CTI volunteer Natalie George is blogging from Haiti, where she’s joined her mother Dr. Camille George, CTI Board Member, Program Manager and Professor at the University of Saint Thomas.
The George’s are in Haiti helping locals take advantage of an underutilized food source: Breadfruit. Breadfruit grows in abundance in Haiti, but spoils just days after ripening. CTI has developed a set of tools that villagers can use to preserve breadfruit as affordable flour.
Natalie and Camille are in Port au Prince, helping Haitians open a breadfruit bakery and showing “field to fork” proof that breadfruit can be harvested, transformed into flour, and processed into delicious and nutritious food products.
First Impressions
After departing the airport, we start driving to our hotel and I get my first glimpse of Haiti’s capital city. It reminded me a lot of Mali in West Africa, but with its own twist. The roads are half-paved, half-broken rubble and, the further you get into the city, the more broken and choppy the roads get. There are people EVERYWHERE and like in Africa, many of them transport their goods on their heads. However, their clothing surprisingly resembles that of Americans.
The poverty level is extremely noticeable, more than I have ever seen in my life. I didn't think that the earthquake’s destruction would still be evident, but it definitely still is. There are severely broken buildings with giant boulders of concrete all about, but there are also buildings right next door which are completely fine.
I notice that there isn't a road sign in sight. Instead, there’s spray paint on the concrete walls with a name and some numbers. The roads are so twisted I have absolutely no clue how people know where to go!
Each building is surrounded by a giant concrete wall and then a huge metal door. To get inside people just beep a few times and then someone comes and opens this massive metal gate door. The concrete walls all either have barbed wire or cleverly have broken glass bottles along the top of the wall to discourage people from scaling them.
Day 1
On our first day, we wake up at 6:30am and it’s already 90 outside. Our friend Brulan navigates us through the twisty rocky roads, and we approach a random concrete wall and he beeps ever so lightly and someone opens the door.
The bakery itself is a lot larger than I expected it to be. We walk in and meet the staff and start working away. We decide to try the chocolate pizzelle recipe and it does not work as planned. We didn’t have any oil spray so the batter kept sticking to the iron which resulted in some ugly chocolate bits. We try a variety of things such as putting butter on it, putting oil on a rag and then rubbing it on but nothing seemed to work. So we decide to try a new approach and then… the power runs out.
How will we run a bakery without electricity? Stay tuned for an update!
I notice that there isn't a road sign in sight. Instead, there’s spray paint on the concrete walls with a name and some numbers. The roads are so twisted I have absolutely no clue how people know where to go!
Each building is surrounded by a giant concrete wall and then a huge metal door. To get inside people just beep a few times and then someone comes and opens this massive metal gate door. The concrete walls all either have barbed wire or cleverly have broken glass bottles along the top of the wall to discourage people from scaling them.
Day 1
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| Breadfruit Bakery |
The bakery itself is a lot larger than I expected it to be. We walk in and meet the staff and start working away. We decide to try the chocolate pizzelle recipe and it does not work as planned. We didn’t have any oil spray so the batter kept sticking to the iron which resulted in some ugly chocolate bits. We try a variety of things such as putting butter on it, putting oil on a rag and then rubbing it on but nothing seemed to work. So we decide to try a new approach and then… the power runs out.
How will we run a bakery without electricity? Stay tuned for an update!
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