A Place Called Trasayel.

Eric and I went with a group of AMURT folks to a village called Trasayel this past weekend. One of the AMURT staff members (Jayatii) has purchased some land there and is starting to build a house for AMURT. Her hope is that it will be a retreat / resting place for AMURT staff and volunteers to get away. The people of the town hope that AMURT’s presence there will mean some projects/programs for their community.

The trip to Trasayel was about 3 hours of driving – but its difficult to say what that meant in terms of KM, because some parts of trip were so rough. The last hour was barely a road, and it was heading straight up a mountain. I’ve never actually seen a car do that. We joked that it was like an all –terrain vehicle commercial. And it was.

The house itself is on the absolute top of a mountain – further north and west from Source Chaudes. And the community there makes rural Source Chaudes seem like a modern city. It was SO isolated, SO rural. The nearest village is about an hour down the mountain (by car) – but even there, supplies were limited. We stopped at a small road-side stand there (the only place to purchase things in the area) to buy some spaghetti. But, they certainly don’t have the resources to provide multiple communities with the supplies/food they need. And so people live with what they have. They eat what they can grow. They build everything they need. And, if and when they are unable, they go without.

Its so difficult to comprehend. Jayatii was telling me stories she’d heard – about the community having food during the harvesting season and starving during the other times of year. About sick people having absolutely no access to medical care. About people dying on their donkeys trying to get to a doctor.

Its hard for me to understand that places like this actually exist. Even after being there. Maybe, especially after being there. It is hard to imagine the depth of the struggle that exists there amidst the vastness of the beauty. It is hard to imagine life, day to day life, on the top of a mountain in rural Haiti. Its hard to imagine life in a place called Trasayel.