For the love of gardening!

As you all might have guessed I have a new obsession…or at least a new drive here in Haiti. Besides seeing patients during the week I have become very excited about the prospect of community gardening. So far we have managed to grow a phenomenal flagship garden at the clinic complete with shade houses and ready to eat veggies; have helped children at the local orphanage start a garden (well I don’t think we can take much credit as those kids were natural gardeners) and have a couple more community garden projects in the works in local villages. To me the idea that people can grow their own food seems simple enough, put seeds in the ground and watch them grow. Then eat the food. Not so easy though when you have to cart 5 gallon buckets of water on your head from the local water pump. Let’s not forget the goats, cows and chickens that roam about…they love to eat seedlings and plants so a fence around the garden is a must if animals are present.

Ok, so let me get this straight, you will give me seeds to start a garden and all I need to do is haul water a half a mile on my head and kick my animals out?

Well, I guess I never thought about it like that. We are so lucky to be able to have access to water, land, dirt, fencing and tools such as shovels, wheelbarrows etc. It seems like such a simple project to be able to help people learn to feed themselves from their own garden sustainably however it is a much more complex task. I guess if it was easy to feed the world there wouldn’t be such rampant starvation huh? Well, that’s another blog and one I don’t desire to get into but truly, food production in resource poor areas is not easy. It is easier to go out to the street and buy a Tampico, some sugar laden coffee and some processed cheese puffs for 50 cents. It is easier to buy ‘junk’ food from local venders that it is to grow nutritious foods such as beans and vegetables.

Every country I have traveled to has had its share of junk food, usually in the form of chips and cookies plus sodas and sugary drinks. Look, I understand that every now and then your body craves something artificial and hydrogenated..er…something like that. My main problem with the rise of cheap processed foods in many countries is that as a Physician I am seeing the effects daily in the clinic. Mothers with 4 month olds who have ‘gas’ or ‘colic’-eating flour and sugar mixtures and drinking coffee. Five year olds with chronic ‘belly aches’ who are eating cookies and drinking Tampico and cola daily. Overweight adults who are on their way to becoming diabetic who, “cannot afford to eat three meals per day” but somehow manage to buy bread, pasta, juice, coffee and cookies daily. And rest assured I am not talking whole wheat breads and pastas and fresh fruit juices. In a country where mangoes, papayas, pineapples and guavas grow wild people are choosing to drink bottled corn syrup, red 40 and a laundry list of other ingredients. When we speak to them about diet in the clinic it is always the same answer which is essentially there is no money to eat well. Junk food is sold cheaply and the community is suffering because of it.

Though it is a bit of a digression from my love of community gardening these are the problems and considerations that we are coming up against as we try to help the community members get healthier. We offer seeds and education but already in their mind they can get cheap food without much effort. The quick fix idea that is so rampant in the U.S. is ever present here too. 

Guess we aren’t so different after all.