Last week, MCC Haiti hosted its third Advocacy Learning Tour in recent history. What is an Advocacy Learning Tour? It is an opportunity for representatives from MCC's advocacy offices (in Ottawa, New York, Washington DC) and the regional policy analyst to deepen their knowledge of Haitian culture and the political landscape.

This year, participants enjoyed the beauty of Haiti's countryside and met with local experts on issues ranging from food sovereignty, migration crises at the border, reforestation, and Haiti's ongoing electoral process. Here is a photographic tour of our week:

Downtown Port-au-Prince. Anna Vogt.

We took a brief tour of downtown Port-au-Prince on our first afternoon together. This was a perfect treat after we had spent a few hours learning about Haitian history and recent social movements in Haiti from the educator Nixon Boumba. The streets of Haiti are popping with color, as evidenced by the public bus above, and the downtown plaza of Champ Mars boasts several statues and monuments to Haiti's heroes. The towering grey structure above was built by former President Aristide to commemorate Haiti's bicentennial in 2004. Interestingly, the torch on top of the monument was never lit.

Meeting with CODDEMIR and Pedro of Centro Bono in Malpasse. Ted Oswald.

A Saturday trip took us to Haiti’s nearest border crossing with the Dominican Republic, Malpasse, where we met with two civil society groups who are engaged in monitoring the ongoing migration crisis between the two countries. CODDEMIR (left and fourth from right) partnered with MCC to distribute material aid to a camp along the border. Pedro Cano (center) of Centro Bono monitors Dominican migration policy and educates migrants on their fundamental rights. Over lunch, our group learned how we can effectively advocate for Dominicans and Haitian migrants who are suffering from unjust immigration policies.

Community tree nursery in Kristan. Anna Vogt.

No learning tour is complete without paying a visit to MCC’s countryside office in Dezam, where we have partnered with local communities for thirty years to implement a multi-faceted reforestation program. Our group was greeted with songs and then led to the outskirts of Dezam where we witnessed the success of one of many MCC-supported tree nurseries. The tree saplings above are just a handful of 35,000 saplings at this one nursery site. This month, nursery committee members will distribute all 35,000 trees in one morning, so that community members can replant them in their own gardens, improving their family’s income and food security for the future.

Buillon. Anna Vogt.

Every cross-cultural experience comes with new flavors and aromas. One highlight of a learning tour is the immersion in Haitian cuisine. Over the week we sampled Haitian meatballs, fried chicken with carrots and string beans, fresh fish, Haiti's famous squash soup, and pikliz. Fresh lime, papaya, grapefruit, and mango juices greeted us at lunchtimes. Above is the typical dinner dish buillon made by Lucilia, the cook at our Dezam office. Made with dumplings, potatoes, boiled plantains, optional beef, bell peppers and spices, it's a great way to unwind and top off a fulfilling day.

 

Kabay. Anna Vogt.

On a misty morning we hiked to the farming community of Kabay, where MCC has worked with 160 farmers to distribute seeds and develop personal gardens, bringing much needed life to this drought-affected area. Sixty-seven farmers came together for their regular meeting and for peanut seed distribution. We spent part of our week discussing the USDA’s recent decision to ship 500 metric tons of peanuts to Haiti for school feeding programs. National and international groups have since expressed concern about this shipment undermining Haiti's local peanut market. Seeing firsthand how this news unsettled the farmers in Kabay, who rely on peanuts as one of their most valuable crops, gave us fresh ideas on how we could advocate further on behalf of Haitian farmers.

The Colonial District, Day Two

Day Two of touring in the Colonial District held as many pleasures as the first. Yes, the downpour of rain came again, but we were prepared this time! Hours of relaxing and sipping good coffee were already scheduled into our day before the wetness began :)

After dining on a charming plaza (the one filled with pigeons across from the Catedral Primada de America), we headed straight for the two museums remaining on our bucket list for the trip. We were ready to hit the history-hunting straight away!

The Ozama Fortress, built by the Spanish in the 16th century to keep the French and English at bay, looms large over the old city wall, facing out to the Ozama River and the Caribbean sea. Disturbingly, the fortress was used in recent history by the 20th century dictator Trujillo, mostly to jail and torture his political prisoners. :( We dropped the six bucks or so for a brief guided tour, definitely worth it as nothing at all was marked.

Next up, the much talked about Museo de las Casas Reales. It houses quite a random collection of historical artifacts (mostly old furniture), plus some brief history of the early Spanish colonization of Hispaniola. I was always wanting the audio guide to go a little further. ''This room features a very rare and important Renaissance-style wood carving of the Virgin Mary and the twelve disciples.'' Aaaand, that would conclude the description of the entire room. More context, please?! It's okay; I got over it :)

This museum was once the home of Diego Colón, Chris' son (yes, he also lived in the Alcazar de Colon, which we visited the day before.) In the century, the dictator Trujillo set up shop and ran the country from this historic site. (That guy liked hearkening back to the D.R.'s colonial history, didn't he?) The museum is now home to... these beautiful peacocks! Who enjoy strutting around the cobblestone courtyard.

Strike a pose.

 

I enjoyed capturing the beautiful flourishes of Spanish colonial architecture surrounding this museum, as well as the small charms of the streets on my Instagram throughout the trip.

Lunch was had at a snazzy outdoor cafe type of place (called Zona Zuna or something like it), where we indulged in... you won't believe it... nachos and tacos! They were divine, I'm tellin' ya.

In the afternoon, we explored the city a bit by car. Our attempt to find a park entrance that would lead us to some moderately well-reviewed ancient caves had us driving in circles for a bit, with no eventual success. Perhaps the most interesting site we ''bumped into'' on our trek was this church, Santa Barbara's.

There were actually old churches tucked away in every corner of this district!

After the fun drive, we fit in some napping, some coffee-sipping, and then back to dine at the restaurant where we started the day! Why not? All in all, I couldn't have asked for a more chill, culturally informative, and historically pleasing couple of days. We look forward to exploring other bits of the country!

Anniversaries

This past month-and-a-half marked some anniversaries for us. August 15th was our 6th wedding anniversary! Falling on a Saturday this year, we had the chance to dine out in style on the actual day. It's fun to remember that for our 5th wedding anniversary we were in our countryside home stay, focusing on language learning and cultural immersion.

The rooftop lounge at the hotel we went to for dinner was snazzy, and here's a feel for the views at sunset!

We followed up our celebration the next weekend with a night in a tree-house and a fun pool day (more on this later.)

The month prior to our anniversary marked another important date for us: on July 15th it was exactly one year since we moved to Haiti! Very appropriately, we were at our annual all-staff retreat in Jacmel, getting to stroll the boardwalk together and visit the beach. 

This year has been filled with memories, and I don't dare try to recount them all. However, I will say that this year has been one marked profoundly by:

Grace: being in a new place, and at first hardly understanding any of the dialogue and customs, we needed and experienced a ton of grace. Grace for ourselves, to accept that we don't know much, and if we mess up it's okay. This kind of grace opens up your world in an entirely new way that I hadn't quite experienced before.

Joy: in discovering. New phrases in Kreyòl, delicious fruits, beautiful colors, a new mountain trail to hike. Friends and co-workers have been our teachers through and through (some gentle, some abrupt), helping us to carve out a life here in Haiti. 

Confrontation: as your experiences expand, so does your worldview. New realities, ideologies, press up against your own. It can clash with what you hold to be true, and lead to some inner dissonance and at times total confusion. But the wrestling process is a good thing, a toning and stretching of how you think about and process the world. This is one thing I am sure is going to continue into the next years; I hope it does, because this feels to me like a trademark of the active spiritual life.

Thankfulness: there has seriously been so much to be thankful for. The prayers of others, our home, the small beauties in each day. Grace. Recognizing the big and small things as the workings of God makes me a lot more thankful for each thing as it comes. 

Love. I claimed Ephesians 3:14-21 as a prayer for myself during our term here in Haiti, and as I'm writing these reflections I'm realizing how much God has revealed and is revealing about new aspects of His deep love for me. Wow, amazing!

One major gift and bonus of this past year has been two great visits from friends. Katie, dear friend for over 13 years now, came to see us in May. We had a beautiful, adventure-filled week! Katie is great with a camera, among other things, and did this impromptu photo shoot of Ted and me around our house and neighborhood. I thought sharing these photos now would be a great way to commemorate this ''anniversaries'' edition blog post. :) Cheers!

Photos compliments of Katie at Hope Photographie (Fullerton, CA).

New York

Here are ten more photos from our two and a half days in New York. We walked a ton, Ted was under the weather, I was (maybe) a little cranky at times. But boy did we get a taste of the city! A few fun restaurants, scenic squares, speedy clothes shopping, and a Trader Joe's run. :) And all set in the quiet, quaint Gramercy neighborhood at the Mennonite Guest House. To top it all - wonderful chances to connect with MCC colleagues across from the United Nations.

  

Post/cards {4} Luminous

{Notre-Dame Cathedral, Old Montreal} Taken 8.1.15

Luminous. The Notre Dame Cathedral is Montreal's most famous. Can you see why? I had never seen a cathedral like this before. The ornateness, the luminous blues and purples, the shocking quantity of memorial statues - almost all in wood - many honoring female Canadian saints who started religious orders in this "New World." A long pause and rest inside the Notre Dame Cathedral yesterday broke up our morning in Old Montreal. After a near two weeks of unrelenting work-related stops in North America, Ted and I are pausing for three days in Montreal, to soak up some culture that has long intrigued us, and also to recover from some nasty head-colds before returning to Haiti.

Post/cards {1} Celebration

This past year was the year of the Instagram for me. Before May 2014, I did not have an Instagram account, and I didn't really get "what the big deal was." After my friend Katie encouraged me to use it to document our days in Haiti, I really took to it, and I'm so very grateful now for the over 120+ images that capture moments from our first 12 months in Haiti. Now, I wonder if our documenting styles might shift a little bit. Maybe this blog will be put to more use! I'd like to start today with a "Postcards" series: one picture, with a brief explanation. Fin. Short and sweet. Our "postcards" will give you a snapshot of our world with a little more detail than an Instagram allows. And with this first "postcard," if I had actually put postage on it and sent it via snail mail at the time it was taken, it may just now be reaching you in the U.S. :) Enjoy!

{Port-au-Prince, Haiti} Taken 12.19.14

Celebration. That is what this picture brings to mind. It was our MCC staff Christmas party, and the smells from the kitchen were wafting up to our second floor office all day. A co-worker had her four kids in town from Canada, the remnant of an MCC evaluation team was in tow, and all national staff brought a special someone or two for the gala. Balloons, Paper Snowflakes, Action! I remember the anticipation of the upcoming Christmas vacation, the more imminent secret Santa gift exchange, and the sincere yet stilted conversations in Kreyòl with co-workers' family and friends (which, by the way, became progressively harder as the wait-time for the meal was perpetually extended!) For me, the crowd in this picture represents the far-flung nature yet close ties of family, the bright colors the celebratory air of the season, and the table the delight that comes with those first, mouth-watering bites!

Going up the mountain in Dezam!

June 5 is World Environment Day, and every year the MCC program in Dezam, Haiti mobilizes hundreds of people in the community to celebrate in the most fitting way I can imagine...

We traveled to Dezam for the event, along with three of our Port-au-Prince co-workers, and we hope this short narrative, along with the music and photos attached with paint a picture of our day!

At 6am, a crowd met at the MCC Haiti Dezam office for a sip of water, energizing music, and words of instruction for the full morning ahead. Shortly afterwards, we set off, all 300 of us! The whole crowd, in two single file lines, marching up the dirt road that leads to the base of a chain of mountains. And what do we do next? We CLIMB. High, high up, steep paths, we made our way to the top of a bleak mountain, one that - like most mountains in Haiti - has been stripped bare over the centuries, leading to so much erosion and environmental degradation that plagues Haitians' livelihoods.

What was our mission, once we reached the top of this mountain? Why, to plant trees of course! Together, we planted 5,000 little saplings. It was a blast; I was so thoroughly exhausted and sweaty, but the event was fantastic.

As we climbed the mountain, we could see the seedlings of years' past, growing into strong young trees. After the long morning hike, we enjoyed a 3-hour program at another small village outside of Dezam, where participants shared an amazing meal and learned more about caring for the environment in skits, dance and song. We wrote before about the meaning of konbit. This was our first true konbit experience!

We'll let the pictures speak for themselves now. Enjoy the show! And press PLAY here first, to get a taste of the sounds of the day, as you browse through Ted's beautiful pictures.

(This music represents a traditional style of Haitian music called troubadou, and the lyrics speak of planting trees together: Hey, it's time to plant trees for the environment; Let's go! Let's go! )

This tap-tap carried the speakers that kept people energized as we 

marched towards the foot of the mountain

I can't tell you how good this water felt after our descent from the mountain!

A pause on top of the mountain, as the planting finishes up

One of thousands

Our MCC shirts have this Kreyòl proverb on back: Many hands makes the load light. 
This was definitely shown to be true today!

The program afterwards: a little girl looks on

Other sounds from the day: during our descent from the mountain, the sounds of the village and our co-worker Eclan singing sweetly along the path.

Some information about Haiti's environment:

Haiti, before its soil was touched by Europeans, used to be almost entirely forested. Today, for a variety of factors from colonialism to peasants'continued practice of chopping down trees for charcoal, is now less than 3 percent forested. 

MCC Haiti's reforestation work, which is centered near Dezam in Haiti's Artibonite Valley, has been working for over 30 years to find creative, sustainable solutions to Haiti's continued environmental degradation.

MCC Haiti has twelve national staff in Dezam who run a variety of reforestation programs. An activity like the one we participated in last Friday is just one of many projects, which includes 22 community-run tree nurseries that produce over 500,000 trees per year.

Though our work is based in Port-au-Prince, it's always a pleasure to check out MCC's work in the Artibonite Valley. To read a story that gives you a sample of MCC Haiti's reforestation work, go here.

'Merry Christmas' in Photos

Did you know that Christmas is not yet over? January 6 marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas. For that reason,  I will share some photos that capture memories from this season for us - both in Haiti and in San Diego. We hope you had a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas in San Diego

Beach walk with my sister and the family

The whole Daulton family was together for Christmas. Stephanie and Steve flew in on Christmas Eve from Texas and Chicago, where Steve is in medical school. It had been 4 years!

Two days after Christmas, we got to see the Oswalds! Ted's parents flew in from India. PJ, Erica, and our niece and nephew drove down from Sacramento. It was a true reunion, after one year of being apart.

Doughnut time at Leucadia Donuts :)

Little nephew Liam covered in crumbs

The three of us paused for a moment of Rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer storytelling

The Oswalds!

Photo compliments of PJ

California Instagram

The beach views of San Diego and the 'wild west' environs of Apple Valley / San Bernadino County with Ted's aunt Becky and uncle Don. The bottom right picture is of Lee Ann and niece Kali at "Calico Ghost Town."

And finally... the Daulton gals on Christmas Eve.

Christmas in Haiti

Instagram

Co-worker Kristin brought the fun with some afternoon Christmas decorating in December

Haitian angels and pine cone centerpieces at Quartier Latin; quite festive!

Warm drinks and Christmas ornaments on our Haiti 'tree' made the season seem bright

  

And who could forget the supermarket? The most decked-out spot in Port-au-Prince!