For the last five year or so I have been running around the country side of Haiti for all kinds of reasons. Mostly just because I like to do it and anything is usually a good excuse to see what's out there and what opportunities there are for business, job creation and importantly, REcreation. One of the things I have discovered along the way is the amazing biodiversity that still exists in many parts of Haiti. There are parts of this country where there are so many mangoes of so many varieties that the pigs wont eat the mangoes lying on the ground falling from the trees unharvested. Even now, after the environmental degradation, there are that many mangoes. This place would be a gold mine for transformation of mangoes into pulp and juices. There is no hope of processing the amount produced every year in Haiti. But I digress. Once, in L'Azile, a blip "town", I came across an amazing little mango which I was told was called Mango Ariel. I came across it during an expedition for coal in the mountains of Haiti. ( Yes, we have commercially viable lignite all over the place). We, my cousin Christopher Mitchell and I, drove up to the end of the road in front of the mountain, and walked another hour or so into the mountain when we came upon this mango tree that everyone just stopped and starting throwing rocks at. They were trying to get at these little mangoes. We loved them. Chris tried to plant them in Jacmel but they would not take. I never saw them again....until last week.
Last week, I spent some time driving through the south of Haiti working on a rural electrification project with Sirona Cares Foundation. The work we do there looks to provide near grid and off grid access to electricity to people who dont have access to the national utility, Elecitricity D'Haiti or EDH.
While driving around Les Cayes, there was this old woman, dressing in what most in the US would call a night gown. Her hair was completely white and she had no teeth. She was selling tablet under that awning the International Restaurant. Her name was ManDada. She had peanut and almond tablet wrapped in dried pieces banana tree stalk. Tablet is like peanut brittle but the soft kind. I bought one but did not have her price of 25G. She gave it to me for 15G and said I would give it to her next time. I love tablet but I half tried it because my wife is from Treasure Beach, Jamaica and always complains that the tablet here in Haiti is too commercial, too hard, not like she used to get in Jamaica. When I tried this tablet, I knew it was old school, old recipe but I didnt have any cash to buy anymore to bring home to Priscilla. Thankfully, Michelle Lacourcie, who I was riding with on this trip, reminded on the way out of town the next day to go buy more. I owed ManDada 10G and I wanted more anyway. I nearly bought out her supply. When I got it back to Priscilla, she said it was one of the best she has had in Haiti. It was fresh, not overly sweet. Michelle had to keep some of it for herself too. ManDada is old. Her tablet might go the way of Douce Macos in Petit-Goave when she passes. That is, imitations made to sell to the passing traffic. No quality control or respect for the old traditions. Made to get the quick sale. That would be a loss for Haiti.
After stocking up on tablet, we left Les Cayes and headed for Miragoane. The road west out of Miragoane is this brand new road to the middle of nowhere. We were on our way to the ghost town of Anse-a-Veau when we stopped to get a drink at this woman's house. Her name was Madame Jean-Robert and she was selling cool drinks and fried breadfruit. While I was talking to her I looked to my left and in her yard was this tree loaded down with these little mangoes. I asked about them and she said they are called them Mango Jirof. Given that the same, fish, fruit, plant can have 10 different names in Haiti, I was pretty sure I had found my favorite mango in Haiti. Well maybe its a tie with the Mango Gustave in Milot in the north. At any rate, as she was sitting there selling, I told her I'd buy a bunch from her when I got back from Anse-A-Veau if she would get them out of the tree. She called the neighbor to climb the tree while Michelle and I drove off to Anse-a-Veau.
As we approached the first river we had to cross, I stuck my head out the window and quickly asked this young woman, maybe about 16 years old, who had her back turned to me, if it was safe for me to cross the river in the truck. She was crouched over, hand washing her clothes in the river. She turned her head towards me. She was stunningly beautiful with short braided hair, rich dark black skin, an easy smile and slight nose. She looked at me in my brand new rented car (we literally took the plastic of the seats, it had 1200 km on the odometer) without stopping what she was doing, and said, "You could say hello you know". I felt so stupid. I was excited about crossing the river. I love these adventures into Haiti and forgot my manners. In Haiti, you always say hello and ask how the person is doing. I apologized for forgetting myself. I thanked her for correcting me. She was right. Then as quickly as she got total control of the situation, still smiling at me, seemingly not even acknowledging my apology, she looked at me and said with the confidence of a queen granting access to her domain, "You can cross", and turned back to her washing. This is the pride I remember as a kid in the countryside. This spirit is so much of what was Haiti to me. This road to nowhere was taking me somewhere I was longing for.
We did not get to far past the next bridgeless river crossing before we came across a woman selling coffee and fresh cows milk in front of her house. Michelle and I felt like coffee, so we stopped. I asked for $.12 worth of coffee and was surprised to find it made the way I used to get from this one lady on the way to Miragoane right before the fresh water lake. She was the only woman I knew who made it that way and eventually I lost track of her after not going to Miragoane for a while. I even asked for her once or if anyone made coffee like that around there. No one knew about making coffee with cinnamon. This woman's coffee where we had stopped was locally grown and roasted coffee, boiled in a big pot with local cinnamon. This is old Haiti. This is the way my mother used to make hot chocolate when I was a kid. The way she learned from her Petit Goave country roots. This was how good country Haitian coffee was made and yet I could never find it. This old road connecting a bunch of old towns with no hope of doing much at all had opened up for me this channel into the old traditions. I kept coming across these old pieces of Haiti that had been lost to me on the big main roads. Lost to hot dogs and sugary soda and plastic bottles and Styrofoam containers. On this new road to the old country, the old ways still existed and seemed to be mostly maintained by old Haitian great-grandmas. I could not help thinking about how this tradition could die with this coffee lady. Cafe Rebo should go get this recipe.
On our way back to Miragoane, I stopped at Madame Jean-Robert's place again. She had some change for me from my previous purchase. I stopped to get the change and the little mangoes. She had prepared me a bag with about 30 of them in it. I had bought some fish in Anse-A-Veau and I wanted to get some more ice for the trip home. Madame Jean-Robert gave me my change and I asked her how much I owed her for the mangoes. She said nothing. I said, "You sent a guy up your tree and these are your husbands favorite mangoes, you have to charge me something". She would not have it. I then asked her to buy some ice for the fish. She chopped at her little block of ice with an ice pick and probably gave me a third of it. I asked how much I owed her and she said nothing. I had four fish in my plastic bag and asked her if she liked fish. She said yes. I said, "Well let me at least trade you a parrot fish for your mangoes and the ice". She would not have it. I asked until i felt like was just being rude not accepting her generosity. I tied up my free bag of well ice-packed fish, my free bag of commercially unavailable Mango Ariel and kept moving up the road.
Pride, generosity, hidden treasures. This is Haiti.
Posted via email from The Haitian
