ECHO - Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization

I recently attended the ECHO Introduction to Tropical Agriculture week-long workshop in Ft. Myers FL. It's great for anyone wanting to learn more about poverty and agriculture methods to help people in developing countries. ECHO has a demo of just about everything that Dr. Randtke teaches in his Environmental Engineering & Science in Developing Countries class (CE495/895) at KU. It's a great place to network and meet missionaries and development workers. Pictures are of urban gardens for rooftops, the appropriate technologies (AT) intern showing a solar cooker (soy bean oil is used as a temperature indicator), a briquette press to make fuel pellets (the sign says Produce fuel from waste products: leaves, cornstalks, grass, sawdust, plant wastes, newspaper, junk mail, etc. Shred waste materials and soak in water; place desired quantity in perforated PVC and press; remove and air dry.) and a tilapia/duck pond in which the duck droppings feed algae which feed the tilapia fish. Thanks to the University of Kansas Professional Development Committee and my workplace for providing funds to attend this!

Charcoal (chabon)

These pictures show charcoal being sold along the road or in the market. Trees are cut and burned in pits along the hillsides to make charcoal for cooking. The little fuel (propane, etc.) that is imported costs too much for most Haitians. Also shown are the Haitian kitchens which are built outside. The larger brick one is at my hosts' house at UCI, they have to prepare a lot of food for missions teams. The 30 family members they took in after the quake made it a busy place!



2012 update - Here are more pictures of baking and cooking methods, all of which use charcoal: Roasting marshmallows over the stove in the UCI missionary compound. Women cooking up a lot of beans and rice in a church kitchen. The bread bakery at the Bohoc market. The new cassava mill and bakery at UCI.

Books about Haiti and Kreyol

These are the books and articles I've used as reference for talks I've given about Haiti, and others that are just good. These are linked to Amazon.com, but search Better World Books for used books and a good cause.

• Jared Diamond Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. See this commentary about Diamond's theories.
  
• Paul Farmer Uses of Haiti (2005), After the Earthquake (2011)
  
• Tracy Kidder Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003, about Paul Farmer)
• Wade Davis Serpent and the Rainbow
  
• Bob Shacochis The Immaculate Invasion (1994 US occupation)
• Center for Applied Linguistics Haitians Their History and Culture
  
• Steve Latta et al. Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti (Princeton Field Guide)
• Brian Crother Caribbean Amphibians and Reptiles (thanks LeeAnn for buying this for UCI)
• Zora Neale Hurston Tell My Horse About her time in Haiti in the 1930's - good history lesson for us today.
  
• Alejo Carpentier - The Kingdom of This World Historical fiction about the 1804 revolution.
  

Kreyol Language

• Roger Savain Haitian Kreyol in Ten Steps
• Dictionaries and books by Bryant Freeman, available at the University of Kansas Bookstore and for download
• Lots of Kreyol books through Educavision in Florida
  

The Price of Sugar movie

The Price of Sugar
April 13 • 7pm • Liberty Hall, Lawrence, KS

Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5. Doors open at 6:45 p.m.
A discussion following will focus on the U.S.’s roll in global trade, as well as alternative economies like Fair Trade, and local resources for these kinds of products.

In the Dominican Republic, a tropical island-nation, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians have toiled under armed-guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. They work grueling hours and frequently lack decent housing, clean water, electricity, education or healthcare. "The Price of Sugar" follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere's poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced. For more information and to see the film's trailer go to ThePriceofSugar.com.

Creole language group in Lawrence KS, Eske ou pale Kreyol?

I meet with a friend once a week to practice and learn Haitian Kreyol (Creole). Are there other Kreyol speakers in the Lawrence, KS area who would like to meet with us? Both to learn from us and to help us speak better Kreyol. Leave a comment and we could arrange a meet-up at a coffee shop.

Zanmi mwen ansemble ak mwen e nou pale Kreyol. Nou vle renmen ede! Eske ou vle ansemble ak nou ekri yon 'comment' e nou ka pale nan kafe boutique nan Lawrence, KS. Mesi!

The University of Kansas bookstore has a great Kreyol book section, and some are available for download.

Birding in 2010

Louiders took me on 5 bird hikes. He’s a great guide and knows the birds by sound. The best place to see birds was on the garata which have giant orange flowers (this one has a palm chat on it, the base is also shown) and grow on the side of the mountain. Had a great view of the plain pigeon (ramye), a very large dove that JeanJean remembers being numerous when he was younger. They are now threatened from hunting, I’ve only seen one per year. It made a distinct groaning noise like a frog. I also saw a couple flocks of parakeets (parich), one had 20 birds in it! These birds are threatened from people catching them to take to the Dominican Republic to sell as pets. JeanJean remembers large flocks of parakeets when he was young.

These are the birds I saw for the first time in Jan. 2010 (scientific names are in the master bird list): Green Heron (Ti Krabye Rivye) by the Gwap River in Pignon, Greater Antillean Grackle (Mèl Diab), Red-tailed Hawk (Malfini Ke Wouj), and Bananaquit (Kit). I also saw a burrowing owl (Koukou) that a man had in a basket and tried to sell me.

Louiders pointed out two birds that he knew but I couldn’t confirm for myself:

Yellow-faced Grassquit, (Kit) and Loggerhead Kingbird (Pipirit Chandèl) which was by the soccer field on Hwy 3. I might have seen a Flat-billed vireo (Ti Panach Bèk Plat) but the sun was at a bad angle.

Great food in Haiti

The food in Haiti is great! Even when we switched to mainly rice and beans to make the food last with all the house guests, we were still having great meals thanks to the regular employees who cook meals for missions teams and JeanJean’s family who took over most of the cooking.

The yellow flower is pigeon pea which people grow in fields. We have it with rice, as seen in the photo with the okra and the fried manioc in the middle. The manioc is a small tree (shrub?) that has a large root that is also ground to a flour to make cassava bread (in photo) which JeanJean buys fresh from the market.

Corn is hung to dry (or to keep it from mice and rats). Not sure if the corn in the photo is for chickens or people. JeanJean made popcorn for us a couple nights. Cabbages are plentiful and the photo shows them stored in the kitchen, along with a couple breadfruit that is served fried. The cooks also make fried plantains (bannann preze), and we had boiled plantain served with a red sauce (see photo).

We had real milk one morning! Because most people have no refrigeration, milk is heated to sterilize it and then drank while it’s still hot. The rest of the time we use powdered milk. Real cheese is not available, so it makes a great gift for missionaries (freeze a couple cheese blocks and put in your luggage). The only cheese that can be found here is Laughing Cow or equivalent (again, doesn’t need refrigerated).

The little boy is holding a live crab. Don’t know where it came from. The cooks occasionally cooked chicken before the earthquake, but I don’t remember it being served afterwards, though beef was served once. It’s easy to be a vegetarian here. We have eggs for breakfast quite a bit. The chickens run free and scramble up the trees to roost in the evenings.

I took down fixings for s’mores which made for a fun evening.