Ranch Montcel, by Cory

Broccoli

I enjoy most of my work and don't like traveling on Haitian roads.

 Therefore I don't really look forward to our mission annual retreats, but this year I was very happy to hear it would be at Montcel.

Strawberries in recycled old water jugs

While researching the Kenscoff vegetable growing area above Port au Prince, I had seen a "Bon Nouvelle" (Good News) video done by Haiti for Christ about Ranch Montcel.

Cherry tomatoes on former tennis court

Montcel is at just over 5,000 feet altitude, and they have done some research into new crops for the area.

We had already planned on making a trip this summer to visit the Baptist Haiti Mission (4,000' altitude) and Montcel to get ideas on what would grow at Delice at 4,400'.

The main crops we saw Montcel growing are strawberry, cherry tomato, red cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale to sell in Port au Prince supermarkets.

Since the Haitian farmers don't grow these crops they sell at a premium price.

They also grow some celery, spinach, mint and other herbs, pepino dulce, artichoke, asparagus, chayote, garlic (mostly to repel pests) and a small variety of potato (for thier own use).

Major local crops are cabbage, onion, potato and carrots, herbs and flowers.

Many school groups and other visitors come up from the Port au Prince area for a day visit to tour the gardens, see farm animals, ride horses, zip line, trampoline or do other sports, eat at the restaurant and listen to the music.

There is a small demonstration farm with goats, pigs, chickens and rabbits.

I joined a school tour and learned that the pigs are fed scrap vegetables from the farm, suplemented with dried fish trimmings from Montcel's fish import buisness and reject corn flakes from a big Port-au-Prince corn flakes factory.

The next day some of the missionaries were given a farm tour and I had several interesting talks with the manager who gives the tours. He is interested in the natural medicine recipies in the Konsey books and selling the books at their produce store.

Strawberries, celery and spinach in tall grow bags.

Many ideas that may help the farmers at Delice to grow more than corn, beans and cows. We did also see some squash, sweet potato and cassava in gardens at Delice.

Montcel Retreat

Thankfully we knew that even in Haiti the weather can be cold in the mountains especially during a weather system bringing wind and rains.

The adult typical retreat days follow this pattern: get up and ready. Chat a bit with others before and during breakfast. Meetings with a few short breaks until lunch at 1 p.m.

Then free time until supper unless you have a personal meeting with leaders or wellness folks.
After supper we gathered for more meetings/worship time.

Then additional fellowship if you want after that until bed. Saturday night they lit a camp fire and even found some marshmallows for roasting.

The food was served buffet style. Breakasts generally included eggs, hotdogs/ham, oatmeal, fruit [mango, banana, pineapple, or papaya] bread with locally made stawberry jam.

Lunch and supper were also good. Salads and locally grown vegetables! The first pork chop I've had in years and other yummy foods. I was thankful that the food wasn't too spicy!

Anna enjoyed hanging out with the teens and other children and childcare workers. Some crafts included: painted shirts, decorated picture frames by dying them, bubble soccer, time working on flips on the trampolines, games like foose ball, and enjoyed treats.

The grounds gave us lots of ideas on landscaping with plants and flowers that like higher altitude and cooler temperatrues. While they don't have as many rocks as our property at Delice they used them in creative ways. Cory and I enjoyed a tour of the areas where the animals and vegitables are being grown.

When we left the missionary family bought boxes of fresh strawberries, a big money maker. And also received: broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, kale, and celery. We are very exited about the possibilities at Delice and also received some seeds and plants. We shared a couple Konsey books with the staff.

Travels.

Thank you for your patience while waiting for a new blog.

Last week Tuesday we traveled down to Ortlip. Plans to meet a pastor for some paperwork in St. Marc fell through and the folks at Ortlip were recovering from pink eye so we decided to try to go up to Délice early.

We contacted the TWC folks, made plans, and got back into the truck.

Fort and plantation ruins at top of mountain

Our trip to Ortlip took longer than normal due to rain and trying to protect all the trees and plants in the back of the truck.

So we arrived up at Délice just before supper.

We enjoyed getting to know the TWC folks better and slept soundly after all the hours of travel. Wednesday the three of us spent the morning hiking the Wesleyan land and doing some measurements.

Now we need to confirm if the location one cannot build is 200 meters from the fort or from the plantation ruins.

In the afternoon Cory and I walked around the TWC grounds learning what is already being done and talking about locations for trees and plants.

We also went over to the orphanage grounds to check out a 4 year old with a broken arm.


Thursday we headed down the mountain only to find our way blocked by a very large rock.

Thankfully the local road crew arrived shortly after we did and we spent a couple hours waiting for a few men to work with a sledge hammer to break off enough parts of the rock so that the crew's truck and our truck could slowly squeeze through.

Almost, but not quite enough space before the road crew

We headed up to the Baptist Haiti Mission where we enjoyed lunch and a bit of ice cream at the Mountain Maid before Cory connected with a couple of the gardeners.

Then for about 1.5 hours we walked around looking at plants and trees, many that Cory remembered from visits years ago.

Then we headed up to the location of our area retreat. Found our room. Talked. Ate supper and had a bit of worship time before bed.