24468: jedidiah (discuss) the walk from Furcy to Seguin (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: J.David Lyall <postmaster@lyalls.net>

So, this past Saturday, March 5 2005, we finally did the vwayaj
across la morn to Seguin. Dok Phillipe and I debated whether to get a
ride to Kafou Badyo and walk from there, or take the petit Moto. We
took my Moto, a Jialing trail 125. Two big old white guys with
luggage on a chinese 125. Wow. Ok.

It actually took us an hour to get to Kafou Badyo, the current 'limit
de machin'. It's about 5 kilometers from Kenscoff but we stopped
along the way. The road is very rocky and slow as well. After Kafou
Badyo it is much more rocky and much steeper. There is a Boulangerie
at Badyo with big piles of fuel wood for the ovens. The boulangerie
at Kenscoff burns a lot of  wood too.

Furcy is basically the end of anything resembling forest. There seems
to be private property in Furcy. Beyond that I would guess that there
are not any actual owners of land and the tree cover is less than 1%.
That is, the  sun shines down on the soil without shade for 99% or
more of the territory.

This road was originally carved in 1986 as I understand it. I haven't
seen any photos of the  countryside then, but the excuse of
'development' seems to have been to  develop fuel wood resources for
La Ville. About 8 years ago Preval re-built the road as it had become
impassable. Someone I  know was there at the time and said that there
were many more trees then. It is close to desert now, altho many
people live in there attempting to farm on 60 degree slopes without
any bushes to hold soil. It hasn't rained in there for many months
now. I can't figure out what they drink. They do porter what few
branches they can scavenge up  to the boulangerie to be burned to
bake bread. That Boulangerie has a big Delco by the way, powering
automated dough kneading machines. Which is then baked in wood fired
ovens.

So, anyway. From the  peak of Kafou Badyo you can see the
destination, Morne la Visite. It was 13 kilometers by my odometer and
took us 5 hours. Much of the way was too steep and rocky to  ride two
up so the Dokte walked. Downhill as well as uphill. We stopped and
talked many times  and took  photos so a determined farmer going or
returning to market would do it faster than that. As a matter of
fact, when we were first descending from Badyo we passed a country
man wearing two tone saddle shoes and leading a bourik loaded with
vegetables. He made it to 'Ca Jacques' before we did. Ca Jacques is
the top of the pass at Morne La Visite leading into Seguin.

There is a school at Badyo somewhere, I know the Dutch woman who set
it up (along with a half dozen others in the mountains) but I didn't
see it. There was one multi room building off the road which was
described as a church to us. The one source/spring we saw was just a
muddy hole in the side of the mountain. You'd think that the road
builders could have put a few rocks around it for sanitation, but
nooo.

We  saw one 'gabion' in a creek  bed. A wired together pile of rocks
to slow or catch water. It was destroyed, but someone was thinking of
reducing misery at some time. We need ten thousand of those in the
ravines to start.

At the foot of the final push up to Morne la Visite there is a petit
village avek anpil miser. Maybe 8 houses with another 5 or 6 shacks
which I hadn't seen before. They are like tents made of cane, a bit
more than a meter high in the center.  The village is 'an ba ka Jak',
while the top of the pass is 'tet ka jak' of course. The bottom of
the pass was cloudy/foggy at 2:30 in the afternoon. The top is always
in the clouds. That last couple of kilometers before the final mount
up to tet ka jak isn't too destroyed. There are bushes in the ravines
and birds living on blackberries. One beautiful bird was orange with
two tone grey wings.

So, once Tet Ka Jak/Ca Jacque is achieved you are in the clouds and
the pine forest with bizarre rock formations sticking out of the
ground. It would be nice country to visit, but not good to live in if
you have to farm to eat. Which the residents do, of course. The road
from here is good with excellent views of tree stumps and burned over
areas where the locals are trying to kill the forest. One bridge over
a creek is newly made from logs at least 60 cm in diameter. A lot of
logs. Entering the outskirts of Seguin the trees thin out to nothing
and the ground has all been hand plowed so the grass cover is gone.
Just red earth. Auberge Seguin is here, what the locals call 'kay
Winnie'. The hotel with bamboo plantings around it. A Taiwan project,
but it seems rather cold and cloudy to me. Perhaps it is himalayan
bamboo? Nice little hotel made of stone, but the price is 50 u$d per
person per night. So, we pressed on thru Seguin descending to Cayes
Jacmel.

The Village of Seguin itself will soon be eroded away. Large gullies
cut all thru the roadway and hillsides which have been de-grassed.
The only building which wasn't a shack or a wreck was pou Mon Pere.
Basically I found Seguin itself to be a depressing. There shouldn't
be anyone living here, certainly not doing agriculture. The forest is
disappearing at a ferocious rate but the poor people living in cane
lean to's have the choice of either cutting trees or starving. This
should be grassland for horses and cattle and a few hundred people at
most.

Segin is closer to Kenscoff than to the coast, but the road down to
Marigot is a good one. We saw only two motorcycles (no other motor
vehicles) until we got down to Perido above Marigot. Most of the trip
was in clouds and took two hours. The river down from the mountain to
Marigot was dry this trip. The last time I saw it was from the
Marigot side and it was too full for me to feel comfortable crossing
in my jeep. I do not have a snorkel and almost drowned the motor
crossing a river at Port Salut once. Dry now, but in a few months we
will have downpours and destroyed villages again.

We spent the night with a friend in Cayes Jacmel. There I heard that
40 huge Mango trees were recently harvested from a neighboring
plantation. The owner, a rich person, thought that the price of
charcoal was so high that it made sense to harvest the wood as fuel
rather than the fruit.

I have been told that there is still a law on the books which
requires a permit to harvest trees. And re-planting of a replacement.
The last 20 years of destruction have taken a fearsome toll on the
back country and it continues accelerating today.

Awaiting this summers floods with trepidation.
-- 
J. David Lyall
http://www.lyalls.net/