If you like street food, you would enjoy the thing I went to last night which is pretty much a weekly street food festival with dozens of vendors and hundreds of hungry people wandering up and down buying satay, fried noodles, soup. This particular vendor was selling a sticky rice pastry with mung bean, toasted on charcoal grill. Very tasty, and actually reminded me of something my grandmother used to make. There was even street food sushi. Although I don't know about eating street food sushi...

One of the many plants at the centre here which is used in agroforestry, in this case a young  fan palm.  It's like a little botanical garden here.  Very beautiful. The people are very nice too. And there's wifi all the time. Not really a very challenging place at all. For me in terms of living conditions that is. A huge amount of work has gone into building and maintaining this place. I just happen to be fortunate enough  to benefit from the result.

Today was a training day on participatory methods. This is a shot from the corner of the meeting area where we held the workshop to give you an idea of how things look from where I've been standing most of the day.

I  got to the meeting and back without any further head injuries. The meeting was with a  commmunity made  up of mainly migrants from Burma who have escaped their homeland because of war and injustice, only to  find themselves  in trouble with authorities here. People have been  arrested,  ways of earning a living are few. Many find themselves in day  labour jobs on large industrial  farms spraying dangerous chemicals or otherwise working under difficult conditions. Our partner here is working with an network of  NGO's to help this community gain  some kind of stability and legal status.

We're going to  the field today so I had to set my alarm and get up at 6. So when it went off, I jumped up and said to myself, "getting up suddenly early in the morning when you're still jet-lagged, that has got to be the worst feeling in the world.

Then I turned and slammed the top of my skull into the 5 foot 6 door frame to  my bathroom.
"No," I said to myself, "that has got to be the worst feeling in the world."

This is the dry season, and people burn their fields in preparation for the planting season. So there is typically a haze over the entire area. This year apparently it is particularly bad and you can  sort of see and feel the smoke hanging  over everything. In the photo below you can make out how the  sun is heavily masked even though it is early  afternoon.

Forget practicing how to pronounce Chang Pheuk Gate. Thanks to poor weather in Toronto, and what seems to be a very chaotic system at the airport for de-icing planes, my first flight of the day ended up getting cancelled after we taxied around on the runway for about 3 hours. Very frustrating. However, thanks to my constant mantra--no checked bags--I was able to get on another flight in the afternoon to Bejing instead of Hong Kong which will put me into my final destination at almost the same time as I had orignally planned. When I went to the airline staff at the gate after all 300 frustrated passengers deplaned the first time, the staff were mainly in crowd-control mode, and not really that interested in helping me or any other individual. But when the representative I was talking to found out I had no checked luggage her facial expression went from despondent to hopeful. I mean you could literally see her thinking, "hey, I can actually help this person". She quickly directed me around the corner to another service desk out of sight of the angry mobs, and I got help and a brand new ticket within minutes. Last seat on the plane, but somehow I managed to end up not only in  my  favourite window seat, but also in an emergency exit row, with lots of leg room.

So here I am in the Bejing airport enroute. I didn't leave the airport, but I did get a country  stamp in my passport even  though I was just in transit. So this is kind of a grey area. What do you  think, can I count it as a legitmate country visit?

I'm listening to the google translate pronunciation of Chang Pheuk Gate, so I will hopefully have a slight chance of directing a cab driver my guesthouse once I arrive in Chiang Mai 26 hours from now.  ที่อยู่ใกล้ประตูช้างเผือก

or something like that. I don't really pretend to read Thai script. Plus the whole rising/falling tone thing throws me.

This trip is vaguely similar to the recent Haiti trip in that we will be covering similar topics: evaluations, watersheds, research. We will also be talking about participatory methods, which  if you've followed this blog at  all you will remember are a group of techniques designed to increase a community's ability to communicate, reflect on their situation and make decisions. When it works well, this approach gives people more say in what happens. We will  also be  talking some about PGIS --Participatory Geographic Information Systems--which is the nexus of participatory techniques, and modern spatial information ('mapping') technologies. You may have seen the battery commercial where inhabitants of the Amazon are using GPS to map their local resources. That's an example of PGIS. The idea is to bring together local knowledge and pair it with the ever increasing power of software that can process geographic information. Not an easy task, and in fact I saw an article asking if PGIS wasn't an oxymoron. There are in fact, numerous examples of where GIS is being successfully  integrated with local knowledge, so it is possible. For me personally, it brings together two of my current big interests, and our partner in Thailand has already worked in this area, so I'm excited about discussing more possibilities with them.

I'm looking at the ever growing line at Tim Horton's in terminal 3 and wondering if it's worth getting breakfast or not. T3 people, if you come across this post, you've really got to up your breakfast game.

Well, the moral of the story is "don't schedule too little  time in between two trips". Which is advice I exactly ignored in  this case and found myself playing catch up from my last trip (Haiti), while trying to get a whole pile of stuff ready for my next trip (Thailand). At least partly my own fault, although several other unexpected things got added in along the way, making it a little more challenging. Eg. this evening I ended up arguing with the people at the  print shop  about stuff  I needed for my flight tomorrow even  though I  ordered well in  advance. Sorry  to burden you with that, but it's  just an  accumulation of little things. At least for the next 24-36 hours I can decompress  on the plane in a low stress, low stimulation environment.  Kind of cocoon like.

I tried  something a bit different on my return flight from Haiti this time. I routed my return through  the Turks and Caicos islands. So I had myself a little 4 hour micro vacation. I got a cab to Grace Bay, one of the  main resort areas with 12 miles of continuous beach. I went for walk, had a swim, and had lunch at one of the resorts. By the time I was  done, I felt totally relaxed, just like a real vacation, then hopped  on  the next plane  and headed back home. I couldn't  seem to find a flag anywhere to take a picture with, and the woman in  the airport gift shop refused to let me take a picture, so I was forced to take the shot below surreptitiously using my zoom lens. And I'm not in the shot, but it's the best I could do. I didn't actually see a flag anywhere in my 4 hours of wandering.

Almost every time I visit Haiti, I try to see one farmer's plot which I've  been following since 2005 when he planted it. Now, 7 years later it's becoming a small forest. This small grove of trees (Simarouba glauca for those who care) has survived goats, hurricanes, earthquakes, and vandalism, thanks to Jessner's perseverance--goats being the worst of all.  He told me today when I shot this photo, that trees are life, when we're born, it's on a bed made of wood, and when we die it's in a box made of wood. And in between we survive on avocado, oranges, and mangos. The second photo is from 2007, just for reference. He may even be standing beside the exact same tree.

Today's discussions will be about 2 topics, watersheds, and evaluations. The picture below shows a view of one of the watersheds in Haiti where we work, the Riviere Gauche watershed. The green dots show the communities where we are working and that we have pretty good coverage of the upper part of the watershed. This  is  more by good  fortune than design, since we started working in this area before we started thinking strategically about watersheds, but it puts us in a good position for future work at a watershed level.

As far as evaluations go, this graph shows a sample of the results from our recent analysis in Haiti, showing the average number of trees planted by farmers. This data shows that farmers participating in our programme ('members') plant at least 3 times as many trees as farmers who do not participate in our programme.

Anyhow, just a sample of the discussion we'll be having today.

Today was an all-day meeting with staff here to talk about our research programme.  I know, not  very exciting,  but the  idea is  to take some of the best lessons from product development in the business world, and apply them so we can generate the best possible ideas to benefit farmers. Problem is not everyone agrees all the time, and so there was quite  a bit of let's say lively debate. On the weekend I had  a discussion with some other foreigners who were advising me that local  folks here will feel obliged to agree with a foreigner while inside they feel humiliated. This is not the case with us. Sometimes I almost wish we had that problem. Such discussions like the one we had today require the ability to listen, and respect others viewpoints, while also being  able to express one's own perhaps differing viewpoint with care. Not an easy thing at all in a language which is not one's own. 

We visited a farm on a hillside that looks down toward the Dominican border with Haiti.  One of the visitors asked  where exactly on the hillside the  border was. The farmer responded, "Do  you see that mango down there? There's a bunch of  trees in  front of it and then that one mango. That's where the  border is."  As he was giving this  description, I  realized that the border actually starts where the trees stop.  But  not  what you're thinking.  All  the trees are on the Haitian side! Once you get across the border it is pretty much barren, with a few shrubs here and there. This is contrary to the common wisdom, as you likely know, everyone says that there are more trees in the DR and you can actually trace the border by the tree cover. It's true overall that there is more tree cover in the DR than Haiti by a long shot, but in this particular case you can trace the border by  following the trees on the Haitian side. The reason for this is partly  because the plain area in the DR in this particular region is drier  compared to the higher altitude Haitian part, but also  because of the share-cropping arrangement typical in  this area. Dominican farmers will strike an agreement with a Haitian farmer allowing the Haitian to manage his land and split the profits. In this specific case, this means the Haitian farmer is  cutting trees and making charcoal,  something he  doesn't  do when he returns home in  the evening to his own  farm.  Surprised? I  am a little. The photos below show Haiti in the foreground, the DR in the background.

I ran ahead of the visiting group so I could get a shot of them on a hillside trail. They in turn got a shot of me.  Where is Bob?

Maybe it's time for a quick Kreyol lesson:

"Ki jan ou ye?"--How are you?
(KEE JAWN OO YAY, except the N is nasal as in Jean Cretien)

"Pa pi mal"--Not bad
(PAH PEE MAL)

Today begins the first day of a donor visit. Several supporters of our organization will be arriving from  the US to see the work that is being done,  learn a bit about Haiti, and connect with our local staff and farmers. I am part of the team that is hosting the visit, and will be functioning as interpreter. I will probably lose internet capability for a  few days, although connectivity here has been getting better and better since 2010, so who knows. Maybe you will hear from me this evening.

Always happy when I arrive. The plane even landed in Port au Prince 10 minutes ahead of schedule. My ride was here to pick me up which I am also grateful for--that doesn't always happen either. Which, is another thing, I love it when porters and cab drivers in the airport try and pretend like they're your friend who's come to pick you up. It strikes me as hilarious somehow. Like they think I'm just that dumb. Or  so egotistical  that I would believe that random cab  drivers recognize me.

I just got the now almost predictable reaction from a customs officer:
"Where are you going?"
"Haiti"
"For how long?"
"2 weeks"
"THAT'S all the luggage your taking for 2 weeks?"
"Yes."

I'm always somewhat pleased by that response, but it also makes me a  bit nervous, because it seems to make  them  suspicious. But then, what doesn't  make  the suspicious? 

So I have a small confession. When I travel, I like to plug into my mp3 player and listen to the song Extreme Ways by Moby--the theme song from the Bourne  Identity--and sort of imagine like I'm Jason Bourne. Which by the way, the only resemblance between me and Jason Bourne is that we both have terrible memories. Oh, and we've both travelled on Canadian passports. 

Every year I bring a tomato plant or two in off my balcony in the fall,  and try to keep them alive over  winter. I have never done this successfully until this year. For some reason--the warm weather, I think--I've not only managed to keep the plants alive but have even got two tomatoes. The photo below is the only record, because that red one on  the left, I ate today. If I can get them to last another couple months, I might be able to put them back outside, and get a second year out of these. 

Anyhow, I had to eat the ripe one, because I'm going away and it would be overripe by the time I got back. This is  my first trip in a while, after an almost solid 4 months at home. 

I have one word for you: 24 degrees Celsius. Ok, that's 3 words, or two words  and one number. My point is that is the temperature here in Texas. Feels  pretty good, coming from  minus 6.

Today was a long but rewarding day hashing through some planning issues with the organization  I mentioned  this morning. This I think, puts a pretty heavy demand on my brain  cells. Thinking takes energy for sure. And at the end of a day like this, I feel like my brain has had a work out. It's kind  of similar in a way to the feeling you get in your legs when you've gone for a run. Tired but good. Tired but more alive somehow.

Tomorrow, I'll try to get a picture of what 24 degrees looks like. For those of you who might have forgotten.

Maybe I should change the name of this blog to whereintheairportisbob, since that seems to be where I post my entries from these days. I just got through one of the longest security checks I've had in a while. Even the flight crew  line was backed up. So I guess somewhere in the world some piece of information surfaces which requires everyone to be on high alert, and ultimately forces me to make a choice between a  pat-down and a body scan.

This weekend I'm involved in a workshop. Two days of what is likely to be a fairly intense planning session with folks from an organization working in Haiti. Yesterday the media specialist from the organization gave me a call  to ask me how I wanted the meeting room set up and what kind of projection system I need. I thought this was very conscientious and a pleasant surprise. It was also a bit amusing to me when I think of all the times I've used a projector run by a gas generator roaring just outside the office window, or done workshops using index cards held down by small stones to keep them from blowing away in some farmer's front yard. Come to think of it, I haven't really run very many workshops at all under what I would call  ideal conditions. 

My car numbers are in for those who find that interesting. Average fuel mileage for 2011 was 6.91 L/100km, almost exactly the same as last year. See  the graph below for the week by week performance. Total cost per km, including vehicle depreciation was 36 cents/km, without considering depreciation, 25 cents per km. Only considering fuel, 8.4 cents per km.

Two and a half months later, I finally get around to talking about my Mediterranean vacation. Italy, Croatia, Greece  and Turkey. It was very nice. Mostly on the boat (cruise ship), and some stops to see pretty, and pretty interesting sites. My new thing is to try and take a photo with the flag of every new country I go  to so here I've got Turkey and Greece. In total I added three new countries to my list. I have to now figure out a way to up  those numbers somehow. If you're looking for a travel partner, let me know. Don't ask me to go to Haiti or the DR though. Going to a country 20 times does not add to my new country count.

I've also included a photo of the ship I was on. That in itself was fascinating to me. I mean they create an instant town, which runs flawlessly. Very impressive. It helps I guess that there were 750 crew on board (for 2000 guests).

If you've been following, you know that I spent the summer working with all of our local partners collecting  data of various stripes and colours in order to measure progress in our work. So I've now passed from the data collection phase to the data analysis phase. It kind of feels to me like the opening scene in the movie "The Matrix" where all  that code is streaming down in Japanese. If you saw the movie you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, I feel like there's these waves of numbers washing over me and I've got to figure out how to make sense of it all. 

So that means statistics. Yup. And in order to generate those statistics, I've latched on to an open-source system known simply as "R', thanks to the recommendation of a former boss of mine. R is recognized as one of the top systems (languages) for statistical analysis, and is supported by a large community of statisticians, scientists, and nerds like myself. Besides being very powerful and flexible, it has the advantage of being free. 

I'm just learning, and have barely scratched the surface of what this thing can do, and like much open-source software, figuring out what to do is not always that obvious. So today I was quite elated when I learned how to get R to read and process Thai script. This means I  don't even need to understand Thai--which I don't--I can just ask the program to analyse it, and spit the numbers back to me. Once its in the condensed form after processing, I can then get key words translated (either by a human or by the internet), and voila, things make sense. 

My apologies to those you who are not from Ontario, because you're probably not going  to know what I'm talking about. I try  to keep this blog non-political, but I have to say that I'm totally against the idea of getting rid of smart metering. If only for personal, non-political reasons. Since the building I live in switched to smart metering, I've been  saving about 30 dollars a month on hydro costs, through a combination of keeping my lights off except when necessary, not running air conditioning excessively,  and other saving measures. So the removal of smart metering would be an economic loss for me. And it seems to me like it is better for us as a province. It is more accurate, cheaper to administer, encourages energy conservation, and personal responsibility. So what exactly is the logic for getting rid of it?

Please I urge who ever gets into power this fall in Ontario, keep smart metering!

Home. Hot shower, three loads of laundry, microwaved take out. All the things I couldn't do when travelling. Now I will crawl under a rock for a day or two and decompress. As the song says, "I had to close down everything, I had to close down my mind." (Extreme Ways, Moby)

The last picture for the summer of a bunch of farmers sitting around in a meeting. For a few months anyways. When I was younger,  I used to think that meetings were a complete waste of time. I would rather be out doing--taking action. But I've come to realize that meetings are, let's say, a necessary evil. 

It reminds me of a movie, Canadian Bacon, starring John Candy  as sheriff  Bud Boomer. In the movie,  a rebel band of angry Americans decide they are going to invade Canada. As Sheriff Boomer rallys his troops at Niagara Falls, on the eve of  their invasion, he says, "There is a time to think, and a time to act, and this my friends, is no time to think."

So it seems  to me that there are occasions when ideas need to be shared, differences need to be resolved, plans need to be made, resources need to be accounted for. At this point in my life I would say that meetings are not inherently a waste of time, but it is still true that a lot of time is wasted in  meetings. Meetings, just like anything else in life require certain skills and knowledge in order to do them right. That is one of the benefits of these participatory tools I keep talking about. They can turn a random shouting match into an exciting breeding ground for new ideas. They're just one small piece of a much bigger puzzle, but they help at least take some of that time wasting out of the equation.

Today is the last of the participatory workshops in my summer of evaluation trips. I'm looking forward to it, and am sure it will be fun, interesting, and a profound learning experience,  but I'm also just looking forward to it being done. I feel like I've been sprinting for a solid 2 months. The stack of boarding pass ticket stubs I've accumulated is looking like a deck of cards. But soon the summer will end, and my fall of data analysis will begin, followed by my winter of report writing. That will put me up to January, when I'll probably start getting cabin fever, and be ready to  be back on the road again, or more accurately, in the air again.

Yesterday I noticed this pot in the kitchen and wondered  to  myself a) why would anyone keep using a pot in this condition when there are dozens of others b) what happened to it--it's heavy aluminum so you would really have to work  to put these kinds of dents in it. So this morning I asked my landlady, "What happened to this pot?" Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh, it's 70 years old! It belonged to my grandmother! It's made of pure aluminum, and you can't find pots like that anymore. When I die, I'll leave it for someone else."

Which just goes to show, don't jump to conclusions about anything. It doesn't exactly tell me how it came to acquire that particular shape,  but this pot must have cooked  rice and beans all through World  War II, the Trujillo years, the cold war, Balaguer...

Waterfalls and sunsets, the two things no one can resist taking pictures of, no matter how much you know in your heart that you can never capture the moment with anything remotely resembling justice. But here it is, my waterfall shot from some river somewhere in the Dominican Republic. I'm not even going to tell you where, because, honestly, this spot is so beautiful, and mostly undisturbed, so I selfishly want to keep it that way. It has been so hot and humid here,  and the water was so cool I had  to go for a swim, despite my lack of preparedness. I will  definitely come back here  again. I  should  add that I was in this spot for work reasons, scoping out a  potential  project site. The swimming was  more of  an  accident than  anything else.

I just want to address the question about the economic classification tool from a few days back (see Sept 9, 2011).

The short answer is `yes`, the voting can definitely be influenced. If that is a concern, there are a couple ways  to address  it  which I will try to  outline  here as briefly  as possible  (not all that brief):

1) Closed ranking:  as opposed  to open ranking which is what you  see   in the photo.  In  closed ranking you would pass out pieces  of paper for example,  and each person would write down  the proportions they think  apply  to each economic  class by themselves,  the submit the results,  which the facilitator would then  tally. This approach requires the majority of  the group to be  literate.
2) A comprehensive list of every family in   the community  is tabulated,  and each family  name written on a  separate  index card.  A small  group  of trusted community  members--selected by the larger group,  are  then given  the responsibility  to go  through   the entire  `deck`of cards and distribute each family according to the  appropriate  class. I have never done  this, and while  it  would  give a definitive result, it seems like a  lot of work as well as being somewhat intrusive  of people`s privacy. Maybe if someone reading this has had experience with this variation, they could comment.


The other aspect to consider is that  extraction of information  is not the primary  purpose these types  of  participatory  exercises. The ultimate goal is to get the community themselves thinking about their own situation, and to start to help them look at ways to address their own needs and goals, rather than having outsiders doing all the research, analysis, project design etc, etc. Nevertheless, if you look closely at the photo, you will see that the seed distribution shows that the `rich` class is smallest in proportion, and the mid and `poor`class are approximately equal, with a slight edge perhaps for the mid class. This I  think is a reasonable, although  not a perfectly precise reflection of reality, especially when one considers that in  this  particular exercise,  the mid-class  usually approximates the majority of those attending the meeting--the exercise is a reflection of self,  so to speak.

I hope that answers the question. But let me know if it doesn`t.

Here's the final result,  although a) I'm not  sure there were 400 people.  My guess would be 200 to  250 and  b) as  is often the case, the people that ate, I  don't think really realized  how much work went into the preparation--I  wouldn't have either if I didn't see it myself. The day started with Catholic mass and I would say  maybe 50 people took part in communion. Then their  were plaques handed out to some of the elders in the  family ('the oaks'), then the meal,  then merengue and swimming. Although  with the heat, more people seemed interested in swimming.  I  did neither.

This morning my landlady, and the organizer of this family event started her  day  at 6 am  and  has  been running around ever  since  like a benevolent dictator of a tiny country, commanding her army of 4, "Get another pot!", "Don't put so much salt in!", "Go fetch me more onions!", "Make Bob some breakfast!", and so on. I've slipped away for a  couple of hours to try and get some more  data entry  done. Just a little bit everyday.

Yet another pile of surveys to plough through. The stack in the back I entered this  afternoon (about 1/6th of the total) and the stack in the front is unentered (and  about 1/3rd of the total). This survey looks much more intimidating because it is 7 pages, versus the Haiti survey which is printed on 2 pages but both surveys have approximately the same amount of questions and therefore represent the same amount of work more or  less. I've got a week and with the help of the head agronomist here, I think we can get it done. (I'm in the Dominican Republic now, by the way)

On a completely different note, the family where I rent a room when I am here is having some  kind of big family gathering tomorrow for a mere 400 people. The woman in  the middle, with the black hat on has taken on  the responsibility for preparing food for everyone. Crazy. But she owned a restaurant for many years. In the photo is one of 2 pigs they are  cooking, and I don't know probably what seems like about 50 chickens. I'm invited, and actually it seems like I'm almost obliged  to go. I'll let you know  how it goes.

Somehow in the process of answering the question in the comment to  this blog, I managed to delete the entire Sept 9 entry. So here I am reconstructing it from memory (unfortunately I also deleted the comments):

I`ve probably talked before about participatory methods. Pictured below is an exercised called a  wealth ranking (aka poverty ranking). The idea is that community members with the help of a facilitator identify the different economic classes  in their own community  and the associated characteristics that distinguish each class.  For example one of the criteria  this group  used was number of animals owned,  with the `rich`class being seen as owning 15-20 animals,  the `middle`class 2-4 animals, and the `poor` class 0-2 animals.  A number  of other criteria are identified and outlined by the group until they are satisfied with their definitions, and then  a ranking takes place. Each group member is given seeds as counters--in this case 10 seeds per person-- and the everyone  places the sees in  the three classes according to how they think those three groups are distributed in  the community. In  the end you  get a pretty revealing picture  of the economic structure of the community.

A small victory. The survey  data for Haiti is completely  entered and  now  exists in  digital  form. This  meant pretty much a solid week of sitting at my  laptop as  surveyors  brought in  the forms from the field,  typing in  the  information and then double checking  every single data point before finally sending to  the  online data base we  set up for  this purpose.  I  recently read  a  stats  analysis  book where the author claimed that he  spends  about 80% of his time getting data ready  for  analysis,  and about 20% of his time  actually  doing the analysis. I was comforted  to know  that, because  I thought  maybe it was only my problem.

Today was a rather uneventful day of meetings and data entry. Meetings to talk about research, meetings to talk about watershed management. Pouring through stacks of household surveys and typing numbers into boxes on my computer. Sorry I've got nothing more than that.

Here's a Google Earth 3D view of one of the watersheds where our work is situated. I spent the better part of this afternoon working on this and related maps. Kind of pretty, huh?

Sunrise in Haiti

More pictures of little trees struggling for survival.  One of my favourite things I guess.  

A farmer plot fenced off to protect seedlings. You can see trees growing in the fenceline and hopefully the little blobs of green inside the plot which are trees too.

Same plot up close. Not sure if you can see but there are dozens of trees here, about 1.5 to 2  metres tall. This plot is probably about 18 months old.

Another plot about 5 years old. For those who know this is the Pere Albert Memorial plot.  You can see outside the fence there is not many trees at all, and one of the culprits lurking for more food.

A tiny leucaena which has seeded naturally from the larger trees in the above picture. In a couple of years this little tree and a half a dozen others I saw scattered around will start to fill in the space in the bottom part of the plot in the picture above. Here's to you Pere Albert, where ever you are.

It was so hot in my room last night I decided to grab one of the earthquake tents  and sleep outside on the porch. This morning when I woke up, I got up and went to grab the stuff sack to start taking down the tent and this huge tarantula jumped out of the stuff sack and onto my hand. I jumped too and yelled. So lesson learned, keep the stuff sack inside the tent.

At 4:40 pm someone from the community told me with absolutely no trace of irony that there was a soccer match between two local teams starting at 4pm and if I was interested I could watch since it would be starting soon.

This just cracks me up since starting at 4 means anytime but 4.

Haiti earthquake consequences

Ever wondered what has happened in Haiti since the earthquake? Heard the news reports about how there's been no progress? Here's a couple of photos of a hillside where we did tree planting in the aftermath, between April and Oct 2010. In the first photo, you'll see there are a bunch of contour canals still in place, and the little green patches in the mid foreground are all trees. I skidded down the hill--about a 45 degree slope to give you a closer view of some of those green patches now 1 to 1.5 metres tall.

I'm not trying to say that Haiti is suddenly going to be reforested. Those little trees have a long way to go...

Made it. Even landed about 10 minutes early. So no ill consequences of Hurricane Irene here. Apparently there was some flooding damage in the north of the country, but for the most part Haiti was lucky this time around. I was worried because when we did our evaluations in 2008, Haiti had just been hit by 4 hurricanes in a row, over about a one month period. So I was afraid we might have the same thing happen again.

"On the road again, I just can't..."
Wait? I could wait really. However, duty calls or something. Flying just as hurricane Irene hits the east coast is probably not my greatest idea ever, but the airline seems to think it is ok, so here we go.

On a completely unrelated note, yesterday an important Canadian political figure, Jack Layton, leader of one of our parties here, the NDP was laid to rest and his life celebrated in a huge ceremony in Toronto. I learned that one of his favourite songs was "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, and it was performed at the funeral. It's a beautiful song, and one of my favourites too, but it got me thinking about what songs I might want performed when that inevitable day comes. Morbid maybe, but for the record here's a list of possibles:

When I survey the wondrous cross, Isaac Watts

There is a redeemer, Keith Green

Be still my soul, Jean Sibelius

Redemption songs, Bob Marley

We shall be free, Garth Brooks

Not to put too fine a point on it, but here are the ticket stubs from my recent trip, plus one receipt for a shower in the Narita airport!

Home at last, thank God I'm home at last. So the journey home began in Tanzania 2 days ago and ended in Canada this evening. I was figuring on the plane--lots of time to do so--that I spent about 55 hours travelling, either flying or in airports, and about 70 hours from the time I got up on the first travel day until my head hits the pillow after this blog post. This I believe is my personal record for longest single travel 'day'. Made longer of course by the fact that the return journey retraced steps back through Thailand instead of going through Europe--which would be shorter, but ironically not cheaper (I do not understand airfares).

There's things about Japanese culture that fascinate me. Like the ultra-politness: bowing, handing things to people with two hands. I feel like one of the only things that remains with me after three generations is the not wearing shoes indoors. I don't like that at all, even in someone's house where they do wear their shoes.

The sad thing is I know so little really about the countries of my ancestral origin. And speak more of other languages and no Japanese, German or Gaelic. So I'm thinking maybe I might plan my next vacation trip with the ancestral origin theme. Start in Scotland, go to Germany, then Japan. I guess that would be 3 week trip at least.

The final airport of the journey. Had a 14 dollar shower. Here's a photo which should be more than obvious as to where I am.

In another airport and no way to upload a photo, sorry. The Africa trip is done, and I'm on the 2 day journey home to Canada. After a couple more days I'll be heading off to Haiti. As I think I may have mentioned it is a hectic schedule and I can feel it wearing me down. I need a vacation. And I know, I just had a vacation a couple weeks ago, but somehow I'm still tired.
Anyhow, yesterday, I found myself quite by accident (I think) in an informal discussion with a couple of staff who work for a local institution in Tanzania--which will remain nameless, although I will clarify that it is not the organization I work for. I was surprised at how candid these folks were about corruption and political problems within and without. It made me feel good in a way partly because it made me feel like part of the 'inner-circle', and partly because it was just good to hear folks talk frankly about problems in their own country. I don't know if that makes any sense to you.

This photo was taken about 20 minutes ago and should give you a pretty good idea of where I am. Other hints include that I am using my laptop perched on the edge of the balcony of my room because it seems like a good spot to get internet connection, and someone on the road just called me 'Baba'. Which is a first for me by the way and a bit depressing.

So I thought I might try making you guess where I am, in this case, based on a lousy photo snapped in a hurry. Still there should be plenty of clues to get this one. The most precise guess gets a free drink on me.

The main reason for this visit to Thailand was for a training course in participatory methodologies. These are techniques that allow communities and organizations to engage in meaningful discussion and at the same time catalyze the process of change (hopefully for the better!)

The course lasted 2 days, the first in the classroom and the second in the field doing a practical exercise. These photos are of community members where one student group went to apply what they learned. The students of course cannot be seen since they were in the background facilitating the exercise.

Community members drawing a map of their village

Community members explaining the map the the student facilitators and the instructor (me!)

So a little good news story for you: One of the villages that we partner with here in Thailand has qualified for a government pilot project for community forestry management. If you're patient with me I can try to explain as briefly as possible why this is good news at least to me. About 5 years, ago, we started working here (through our local partner organization, UHDP, Upland Holistic Development Project, www.uhdp.org) on assisting rural communities to develop forestry management plans. This was necessary because the government was establishing new national parks, and the park boundaries overlapped with the villages where people were already living. Like in many places around the world, this is controversial, because on one hand the park is protecting valuable nature and biodiversity, but on the other hand it threatens the livelihoods of people living in and around the park. Opinions vary on how to handle such a tricky situation, but we set out, with UHDP, and the communities to develop maps using GPS, and management plans that would demonstrate how communities could responsibly care for forest area, and sustainably exist within park boundaries. Did I mention that this started 5 years ago? It was a long and convoluted process involving many changes and uncertainties in forestry law, all the while training and encouraging communities to draft their own forest management plans. Finally this year, one of those communities was approved along with 18 others in the region to be part of the government pilot plan. There is still a lot of uncertainty ahead, but there have already been positive consequences, since we have seen an increase in tree planting and the establishment of agroforestry plots in the area. This positive change seems to be a result of the increased confidence farmers have about their land which gives them the freedom to make the long term investment in planting trees. Good news, and it feels good to have played even a small part in helping this community to get to this point. Who knew that the way to get more trees planted would have to do with teaching farmers how to use a GPS?

An agroforestry plot in Thailand, mixed trees and agriculture, mimicking a natural forest