'Heifer is Due Many Blessings'

By Donna Stokes, World Ark managing editor
Photo by Bryan Clifton

SAUT MATHURINE, Haiti—Anne Vatite Janvier, a petite woman in an orange sweater and stylish black hat, stood from her chair at a meeting in this rural southern village in Haiti to share how Heifer's agricultural training is still helping her today, even after her house was destroyed in the Jan. 12 earthquake.

"When Heifer started giving cows to people I was waiting to get one," Janvier said. "My husband told me not to worry, that if you don't get a cow, you'll get yams, so let's take yams instead."

Janvier listened to her husband, and they were among the original recipients of yam, plantain and coffee plants from Heifer. Janvier has already passed on 100 yam plants to others in the community and continues to grow yams and plantains for income and to feed her family.

"Before the plantains, I didn't know about having a bank account, but when I started selling the plantains I got a bank account for the first time," she said. "Now, every time I sell something I put the money in the bank account."

When the earthquake hit on the afternoon of Jan. 12, she was in her five-room house with two of her children, ages 2 and 7, and her 19-year-old niece. Her husband was not at home.

"I was inside the house, and it was shaking and the walls were crumbling and falling apart," Janvier said. "We ran."

"The house really wasn't that good. The columns stayed, but the rest collapsed. I was very scared. I lost almost everything."

Her sister-in-law in Port-au-Prince died in the quake. Her brothers moved back to Les Cayes from Port-au-Prince immediately after the disaster. She wanted to invite them to stay with her in Saut Mathurine but had nothing more to offer them than they had in Port-au-Prince—a makeshift shelter.

"After Jan. 12 and my house was destroyed, I didn't know what to do," Janvier said, continuing her story rapidly in Haitian Creole, which was translated to English.

"After my house fell, I still had income from the plantains. So this gave me a leg up with the bank to seek a loan to rebuild my house."

She borrowed about $250 U.S. from the bank and continues to sell crops to pay the loan. She's trying to rebuild her house but has managed only a foundation and eight rows of blocks.

Janvier said she doesn't have the resources to continue, so she's not able to sleep in her rebuilt house yet. A neighbor gave her some galvanized metal sheets that she covered with plastic tarps, where she and her husband still sleep.

Her children stay elsewhere. "I use plastic, but when it's raining, obviously it leaks. It's not good, but it's the only thing we can do."

"I would like to thank Heifer for the help," Janvier said. "I would like to see if there's some more help to rebuild my house. If you saw where I live right now, you would be very sad."

Yet having a start on rebuilding and an income from crops gives her some hope.

"What I have done so far to rebuild my house with the blocks would never have happened without the farming activity," Janvier said. "I know Heifer is due many blessings from heaven for what it is doing to help my family and others."

PROJECT DETAILS
In the Saut Mathurine project, which began in 2007 with partner OPS (Small Farmer Organization of Saut Mathurine), 240 families received yams and plantains and 150 families received dairy cows. In total 400 families received help from Heifer with 130 families assisted through pass-ons so far. In September 2010, 23 cows changed hands in a Passing on the Gift ceremony. The project also features training on tree planting, fruit-tree grafting, coffee production, soil conservation, cattle nutrition and husbandry, milk production and marketing and sanitation.