Planting Baby Trees in Haiti

About a month ago, 4 of the girls, who happen to be foster-sisters, and I went and planted 4 baby trees in honor of their baptism.  Maurice, Dr. Mortel's brother-in-law, very kindly went with us and dug the holes, no small feat.  Planting a tree as part of their baptism celebration is something that the pastor at St.-Marc's has suggested to the congregation as a symbolic thing to do for Haiti, and a good thing for each child to learn to do.  The foundation plans to build a high school on a big tract of ground about a mile from the elementary school, and that is where we went to plant the trees.

This was my first experience with the kids' mania for mangoes and below you see a video of the girls, and little Maxi (I believe his name is Joseph-Bernard, he is the driver's son) in the vicinity of fresh mangoes for the first time in the season.   We came home with an entire bushelful and as many as they could carry loose.  Note the arms on these girls.  The softball teams at home would be recruiting them!

It actually wound up taking two separate visits to get all 4 baby trees planted, even with someone else digging the holes, it was that hard to get their attention away from the fresh fruit. Nonetheless, I persevered and one by one, the trees did get planted.  

There is a tropical fruit called a quenep, I am sure that is a wrong spelling, but it is something I am totally unfamiliar with, anyway, the quenep was the tree Océanie chose to plant, she said it was her favorite.  I was joking with her, that thirty years from now, when she is a grown woman and successful in her career, she will come back to the school for a reunion of the graduates, and she will bring her little girl and show her this great, big quenep tree and tell her that she planted it.  I hope it happens!!

Here you see Adeline putting the fence around her tree, a baby almond.  Dieula planted a cherry tree, and Vanessa planted a lemon tree. And the great news is, when we came back to look at them a month later, all 4 trees were still alive and pushing new leaves.  We could see where the goats had pushed against the fencing we installed, but they did not break through.  Today, May 9, Adeline has just asked me if we can go make another visit, so tomorrow we are going out to water and check on them again, although I do not kid myself that they are preoccupied by the welfare of the trees-- it's about the mangoes.  But I am willing to compromise!