15995: lyall on visiting Les Cayes and Camp Perrin (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 12:13:06 -0500
From: j.daudi <wastemaster@lyalls.net>
To: corbetre@webster.edu
Subject: lyall on visiting Les Cayes and Camp Perrin

>
>
>Last week I went with Dok Phillipe to the south coast to get trees.
>Tree plantings, 'pye bwa'. Foot of the tree? I offered to buy him a
>hundred bux or so worth of trees to plant up  on the mountain at la
>tonel. We motored on past Leogane and he explained to me that the
>nice new bypass road around Leogane has never been used because
>there is a bridge missing. The road was done but no one built the
>bridge over the river.
>
>You pass by the kafou Jacmel to go along to Grand Goave, Ti Goave
>and Mirogoane. The country between kafou Jacmel and Grand Goave has
>more than one (seemingly) new small resorts advertizing themselves
>as 'eco tourist' resorts. Dokte is sceptical about the whole term
>but I like it as a marketing tool at least.
>
>Grand Goave (which is much smaller than Ti Goave) is said to have
>many canadiennes settled there. Or having vacation houses there. A
>few years back I met a Belgian guy who was trying to buy a hotel in
>Grand Goave which had been closed since the uprising of 1987 but was
>not torn down brick by brick. He told me about the canadians  there
>as well.
>
>The main road passes by both of the Goaves. You have to turn in to
>see the towns, which we did not do.
>Mirogoane we did venture into. Now, this could be a lovely little
>town even with the port. If 10,000 people moved out.
>It is a tiny little town set into the side of a hillside around the
>bay. IT is a serious port altho we couldn't really see the ships due
>to the town being crowded right up to the water. We saw the top of a
>freighter, which is how I realized that it is a real port. This is
>where much of the street merchandise comes in for some reason.
>Haytians who aspire to be a ti machann talk about going to Mirogoane
>to by a pickup load of miscellaneous miami stuff.
>
>There is one narrow road down into the town. Cresting the hill you
>are about 200 meters above the water, then the road goes down
>steeply. It could be like a mini San Francisco or a greek island
>village. The church is perched on a ridge overlooking the harbor.
>There was absolutely no place to park in town. Every lot is filled
>and the streets SHOULD be one way and are badly in need of paving.
>They need to be torn up and have working sewers installed too. I'm
>sure it is very unhealthy now. All the streets in the bottom of town
>are awash in water that I wouldn't want to have an open wound bathed
>in.
>
>So you thread yr way down into town and the one path stops  at a 'T'
>intersection. Some hotel/discos are advertised there and new 4x4
>trucks are filling up the side street to the right. Threading around
>to the left is where we saw the stack of a ship over the buildings.
>We wanted to find a meal in town but there was absolutely no place
>to park, anywhere. They need to tear down a few lots and put in a
>parking garage after the new sewers go in. It would be a beautiful
>place to live.
>
>So we eventually made it out of downtown Mirogoane after threading
>thru some 2 foot deep puddles and back up to the main road. This
>kafou has been completely torn up and a new intersection is going
>in. The gas station and markets are gone says Dokte. So we get griot
>pig skin/fat from the side of the road and head south.
>
>The path over the center to the south coast is lovely. Fertile farm
>land reasonably well forested is sparsely settled. No power lines
>are there but we passed a cyber cafe 'appel internat' in a little
>settlement.
>
>When you get to the ocean St Louis de Sud announces that they
>celebrated their 300th birthday in 1999. I guess there is an actuall
>town there but didn't see it. Must be a turn off to the coast, altho
>we weren't more than a few hundred meters from the beach.
>
>Arriving at Les Cayes we stayed at the 'American University of
>Caribbean'. Wasn't list member Dr Mark Gill affiliated with that
>institution in the past? Dok Phillipe knows the current director
>there and gets to use their guest room facilities. That was
>convenient. Dokte has some friends in Okay from his earlier stay in
>Port a Piman. Two young women living in a two room concrete house
>with no toilet. They had electricity tho. Les Cayes has 24 hr
>kourant.  We took them to dinner in town that evening. Downtown
>Okaye is nice. Clean and in decent repair. The port there does not
>have a sailors bar/disco in the neighborhood tho. That is a strange
>disappointment.
>
>The next day we headed out to Camp Perrin. The road was in good
>shape most of the way to Okaye but deteroirates heading west.
>Phillipe wanted to show me the machine shop out there. I don't have
>the brochure so cannot remember the name, but it is a big
>manufactory/school which apparently makes much of the equipment in
>use in the country. Water pumps and grain mills and tanks and such.
>They were constructing tanks for the Les Cayes vetiver extraction
>plant. The director is a Belgian who came to Hayti 37 years ago when
>he was 23. Looks like he has a lot of young cheap labor from europe
>working there these days. Lots of young haitian men as well.
>
>I was very pleased to see this place. I'd like to have a hand
>operated washing machine designed to be built here. Folks spend far
>too much time hand washing in plastic kivets. They use too much soap
>too so lots of water is wasted with multiple rinses.
>My back yard is full of washing almost every day. A plastic shipping
>barrel, or drum (doum en kreyol) cut down the middle to make two
>horse trough kind of things would make two washing machines.
>
>Anyway. We were just tourists there and headed out to find the
>nursery. There is a big nursery there but no sign announces its
>presence. you just have to know that it is there. Dokte wanted fruit
>trees. Mandarin and bitter orange we picked up but he was
>particularly searching for 'star fruit'. I have forgotten the real
>name. They are the size of an apple and when you pick it off the
>tree and look down the axis it has a star shape. You eat the whole
>thing. It is very good. Some agronomist on the list can comment on
>it but we were told by the worker at the nursery that it was brought
>from Morocco.
>
>We ordered 50 sets of the star fruit to be picked up in four months
>and loaded 50 or 60 sets in the back of the jeep which had its rear
>seat removed for the trip. This nursery does grafting and all of
>these sets were grafted. Dok is impressed by this. He has taken
>groups down here to learn grafting in the past.
>
>After loading up and getting back into Okaye it is past 1 pm with a
>long way to go back to PauP. Dokte's friends in Okay warn us not to
>stop in ti Goave. The poor folks say that the chimeres there will
>stop and rob cars. Chimere has become equated with highwayman in the
>popular mind. Highwaymen who cannot be arrested, apparently.
>
>But we made it over the plateau and onto the coast then the jeep
>threw the front drive shaft. U-joint dropped. Bought a peasant sisal
>rope (two of them actually) from a woman carrying them to market for
>10 gourdes each. I should have bought the whole lot from here. They
>go for 50 gourdes on the street in Port. Strapped up the front of
>the drive shaft and we made in into town around  sundown. Too late
>to drop the pye bwa off in Darbonne at the depot for la tonel.
>That'll wait for later.
>
>So, this was my first trip past kafou Jacmel and the countryside was
>nice. Not too crowded or dirty and farmers aren't excessively
>destructive. Nice trip.
>
>
>--
>
>J.David Lyall, or
>     Jedidiah Daudi
>http://www.lyalls.net/


-- 
J.David Lyall, or
     Jedidiah Daudi
http://www.lyalls.net/