Folks,
It was a pretty hot day last July. The Reforestation Program proteges were exhausted from their work in the sun hacking at the hard ground to prepare it for planting. So, we took a break and cut up a papaya to share. Papaya is a fabulous sweet fruit, and its color is a glorious orange/salmon/pink sunrise.
Faude, one of the proteges, asked if he could have the seeds. We are used to collecting seeds at CODEP but we hadn’t been focused on that mid-summer with all the heavy effort creating ramps and terraces. “Sure,” we all said.
On October 2, at our usual Monday session, he showed me a picture (below). He had taken the seeds and using all our CODEP techniques had planted them at his family’s home. Step back a moment and count the time from that snack break to October 2 — about two and a half months. His papaya seedlings are three feet high!
You can tell from my various postings what joy I experience working with the proteges. A story like this tells me again that despite all that is going on in Haiti, this is where I need to be. These young people can change the world.
Michael Anello
Executive Director
Papaya is sweet and has slippery, globby seeds.
Sturdy and growing like a weed, as we would say.