Thursday, 13 July 2006, Fond Verrettes

I decided to get a few points by myself before breakfast so I went to the road above the house on the mountain called Bois Neuf. I attempted to climb a rock to see what was on top—barren or with trees, it was important because my 2000 satellite image indicated barren but from the road it looked to be trees, and this was on the mountain that they’ve reforested starting around 1998 which would mean the remotely sensed data is telling the same “story” as the people in the area —and ended up falling onto the road. I was quite scared and shaken up, though I wasn’t sure why. I was afraid I’d broken the GPS; all the batteries spilled out. I’d scraped up my palms and legs but then I noticed my ankle was swelling up in a huge way and I couldn’t put much weight on it. I hoped it wasn’t broken. I gathered up my stuff and found 3 of the 4 batteries. I had to sit at the edge of the road, even though it wasn’t really a good place to sit, since I felt I was going to black out. I tried to find the fourth battery and finally I found it and hobbled to pick it up before an SUV came by. It felt like a small victory to find all the batteries!

I slowly made my way down the gravel (steep!) path to the Bois Neuf path below and then to the house. It was easier to walk on the flat path. I really needed to lie down and elevate my leg, which they let me do, but they wanted to put tepid water on my ankle and I wanted ice. They finally gave me a small bit of ice—not sure it was enough to do anything—and agreed to let me elevate my foot. I asked for a heavy blanket since I was quite cold. It felt good to lie down and elevate my leg. I was frustrated, though, that they were more concerned about my scraped-up hands than my leg and were washing my scrapes with saltwater, which was fine but they were minor scrapes. I wanted ice for my ankle!

Ginette said she’d called someone who “pulls legs” to come check me out. She said the swelling was blood and needed tepid water to get rid of it, and that I’d displaced the veins in my ankle. Since she’s a nurse, I didn’t argue. They were busy gathering and buying the things necessary for the healing.

The healer had me get out of bed and sit on the porch with my feet on the ground. A small crown of about 15 people gathered to watch. The healer crossed himself and murmured some words and drew a cross on the ground with charcoal ashes. He put my foot on the cross and pressed it down, then took a corn cob (kernels eaten already) and drew a cross several times on my leg and food while murmuring things. He threw the cob behind his back and then repeated this with two more corn cobs, each thrown in a different direction. Then he poured clarin (undistilled rum) into a bowl that held a rectangle of maggi? He drank the rest of the rum. He lit a pine stick and set the rum in the bowl on fire. (It appeared the rum had a good deal of water in it as it wouldn’t burn easily, and there were some murmurs of disgust from the audience.) While it was boiling he added a handful of some sort of dried bark or leaves that looked like shredded beef. Then he mixed the rum and maggi thing and bark stuff. He looked at me and told me something about needing a heart—to the effect that you have to go through pain to get better. Then he took the bark stuff and rubbed and pressed and twisted my ankle. It hurt an awful lot at times but the crowd seemed interested to watch me squirm. They announced that I was very “djam” and brave. I hoped the squeezing and manipulating my ankle wouldn’t last too long. Then the healer pulled each of my toes—in the way I hate—and cracked three of them, which the audience was very satisfied to hear. You see? they said, Your veins were displaced. The healer, in my opinion having given the crowd something concrete, proceeded to put the rest of the bark on the most swollen part of my ankle and then wrap it in a cloth. He said my ankle wasn’t broken. I had to put some coins in a bowl to “lift” something, and the healer took one of them. I went and laid down, tried to eat something but couldn’t. The students left to hike the ravine and I fell asleep deeply for 2 hours. I felt much better when I awoke. Previously I’d just been happy it wasn’t a “flesh wound” that could get infected—the cloth and my leg look pretty dirty from the bark—but with my ankle feeling so much better I’m inclined to believe some of the treatment helped.

Wednesday, 12 July 2006
After getting a ride to Fond Verrettes with Genïot (the Forest Service guy) last evening, Moïse and I walked to Opio and beyond (Grand Savanne?). I enjoyed the hike a lot. It is onion harvesting season so the mountains are full of people picking and transporting onions to market. Onions are one of the biggest cash-generating crops. People are generally in a joyous harvest mood. The onions are carried to Fond Verrettes in sacks on donkeys or on people’s heads. Going home we met a girl whose stubborn donkey had shed her load of onions. Moïse helped her put the load back on the donkey.

Many of the points I needed were near the path, which made it easier for me. Also, once we left the galet (dry riverbed) and climbed up a ways, the air became cool and fresh and there were pines every once in a while. Quite beautiful country. Though it is also evident that the west branch of Gros Cheval Ravine became wider during the 2004 flood (not just in Fond Verrettes). Several people I met used to live next to the river but their homes were destroyed by the flood waters and now they live with relatives on the mountain or in a “field house.”

People generally were quite kind—offering me coffee, fresh cow’s milk, onions. A lot of people knew Moïse (and many were related to him).

We returned to Bois Neuf around 4 pm after hiking about 10 km and ate lunch. I went back to collect a few more points in Ravine Ti Bourik (“Little Goat”). I met a woman living in Kornèy named Mona S. Her house was destroyed when Ti Bourik leaped out of its usual path and cut thorugh an area of houses and trees taking everything with it and leaving a small sliver of an island about 7 meters high from the surrounding galet with some houses where people still live. Mona, her husband (who has been sick for two months), and her 2 children moved to a house in Kornèy that had been evacuated after the 2004 flood. (The family had left their house and moved up the mountain to a safer area.)

Some boys who’d seen me with Moïse earlier and who are friends of his joined me. About five of them stayed with me and helped me navigate to points in the Ti Bourik riverbed. It was very enjoyable. The boys caught on very quickly. Julere asked me some insightful questions about what I was doing, including whether the research would be useful to people living there. Another man who joined us for a time asked if I thought a structure could be built to retain future flood waters and agreed with me that it wasn’t possible. The boys helped me pick out points on the orthophotos and then use our current GPS reading to figure out how many meters we needed to go south and east. They asked me if we’d do another point and I said they could decide. They looked at the maps and asked how far things on it were and I showed them how long a kilometer was. They decided we had time to reach the next point before it got dark. I told them they were very smart and they said, “If we could go to school, we’d really do well.” They asked how much money it takes to get to the US and I said that even harder than finding the $350 plane ticket was getting a visa.

Then we turned to go home. The boys said, “We don’t even know your name!” so we exchanged names. Then all but Julere took off running down the galet to where they’d tied their goats to the sides of the ravine that morning. It was such a lovely sight—five boys running over the rocks, the light getting dim, the goats calling, eager to get home for the night. I’d hardly seen the goats as we walked up the galet (the boys say they don’t generally put the goats to pasture on the mountains anymore, not since the 2004 flood), but now there were 10 goats runnings down the ravine towards home, their ropes trailing behind. (They know the way home, the boys told me.) Onzi was pulling one goat that didn’t want to budge—the goat was bigger than he was. When we reached the sliver of land in the middle of the riverbed, all the boys (but Julere) and goats turned—that’s where they live. Julere walked back to Bois Neuf with me; he was good company.

Monday, July 10
I was at the RNDDH office all day. We were hoping to go to Fond Verrettes today, but our ride fell through. We'll go tomorrow evening with Geniot instead, but we loose 1.5 days in the field once again. I was hoping to get to the Service de Geodesie et Cartographie and/or a library today, but insecurity was high in many areas of Port-au-Prince and people cautioned me against going downtown and using public transportation today.

Sunday, July 9
I stayed at home today. Serge and his family came for lunch and the World Cup final. I did go out once to meet Samy at the MCC guesthouse.

Saturday, July 8
I stayed home all day, slept in and did the boring work of naming photographs and data entry. But it's a welcome change after the past few days. I am all bruised and scratched up from many hours on a motorcycle and hiking through the "rak" (brush) and fields.

Wednesday, July 5 to Friday, July 7

These past three days were quite adventurous. Cher-Frere (him name literally means "Dear Brother") picked me up early Wednesday morning on his motorcycle and we drove, after several stops, to Fond Verrettes and then, finding no food there, on to the Foret des Pins. From there we took the road to Gros Cheval--a road that neither of us had ever traveled before. It was extremely muddy--at one point we ended up knee-deep in mud, though luckily the motorcycle has no problems getting wet and all my "instruments" and papers and maps stayed dry--but passed through a large tract of the pine forest, which was lovely. It was market day in Gros Cheval, and we found some rice and beans to eat and then gathered a few data points in the Magoman area.

Cher-Frere found a peasant farmer he knows from the cooperative he works with in Fond Verrettes, so we spent the night (it was very cold!) with his family. Neither of us got much sleep. We had some strong coffee and potatoes--the most delicious boiled potatoes, straight out of the field and oh-so-flaky--for breakfast and set off for the Savanne Pistache area. We soon found out the road is impassable even for 4-wheel drive vehicles and many roads on my map no longer exist. The area we were riding through--just south of my study area watershed--was so pretty. It was like we were out for a picnic: the air was warm, the sky sunny and blue, pine trees everywhere, and flat clearings of daisies and ferns, everything smelling so wonderful. Soon the road became worse and we were stopping frequently to clear trees out of the path, or I would walk behind the motorcycle as Cher-Frere took it over logs or along dangerous ridges. At one point a tree was too big for us to move and we had to put the motorcycle on its side and push it under--not an easy task. We started to come across areas where at least half the pines had recently been cut and huge piles of pine wood being turned into charcoal by a slow smoldering process. Everywhere there were signs of recent deforestation, fresh sawdust, even the sound of lumber being sawed or trees felled. Finally the road became impossible to get through by motorcycle and we walked the rest of the way to Savane Pistache.

There, we found a mountain slope completely denuded of pine trees and covered with stumps. Everyone was afraid of us. As we walked up the mountain we noticed men and boys popping up from everyone around us, guardingly watching us and our progress and forming a semi-circle around us. As Cher-Frere said, they had no reason to be on that mountain except to cut wood. Many of them had axes. Cher-Frere stopped to talk and answer questions while I went on my own and scouted out a few of my research points. I could see Mt. Gentilhomme in the distance, but we didn't have time to got there.

When I returned, I found Cher-Frere standing in front of a group of about 25 people giving a "workshop" on the problems of cutting all the pines and listening to the complaints that there was no other way to make a living. They didn't want to let him go but he promised to return another time to hold a round-table discussion on the issue. :) I think it was great for Cher-Frere to get to this remote area and see what is happening here--he will tell SKDE about it and they will start working on the problem. [Note: Cher-Frere loves motorcycles and says that any development organization in Haiti worth its weight has a motorcycle. It's true that many areas in Haiti are inaccessible even by heavy-duty trucks.]

Further down the moutain we came on the ruins of a former water reservoir--from the time of the 1914 US invasion or earlier from colonial times??? People here were frightened by us, thinking we'd come to arrest them for the illegal tree harvesting. Groups of grown men ran away from me--a strange experience.

The road was rough on the motorcycle and it periodically needed some small repairs, which Cher-Frere capably did. However, when we pushed the motorcycle on it's side under the tree as we returned to Gros Cheval, it was not happy. Seemingly, we'd bought bad gas in Gros Cheval and some water had gotten into the carburetor. After an hour of trying to repair it, we started pushing the motorcycle to Gros Cheval--about 5 km away. It was tough work. Finally, after about an hour of this heavy work, Cher-Frere managed to coax the motorcycle back into shape and we were off again, though we'd lost precious time I wanted to spend collecting points. We turned around and I went back and collected some of the data we'd missed.

We'd had nothing to eat all day but the potatoes early that morning. We road back through Gros Cheval, back through the mud on the road to the Foret des Pins, and back down the mountain to Fond Verrettes, where, around 8:30 in the evening, we finally found some rice and peas and water (I was entirely dehydrated). We slept at the cooperative, which was wonderful except for a large tarantula.

Friday morning Cher-Frere did some work with the cooperatives (two weeks ago the main leader in the area, Adrien, was murdered in his home near Port-au-Prince and Cher-Frere was doing some investigating into the causes; the population in the area is stunned and reeling from his death) and I gathered some data and even got to talk on the local radio station about my research. Then, it was time to head back to Port-au-Prince. I didn't stay the weekend in Fond Verrettes--I was too tired, dirty, bruised and exhausted, plus my cell phone didn't get reception so I hadn't talked with Ben for several days. It was wonderful to be back at Pierre's, take a shower (I hadn't so much as washed my face the entire trip), talk to Ben, eat real meals, use the internet and rest!

Tuesday, July 4

Supposed to go to Fond Verrettes today but the motorcycle needed a new battery. We'll try again tomorrow. I spent the day arranging everything for next week so I wouldn't need to return to Port-au-Prince for the weekend, but could spend it in the study area. I could use the extra days since I run into so many delays in getting to the study area.

Monday, July 3

I went to the RNDDH office early today to use their printer and phone, then to the bank and the Bureau de Protection Civil with Andrenor. I walked to the UTSIG office and picked up the data!!! Yea! Now I have orthophotographs of my study site as well as some other government GIS data of the area. UTSIG has been extremely helpful. I went back to the BPC office for a quick chat with H about arranging travel with him to Fond Verrettes next week. Then to the univerisity in Damien (via a new--for me--taptap route) to talk with Andrenor and Director Richmond. I went to the university library to do some research but instead ended up rearranging the card catalogue boxes into their correct order--that had been bothering me for some time--and then decided I wasn't feeling well (allergies, heat, dust, etc.) enough to stay so I went home to rest and get ready for the trip to Fond Verrettes.

Saturday, July 1

I stayed at home all day today. It was nice not to have to deal with the dust and heat and traffic of the streets, but by the end of the day I was pretty restless, and I missed talking with Ben in the evening, as we usually do. Ben and I skyped (not familiar with that verb? see skype.com to see how we talk for hours for free when in different countries), however, several times throughout the day since he is going backpacking over the long weekend and I will be in Fond Verrettes without phone/internet connections for most of the coming week. I thought it'd be nice to have a day without kids around, but I forgot about M. A cute picture of him is attached. He's taken to following me around--he is SO fascinated and interested in everything I do (he LOVED talking with Ben, loves the digital camera, loves how I iron my "beautiful" clothes, loves my screensaver, loves watching cartoons with me, loves the beautiful pizza I made and he tasted for the first time, etc.) yet I quickly tire of having someone breathing over my shoulder when it's hot and I'm doing tedious GIS work.