Sunday, March 05, 2006

Photos from Haitian/Dominican border

Border town on Haitian side, as viewed from it sister town in the DR




Market day in the same town














Looking up towards the neighbouring national park in the DR, protected but under heavy pressure from the surrounding communities



















Looking back down towards Jimani, the town which was flooded out in 2004. Note the large alluvial fan, caused by the flooding, which starts in communities far upstream
















Down in Jimani, standing on the alluvial fan, looking at the new barrier being build in preparation for the next flooding event.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

v3#3

18.475550° N 69.964880°W for those of you with Google Earth, or some other mapping software. I've been in the Dominican Republic for about 3 weeks. My time has focussed mostly on working with the staff here to develop our plans for the project in the border area between the DR and Haiti. This included a visit to the border to visit some communities and talk to some of the local leadership. Next week I am going to Haiti (hopefully) to do the same with our Haitian staff. (Since the election of Rene Preval as President, the situation there seems to have calmed down somewhat.) The border area is fascinating and complicated, and I think unique. It doesn't seem to be as much of a line as a wide band with open economic and social interchange between Dominicans and Haitians, and a gradual blending of cultures across the artificial marks drawn on maps. Many people on both sides (within this band) speak both Spanish and Haitian Creole, and there is a lot of intermarriage. Agriculture in the zone is also dependent on a close intertwining of the two cultures, with many Haitians share cropping on Dominican owned land. Understanding this relationship is going to be critical to our developing initiatives that will be appropriate for the region. At an organizational level, we will also be working together more closely as Haitians, Dominicans, and North Americans. This will be another big challenge, but our initial meetings of Floresta-Haiti, Floresta-DR, and Floresta-USA, have been very positive, and even in these planning stages, we are learning from each other. This is no small thing, considering the general feelings of hostility and discrimination that exist between the two cultures, and have existed for centuries.

Bob



Photo: Haitian girl on her way to market in a border town on the Haitian side, where goods are informally traded back and forth across international lines