Two Days in South Haiti

I spent Monday and Tuesday driving through southern Haiti. We left Port-au-Prince at 5:30 am and drove for 4 hours to the Les Cayes area where we visited 2 schools run by local Baptist churches up in the mountains. Our friend, Carmel Wagnac, had started a charitable organization called Nelly's House that currently feeds lunch to 500 school children in 3 schools in this area. Many children walk up to 2 hours from their homes to school and then another 2 hours home. Carmel discovered that most of these children were not eating lunch as their families could not afford it. This program was initiated 4 years ago. If you google Nelly's House and Haiti, you should be able find the website.  After we visited the schools, we drove over to Port Salut and enjoyed the beach. We spent the night at the home of a friend of Carmel, Marie-Lucie. Such wonderful hospitality. This morning we drove back through countless market days. A couple of bridges along the route had been deemed unsafe for traffic and so there were detours where the cars, vans, & trucks drove down the river bank, through the stream and then up the other side. One learns to just accept these things. One final stop was at the school of another friend of Carmel. The quake last year totaled the 3 story school and church building that he had just completed. The next day, January 13, 2010 the 67 year old pastor was out clearing the rubble to rebuild. I mention this because the new classrooms are made out of container boxes - those big metal container boxes that you see loaded into ships and on top of railroad cars. Apparently, it is cheaper to just leave them at their destination than to pay to transport them back, so there are plenty of container boxes at this town just west of Port-au-Prince. This school now has 6 new classrooms made out of 4 container boxes each. Very cool. I've included a photo below. So here are a dozen photos from the past 2 days.








This is the face of insomnia in Haiti. These stinking roosters are everywhere and here's news for all the city folk out there, roosters don't just crow at dawn. These busters crow on a 24/7 basis. Oh, and not surprisingly, there are no ordinances against chickens in the city. In fact, in the streets around where we are staying, once finds chickens, goats, and cows wondering about.

These ladies are preparing the meal for the school children at Bon Fin, the first school we visited. It was a big bowl of corn mush with bean soup poured over it. The food is prepared over charcoal fires in an outdoor kitchen directly behind the school. The program also provides these women with employment.

These are school children at the Bon Fin school.

At Bon Fin, we were served fresh coconut. A man climbed the tree, picked the fruit, hacked off the top so that we could each drink the coconut milk (more like water) and then used his machete to chop it in half so that we could scoop out the fresh coconut. It was very tasty. This is a shot of one of the ubiquitous hens pecking at one of the left over coconut halves. I don't think I mentioned that the mountain scenery was spectacular.,

 This is the school at Maniche. It's over the mountain and in a valley.

Here Carmel is speaking to a class in Maniche while they eat their lunch of rice and beans. We ate lunch here and it was very tasty.

These were 2 of the younger boys at Maniche who followed me from one classroom to the next volunteering to model for photos. Typically, when I photograph children, I'll let them see the image. My view finder was smudged with many fingerprints as they would point out their face.

Here's my award winning shot at the Maniche school. This young girl was also part of group that followed me about. By the way, I am told that in Haiti gap teeth are considered very attractive.

Sunset at the Port Salut beach.

These were my traveling companions (from left to right):  Marcel, the world's most fearless driver; Michelle, who is the director of House of Love in Port; Tony Scott, who convinced me to go along on this wonderful adventure; Carmel; Mary, Carmel's cousin; and Steve, fellow traveller from Joliet. Taken on Port Salut Beach. Note campaign poster on tree behind Tony. Those posters were just everywhere.

Here are 3 of the classrooms made out of shipping containers. You can see the windows on the sides and the tin raised roofs that provide venilation. There is enough room for about 30 children per classroom.

And finally, is Andre. He provides the souvenier crafts for Dottie's guesthouse where I am staying. I bought several things from him last year. He stopped by right before dinner this evening. As I had explained to me today, he does not paint (and laughed at the thought when I asked) but he does the woodwork. I bought this beautiful mortar and pestle from him and I was pleased that he agreed to a photo.