July 20, 2010< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
We are waiting for the second team to arrive in Duchity. I have 2 days of other work preparing for their arrival.
The last day of team 1 we went up to Lakadonie to meet the community of coffee growers. A 45 minute drive up the mountain from Duchity brings you to a small cabin owned by Fred Cheron, our contact with Fondation Espoir-Grande’Anse, a collective of 1501 coffee growers. Almost everything that arrives there arrives by foot – a 2 hour+ walk from Duchity center. Fred helped bring up cement and other equipment for the construction of the new toilet, but sand and water was carried by community members. This has created some significant delays, and unfortunately it does not seem the toilet will be finished before we leave. None-the-less, we will visit again with team 2. We learned about the process of preparing coffee for sale – a process that requires treatment begin the same day as the coffee is picked, and can take 3 days in the mountains before being shipped by truck to Port-au-Prince for final drying to 11% humidity. The whole process is very time sensitive, and requires making sure the coffee is well sorted so hat only the best quality coffee if prepared for export. I hope you all will get a chance to taste La Hotte Coffee which is available through YOUTHAITI (write us at info@youthaiti.org) or at some local Milwaukee Fair Trade stores. After that we hiked down the mountain a bit to visit a small cave and a waterfall and natural pool, where a few of us went for a spontaneous swim! The water was so cool and refreshing, it was the cleanest we have felt since arriving!
We returned to Duchity for a sumptuous dinner of skewers of grilled chicken, beef and vegetables at Fred’s house in Duchity, and then to our final farewell party at “La Fraicheur”, Franci’s bar. Another night of Barbancourt, Prestige and Compa dancing wound up a very busy week for Team 1.
Yesterday should have been a day of relaxation for me. Instead, I rode with Franci on the motorcycle down to Les Cayes and back to meet with a representative from the World Food Program (acronym PAM in French). They are launching programs of “Food for Work”, and we were invited to submit a proposal for a short term project which would employ 200 – 300 people. So today, while we wait for Team 2 to arrive, I will meet with the OJPDD board to discuss the possibilities. This would be a larger project than we have done to date, but the need for sanitation is so great, the requests are coming every day from different communities, it is just a question of can we organize it?
The week will run out before I know it. Soon I will be home with you all again and dreaming and planning of how to continue this important work with people whose needs are so great and enthusiasm for advancement contagious. Thanks for all your support!!
Love
gigi
