After the Batey

Haitian Creole is a language laced with proverbs.  I learn a new one almost daily and have started to realize that if you don’t know the proverbs, you don’t know the language.  Out in the countryside, where poverty’s presence is as ubiquitous as proverbs, Haitians like to quote anpil men, chay pa lou or many hands make light work.

The clearest example of this is the konbit.  A konbit is any group effort to realize a task one person would struggle to accomplish alone.  I want to take this opportunity to demonstrate a clear example of a konbit in action because it’s an important part of peasant life in rural Haiti.  This video helps put in perspective the struggles peasants face working without modern technology – and why the konbit is so important.

From a lack of irrigation infrastructure to a lack of modern farming equipment to a lack of seeds, deficiencies conspire against Haiti’s peasants, limiting them to harvesting minute plots of land.  Last year’s food riots put on display the consequences of Haiti’s insufficient food production as local producers could do nothing to temper runaway prices.  Since then, there has been a consensus domestically and internationally that Haiti’s current strategy of importing nearly 50% of Haiti’s food is neither sustainable nor wise.

Still, the basic investments in infrastructure that would allow peasants to plant and reap more have yet to reach the countryside.  Walking around the Central Plateau, I still see plots of land no more than 50 yards from the powerful Artibonite River that remain without irrigation.  The solution is a simple gas-powered pump.  It’s not expensive or hard to get a hold of.  So why hasn’t it made an appearance yet?