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.

Reflections on our first Konbit

by Ted

Two tree nursery committee members planted a "small forest" project (behind)
using the traditional konbit

It starts with a drum and ends with rum, but it’s what happens in between that makes konbit the cultural institution that’s helped the Haitian peasantry survive for centuries against all odds. Konbit, the Haitian Kreyòl word used for just about any collective effort, usually refers to the equivalent of a Haitian barn-raising. It’s a work exchange, when a community member calls upon his or her neighbors to join a work party to help clear, plant, weed or harvest their fields. It’s all completed with the expectation that the work will be reciprocated when a member of the work party has a similar need.

We just returned from our first Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) konbit, a quarterly staff gathering. While there was no back-breaking labor involved, there are more similarities between a traditional konbit and MCC’s than you might think.

Almost all of the MCC Haiti team at our MCC konbit

Hard work. A konbit in the field usually starts as the sun is rising and lasts until mid-day or early afternoon. Our konbit is really a series of meetings where every member of our team is able to speak his or her mind. Two of the three days involved eight hours of meetings like this, all in Kreyòl. We agreed on an agenda together, reported on our activities, and posed questions to puzzle through difficult issues.

A coming-together. Beyond work in the fields, konbit has survived because it is a social scene: a chance to trade stories and gossip, complain and sing. Our konbit is a chance for MCC’s Port-au-Prince and Desarmes teams to reunite. Though we sometimes cross paths in the intervening months between konbit, this was a chance to really catch up: to meet new staff members; to see how a staff member’s baby has grown; and to deepen relationships.

Music. Drums, bamboo or conch-shell horns, flutes: the chef of the konbit in the fields often employs a band to play these instruments throughout the day. The music serves to set the work team’s tempo and keep up the party-like atmosphere. Our konbit started each morning with the sounding of the drum and Kreyòl worship songs that prepared our hearts and minds for the work ahead.

* Listen to our team singing "Mesi Jezu" at Konbit
(just press play)

Food. Any good konbit starts and ends with food. Maybe a cup of sweet coffee and bread to begin, and a stomach-bursting meal at its end. The Desarmes team’s cook Lucilla made hearty meal after hearty meal, providing the foundation for times that were fit to laugh and share and enjoy one another’s company.

Respect and Mutuality. Both types of konbit grow from the recognition that we need each other. There’s a common Kreyol proverb that’s translated as “Many hands make the burden light,” and as I reflect on our first konbit experience, I’m reminded of a command in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” In sharing the load, we are able to see our hearts resonate with Christ’s own love and concern for others, and we’re further knit together as a community.

The rum. Just kidding. While many traditional konbits do see the bottle passed around throughout the day and end in a big rum-drenched party, ours did not. We instead closed out ours with fritay--fried goat, pressed plantains, and pikliz--a crowd-pleasing combination of foods meant to mark a special occasion, of which it most definitely was.