In Arcahaie, in the Department of The West in Haiti, persons have taken it upon themselves to clean up their home and the whole town to properly celebrate the town’s patron feast. People have spontaneously decided not to wait for municipal authorities to do their job. In each block, persons have come together to eliminate the garbage that was defiling their community by putting hands together in a true cooperation by all. As a result, before the anniversary of the Battle of Vertieres, and to celebrate the annual feast, Arcahaie is looking clean and homely. We have to hope this will not be temporary, just to mark the celebration, and the population there will continue doing this everyday because garbage accumulates non stop. This spontaneous effort needs to be organized into an organization that will keep citizens involved in maintaining the same atmosphere with the same results. Citizens who are leaders in the community need to make this a lasting effort with regular disposal of garbage.
This is exactly what we need to do all over Haiti to prepare for 2024. Town by town, commune by commune, people need to come together and work to maintain cleanliness and care for the environment. On a day when we should celebrate one of the biggest military victory by persons of African descent, the country is filthy, save for a few places. Garbage is taking over all spaces where people congregate, especially near marketplaces right next to the food people are buying. It is shameful to see persons going about business next to piles of foul smelling trash, and it is unacceptable. Like they are doing today in Arcahaie, all around where Haitians live we need to come together to either clean or help the cleaning efforts. It needs to start at the local and at the neighborhood levels in bigger towns.
We must return to our roots, and lean on our identity to come together. The effort needs to come from within, with us realizing that togetherness will bring success. By cleaning the environment we begin to clean our mind, make us free of repugnant smells and unholy sights. From there we can begin to look for ways to better our country, but it must come from within, with mutual reflection . Each of us needs to think about whatever contribution we can make to start this process.
Dèyè Mon 