Carcasse - Day 2

Wednesday, 02/22/2012
We set up two solar cookers full of rice on the school roof. Before we had even put the food in the pots, most of the secondary school students came up to see what was going on. So I explained the use of the solar cooker, how it worked, and how it was important for preventing deforestation. Most students were interested but a little skeptical. Some started joking around and teasing me, saying “And if it doesn’t work, are you going to go cut down the trees yourself?” I had told a few students that I had previously worked in forest conservation, and they found the idea of me having to go chop down trees while preaching about forest conservation hilarious. I admitted I would have to and laughed with them. Unfortunately, the day soon turned cloudy and I let them know that it probably wouldn’t cook in this weather, and that there was no need to come back up later to see the results. School was out for the week, and the students had only come on the principal’s request, so I didn’t want them to stick around for nothing. Some of the teachers stayed behind to talk. They wanted to know how they could get their own and try it out. I told them I had brought two rolls of aluminum foil and other materials to make some, but that they would need to provide the cardboard. But I realized they were thinking on a much larger scale when they said “But how will we get enough aluminum and cardboard for all 4000 people here?” It was wonderful to see that they had already understood the potential of solar cookers to improve people’s lives and save the environment.

Meanwhile, Honore was giving his water and sanitation seminar to the secondary school students. I had talked to him the night before about his seminar, and we had gone over a couple pages of his creole sanitation education manual. His book included information on the SODIS method, and he told me he would be talking about it in his seminars. SODIS is short for solar disinfection. It’s a surprisingly simple and cheap way to kill human pathogens in water by exposing them to 6 hours of the sun’s UV radiation. All one needs to do is fill up a transparent, non-tinted plastic bottle with contaminated water, leave it out in the sun all day in a horizontal position, and by the end of the day it will be drinkable. It’s deceptively simple, but just like for solar cookers, training and reinforcements are needed to effect lifestyle changes.
After his seminar, Honore brought the kids up to the roof to show them the plastic bottles we had filled up with water lying in the sun. I’ve talked with the Father and teachers about starting a program to teach kids to use the SODIS method at school, and they’ve agreed it’s a good idea.
Later that evening, Diana, Ben and Jack met with key members of the Association of Producers of Coffee in Carcasse (APCC) to discuss their experiences. Walnus, the head of the APCC later asked me if I could help him and another APCC member with something. He invited me to read a document on how to run a small business association in Creole. In the end, he was the one helping me to understand the Creole text rather than me helping him with anything. I suppose they wanted me to make sure they were reading the document correctly as they were not expert readers. I think it was mainly though a way to engage me and make me feel included. Like many people here, Walnus always has a smile on his face, and as Jack put it, “being around him just makes you happy.” Despite the language barrier, we shared many good laughs with him and other people from Carcasse. Since I speak French, I can understand most written creole. That’s part of the reason I didn’t put too much effort into reading my creole lesson book before coming to Haiti. Reading it was so easy and intuitive, I figured that listening and understanding it would be a breeze. I soon realized I was wrong - spoken creole is much harder, especially when people talk quickly and use contractions.