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Formed in 1973, the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) is the oldest peasant association in the country, with a broad range of self-help development activities aimed at improving peasants' quality of life. The MPP's program areas include training in leadership and organization; agricultural production and animal husbandry; cooperatives (ceramics, sewing, as well as agricultural production and marketing); health care for peasants; and alternative tourism and investment schemes.

Grassroots is currently supporting the MPP's reforestation and sustainable agriculture work in the environmentally devastated Central Plateau.

"N'ap forme" are the first words that I hear after stepping into an open-air training center high in Haiti's Central Plateau after a nail-biting plane ride across the mountains in a four-seater Cessna. The training center is run by the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), a Grassroots International partner. N'ap forme is the Kreyol way of saying we are training, literally, we are forming ourselves.

From the capital, Port Au Prince, we take a small five-seater plane to the Central Plateau in Haiti's interior. My colleague Maria Aguiar and I are flying to Hinche, the capital of the Department of the Centre. From there we will drive to Papaye to visit Grassroots International's partner the Mouvman Peyizan Papay (Peasant Movement of Papaye), which is convening to celebrate its 35th anniversary and chalk out a plan of action for the next five years.

This week we received a letter from Chavannes Jean Baptiste, Executive Secretary of the Peasant Movement of Papaye, one of Grassroots International's partners in Haiti. His letter highlights the root causes of the ongoing neglect of rural communities in Haiti and the devastation in the countryside due to recent floods. Please read his words below:

With just a few months to go before this fall's scheduled elections, voting officials in haiti are several million registered voters behind schedule. At the same time, hundreds of Haitians are taking to the sea in an attempt to escape the crushing poverty and violence of their home, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. (See Jim Lobe's "Another Regime Change in Trouble," for details.) While a wave of kidnappings of foreign nationals have made headlines and cued the U.S. and Canada to send all non-essential diplomatic personnel home, for the vast majority of Haitians, the lack of food, water and work at livable wages are just as terrifying.

This week, the San Francisco-based Goldman Foundation announced that Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, founder and director of Grassroots' partner, the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP), was among the 2005 winners of the prestigious Goldman Prize for Environmentalism.

I'm switching the channel from Palestine back to Haiti. I had meant to file this massive missive while still in Haiti but lack of electricity thwarted my efforts and then soon thereafter a vicious bug that accompanied me home laid me flat in the hospital. Typing with IV tubes in your arm is harder than you might think.

It turns out it's actually not so very far from Palestine to Haiti. About a year ago, I reported from Palestine on these very pages. Now on this recent journey to Haiti, I was amazed to discover the similar challenges that both Haitians and Palestinians face — a highly militarized conflict, a weak to absent state, shaky water and land security and remarkable grassroots organizations working for social change - just to name a few.

For our last night in the central plateau, we went down the hill from Papaye to Hinche for an evening in town. Since we arrived here, it's been easy to forget that the country is in the middle of a very dangerous political moment, and that there are forces afoot that would like to tear the country apart. Strolling through Hinche, the capital of the Central department, we came upon courtyard surrounded by accordion wire.

Peering through the fence we could see a few white jeeps and row after row of tents--portable, nylon roofed Quonset huts, really. The Courtyard was the headquarters of the UN contingent here in Hinche and as we walked up the street and approached the gate, a trio of soldiers popped their heads out of a sand-bagged watch tower. They were smiling and saying "MINUSTAH," which is the name for this UN mission to Haiti.

We tried to speak to them in Creole, in French, in Spanish and in Portuguese (most of the UN troops here are from Brazil), and we finally figured out that they were from Nepal, and that they didn't have any language in common with us or with the people that they are here to help.

This morning we visited the community of Lawob, where, with a grant from the European Union, the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) has constructed a small dam to capture the water from an intermittent stream.

This deep into the drought there was not sign of the stream, anywhere. When we arrived at the site, we saw a small blue and black rowboat sitting under a mango tree in the middle of what looks like a desert. The lake was out of sight until we walked down a winding path, but before we got could even see the water, it was obvious that there was something special about this place.

Flitting through the air were half a dozen Antillean Palm Swifts, tiny little insect eaters with pointy wings. They are supposed to be ubiquitous in Haiti, and these were the first I had seen after three days of looking. Downstream from the small lake was a lush garden that was greener than anything we've seen since we arrived in Haiti. (Most of the plants we have seen are covered with a fine layer of dust.)

This morning we visited Kopa Koladè, the Koladè cooperative outside of Hinche. It was an amazing example of what a small group of people can accomplish if they work together.

The MPP is focusing its agricultural development work on three themes: agro-silvaculture (an integrated approach to farming, re-forestation and resource management), water and alternative energy. The three are all essential components of a sustainable rural development platform. Without trees, it is hard to capture rain water for crops or drinking and precious topsoil is washed away. Without water, you can't grow trees or crops. Without alternative energy, you can't prevent peasants from cutting down trees for fuel.