The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my
voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!’
The question and the cry `Oh, where?’ melt into tears of a thousand
streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!’~Rabindranath Tagore, “The Journey Home”
It was through travel that I understood what a “hard road” is.
And I’m not talking metaphors and simile, a truly difficult road to cross.
It makes the good ol’ American past time of “mudding” look almost silly. In America, you must go find a bad road to play on. In Haiti… that’s just the way the roads are.
In the next few days, you’ll see the roads – or the paths – that my companions traveled in the far Northeastern reaches of Haiti.
It is even challenging to wrap your mind around the remoteness of some of these areas. It isn’t a quick drive on a highway and then a few minutes later you’re to your destination. Hours and hours in first or second gear, four wheel drive, through dozens of rivers and over precarious peaks.
And areas so remote that the roads fall in disrepair because, if a horse or motorbike can cross it, why would we repair it for a vehicle?
These are the remote areas near Mt.Organize and Carice.
And in this red soil, this is where the coffee trees will take root.
Stay tuned…
-Noah D.
