Haiti & the Dominican Republic

There are now videos on YouTube that explore the history of the DR & Haiti that help explain many of today's cultural and linguistic differences.

There are actually at least five parts. Type in "Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An island divided" to get the listing for all of the parts.

I have only watched the beginning of the first part. Let me know what you think.

Thank you Marya Nowakowski for sharing this link. Many people have asked Jenny and me why there two countries are so different. Hopefully these videos can provide some in-sights.

Many blessings.

Mark

Here is the link to the Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qMS1mHETPTM

One leg to go

Jenny and Keila and Annika and I are in Nicaragua. We arrived this afternoon at 1:30 PM and our friend, Douglas Orbaker picked us up. This is the next to the last leg of our jounies before arriving in the Dominican Republic to start our new assignments as mission co-workers with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Jenny has been assigned to use her health worker and other skills with the Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic (Iglesia Evangelica Dominicana), and I will be traveling half of each month to Haiti to begin sharing ideas learned in the Central Plateau with MPP with other Farmer Movements throughout the country, beginning in the Leogane area, where the communities are still struggling to fully recover after the 2010 earthquake.

This part of our journey began January 3rd, when we flew to Toronto, Canada, for Jenny to begin the ecumenical portion of her PC(USA) World Missions orientation. Jenny's orientation continued in Louisvile for two weeks and ended January 27th, with a poignant ceremony welcoming Jenny and three other mission workers into new appointments. Jenny is now officially a member of the mission worker team. As one the members of my church in Amesivlle, Ohio noted: "That wonderful! But what in heavens name was she before?"

I served as the childcare "expert" during these four weeks. Let me tell you something. I thought coordinating a team of between 14 and 20 independent-minded Haitian farmers was a tough job. But trying to coordinate two independent-minded little girls, 6 months and 2 1/2, pretty much beats it. I wish I could say that I got good at it in the four weeks. I do remember one day I got both Annika and Keila taking their naps more or less at the same time.

The best I can say is that I did well enough to give Jenny a a good number of days when she could fully participate in the orientation for several hours at a time. She has graciously told me she appreciates the job I did.

We also had help from Sarah, my niece from Granville, Ohio. She drove down to Louisville a few days after we arrived there (January 17th) and stayed until the 28th, when she drove us home to Amesville. And she, her mother, Priscilla and her brother Keegan, helped Jenny with the girls for a week, while I was in Haiti with a group from First Presbyterian Church of Royal Oak (near Detroit, Michigan).

Managua-Houston-Toronto, Toronto-Atlanta-Louisville, Amesville,Granville, Columbus-Atlanta-Managua. From family and friends in Managua, to friends and work in Toronto to friends and family in Louisville, to family in Amesville and Granville and now, back to family and friends here in Managua. (If you needed anything crazier, a chunk of my family is coming down here to Nicaragua on Wedenesday to spend 11 or 12 days working at Rancho Ebenezer, where I served as a PC(USA) mission volunteer from 1998-2004. This will be my family's 11th trip.)

Tie up loose ends here for the next two weeks, then get on the plane one more time, for a good while, and go to the DR, look for a home in Barahona in the southwest, and begin settling in. March is the month for that--no other work, just find a house, and figure out the basics.

Thank you all again for your support. Continue to be with us in your thoughts and prayers, and let us know how we can keep you all in prayer as well.

In Christ,

Mark





Jenny and the girls and I then got to spend

Gratitude

Hey Friends,

I am in the Miami airport waiting for the 7:50 PM flight to Columubs, Ohio. I am on my way home from a week in Haiti with four friends from First Presbyterian Church of Royal Oak, Michigan, Tom, Trish, Mariana and Leila. My brother, Keith, also tagged along and spent the week as one more member of the group and we had a translator from Leogan--JC. We had a good week together, getting to know each other. Well, I guess I already knew Keith, but even so, we got to spend time together in ways that we hadn't since we were kids sharing a bedroom, together with our oldest brother Bruce.

It turned out to be a real pleasure getting to help the group connect with folks from the grassroots organization of small farmers, Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP). I am so grateful to all of the people in MPP who helped put together the trip for the group. Chavannes Jn Baptiste, the director, who always gives excellent advice and has encouraged and guided me in my work for almost eight years, now. Tyresias Juslene and Accene Joachim, the two assistants to the director, who valiantly continued to share some of MPP's history with the group Tuesday night, even as we shifted the audience and the translators while working to deal with a participant who was experiencing some illness. Thanks to Verona and Charite Jean and Josette and Eliz and all of the kitchen crew, Carel the driver. Also Evelyne and Ifonis, who provided the toilet paper and the treated water, and did the trouble shooting when any problems arose.

Thaks to Wilner Exil, who helped us coordinate our visit with members of MPP's first Eco-village and thank you to Lowò and the community members, who received the group with such warmth, even as they were suffering their own tragedy.

http://justiceunbound.org/journal/current-issue/ecovillages-a-labor-not-in-vain/?utm_source=Unbound+Subscribers&utm_campaign=aa987846b7-Feb_2012_newsletter2_3_2012&utm_medium=email)

Wilner also coordinated our visit to see some of the yard gardens in his community of Leodiagüe (see the blog, "A Celebration of Yard Gardens", November 16th), and shared breakfast with us at his home.

Thanks also to Agame Elfraüs who coordinated the work at his home in Saintville, and also helped with a number of the other details of the visit.

Special thanks also to Mis Marie, a wonderful woman who runs the pharmacy at MPP's Integrated Health Center, "Mironda Heston." Mis Mari helped coordinate all of the work for for Mariana and Leila. Seemingly out of nowhere, she brought together a group of seven or eight community dental workers who willingly came to meet with Dr. Mariana and the dental student, Leila, to share their stories of their work, and to listen to the ideas and techniques that Mariana and Leila had to share.

Thaks to the staff of the Ti Do and Basen Zim Elementary schools. They welcomed the group to their schools and into their classrooms. They and their students shared songs with the group from Michigan, and listened and laughed and sang together with the puppets from Royal Oak, who showed them the why and how of brushing teeth.

It was a full and for me, fulfilling week. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to serve with the people of MPP, and am humbled by the individuals and congregations who have supported Jenny and me and our whole family, all of you who through your prayers and your donations make our work possible. You represent the two facets of our work. This week was a chance to let those who support and those with whom we serve come together in sacred space.

Many blessings to you all.

Mark, Jenny, Keila and Annika



The rest of the group will spend the night in Port au

Hey Friends,

Two and a half weeks down, one week to go of Jenny's Mission Worker orientation. We head to Amesville next Saturday, with my niece, Sarah. She got here yesterday and will be helping us this next couple of weeks. Keila is happy.

Jenny has been dealing off and on with cough and now a full-blown cold. Annika made it through the worst of a cough, stuffy nose and fever, but still has the cough. Keila is getting over an ear infection and a runny nose, but still has a cough.

So far I'm just feeling generally a little bit draggy, sneezy and stuffy ears, nothing that acetominphen can't handle.

Keila is still playful, Annika is still smiling and Jenny is still making me laugh (and laughing at me). It will be so nice to be in Amesville with Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa). Praying for a big snow storm next Sunday early early AM so Dad's meeting in Tennessee gets postponed.

Keila and I got to play in the snow twice while we were in Toronto. She learned to throw snowballs, although it was cold enough at the time, they didn't stick together very well.

After a week in Amesville, Jenny and the girls will be spending a week with at Keith and Priscilla (Sarah's parents). Keith and I will be headed to Haiti for a week. I will be helping to lead a group from Royal Oak Presbyterian Church, from outside of Detroit, Michigan.

Jenny, the girls and I will then head to Nicaragua and then to the Dominican Republic sometime the last week of February.

We continue to covet your prayers! But life is blessed, God's Grace is present and accounted for. We are surrounded by family and unexpected friends.

Blessings to you all!

Headed North

Happy New Year!

We are all well, in Nicaragua for the holidays. Headed to Mission Co-worker orientation for Jenny on Tuesday. We'll be in Toronto, Canada and Louisville, KY for most of the month of Janauary for orientation, then visiting my family in Ohio for a couple of weeks in February.

Hope all is well with you and yours. Many blessings for 2012. May it be a blessed year for everyone.

Check out photos I loaded onto Facebook. This is a trip the Road to Life Yard crew took to the Northeast Department of Haiti in November to collect vegetable tires. We turned them inside out in order to fit more on the truck. We were hosted by a farmer's group from the city of Terrier Rouge called Farmer's Movement of Terrier Rouge. The group has a visitor's center with the most basic necessities--water, beds and a place we could cook our own food.


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2788280513505.138106.1453093926&type=1&l=ac3dc8c736

A Celebration of Yard Gardens

On Friday, November 4th, a group of some 100 farmers gathered in the hills of Bassin Zim, in a local Catholic chapel, to celebrate God's abundance.

For the last year a committee of seven local volunteers has provided technical support to some thirty families learning to intensify and diversify their food production techniques, focusing on their own yards. Now, the committee decided, was the time for people to gather and see what has been accomplished. The event was entirely organized by the committee of local farmers; it was sponsored by MPP, with financing from the Road to Life Yard and Moringa project

Scheduled to begin at 7:30, the committee members arrived on site at 5:30 AM and began preparing the leanto that serves as a chapel for this remote area. I left our home in Bassin Zim around 5:30 AM and began winding my way down the hill to MPP's training center, where some participants helped me load 115 folding chairs on the truck, then off we went, with 8 or 9 passengers. We continued down the hill, across the Samana river and eventually up the torturous trail that serves as a road to the communities of Seramon, Matbonithe, Marilapa and Leodiague. When my brother Keith and two friends went with me to this area, Keith commented, "When Mark said we could get there by truck, I thought he meant there was a road." I believe I got stuck in mud three times on the way to the celebration, but we arrived by 6:30.

At 7:30 AM, people began arriving with examples of the production from their yard gardens. Then journalists from MPP's radio station arrived, together with a group of budding videographers. By 8:30 I was getting a bit antsy. Around 9:30, the main speaker, Accène Joachim arrived and the committee served all of the participants a spaghetti breakfast. The event finally got going by 10:00 or so. Nobody but me really seemed to notice that we were some 2 1/2 hours late.

I had offered the committee an award of something like $US 5,000 if things actually started at 7:30. They know me well enough to know exactly how unlikely it was that I would ever pay up, but even if I'd been serious, my money obviously would have been safe. By God's grace, and not by my worrying, everything came out very fine.

Here are some pictures. Photos provided by Eccène Joseph, a member of MPP's communications team.

One of the paticipants puts down her load of papaya that she and her family produced in their home garden.



Papaya, Haitian pumpkin, moringa powder, eggplants, moringa leaves, garlic chives, parsely and "masoko," an edible root that forms above ground on a vining plant. When the committee decided to ask participants to come with examples of their production, neither Alexander Placide (the MPP agronomist now responsible for the Road to Life Yard) nor I imagined there would truly be this level of abundance and diversity.


Worm compost (vermicompost), produced by African redworms. Wilner Exil, crew member and supervisor for the committee of volunteers, brought this example of one of the techniques that can amplify vegetable production.


Ronel Odathe, a journalist for MPP's radio station, Voice of the Farmer (Radio Vwa Peyizan), interviews Wilner Exil about the work the committee has done with local families.


Agame Elfraüs (left), myself and Moccène Joachim, as we judge the production. We quickly developed some simple criteria to judge each entry, including how good it looked, the abundance, the diversity and originality. The committee had included in their budget funds for prizes for the winners, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and consolation.


Mulaire Michel, the coordinator for MPP's technical team, holds up a papaya to comment on the capacity that farmers in Haiti have to produce good, healthy food.

Accène Joachim, assistant director for MPP, providing the keynote address, focusing on food sovereignty and how yard gardens are part of the road Haiti and Haitians need to follow to regain control of their own lives and to reclaim the future of their country.


Participants of all ages, men and women, listen to Accène.


After Accène's presentation, the committee called on a number of the participants to bear witness to the changes this production has made in their lives and the lives of their families.


Adpoleon Jacques, Wilner Exil and Jasma Joachim, three leaders of the commitee, present their vision for the work of the committee in 2012.

Myself with Wilner Exil (sitting at table). Wilner invited several other people to share their perspectives, including Agronomist Alexander Placide. It was Alexander who developed the idea of forming this committee at the end of 2010.

I provided my hopes for the committee as well, but also noted that the committee, and the participants in the community, are providing me with a model that I will use during the next several years, as I begin working with other farmer organizations throughout the country.

Finally, Agame Elfraüs announced the winners, one by one. The committee had arranged for music to fill in the gaps during the celebration. Now Wilner required each winner to dance with their display on their head before they received their prize.

Moringa, cabbage, green peppers and amaranth. The winning display.