No Better High

I got credit and joy but all I did was to deliver the good news.  A few pictures and an update and Yvrose face was shinning with pride.   Her homeland, her country, the place of peaceful memories— like being put up on a mule to walk the farm roads was looking good.  I can only imagine that people from Haiti, people like Yvrose who lives a world away now (she’s in Miami) savour memories but find few chances to beam with pride.

The Center de Formation de Fritz Lafontant (CFFL on Facebook) is one of the success stories of the moment.  It’s a vocational school for young adults.   Lots and lots of South Carolinians and outsiders have contributed to its start up—but its success rests with determination of Haitian leaders, teachers and students.  People like Reginald Cean, Director of Agriculture, who’s pictured below in his seed beds.

Yvrose was blown away with the pictures and stories of the CFFL vocational school where I’d just spent some weeks.   I told her about the ‘Solar Market Garden’ powered by Hemsol’s solpaneler, and how a solar pump slowly fills massive cisterns at the top of a hill, then drip irrigation waters the crops down the slope, via gravity.   ‘Someone is really thinking at this place! ‘   She beamed, she thanked me. In fact, she is determined to visit on her next trip.  Yvrose is one of the ‘mentors’ in my new book. She has a backyard foodforest and so much to teach. Nothing could make me feel higher than delivering this sort of good news to someone who’s shared so much with me. This is the kind of positive change, of good news that spurs pride and ultimately success.  I hadn’t done a thing; the people of her home did it.

Here’s a radio segment about my time there.   And you can meet the teachers and the leaders of the school on Feb. 20 in Greenville at this fun fundraiser.  .[Not a valid template]