Oh! Haiti: Mud cookies for starving people.

Eloquence just abandon me while trying to select the correct wording for this post. Frown

Haiti, the great nation that occupies one third of the island La Hispaniola, a former truly rich French colony, long ago was the continental leader in the fight for freedom. Declaring independence in 1804, this country is the first ever black-led republic, originated from the also first successful rebellion of slaves.

After conquering independence, Haiti expanded to the west of the island, occupying by force the Spaniard's side. They lost the control of the whole island in 1844, after fighting several independence wars with the people which later became the Dominican Republic, my fatherland and actual place of main residence.

Due to the nationalization of French properties after independence, they were forced to indemnify their former rulers!. Tons of precious wood and grassroots were shipped to France as a 'compensation' payment.

However, I am not accusing France for the Haitian' grotesque poverty, but its lack of proper and timely action, given the strong historical relationship between both nations, is one of the factors responsible for this embarrassing situation not only for the Americas but for the whole Western civilization.

The severe destruction of the country infrastructure because of a obsolete production system, coupled with the need of energy sources and a constant rise in the population numbers, forced people to burn the country wood stockpile up to the plant's deepest roots beneath the earth surface, therefore destroying the fertile layer of the soil.

This vicious circle was not stopped in time, maybe because the United States was playing chess with the island during the Cold War years and supported a bloody dictatorship dynasty that ruled the country with the sole interest in the export to Switzerland of a huge fortune and to enjoy a tycoon lifestyle.

A few days ago, the Associated Press syndicated an article featuring the "mud cookies" that a lot of Haitian people ingest (I just can't call this action with the verb 'to eat') in order to mitigate starvation. Many world news services echoed the news, among them The Daily Telegraph with an article you can find here, which is a must read.

The cookies are baked with a 'processed' mud, salt, some type of butter, and who knows what else. The consequence of this 'food' consumption are quite obvious, but these biscuits keep them alive while some real food are found.A tongue after consumption...

The biscuits reportedly taste smooth but suck out the moisture from the mouth as soon as they touch the tongue, leaving an unpleasant earthy aftertaste which lingers for hours.

The Climatic Shift seems to be responsible for a series of unusual (The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30) storms in December 2007 in the Caribbean, that vastly ruined crops and infrastructures in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. My own home in Santo Domingo required a new paint job because the huge amount of humidity after weeks of constant raining.

Mud cookies...

At the market in Haiti's La Salines slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 US cents, up 10 cents since December and 50 per cent from a year ago.

Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate. Even the price of the clay used in the biscuits has increased considerably though, at five cents each, they are still relatively cheap.

As I wrote at the beginning, I am actually speechless. I cant stop seeing those pictures, asking myself about what am I doing to help these people -actually my neighbors not only 'geographically' but litterally as thousands of them work for Dominican's patrons or ask for alms on the cities streets-; what am I doing to stop wasting food supplies myself?, etc. etc.

Cookies for distribution

Now I have not the reference' link, but somewhere I read that in the USA alone nearly 40% of harvested fruits decompose in the supply chain and/or markets deposits. Can't this be prevented or channeled to Haiti someway after some kind of preservation process?

I wonder, how can I/we help Haiti!?

Maybe we dont move on to help these people because -as a Caetano Veloso's song argue- "Haiti is not here".

Anybody can share some answers with me?!