for education. Its 200 students each semester learned agriculture, construction and building trades, and computer science. The NGO, Vermont Haiti Project, supported the school’s efforts providing staff, technology, and funds. It recently helped build a huge building for meetings, classrooms, and overnight stays. We met many successful individuals in the area who attended the school and stayed in the area, employed as tilers, agronomy technicians, or plumbers.
3. Youthaiti, an American based NGO which started in Duchity some years before the earthquake, expanded its own work in public health. Its mission was not easy to accomplish for it fought long-held Haitian traditions. Haitians (including many of the educated) continued their age-old tradition of defecating somewhere on their small plot of land or in public roadways. Yet, they often contracted feces-born illnesses because of this practice and lost work days as a result. The devastation of the cholera epidemic (soon after the earthquake) made clear the need for proper sanitation and every rural family wanted a private latrine. Unfortunately most were unable to afford that luxury. Youthaiti worked hard to educate the populace and make available lower-cost alternatives, such as a composting bucket toilets or shared public latrines.
More recently, Youthaiti, began education for girls starting their menstrual cycle in the local Haitian schools. Its objective ensured young women continued their schooling and were not embarassed or otherwise limited by their womanhood.
We sat around the table in the main area of the Youthaiti community center, visiting with Pierre Oreus (“Junior”) the former manager or our closed charity. As a kid, he learned English by listening to Stevie Wonder songs. Then for fun, he read the English dictionary. His part of the conversation effectively included many three-syllable words many native English speakers don’t use. When asked about the future of Haiti, he said, “Haitians still have issues we’re working on. Come back in five years and see.”
Changes in Haiti? You bet.
Mike and I saw many positive changes in both the rural areas and the cities. I couldn’t help but think, “It’s about time,” for I remember the cholera outbreak, which followed the earthquake, which followed the hurricanes, and thinking then, “Haiti just can’t catch a break.”
We remain hopeful for Haiti and its future. It will take additional years for the country to stand on its own feet, but one day that will happen. Still required will be investments of time, money, or belief in Haiti’s people — individuals like those who lead OPADEL, Youthaiti, the Despagne Vocational School, or the medical clinic. These are the men and women who have chosen their objectives well and are putting their visions into reality. They are Haiti’s future.
Yes, there are changes in Haiti. Good ones.
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Judy O Haselhoef, a social artist who writes, travels, and authored “GIVE & TAKE: Doing Our Damnedest NOT to be Another Charity in Haiti,” blogs regularly at her website, www.JOHaselhoef.com.
Copyright JOHaselhoef@2017: If you’d like to use any part of it (up to 200 words), please give full attribution and this website, www.JOHaselhoef.com.
Join me for occasional travel posts at Traveling for Community and viewpoints on the human race at The Humanity Conversation.
