Fonbatis

This week, I joined the pcH staff in Fonbatis, an area way up in the Chaine de Matieux mountains with an elevation of 1300 m.

It's a very isolated area; the road is so bad that only pcH and another development organization actually drive up there, there's no other vehicles. In fact, isolation and lack of transportation are major problems for the area. Access to health care, markets and schools are all extremely restricted because of the condition of the road. Some parts of the community are hours away on foot from the nearest passable road.

pcH's current program that they're beginning in Fonbatis is a Farmer Field School/Integrated Pest Management project that focuses on helping subsistence farmers learn to grow beans and cabbage (the two most valuable crops of the region) in the most productive way. The project involves small groups of farmers working with an agricultural technician on a "test" garden, experimenting and doing research on the best techniques, which they will then replicate in their own gardens. The farming in Fonbatis is all organic, and the focus of the project is finding natural ways to increase productivity and decrease pests.

Just as in Senmak, my purpose for coming to Fonbatis was to speak with local cooperative members and leaders about what problems and needs the community has so that I can incorporate them into project proposals. So, I tagged along with the pcH staff to their meetings to do a little consultation at the end of the meetings, and also met more intensively with cooperative leaders.

This week, pcH staff were conducting meetings with the agricultural cooperative members who are going to take part in the research/field work.


Notice the notebooks and pencils that some of the farmers are taking notes with. pcH's literacy specialist pointed out to me that it's a very new thing for these farmers to come to meetings and take notes! Just recently, pcH finished an adult literacy program with these cooperatives.





These farmers/cooperative members are one of the small Farmer Field School units who will work in the test garden.

The pcH staff (mainly agricultural technicians) are all from either Port-au-Prince, or southern Haiti, but during the week they leave their families to live together in the communities where they work (Senmak, Fonbatis, or Brelly, where pcH has projects).

A lunch of plaintain, cornmeal mush, bean sauce, and vegetable-goat sauce. I continually disappointed the staff with the small quantity of food that I could eat. While they can all manage about 2 full plates, I generally am working hard to finish one. it's good food, but very filling! Haitians usually eat a big breakfast, and a big lunch, and a very small, breakfast-like supper of bread, fruit or porridge.

The pcH staff play dominoes very seriously. And loudly.


Ricardi, the driver, never to be seen without his radio/tape player in hand. His favourite music is dancehall; Sean Paul's "Temperature" will be forever linked to mountainous Haitian roads in my mind.

One of the pcH staff decided I was taking too many pictures of other people, and needed one taken of myself.

Frere Paul, the pcH Fonbatis house's guardian, and the chicken that makes so much noise so early in the morning...


Because Fonbatis is so high in the mountains, the temperature is quite cool. Fog can come in quickly; just 1 hour before this picture was taken, the day was perfectly clear and sunny and the mountains could be seen in the background.

pcH technicians "sous terrain".

Even in the middle of a field, on top of a mountain in rural Haiti, you can stay in touch.

Corn, beans, and cabbage are the principal crops of the area.



Though I was able to spend 4 days in Fonbatis instead of the 2 days that I had for Senmak, the time still felt too short. I'm a little sad too, because after spending so much time with all the pcH field staff, I'll be spending my next two weeks in the Port-au-Prince office while they'll all be out in the field again. Oh well, at least I'll get to see them on Mondays, before they head out to the communities.

Now that I've visited Wosenmak and Fonbatis, there's only the community of Brelly/Delice left for me to visit, though that will be a day trip instead of a longer one like the last two. I was supposed to go to Brelly today, though because extreme heat and a lot of dust, the trip was put off until after it rains. So, hopefully sometime next week I'll get out there. Now that I've done my field research, I have to get down to work on actually writing proposals for these communities.

I've made a lot of friends in the week and a half that I've been here, and already I realize that it's going to be hard to leave.