Down By the Schoolyard

One of the projects that Beth took on in the school was organizing the principal's office.  She helped him go through the cupboards and sort through his papers as well as the papers he inherited from the old principal.  While she was doing all this organizing, she decided that since the rest of the office was going to look fresh and new, it might be nice to repaint the office.  So, that's what we did.  The principal wanted to change the walls from a dark green-ish teal color to cream.

The process itself was quite an adventure.  For one thing, we did most of the work while school was in session and we always had kids trying to come in the office, crowding around us when we were cleaning the brushes, or finding ways to get paint all over their arms despite our washed brushes and paint trays.  It took three trips to the paint store before we finally had enough paint for all the necessary coats.  We had gotten two gallons of cream paint and when we opened them, we discovered that they were actually two different shades of yellow, so instead of the nice cream the principal wanted, he now has a buttery-yellow office.  The rollers that we had weren't very good either and kept breaking.  We ended up breaking all three of the rollers we had over the course of our work.  We used our hands as rollers and I even put my very basic engineering skills to the test to fix one of the rollers so we had at least one with a handle.

It was a fun week, and the office looks much brighter than before.  Before, it was dark and and it was pretty dirty.  Now, after scrubbing the walls, sweeping all the rat poop out and 4 new coats of paint, it is light, clean and much more welcoming.

It has been very interesting working at the school.  I have been able to learn a lot about the education system here in Haiti.  Here are some of the things that I have learned.

Just like in the US, there are both public, parochial and private schools here in Haiti.  It seems however, that the majority of schools are parochial or private.  There are dozens of schools here in Gros Morne and only a handful of them are public.  In the country as a whole, over 80% of primary schools are privately managed by churches, NGOs, and other organizations (data from USAID).  Public schools are not completely free, because students are required to buy books, uniforms, and pay for exams or other fees.  Students in parochial schools must pay some of these costs as well as additional tuition fees.  School here costs between $50 and $300 depending on the school and whether or not it is an elementary or high school.  It should be noted that the average GDP per capita (average income) is only $820 a year.  In fact, according to USAID, school expenses can take up around 40% of a family's income.

Sr. Pat has been dealing with two current issues within the education system.  Over the past few years, the government started subsidizing the 1st grade in all schools, not just ones run by the government.  The next year it expanded to the 1st and 2nd grades, and the following year it included the 3rd grade.  Schools were under the impression that the 4th grade would be added this year, so schools told parents that tuition costs would be less for children in those grades.  However, in late August, schools found out that only the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades were going to be subsidized, which caused problems for parents who were thinking they would not have to come up with money for tuition but now did.  Because these grades are subsidized by the government, it means that the government should be supplying books for all students in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade.  It's November, and many schools have not yet received the funds to supply their students with the necessary books, so kids are without the necessary materials.  In fact, I believe there are still funds from last year that have not been provided to schools yet.

The second problem has to do with school lunches.  Schools are required to feed their students and many schools received aid from the World Food Program to supply food for their students.  This year, however, private schools found out, (again, in late August), that they would not be able to receive assistance from the WFP.  It turns out that the government told the WFP that they could not support private and parochial schools, only government schools.  Because the WFP is an international organization, it must respect the requests of the national government - thus, many schools are struggling to provide their students with food every day.  Sr. Pat and a group of school principals and local leaders are working to change this government mandate.

I have also noticed that there are many children who do not go to school.  When walking around Gros Morne during the day, (while school is in session), it is not uncommon to see some kids collecting water, helping their mother sell things on the side of the street, or just walking around.  Although some of these kids attend the afternoon session some schools have, (because there isn't enough space for all the students to go at one time), some are just not enrolled in school.  The common reason for this is that they cannot afford the costs associated with education.  I did a little research, and it seems that around 77% of primary school-aged children actually attend primary school and that only 85% of these children complete their entire primary school education (statistics taken from UNICEF).

Ok, that's enough statistics for now.  I'll keep other information for another post.  Enjoy the pictures!

Before - scrubbing the walls.

Beth and I took a "selfie" every day, to track our progression.  Here's one from the first day.

Finally done with the primer after three coats!

Discovering we had two different shades of...yellow!  Not the cream we thought it was going to be.

Our makeshift roller handle.

Done!

The schoolyard!

Preschoolers during their "gym" period.

The usual schoolyard activities - how many kids can we pile on to Beth or Katie!

The "Dirt" on Haiti

Before I begin, I would just like to take some time to apologize for the lengthy delay between posts.  I could blame everything on Beth because it took her forever to send me some photos that I needed, but I will take responsibility and admit that things have been pretty busy and I haven't found time to sit down and write.

It's crazy that we passed our two month mark on the 27th of October.  At times, I feel like we just got here, yet other times I feel as though I have been here for much, much longer.  I'm amazed at how far each of us have come in terms of communicating with others, working independently on our projects, killing spiders, and dealing with seemingly constant requests for money, food, or other assistance from strangers on the street.  I have already done things I had never imagined myself doing: learning how to milk a goat, figuring out a loan repayment plan for a basket-maker who owes over $700, giving people medicine, etc.  I'm interested to see what the next 10 months have in store.

The last time I posted, we had gone to the beach and had collected rocks to repair the gardens at Lèkol Jezi-Mari in Fon Ibo.  I would like to continue our garden story.  The original gardens had been put up by a former Quest volunteer around 5 years ago, and beans, spinach and other various vegetables had been planted in them.  Since then, the plants have not been well taken care of and the cement brick and rock walls had started to collapse.  Because the gardens could be used to grow some food that students can eat for lunch as well as act as a wonderful learning and teaching tool, Sr. Pat and Beth really wanted them to be repaired.  This task was given to the 5th grade.  One of the first steps that we took in this process was to attend a local conference about several methods to improve soil quality.  I spent two days at the conference, and on the second day, we were able to have the 5th grade teacher and two students come so they could bring the information back to the school and the rest of their class.

The main topics of the conference were how to prepare a compost pile that will produce good and healthy compost that can be added to soil, how to make compost using worms, and an agricultural method known as double digging.  I will go into a little detail about each of these, but (hopefully) not enough to put you all to sleep!

Much of Haiti's soil has been depleted.  At the end of the conference, we were able to listen to a professor from the University of Florida, (who happened to be in the area), give a lecture.  He was trying to continue research he had been doing in Florida about improving soil conditions in Haiti.  He said that Haiti has lost 90% of the soil it had before it was colonized.  This loss has been due to the nature of the crops that were grown, (coffee, tobacco, etc.), during colonization, the intense deforestation that has left less than 3% of the land forested, and severe erosion that is augmented by the mountainous terrain.

While many farmers do not do anything to replace nutrients back into the soil, some make and add compost.  At this conference, we learned about why compost was important for reintroducing microorganisms back into the soil, and the different components you need to make good compost - earth, green and dry material and water.  We also discussed using urine as well as manure and the potential benefits and health risks of using these materials.  We were able to see the process of making a compost pile that could be reproduced almost anywhere.  The professor also talked a little bit about how one of the main nutrients that is missing in the soil is carbon.  He looked at ways to replenish the carbon supply in the soil, specifically using bio-char and charcoal.  He talked about a method that was used before the country was colonized when natives were making large mounds of earth and adding charcoal to the mounds.  He has replicated this technique in Florida and within 6 weeks, the soil was black and rich in carbon.  He is trying to see what will happen if they do this in Haiti.

Double digging is a method used by some farmers to help aerate the earth and to help it maintain moisture.  It is apparently very good for the soil and if this process is used, you can go several years without having to repeat the process or re-till the earth.  Double digging includes removing a small trench of earth, setting aside the top soil, filling the hole about 3/4 of the way with the dirt you just removed and then taking the top soil from the next trench and filling in the first trench the rest of the way.  These two steps are repeated for as much as you need dug.  You can add compost to the soil to enrich it even more and once you are finished, you can use rice husks, wood chips and straw/corn stalks to cover it to help retain even more moisture.

We also learned a little bit about how you can use worms to make compost.  The correct term for this is vermicompost.  Although Haiti has its own species of worms, a certain species of African worms as well as one from California are much better for this process–although they are not readily available in Haiti.  The way vermicompost works is that you have a bunch of worms in either a wooden or plastic bin.  You feed them nutrient-rich food scraps (mostly fruits and vegetables).  The worms digest the scraps and essentially poop out nutrient-rich compost that can be added to the soil.  This technique is not widely used in Haiti, but some agriculturalists are hoping to introduce it in some areas.

I went to the conference to learn more about the Haitian environment and agricultural techniques but we wanted a teacher and the students to go to see if any of the information could be brought back to the class and used in the gardens.  Fortunately, we were able to do just that.

A few days ago, after all the mud from the several days of rain had finally dried a little bit, we were able to fix the garden walls with the rocks Beth, the 5th graders and I had collected a few weeks ago.  Beth, Claude, (the school's all around awesome handyman), another of the school's workers and I spent a few hours ripping out all the old plants, removing the leaf detritus and turning the soil.  Last Saturday, Beth and I went to the school to help the 5th grade put in their compost pile–exactly how we had seen at the conference.  It was clear that they had talked about compost in class because they knew the all the steps that went into constructing a pile, what kind of leaves were best, how big everything needed to be, etc.  The kids did 95% of the work and were merely guided by their teacher and Claude.  It was so cool to see all the kids working together and having fun while they were doing the work and actually using the information from the conference.  I can't wait to continue watching the kids build their gardens and I hope that we will be able to start planting in them soonish.

A double digging demonstration at the conference.

Building the compost pile during the conference.

An example of a box for worm compost.

All the participants of the conference.

Learning about adding charcoal to your soil.

The  5th grade!

Our gardens are called "keyhole" gardens because of their shape.  This kind of garden does well in areas that are hot and dry because they retain more moisture and nutrients because  there is what is called an "active" compost pile in the middle of each garden.  There are many ways to make a keyhole garden, including layering different materials within the garden.  For example, one website I looked at recommended layering wood, cardboard, compost, newspaper, manure, worms, ash, straw and then topsoil to really increase soil health.  

(http://www.inspirationgreen.com/keyhole-gardens.html) 

A man cutting some branches off the trees to increase the amount of sunlight that reaches the gardens.

Preparing the pile.

Chopping up the stalks from palm leaves to add to the pile.

Our growing pile.

The final product!!