Today was a day of getting ready for the focus groups which we are planning for tomorrow. Reviewing the discussion exercises we will use--known as participatory tools--training the staff in how to use them, and preparing in advance for various problems or logistical challenges which we might encounter.

In the late afternoon we made a quick visit to the communities in the watershed that were invited, to remind them of tomorrow's meeting. While waiting for one leader to show up at her house, I took the chance to walk around a bit. It is really quite a beautiful area, and although the folks living here are considered to be some of the poorest in the country, the setting itself I find quite stunning. (which isn't to imply in any way that the attached photo itself is stunning; it really isn't especially given what I was actually looking at)

I have a theory (I have many theories if you've ever noticed). The history books tell us that the Taino, the people indigenous to this island were completely wiped out by enslavement or disease within 40 years of European arrival. However I think that is highly unlikely for several reasons:

1. This is a big mountainous place, with extremely difficult terrain, and there are still areas even today which are hard to get to and where few 'europeans' have ever been, even 500 years later. So I doubt that in 40 years, Columbus and his associates could have reliably confirmed the complete extinction of an entire nation

2. During slave revolts in the French colony, the rebels were able to successfully hide in the mountains for decades, and ultimately were able to successfully drive the French from the island. Even in the early 1900's, the Caco warriors hiding out in the Central Plateau of Haiti were able to wage a not insubstantial resistance against US marines for a number of years.

3. Island dwellers have been demonstrated to have much more significant open water navigation skills that has often been thought (see Guns, Germs, and Steel). I suspect there was likely considerable inter island and Central America coastal travel by the Taino, Arawaks, Caribs and others long before 1492.

This all leads, to the possibility that the Taino may have quietly cleared out of the coastal areas where the colonial towns and plantations were popping up, and headed for the hills, or even more likely out to sea. If anyone has knowledge of this subject, I'd love to hear from you.

So now that the data has been collected, I've spent the better part of the last couple of days trying to get it entered on a spreadsheet. So far I've entered 90+ of 120 surveys total. This includes double checking of every single data point before moving on. A slow, and somewhat tedious process, but worth the trouble to preserve the truth so to speak. I recently read a book on statistical analysis, where the author said that he spends about 20% of his time actually doing the analysis and about 80% of his time getting the data in proper shape. This I don't think includes the actual collection of data, which would make the actual proportion of the time doing analysis even smaller.

So the page of the survey you see below, if you actually take a closer look, includes questions like, how old are you?, what kind of techniques do you apply on your farm?, and how much soil are you losing on your farm? Incidently I've been tracking the average number of persons per household as I've been entering the data. Up til now the average from our survey is 4.15 persons/household. The official 2002 government census reports 4.05 persons/hh for the same municipality. Just a small check, but makes me feel good about the data so far.

Yesterday my neighbour was telling how salt fish is a Dominican product. I didn't bother to point out that historically a large portion of the salt fish sold in the Caribbean has come from the Grand Banks off the eastern coast of Canada, for centuries in fact. The strange thing is that it has come to be considered as a local food. Here in the DR thye eat bacalao, in Haiti aransol, in Jamaica saltfish--all very delicious and prepared slightly differently in each country. What makes this even stranger, is that in Newfoundland, they drink something called screech, which I thought for years was some sort of local newfie moonshine. Turns out that it is actually Jamaican rum which filled the holds of Canadian sailing ships after unloading the saltfish. Supposedly on the return voyage the mast rigging made a squealing noise, hence the name.

The thing about the Caribbean is that pretty much most of the things it is known for come from somewhere else--coffee, sugar (and the rum it makes), bananas, even the people were 'imported'. I wonder if the early colonialists really where thinking about the grand social experiment on which they were embarking. Maybe. I would love to get inside some 15th or 16th century mind and find out.

So be careful what you wish for is what I've heard. It rained yesterday. A lot. The picture below is my attempt to capture the massive black wall of rain making it's way towards us in the afternoon. What followed was probably an hour or more of solid tropical downpour. The rivers blew up of course. The Ozama River which you see in the second picture is probably more than twice as wide in the photo as it normally is, and 4 times the depth. This meant that we were trapped between two parts of the river on a road with no bridges and ended up having to spend that night waiting for the river to subside. We (the agronomist and myself) stumbled upon an 86 year old farmer living next to (but well above) the river and he and his wife generously offered to host us for the night. He went on at length about respecting the river, and how someone had fallen in during a flash flood and had been found many kilometres downstream. I spent much of the evening thinking about how I had been just before praising farmers for their acceptance of the ways of nature, and how frustrated I was sitting there. Very poetic--the bitter irony that is.

The next morning we got up around 6 to check the crossing. The water had definitely gone down, but I decided it would be a good idea to wade across to make sure there were no unexpected deep spots where the truck might submerge below the air intake and completely strand us. This I did extremely carefully (don't worry), although the current was a bit sketchy in a couple of spots and each step took a while, but I got across no problem, and confirmed a safe path for the pickup. At this point, my co-worker had to go back up the hill to fetch the vehicle, leaving me on one side of the river, and my pants and shoes on the other. I spent that time thinking about how hilarious it would be if someone showed up and ran off with my pants (and wallet).

The rain coming straight at me and my camera

The Ozama river at the confluence with the Rio Verde--twice as wide and 4 times as deep as when we had crossed that morning

Just to follow up on yesterday's post to try to explain why I enjoy days like that. Among several reasons, probably the main one is talking to farmers. They, I think are a unique breed apart from the rest of us. Probably because they literally live and die by the sunlight, rain, soil, plants and animals. This makes them by default, intimately aware of nature, and its cycles and whims. On average, I've found that, especially subsistence farmers, have an understanding of our dependence on the natural world from which the rest of us have disconnected. This does not make farmers innocent or exempt, but it does mean that meeting and working with them is always a privilege, and gives me a chance better understand the natural world.

To take this a step further--in my opinion--historically in the Christian faith, many have seen the priest as humanity's conduit to God. And in a lot of places farmer's have sought the assistance of the clergy to connect with God. Ironically, I think we may have had this all backwards.

Today was one of my favourite kinds of days.

After the initial shock yesterday to everyone about how much work is going to be required in the next two weeks to complete this baseline study, we got down to the actual first steps today. I say first steps, although the chief agronomist here, and myself have been have been preparing the ground work for months. But today, the agronomist, and 4 other staff who will be going house to house in the target area conducting a survey, visited the community leaders to advise them of our intentions, and to plan community meetings to get local input. The other objective was to familiarize the other staff with the new region, and to introduce some of the concepts of watershed management on the fly.

My big regret is not being able to make small talk in Spanish. I mean I can barely do small talk in English. I can say technical stuff when I have to, mainly because a lot of the technical jargon transfers easily from one language to the other, but this leads people to mistakenly assume that I can also talk about the weather, sports, or the latest local news. Mostly I smile and nod and hope that no one thinks I'm being rude.

Last night I dreamed I was (very gingerly) crossing a river barefoot on the backs of crocodiles lined up side by side. (Please don't let that be a metaphor for dangerous pathogens hidden in the water!)

I woke up this morning to the sound of horseshoes clattering by on the street. About a minute later a scooter puttered by--probably at about the same speed. That is a funny thing about, well, this entire island; you can be warped from the 18th century to the 21st century in an instant. One of my American co-workers once observed that in the border area between Haiti and the DR where we are working, it is so isolated --no electricity, no running water, no telephones--that it seems almost like you are stepping back into a previous century. The only give away are the world cup tee-shirts.

So cases of cholera are jumping up now in the Dominican Republic. Which is making me think twice about things I might normally do, like drink water. I was invited to go swimming in a local river on Sunday. I am not sure how I can politely turn that down. Who wouldn't want to go swimming in this kind of weather. Well, I've got 6 days to figure out a strategy.

This morning the staff here in the Dominican Republic and myself met to go over the plans for evaluation that we are doing this year. Every three years we try to answer the question, "Are we making a difference?" A tough one for sure, and a lot of work is required, but an important question to be asking ourselves as an organization. It is kind of easy to go on planting trees, and training farmers, and assume that what we are doing is all good. However, once in a while, it is good to take a step back and try to get a view from a slightly different perspective. So much like a company might hire a marketing firm to help them understand how customers perceive or use their products, we go out and do household surveys and hold focus groups to discuss our work. We ask questions like, what are your sources of income? and how much of your farm is protected by trees? and what material is the floor of your house made of? This last question may seem a bit strange, but the fact of the matter is that if you ask people directly about their income, or their financial situation, you rarely get a reliable answer. Either because people don't really track their finances themselves, or they are reluctant (understandably) to tell others. So the thinking is to ask some indirect questions, which can give you an idea of how someone is doing, like whether they have a dirt floor or not.

I have arrived. After the standard airline gambit of gradual delays (I am sure there is an industry term for this) where they dispense a big delay in 15 to 30 minute increments so no one ever gets too bent out of shape. Turns out the total delay was 4 hours, but in the end I guess we are just happy to have arrived.

I do promise to explain more about what I am doing on this trip, but I'm tired, so I think I'll turn in, using my standard mosquito gambit of pointing the fan indirectly at my bed, creating just enough current to keep flying insects veering off course but not so much as to be uncomfortable.

I used to think that early morning flights were the way to go. At some point my thinking on that changed.

This trip is to the Dominican Republic. The program there is growing, and adding new communities in a new region. So this trip is about collecting baseline information so we can make informed decisions about what to do, and also so we will have something by which we can measure our progress in the future. We also will be consulting with communities and developing plans that make sense to them as well as us. More on all that later in the week, assuming I have internet access.

This particular project expansion is the first time that we will be looking at things from a watershed level. Working in reforestation and soil conservation, our work has always been influenced by watersheds, but to actually tackle an entire watershed in an organized way requires a bit more strategy. I will elaborate more on this too if the opportunity presents itself.

I expect boarding any second now. Planning on breakfast at JFK.