Babaco Seminar

Tuesday we traveled from home to the Ortlip Center. We saw areas where rocks had been thrown and spots where tires had been burnt. But other than a short stop in Gonaives where some folks were upset and blocked the street while arguing for a few minutes, we did not see any other protesting.

Cory and I dropped the kids off and then went for a short visit to Lifeline mission to drop off some plants. We took a short tour of the garden area. The guys were very thankful to receive some new fruit trees to try.

Wednesday we traveled East of Port-au-Prince to a dry farming area with a church and school. A team was helping build a new school building and seminars for the ladies of the area were being held this week on topics like faith, family and health.
We were invited to talk about health and agriculture so we covered some of the main topics in the health book like high blood pressure, healthy living, eating well, child's health and maternal health.

At the end of the meeting the team covered the cost for a copy of our Konsey health book to each family represented at the conference. 80 books were distributed.

After the conference, a walk to see nearby gardens and give ideas for dealing with limited irrigation in the area since a hurricane took out the water supply a few years ago.

We were glad to see moringa being grown and encouraged more planting of moringa since it is drought resistant and produces leaves and pods for use as vegetable after just one good rain or with any type of irrigation, even grey water.
 
A nearby spring downhill from the dry gardens is a popular site used like a beach and for bathing, especially on holidays and weekends. The water then goes into irrigation canals for gardens and sugar cane.

During our round trip of 106 miles we saw several places with large pile of tire wires remaining from the protests on Monday but thankfully we did not see any violence or get stuck in traffic.

Today we're waiting for a team from Canada to come so we can cross the see with them on the Breezy Sea. A bit choppy out on the sea at this time but should make it just fine.

Meetings start tonight with general information and getting to know the participants.