A letter from Mark Hare in Haiti
May 26, 2010
The rains have come. Here in the Central Plateau of Haiti those are sweet words. It has been a long dry season after very poor harvests in 2009. Most of the crops that farmers planted during the second of the two growing seasons last year withered in the fields or produced very marginal crops. The last significant rains in this part of Haiti were in September last year — we’ve had over seven months of drought. That is a record for my six years here in Haiti as a PC(USA) mission co-worker serving with the grassroots farmer organization MPP (Mouvman Peyizan Papay — Farmer’s Movement of Papaye).
Five members of the Road to Life Yard crew, working up the soil on a piece of land at MPP’s Colladère cooperative. We have around 500 moringa trees we’ll plant here, together with peanuts, pigeon peas and black-eyed peas. The rains have come and we have a lot of work to do! Wilner Exil (far right) is the crew leader for the Colladère work.
But now the rains seem to really be here. Fields that hadn’t been plowed yet are being plowed rapidly and every morning, when I leave for work at 5:30, the country paths are full of young and old headed out to their fields with plastic gallon jugs filled with corn and beans. Durosier Joachim, the crew leader of MPP’s Road to Life Yard and moringa project, which I help coordinate, talked to me excitedly yesterday about buying rootstock for planting bananas. I was excited, too, because I have about 3/4 of an acre of land that MPP has lent me to try my hand at producing beans and bananas and papaya and cassava. I’ll buy my banana plants together with Durosier, helping him out with transportation for his bananas in exchange for him helping me buy mine.
Right now there is a crew of six of us at the Colladère cooperative, one of the cooperatives that MPP helped form and still supports, providing technical assistance. The six of us are here for two and a half days of solid work, taking maximum advantage of the rains. From where I sit, typing on my laptop connected to the battery of our Toyota Landcruiser, I can see where we worked up the soil in about 1/4 acre this morning. Starting at 5:00, we hoed until around 11:00, working the soil up into long hills where we will plant around 500 moringa trees, together with peanuts, pigeon peas and black-eyed peas. We have plans as well for the other areas where we have around 1,200 moringa trees planted, planting beans and peanuts underneath the sparse shade of the trees. At the same time we harvest the moringa leaves and use them to produce the moringa leaf powder that we sell in rural clinics around the area. The powder makes an excellent diet supplement that the rural clinics prescribe for children who are malnourished as well as for pregnant women and nursing mothers.
The Road to Life Yard crew provides technical assistance to more than 100 families, visiting them at least once every three months to document their work as well as encourage and help trouble-shoot production problems. Many of the families are members of APB (Association of Farmers of Bassin Zim), which found funds last year to help thirty families build systems for collecting and storing rainwater. Apolleon Jacques (far right) is responsible for helping Decil Exil (far left), in the community of Mabonite, get his vegetable production up and running.
In addition to planting beans and trees for food and forage, the Road to Life Yard’s work with integrated diversified yard production systems continues, and is growing. We’ve held six workshops already this year, trying to serve the many groups interested in the techniques we are using for maximizing production in small areas. The vegetable tires are the single most popular technique and we are struggling to keep up with the demand, hauling old tires from Port au Prince and selling them for about 75 cents each. Producing vegetables in tires helps make efficient use of small quantities of water, and the vegetables become an important source of nutritious foods as well as income during the most difficult times of the year.
Jenny’s work in the medical laboratory at MPP’s health center is also going well. Besides the medical lab, MPP’s health center has a pharmacy that provides medicines cheaper than other local pharmacies, and it is closer to home for most members of the farmer’s movement. The center currently has a doctor who will serve in the clinic for a year as part of the social service time required by Haitian law. The reputation of the center is spreading, particularly the medical lab. Jenny has had patients come from 20 or 30 miles away specifically to benefit from her services.
To all of you who have kept Keila, our 10-month-old daughter, especially in your prayers, a heartfelt thank you! Keila has been amazingly healthy, is growing well, and has become the unofficial Queen of the Road to Life Yard crew.
And that’s our news from the Central Plateau. It may sound surprisingly upbeat considering January 12. The results from the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, Leogane and several other cities in western and southern Haiti are still working themselves out and the rainy season is not such good news for the thousands of families still without homes. Thanks to international assistance, many people have tents, or at least decent tarps, but those only guarantee folks can keep their heads dry. Many of the tent cities are in flatter areas that are natural drainage points. The waters sit where they are living.
It is a very difficult situation, As mission workers serving with MPP, Jenny and I do not have much involvement with trying to solve it. Hinche, Papay and the Central Plateau in general were not directly affected by the earthquake, and my work with the Road to Life Yard crew and Jenny’s work with MPP’s integrated health center have not changed much. There is, however, an added poignancy to what we are doing. Our challenge has always been to be present in the best way possible with a nation of people struggling on the edge of survival, year in and year out. This new tragedy calls us to make our best efforts even better. If there was ever any question that MPP and the people it serves deserve our utmost, there is none whatsoever now.
Mark and Jenny with Keila, during a brief moment at the beach in northern Dominican Republic. We spent ten days visiting friends in February.
Please continue to keep Jenny, Keila and me in your prayers in particular as we work to serve with our utmost. Also, we are trying to begin the process of getting residency for Jenny in the United States, a particular trial for us because we live neither in the United States nor in Nicaragua, where the process would normally begin.
Also, please let us know if you have any prayer requests you would like us to keep in mind as we pray.
May our God bless you wherever you are and in whatever way you are serving our Creator, and our Creation.
In Christ,
Mark, Jenny and Keila
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 287
