Mennonite Central Committee

First Person: Soufiana Elistin

From the May/June 2007 issue of "a Common Place"

Trees are really important to me. I’ve been planting them since the early 1980s. Because of the trees, I can pay for my five children to go to school.

I had a piece of land, and its soil washed away. MCC provided me with tree seedlings and barbed wire to fence the area. So, MCC helped me, but what’s more important is that I helped myself.

So far, I’ve harvested wood two times to pay school fees for my children. The first time I cut it, I made 1500 gourdes (about $38 U.S. or $44 Cdn.) and the second time, I made 2500 gourdes (about $63 U.S. or $73 Cdn.).

I harvested wood by cutting branches from the trees and chopping down certain trees that grow back from their stumps. I’m saving the straightest trees to make boards for houses, and I will make more money on them. I’m also leaving some trees without cutting them, because you shouldn’t destroy a forest.

My husband and I make a living by farming, but the soil doesn’t really produce much. Our land doesn’t have much water, so it’s hard to grow anything.

When our grandparents were our age, the land was very different. Rain fell more often and any kind of land would produce food. Bananas grew everywhere, and crops like millet, corn and sweet potatoes produced more than they do now.

Trees are a source of life in the country, but people cut them because they need money. They are cutting the few trees that are left. The forests that grew on the mountains are gone.

I first learned how to raise trees in the ’80s, when MCC helped farmers in this community to start a tree nursery. I learned how to prepare seeds for planting, how to thin and water seedlings and how to put pesticides on some of them.

Back then, military leaders were in charge of Haiti’s government, and they encouraged people to be suspicious of each other. Some people were suspicious of us because we often met with our neighbors to raise seedlings and plant trees.

In 1990, one of our neighbors lost her house in a fire, and she accused our family of burning it. She accused us of being members of Lavalas, the left-wing political party, because she was against Lavalas.

Since then, she has tried to take our land. Last year, she called the police and said, “Take their land because I want it,” because she is friends with the police chief.

The police came to our house with guns, and they took our daughter Esther and put her in their truck. My husband ran and they shot at him, and he hid in a millet field.

I went to the town of Desarmes and met with the judge. He said I had to give him money to get Esther back, so I borrowed money from some friends and they freed her.

But I was still afraid the police would come back, so I hid in my forest for about a month.

I will have to cut down several trees to pay back what I borrowed to pay the judge.

I never went to school, but my five children are all in school. The oldest two are in 11th grade. I’m going to keep giving money to my kids for school and they’re going to go to university.

I tell them that I never went to school but I’m putting you through school, so make an effort and make me happy.

Soufiana Elistin lives with her family near the town of Desarmes in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley. MCC provided supplies and technical advice to help her plant a small forest on her land. This year, MCC is helping more than a dozen Haitian farmers plant their own small forests.