Yesterday was a day of awkward. Today was a day of feeling like a boss. Yesterday we barged into a village unannounced. Today we were invited and sought after. This time I did not feel like a monkey.
We traveled to Turpin to give the farmers a presentation on the nutrient needs of plants, composting, and how to improve their soil. Seems like no big deal, but the farmers stopped farming about forty years ago and they lost a lot of knowledge about farming. Also Haitian farmers believe that if they add anything to the soil their crop is no longer Haitian. Convoy of Hope wants to help them with seeds and farming education. Convoy of hope only gives them seed if they agree to get instruction and give Convoy of Hope ten percent of their harvest; that way it's a hand up and not a hand out.The farmers were attentive (at least for the first two hours) and asked some good questions about the material mostly about pest control and didn't seem like they had a hard time with composting as we had expected them to.
After the presentation we explored the farmland, which was pretty flippin' sweet! I felt like David Livingstone or Bear Grylls. Mostly today was good because there were no forced conversations or asking for handouts, just us working with the Haitians. We treated them with respect by not treating the people like zoo animals and in turn they opened up to us and gave us respect. It works a lot better this way.
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