23523: jedidiah: rebuilding/planting Gonaives (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: J.David Lyall <j.david@lyalls.net>

Jane Wynnes great uncle showed up on tuesday from Gonaives. He is 86
years old. Came on the bus. He described admiringly how the blan had
marked out the road with poles so that you could tell where the road
was under the water. The road is still under water a month later?

I heard on the BBC the other morning that the UN was criticizing the
government transitional for not working on cleaning up Gonaives.
Heavy equipment is sitting there not being used apparently. Tonton
agrees, saying that only blan are working there. He said that
haitians are only trying to rob people of what little they have. Bad
news. We can't fight the war in Port au Prince and scrape mud at the
same time? I know that tens of thousands of men need a job in
Gonaives. No shovels? No wheelbarrows left?

Fondation Wynne pour L'Enrironnment is starting a project to plant
30,000 Avocado and Benzolive trees in Gonaives. They should be ready
next spring for planting. Kids are bringing Avocado seeds in to the
lakou. Paying one gourde for each seed. A whole avocado was five
gourdes. We should have made hundreds of gallons of avocado sauce. I
cannot for the life of me recall what the word is for avocado sauce.
Spanish.

Tuesday saw PetionVille shut off with a big gasoline and oil spill on
Rue Panamerican. Was it an accident or an attack? They say that it
was terrorists, but setting it alight after the spill would have been
more effective.

Lots of children won't go to school these days because of attacks (or
fears of attacks) on people taking their kids to school. I don't
recall reading about it here, but last week a father was killed
taking his child to school. Down by the Cathedral. They reported that
the child was beaten and told "we warned you not to go to school".
Could be slander. Could have been a wild bullet. Lots of those. I
know that the police have lousy fire control and imagine that arme du
lavalas are no better.

-- 
J. David Lyall
http://www.lyalls.net/