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Haiti Homefront

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Commenced:	01/02/2011
Submitted:	14/03/2011
Last updated:	07/10/2015
Location:	Sans, Ouanaminthe, HT
Phone:	+509 31052449
Website:	worldturners.org
Climate zone:	Wet/Dry Tropical

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Project: Haiti Homefront

Posted by Natasha Turner about 13 years ago

Rogue potatoes, coconut spoons, and sharpening a machete

I didn't get to be there personally, and I am jealous. A group of little boys took my boys around on the Caring 4 Haiti property, and were showing them how to find and dig up rogue potatoes. They gathered up a good little pile and gave them to my kids.

Today we fried them up for a mid-morning snack, and they were delicious! They weren't supermarket pretty, but they were fun shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors. The kids loved them.

Now my oldest son (7) informs me he needs to learn how to climb a coconut tree, so he won't have to keep asking the other boys for help when his sister wants a coconut. :-) She is four and a coconut-water fiend. I think it's her new raw milk replacement.

When we were working at the property the other day we had brought water and a few small snacks. It wasn't super satisfying. While I was mentally debating about what to put water in for the boys who were working with us, they shimmied up the coconut trees and got themselves a drink and snack in one. They brought one for me too, and it was much more refreshing than plain old water - sweet and satisfying. I was hoping they wouldn't waste the jelly-like meat of the young coconut (how silly of me to think that), but we had no spoons with which to eat it. No big deal. They reached down, grabbed a coconut husk shaving - perfect - and scooped away. Sugar cane was also close by and very refreshing.

I'm getting better at handling a machete, but it sure does make a difference when it is sharpened properly. The young man (14) that was helping us did a better job of it than we, and I felt pretty powerful after that. :-) Still, I only managed to get my machete halfway through the thick fallen plantain trunk, and Watson could sever it completely with one seemingly light whack. An elderly gentleman also delighted to take over for me and effortlessly chop with one arm what I was doing with two. I'll get there.

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