May 17-20, Fondwa, Haiti
I again wanted to take the early flight from Fort Lauderdale, however it got cancelled and I didn’t fly out until 2 PM. That meant that it was too late to have a class on Saturday.
As always I stay at Max’s house in the lush valley down from the school. This night was filled with singing coming from a house in the forest behind us. The women and men sang in separate groups all night with only a few hours rest in between. I found out that someone had just died and this was the custom of the wake the night before the funeral.
Sunday was Flag Day. Amenold and I drove with several students to Marigot which is East of Jacmel. The town of Marigot is at the end of the paved road. From here one can go on a very bad road across the mountains back to Port-au-Prince or continue on dirt roads towards the border with the Dominican Republic. We staid and watched the school children parading up and down main street, singing and reenacting the revolution. On the way back we did some more sightseeing and stopped at Cyvadier Plage and Cap Lamandou before returning to Jacmel to have dinner at the hotel Jacmelian. When we returned we were greeted in front of the university by the watchman and several other people. This evening someone had scaled the wall, broken into a side door and made off with 6 large batteries and the language lab equipment. Besides the monetary loss of between $1,000 and $1,500 it also hurt the implementation of the energy project. This June the solar panels will be installed to supply enough power to run our lights and computers. The batteries are part of the installation and will have to be replaced immediately.
On Monday we had class at the school in the morning, going once more over the project management items we had already covered and discussing our project, clarifying who had to do what in the weeks to come. In the afternoon we shared the four laptops on which I had installed the Project Management software and together went over the remaining material yet to be covered. I gave the assignments and promised the students that in June we would have our long awaited exam.
On Tuesday morning I walked from Tomgato down the Road to Fondwa to the APF center in the valley. Fr. Joseph was not at the center, but I met Fr. McKnight walking on the road and had a long talk with him. At 88 years old he is still going strong, giving advice and providing encouragement. It is truly a pleasure to meet with him.
The trip back to Miami was routine without problems.
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April 2008 - Project Management Course |
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Tuesday, April 22, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
This time I only brought hand luggage walked right out of the airport and was picked up by the driver off the APF. After stopping at several locations and loading up the truck with gas bottles, a grill and many boxes, we left for Fondwa. All of the equipment was for a congress starting on April 23, which Fr. Joseph was organizing in Fondwa. This was a congress of political leaders from all over he country, invited to discuss the establishment of a new ministry of the Haitian government, dealing exclusively with peasant affairs. Surprisingly, in a country that is still largely rural, this did not yet exist.
The trip and the stay at Fondwa were uneventful this time (which sometimes is a good thing). On Sunday I downloaded a Project Management software program on the laptops in the computer lab and a dozen of us shared 5 computers while I explained how to use the program. On Monday we had two long sessions, diving deep into project management. I decided to initiate a real project to accompany the dry material. It is the “Water Filter Project” that picks up where the “Makaya Water Project” had left off. The Makaya project is to bring the water from the spring in the valley up to the APF center located in Tombe Gateau on the main road from Leogane to Jacmel. Tombe Gateau is somewhat of a downtown of the community of Fondwa. The scope of the Water Filter project is to install a filter and a holding tank for the filtered water. The idea for this project originated with the team of students that wrote the business plan for the Auto Parts Store across the street from the APF center. We decided then that maybe we could utilize the two huge empty tanks located there to store potable water.
Tuesday morning I drove with Max back to Potoprens and he dropped me off at the airport after we had lunch at a friend’s house.
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Saturday, March 15, Fondwa, Haiti
Arrival and exciting trip to Fondwa. I left extra early on the first flight to PAP from Miami this time because I had agreed to add a Saturday afternoon class for the directors of APF to teach them basic report writing and managerial skills. However, when I arrived in Port-au –Prince, one of my suitcases was missing. I had extra luggage because I was bringing a desktop PC donated by some good friends in Miami. So I spent six hours waiting for the next plane from Miami to arrive. Finally my luggage arrived and we were off. After picking up a sister of the APF order, we drove on to Fondwa. About halfway up the mountains we decided to pass a bus and suddenly a huge semi truck came around the corner about 100 feet ahead of us, bearing straight at us. Amenold tried to slow down to get behind the bus while the bus slowed down to let us pass. I decided that this was finally it, we all had to die some day. Then, at the last minute, reminiscent of Moses opening the floods, the bus went all the way to the right, almost falling off the cliff and the semi hugged the mountain and we went in between them, bouncing off the side of the semi and suddenly we came out at the other side, without mirrors, but still alive.
I was supposed to teach a class to the APF directors that afternoon, but we arrived too late and I was too shook up to do anything but have a few large Barbancourt and coke.
Jacmel.
I forgot that this Sunday was Palm Sunday and I had only three of thirteen students show up for the morning class. We called it a day early and I decided to go to Jacmel instead. On a good day there would be three cars in Fondwa, Amenold’s, Vital’s and Max’s. However, this was not a good day. Max’s Jeep was standing in front of the school with carburetor trouble, Vital’s was in the shop in Port au Prince and Max had taken Amenold’s car to go to PaP. So I took a Tap Tap, which meant waiting at the street for about half an hour and then standing in the back of a converted truck, holding on to the rafters for dear life as the truck careened around the many curves down to Jacmel. My sailing experience helped me adjust and after a while I started leaning into the curves and it was getting more comfortable. Once in Jacmel I walked through town, went back to the art shop where we had bought some paintings before but couldn’t make up my mind and had lunch at the Jacmel Hotel at the town’s beach. After it got dark I took a moped taxi back to Fondwa. I decided later not to do that again at night. When you see a single headlight coming at you, you never know whether it is another moped, or a car with either the left or the right light out. I made it back in one piece and the rest of the stay was uneventful.
Peasant customs.
On Monday morning, as Max and I started walking from his house to the school, he stopped at small peasant shack just up the hill from us. There was a group of about ten peasants sitting outside the house, most of them playing domino. Max talked to them for a little while and we were on our way. He then explained that the man of the house had just died and that it was the custom that neighbors and friends would come for about two weeks after the funeral and keep the surviving family company. They would stay all day and the family had to feed them and provide drinks. Then Max went on to explain that exactly a year after a person had died the Voodoo priest will come and perform a ceremony, which will put the soul of the departed at rest. Now the person is really gone and at peace.
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February 4 - 10,2008 Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and Fondwa
I was picked up at the airport by my cheerful partners of Fondwa, Max Delices the president and Amenold Pierre, the professor. Haiti was already in the middle of Kanaval and we dove right in. We dropped off my luggage at the house of a friend of Max and went downtown to the main square, Champ Mars. I did not recognize any of the landmarks. Viewing stands had been erected creating a new street winding across the square. People were milling about, starting to find their places for the evening parade.
We had lunch at a little restaurant hidden behind the stands. A little later we met up with several students and Vital Gerard, another professor. We passed a temporary Aids awareness center, which gave free Aids tests and handed out Aids information and free condoms during the Kanaval.
Max got us all invited onto a viewing stand sponsored by his friend’s radio station, Radio Ginen. That is where we passed the evening, watching a never-ending parade of very large truck floats. Each of these trucks carried a different band, all their equipment, HUGE speakers and many people. When a truck had passed us and the music of that band faded, another already appeared filling the air with a different sound. We danced and danced, as was everyone else on the stands as well as the thousands on the street below us.
Sometime after midnight we left (the parade kept going to the early morning hours), piled everybody into Amenold’s small Jeep, picked up my luggage and headed for Fondwa to rest a little before driving on to Jacmel to spend Mardi Gras day there. We spend the morning fairly hung-over on a beach outside Jacmel, where we slept some more, had lobster for lunch and a few more Prestiges, Haiti’s excellent beer. By late afternoon we drove into Jacmel, positioned us in a bar on the parade route and took in the much more relaxed village version of Kanaval.
After we recovered from all this I taught the last class of the business plan course and then gave the introduction to the next course: project management. This course would take us to the end of the school year in July, when the first group of students would graduate from the University of Fondwa.
On Friday I participated in a joint board meeting of APF, the Peasant Association of Fondwa and PIP, Partners in Progress, the main sponsor of APF and UNIF. The meeting was called to air differences that had arisen over time. I was somewhat caught in the middle, as I was a board member of another sponsoring organization in the US as well as a teacher at the University.
The next morning I rode together with the PIP Board on the back of the APF truck to the airport to return to Miami, carrying unforgettable memories.
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Moringa - The Wonder Tree, January 2008 |
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Miami Beach, January 2008 After my students and I arrived at the conclusion that the town needs a steady supply of clean, safe water, I was looking for a low cost water filter system. As I perused the internet, I came across the Moringa tree. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. One tree can supply enough material for one family to filter their water all year. The Moringa tree grows in Haiti. Scientists and lay persons alike publish their findings on the extremely interesting website: "The Moringa News Network". www.moringanews.org Here are some exerpts from a sample article written in Nigeria a while back: "Studies on the potential use of Medicinal Plants
and Macrofungi (Lower plants) in water and waste water purification" By Kenneth Anchang Yongabi
FMENV/ZERI Research Centre, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University
Pmb 0248, Bauchi, Nigeria .
Email:
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Typical menu of the restaurant in Fondwa, January 2008 |
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For a few days I wrote down what we ate at the Lakay Restaurant in Fondwa. Students, Teachers and the Fonkoze staff of the business center all share the same fare. While some of it may sound strange, it is lovingly prepared and always tastes wonderful. The day always starts with a very filling breakfast and ends with a small, very simple dinner. Lunch is the big meal of the day.
Saturday Dinner: Sweet Potato Soup with Milk & Water
Sunday Breakfast Spaghetti with ketchup and hot sauce, Avocado Chunks & Coffee & Water
Sunday Lunch: Salad of Beets, Cabbage and Mirliton, Rice and Beans w. Beef in Gravy, Fried Plantains &Water
Sunday Dinner: Bread w. Margarine & Hot Chocolate & Water
Monday Breakfast: Rice & Gravy, Avocado Chunks & Coffee & Water
Monday Lunch: Polenta, Bean Sauce, Cabbage/Mirlion/Beef Stew, Avocado Chunks & Water & Passion Fruit Juice
Monday Dinner: Bread w. Margarine & Hot Chocolate & Water
Tuesday Breakfast: Spaghetti with ketchup and hot sauce, Avocado Chunks & Coffee & Water
Wednesday Breakfast Polenta w. Lyan Payn (basket weed)
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Why I Decided to Assist a Rural University in Haiti |
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I get asked a lot how and why I got involved with UNIF in the first place. I hope this answers is good enough. |
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