Haiti
It’s been a month since Simon and I arrived in Haiti. Actually, our first impressions were better from what we expected. Jacmel is one of the largest cities in Haiti with 40,000 people in the city and 170,000 including suburbs. The population is welcoming and the atmosphere is rather quiet (of course I do not count the joyful and lively Jacmel carnival atmosphere and the city center in general, that is always noisy and active). The first days were rather «picturesque» like using local transport (Moto-taxi, Tap-tap ..), renting a house near the office and discovering the necessary places in the everyday life.
NGO’s are very numerous in Jacmel and we had the opportunity to discuss and to exchange with some of their members the vision each of us has on cooperation and development in Haiti.
In the Office it is a multicultural environment, as Mayte already described in her latest post.
Like everybody i read books with statistics about the situation of the people to Haiti.
But during few weeks, I put away my readings and let the space to my own experience. because of my situation as a volunteer for 4 months It is difficult to see a fair measure of the daily life of Haitian that I meet here but I noticed that the prices of commodities are close to the prices practiced in France and my level of living is undoubtedly largely superior to the majority of Haitian.
But, what is much more striking, it is the fact that the local most important basic food product, the rice, is in majority imported. It is revealing a persistent problem of food reliance from Haiti to outside countries.
The last week, we went to the south of Haiti ( from Jacmel to Jeremie) . It allowed me to see the natural beauty of this region of the world and let me think that tourism would be a massive accelerator for the development in this country. Providing that its infrastructure and its international image could be improved as well as some natural areas could be highlighted.
Djilali MELLITI
It’s been a month since Simon and I arrived in Haiti. Actually, our first impressions were better from what we expected. Jacmel is one of the largest cities in Haiti with 40,000 people in the city and 170,000 including suburbs. The population is welcoming and the atmosphere is rather quiet (of course I do not count the joyful and lively Jacmel carnival atmosphere and the city center in general, that is always noisy and active). The first days were rather «picturesque» like using local transport (Moto-taxi, Tap-tap ..), renting a house near the office and discovering the necessary places in the everyday life.
NGO’s are very numerous in Jacmel and we had the opportunity to discuss and to exchange with some of their members the vision each of us has on cooperation and development in Haiti.
In the Office it is a multicultural environment, as Mayte already described in her latest post.
Like everybody i read books with statistics about the situation of the people to Haiti.
But during few weeks, I put away my readings and let the space to my own experience. because of my situation as a volunteer for 4 months It is difficult to see a fair measure of the daily life of Haitian that I meet here but I noticed that the prices of commodities are close to the prices practiced in France and my level of living is undoubtedly largely superior to the majority of Haitian.
But, what is much more striking, it is the fact that the local most important basic food product, the rice, is in majority imported. It is revealing a persistent problem of food reliance from Haiti to outside countries.
The last week, we went to the south of Haiti ( from Jacmel to Jeremie) . It allowed me to see the natural beauty of this region of the world and let me think that tourism would be a massive accelerator for the development in this country. Providing that its infrastructure and its international image could be improved as well as some natural areas could be highlighted.