24600: Burke (comment) Growing vegetables and fruits in the plateau

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

kathleen burke <kathleenburke704@hotmail.com>


Although the rains have not started, at the MPP Sant peppers are already 
turning from green to red, and the varieties of growing things thrill.  An 
American agronomist works with Haitians to improve the soil and seeds.  It's 
wonderful to stop by here and see what is possible.

Yesterday, I let the news get to me, so I got my bounda out of bed shortly 
after 6 a.m. and walked the mile or two to the Sant -- no sweat, because so 
early, it is no sweat literally.  Today, I caught a ride (couldn't give up 
my morning Haitian coffee and confiture two days in a row).

My message yesterday vanished in cyberspace when the electricity failed - I 
had written of the curious juxtapositon of ads for Porsche ("They said Haiti 
was too.[........... whatever], but the Porsche 4x4 is here!!!)  with 
serious carjacking stories on the radio.  One man, who sounded so easy to 
identify with, soberly asked why, with so many police and MINISTAH around, 
was he told that neither of them had the weapons necessary to enter Cité 
Soleil to repossess his new car.  Another, a prominent woman connected, I 
think, to the Election Commission, lamented that she was robbed by very 
young men she knew, living not three minutes from her house (in Delmas.)  
Then, in the same broadcasts, announcement of formation of a committee of 
young people whose mission it is to clean up Cité Soleil so it can become 
(I'm quoting here) "a tourist spot again."  Personally, I always objected to 
the people leading tours through that area in the mid- to late 90s - it 
smacked of going to the zoo to me, and I did not blame the inhabitants who 
objected.

I fear my luck with electricity may be running out - it has at my house!!!!! 
 Kathleen Burke