HAITI NEWS & CULTURE
35449: Hermantin responds RE: 35435: Stockdale comment Re: 35431:
From: leonie hermantin To Auguste and Stockdale:
I don't even know how to respond to these patronizing and incorrect statements made about Haitian peasants being people who "are not thinking, don't plan for tomorrow, only believe in instant gratification... etc"
"But in the peasant culture in Haiti (there is probably a proverb for this)
> there is nothing but the present--tomorrow's LIFE is not a guarantee, so the
> little problem of the availability of trees for the long run is not even in
> the
> thought process"
I am by any means NOT an expert on peasant culture but I would encourage you to read Jenny M. Smith's When the Hands are Many: Community Organization and Social Change in Rural Haiti which can be ordered at http://www.lambifund.org/store.shtml
If anything is ever present in peasant culture is the belief in a tomorrow, a better tomorrow. It is in their songs, their prayers, their dreams andaspirations.
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