it has come to this!

Yes, it has now come to asking my readers to send me gifts!

I am broke. Up to my right nostril in debt.

But there is peanut butter and jelly

and chocolate

so how bad can life be?

Should you wish to say thanks for my witness

my wish list

from Amazon

is here

Earthquake and Cholera... the end of a bad year

I invite you all to join me in reflecting on the passage of what can truly be called

Haiti's Worst Year

A Degree of comfort

I am settled in now. The dog, my Dominican street fluff.. who is the smartest dog I have ever met..insisted that we get a place by the beach.

So I said

"look here, Missy, I know that town and there is nothing there within walking distance of the beach that is less than $1000 a month."

And she said

"No - mommie-- I am sure.. We will keep looking"

And so we did. And so she found us the apartment on the beach, within walking distance of the best beach but totally protected from the weather by high stone buildings// but none that block out the palm trees or the clear shining stars in the black sky at night.

It is paradise.

And now that we are NOT going to make the island into a narcotrafficante paraiso, we have come up with a new plan

which is to turn the place into an ecotouristica paraiso

and teach you all how to live like Haitians

which is to say

in reverance to the ancestors

with respect for the Earth

with great faith in God

and amazing trust

and a smiling face

and a trusting heart

living on air and hope

and watching it all unfold

making art

welcome to
Quiskeya

It has been a month now since I got off the road with the team from Interpol.

I hooked up with them in June, when I popped up in the middle of a huge international drug bust up in Las Terrenas. I am a good journalist, well trained now after 5 years of field work,so I figured out a bit what was going on and who they were and offered them my services.

So, after they establish a HUGE security web around me, we went traveling together from LT down to Pedernales where the Colombians have their deep water port. Then across and up to Constanza where I had always been suspicious of the potato exporters since they would not let me into their warehouse when I was doing a story on agriculture.

I had always thought it odd, that as a foreign journalist, I was able to expose the cocaine transport route down on the southwest -- in about four days. It is well known when offshore drops are made and who is directing the pick ups.

But it seems now that -- with the help of an international team from France, England, Italy, Germany and the US-- one of the biggest links in the drug transport chain has been broken. \

The main arrest was of a Puerto Rican (not Augusto) who had been here in the DR running the drugs into PR over the last 10 years. He was on the FBIs top ten most wanted list. Along with him, there have been arrests of nationals from Colombia, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Lebenon.

It is believed that the connection here was being opened up for the inshipment of heroin from the Middle East.

Over 200 arrests have been made from within the Dominican Republic's own drug agency.

Until this time, only one Senator, from the southwest region of Previa, had had the courage to keep this topic alive within this country.

May he live long and prosper

Narcotrafficante Paraiso

I now feel clear to report the following

The government of the Dominican Republic, including the sitting president, Leonel Fernandez, and his selected successor, Danilo Medina, along with other presidential candidates - Hippollito Mejia, Ito Bisono, and Soto Jiminez,

Have entered into an agreement with the Columbian cocaine cartel to send the toll money from the new highway built to Samana, directly back to Columbia. Current toll is now at US $60 for a three hour drive.

I accuse the following companies of being implicit in this scheme to sell off the Samana Peninsula in square meter plots, in Euros and Dollars, over the Internet.. And additionally charge them with human trafficking, money laundering, and slavery.

What they have now planned for the entire island is a ring road highway with expensive hotels , privatized electricity, privatized water supply, and no public services to the dark skinned natives.- They are to be reduced to abject poverty so that any form of sex, particularly pedophilia, will be available for a few pesos.

This makes Auswiztch look like Springtime for Hitler in Germany.

So far, I seen signs for the following operators along the narco highway

All three major leagues of the USA ,, baseball, football, and basket ball
Orange Telephone ... from France
Claro Telephone... from Mexico
Mobil Oil
Texaco
Michelin Tires

Scotia Bank
Banco Popular
Banco BHD
Banco Progresso is under suspicion since they use Diebold cash machines which are Russian owned


Budwiser Beer
Presidente Beer
Brahma Beer



Ikea is under suspicion since it opened its premier Latin American store in a nation that only has a market of perhaps 2 million people. It is suspected that it did so in anticipation of future sales.

Also under suspicion are

Toshiba

Phillips Electronics


I ask that all journalists who were interested in the Haitian earthquake, to return to this island so that they might discover why no progress has been made on rebuilding Haiti.

I am the only English reporting journalist on this island for the last 7 years.

I ask that Friends hold me in the Light.

Checks in support of this witness may be sent to Asheville Friends Meeting, Asheville North Carolina with instructions that it is in support of the Haiti Witness.

PEACE ENCAMPMENT STARTING ON HISPANOLA

PRESS RE:EASE


SANTO DOMINGO

STARTING at SUNDOWN on SUNDAY< OCTOBER, First, 2011, a group of Haitian workers who are now in Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic, will formally launch their campaign to return to Haiti.

The group, which now numbers 158, has been meeting for two months now and is in the process of selecting their top team of 35 builders. These men, who are skilled in all phases of home construction, have worked under the finest engineers from all over the world and has made Las Terreanas the premier tourist destination in the Dominican Republic.

Since the bulk of the work there is completed,the workers understand that further work will be difficult to find. However, having worked under Dominican supervisors and engineers and being fluent in Spanish, they do not wish the knowledge that they have gained here to be lost to their nation.

They habe organized themselves into a HAITI CAPABLE CORPS and are asking that all international projects that are using Dominican builders, contact them through this blog.

We will be contacting the Dominican government directly

one hopes...

party on the beach
in front of casa blanca
sunday
sundown

bring yuour own

potato

There is a grave concern here in the DR about the rise in random, violent crime.

Back in the days of Aristide, the Cartels were running all the cocaine that came through the Carribbean, estimated at about 15% of the US and European market, through Haiti. When MINUSTAH came into Haiti, by mid term of Preval in 2008, prehaps, the nests of dealers had been cleared up. Now the product moves through the DR.

While the DR bought planes to intercept flights, much of the product is still dropped at sea and picked up by fishermen off the south coast. It is a fairly simple matter to find out who is in charge of the ring, as I was able to uncover it a couple of weekends.

However, the Dominicans have been in charge of the distribution of cocaine in NYC .. from NYC to Canada since the early 80s, since LALO from Santiago first discovered how to cut it into CRACK. Since that time, the Dominicans have distributed the cocaine but more importantly, they have laundered the money from this trade.

Twenty years ago, it was estimated that the profits from the sale of cocaine from the Columbia cartels was equal to annual US defense budget.

Since the demand for this product is inside the US and Europe, there is no way to stop this commerce.

It should be remembered that this is a TRADE WAR,

There are three extremely potent NATURAL medicines... coca, marijuana (hahish), and opium (morphine) .. nothing that the pharmaceutical companies have been able to manufacture and patent has ever come close to mimic the psychological and phsical effects of these drugs.

It is said, and I believe it to be true, that Coca Cola, which once contained Cocaine, still imports the coca leaves in their pure form for its secret formula. Here in the DR .. we still drink the orginal formula COCA COLA which is made with pure cane sugar, not the corn syrup.. and there is no contest between the effect of coca cola and pepsi. It is not just caffeine and sugar. There is something else.

This the global NORTH against the GLOBAL SOUTH.. because, if the money from the drug wars were to be acutally legalized and taxed, the color of the skin of the world's bankers would change from white to brown. Afghani, Bolivian, Jamaican....

However, the soft way out of this is simply to pull back the enforcement on any sort of criminial penalties on marijuana, which President Obama has already done. President Fernandez should follow his lead.

The plant, Cannabis Satvis, is native to this island. It was here before Columbus. There is a drawer in the medicine chest at the Museo de las Casas Reales which has it written on it.

Then President Fernadez should go after those who are opening up their product in the streets of the Dominican Republic.

This is a small island, heavily dependent on tourism. It cannot exist if there is an outbreak of crack induced violence.

A crack addict will sell his mother for a fix.

The Catholic Church and the drug educators here know nothing about drugs. They lump marijuana and crack into the same category as "the dark side " There are no good treat ment programs for crack.

The money laundering will and should continue. It is what will prevent this island from sinking into the sea. It will provide a safe haven from the impending crash that may come when the traders realize that they they are mostly crooks and decide to stop dealing with one another.

However, this Island, the FIRST ISLAND in the Western Hermisphere, can be a model for how we are to proceed into the next century.

Let us be clear.

Marijuana is a medicine.

Coca is a medicine.

Opium is a medicine.

Morphine is a medicine.

COCAINE IS A DRUG

CRACK IS A POISON

I trust the Senator Dodd is reading

preparing for the Witch's Sabbath.. my favorite Holy Day

I am just turning this into my personal blogs to that my 25 follers and frinds and the
Watchers Can Watch

We are UNFOLDInt THE

Quiskeya Friends Project



I am very grateful for being so rich as to have been able to afford the following
upgrades to my life
In the last four yeas


I now have
A clothes washing machin
American
Whilopool

Hot water in my batyhroom shower and sink FIRST time in FIVE tears nn no follin
A FAN and spotlights in my dining room
And
Enough money to have THREE LOGHTS
On AT THE Same time

LIVING LARGE HERE ON
QUISKEYA

Women Challenge Monopoly on "Men's Jobs"

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Women Challenge Monopoly on "Men's Jobs"
By Elizabeth Eames Roebling

The women who complete full training in the Ce-Mujer programme can expect to earn two or three times the minimum wage.



SANTO DOMINGO, Sep 18, 2011 (IPS) - From a small office inside a public school on the eastern side of the Rio Ozama in the capital Santo Domingo, a programme operated by a local NGO, Ce-Mujer, has been leading a quiet revolution to empower women in the workplace for the last 13 years.

After an initial three years of pilot programmes, the Programme for Technical Training and Jobs for Women has trained over 6,000 women in non-traditional jobs such as furniture making, upholstery, small appliance repair, and the installation and repair of power invertors - all areas for which there is great demand in the labour market and in which there are few women working.

While the government donates the space for the office and classrooms, as well as the services of the teachers, Ce-Mujer provides the administrative staff and the direct contact with the students.

"Our work is probably equally divided between teaching them a skill and building their self-esteem and their motivation so that they can once again discover their aspirations and their dreams. We believe that work has no sex," Nelly Charles, the project director, told IPS.

There is no tuition charge, but the students must pay for transport and for a wardrobe which may be different than the one they wear at home. Since many of them are mothers and grandmothers who have to care for young children, Ce-Mujer provides a child care facility close by. While it is subsidised, it still costs 25 dollars a month. Yet it is one of very few such centres available in the Dominican Republic and so makes the classes more accessible.

The programme is aimed at very poor women. The average age of participants is 35, and the courses are two months long. While some students only take one, many will study for two years and become fully qualified in a given area. Then, Ce-Mujer works to find them jobs.

"While there are many businesses with women who are very responsible and very organised, it is also true that there are others who see a woman and expect her to clean the bathrooms," Charles said. "We present them with women who are qualified, who can really do the work, and they have to change their minds."

Charles speaks with an angry edge in her voice when discussing the unequal investment made in the technical training of women.

"We have technical schools here, big ones, where the administration alone employs 30 people, and you will see that both teachers and students are totally segregated by sex. The women will learn hairdressing, acrylic nails, flower arranging, cake making. And the men? The men learn residential electricity, furniture making, carpentry, automotive mechanics, electronics," she said.

"And they will invest five million pesos for a mechanics workshop and only 50,000 pesos for a beauty shop. And in that one there are 100 percent women."

According to the figures from the Centro del Investigation para Accion Feminina (CEPAF), 62 percent of the university graduates in the Dominican Republic are now women. But this does not always translate into jobs.

At 25 percent, the unemployment rate for women is three times higher than that for men. In addition, 40 percent of households are headed by single women. There also is a gender gap inside of the university, with only a small percentage of women studying engineering and only 30 percent engaged in any study of information technology.

The women who complete full training in the Ce-Mujer programme can expect to earn two or three times the minimum wage. Some have even bought houses.

An average of 100 women are qualified every year, but not all of them will actually work in the field.

"Say that 20 or 30 percent of those will decide to work. But those who take jobs turn out to be very permanent workers," Charles said.

In addition to the classrooms, Ce-Mujer also has a store on a corner in the neighbourhood not far away, where students and graduates can sell their pieces on a consignment basis. The shop is filled with the finely upholstered heavy mahogany furniture which is the style here, along with more modern pieces such as clothes hampers and babies' cribs.

Loyda Jerez, 45, started her fourth course last month. "I come to class four hours a day. First I took reupholstering, then furniture refinishing and now cabinetry. Now I say I am an interior decorator," she told IPS.

Jerez has three children at home, ranging from 13 to 19 years old. She first came to class just to save herself some money.

"Every time that I went to have my furniture repaired, it was very expensive. Now I see that I can do it myself and I really enjoy the work. This is my last course. Now I am going to have to go out and look for money," she said.

Jerez appeared downcast for a moment, but immediately regained her enthusiasm. "A friend and I are thinking of starting a little business together," she said.

Charles added that, "What we are doing is subversive and revolutionary, and we have made real advances. This is a novel idea in this country. We have to teach the women who sometimes say that they cannot do this because the men cannot cook, or the men cannot do the dishes.

"But we have shown that if they are given the chance, we have shown that women can do anything. Because we have many women now who are furniture makers, and upholsterers, and who do it with joy, and with a sense of responsibility equal to that of men."

(END)

An Absence

I have not posted for a very long time.

I was, I suppose, waiting for some good news.

There is none.

Haiti has no functional government. Two candidates for prime minister have been rejected. There are no great stories of massive rebuilding efforts, no uplifting success stories, nothing that can bring much hope.

Yet, this morning I read this wonderful essay by Junot Diaz, our Dominican Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award winner, and was once again moved to tears by the love and the generosity of the people of my new homeland for their neighbors.

No one here doubts that the future of the Dominican Republic, itself struggling to climb from developing to developed world, is tied to its neighbor sharing this island. We now have cholera here too, now in ten of our rivers. It is here to stay, we are told. We will live with it as we do with dengue and malaria. And now, a constant flow of migrants over the border.

But, like Diaz, I have hope. I am alive, and so therefore must have hope.

At the very least now, Haiti has been SEEN.

It has been seen and it cannot be forgotten.