Farming in a Time of Cholera

Outside the village of Ganthier, (a town seat of five communities including the one I am working in) two hours on a poor but standard Haitian road from the Capital of Port Au Prince, lies the little village of Hatte Cottin. Dont bother to try to mapquest it, nor will it appear on Google Earth. It is apparently too small to be bothered with for commerce and development have left it behind. Nor do the seven thousand people who call it home feel their loss! The area splays out north and south of the Rue Nacional which leads to the border town of Malpasse/Jimani on a shockingly level area surrounded by distant mountain ranges. Not close but not far (because time and distance for Haitians is relative to whether you have something to do or not) from the village is a large salt lake. There is no official explanation why an inland lake should be salty but there are egrets that dot the landscape because of its proximity. In addition of course to the usual warnings about Malaria, Dengue Fever and now Cholera, the travel clinic in Boston had advised against swimming in it knowing that several snail born diseases can still be transmitted through it. Nonetheless it is a popular place for the Hatte Cottin locals to go swimming and fishing.

As rural under developed villages go, it is like many. The homes are wattle stakes woven into uprights covered with mud in a simple adobe style. Roofs are layered palm fronds. No windows, no screens. I recall staying in very ultra chic versions of 'palapas' like these at high end club med type resorts. Here the rents are cheaper but check out is not optional There is running water, in the form of a very tame river of almost three feet width and two feet depth through its entire course. Bathing is a communal affair for women and children in a large shallow source at one side of the village. There laundry is also done. A smaller area for men 'of age' serves the same purpose hidden back in a less open spot nearer the farm fields. Drinkable running water is free flowing from an untended pipe supply at the base of a no longer used shower and fountain shed that some missionaries had installed a decade earlier. It is the only supply for the entire village and is always busy. The original shower stalls and multiple taps had been rendered useless ever since either the water table dropped or the cement slab building housing them had been placed too high. At any rate the pressure to supply the taps decreased until it became necessary to break the pipe at a lower level, where the pressure was still adequate. Animals come and go drinking from all of these sources. Since cholera is water born I wonder about what could occur if there was an outbreak.

There is however no electricity, hence there is blissful quiet. Ice for the small stores to cool drinks mostly comes delivered as it did through most of the US up until the fifties, by mule and horse. Television and computers are concepts that can be used elsewhere. Cell phones are very much in demand, and because they require little infrastructure, nor monthly payments, all but the very poorest are without them. Here around seven thousand people make their homes and something of a livelihood selling farm crops to larger town markets such as the friday market in Croix des Bouquets. This is a bustling market and the largest market between the capital and the border. They can eke out a small living selling vegetables. There used to be fruit trees, but now very few are left apart from some very old specimens. What land they own that isnt planted to vegetables. is planted to sugar cane syrup for the rum companies, which brings in cash once a year at harvest. The rest of the year it is the snack of choice for all ages and you have never seen such healthy white teeth in your life, as apparently it does not cause the type of decay that refined sugar candy can.

The approach to the town weaves through some very parched scrub dotted with a species of Acaccia known as Bayonda: thorny, small leaflets – so often cut for making charcoal, that it is always a small shrub instead of the thirty foot shade making specimen that it would be. Fortunately it is drought tolerant, salt tolerant, prolific and can also fix nitrogen in the soil This last seems its most important attribute as I dodge its flesh ripping branches on the back of my kamikasi moto chauffeur. There are several species of Cactus, including a large euphorbia often used in the tropics as a hedge barrier for herd animals since they cannot eat it (toxic) and wont brave its spines. A pot in the US is a pretty architectural patterned chunky novelty. A mature plant here is a tree with a two foot trunk and a twenty foot crown like a green candelablra. We pass sheep and goats grazing at will, we fly by mules and cows tethered to branches, the occasional pedestrian, barefoot, walking to Ganthier (who either stares or gives a happy wave) anachronistic school children, uniformed heading for school. There are no other vehicles on this twenty minute joy ride, the road barely level in most spots.

Although we havent yet received our budget for this project from its sponsors, we need to begin preparation of the site for our new pepiniere (greenhouse, but in the tropics typically a shade house – which is what ours will be) and adjacent communal farm, and ultimately orchards. My thought is that if we dont start soon, we will loose the season for grafting orchard tree varieties we have chosen, and possibly lose the start of the growing season as well. Through the communal leader, a man named Willie, we announce a need for workers and on our first work day we have more than twenty people clamoring for their names to be added. When I make it clear to the few women present that they too will be needed, we are inundated through the day with applicants. I find one person who can write and give him my yellow legal pad to begin making a list. Willie would like to close the list (there is apparently a little political system at work I neither understand nor want to acceed to). I tell the transcriber to take as many names possible. He runs out of paper.

I make a small announcement and ask someone fluent in French and Creole, the former generally only used by the educated, the latter by everyone, to translate for me. Sentence by sentence to the gathered group, I explain the purpose of the project, the benefit for all involved and our need for their support and patience as we begin to get it underway. Before I had begun it was a happy raucous crowd (all the more so because it was the week immediately following the primary elections and schools were closed to avoid potential casualties among students in case of riots). There are many students wanting to be included. There are questions, some surprise me with their insight many are clearly happy and continue to hang out while our small initial group gets underway. I am amazed at how healthy and ripped the men are. I feel like a fat colonialist next to them. Everywhere most small children are running around almost naked. The site of a blanc (white man) here is an event seldom seen. I makes them smile and giggle when I say bon jour. Some try out their english 'gut moning sir!' My heart aches.

Another local poll, by the name of Milos, introduces himself, it is clear he intends to insert himself in some of the decision making. I greet him and for the moment give him the impression that the director, Madame Henryka, is making all the decisions but I am happy to refer questions to her (an easy dodge since she cannot easily be reached in Miami) . Part of our intent is to employ some of the people who are now in Ganthier, who had been displaced due to the tremblement de terre (earthquake) of last January. Because jobs of any kind are scarce we anticipate some resistance. The project's presence in their village was a compromise worked out with the village leaders to give us this leeway. Nonetheless some of the first chosen to work, clearly are part of the local political system.

We have already chosen this site on a previous tour of the village, a level piece of land that lays between the small meandering (but never dry) river and the village homes at a higher level. Since water will have to be carried, or hand pumped, it seems a logical choice. I had Henryka hand carry soil and water samples to the US for testing at a Florida Laboratory on her return. There is a large Acaccia for shade and some old twisted lateral trunks that have served as a wonderful driftwood sculpture and grandstand seating for years. This will continue to serve as a break room and social focal point. I hand out the tools and begin explaining the layout and measurement for the shade house. Others begin clearing some stumps and raking debris. One of the men shows me a tropical version of a praying mantis (I am immediately homesick having always made the time to admire these elegant insects). I try to explain how necessary they are to the ecosystem. This pattern will repeat itself many times in the next few days, as there are only the edible or useful and the 'inutile' or useless to them. Some older farmers understand the relationship of plants and animals, soil and water. Some have never had the chance to work the land having always been itinerant. We cannot seem to get a handle on who owns land and who doesnt. Nor can I make any assumptions about how to be fair in the apportioning of work. I realise quickly that we dont really understand this culture we have inserted our good intentions into, and make a note to tread lightly.