Posts Tagged border

The twins, the cow and the Banana tree

Ryan Alexander, Volunteer in Pedernales/Anse a Pitres.

Ryan Alexander/

Ryan Alexander

Now that my 3 month summer internship has come to an end, I look back at my experiences on the border in amazement, and cherish all that I have accomplished and experienced. The cross-border lifestyle and the southern coastal hospitality are a perfect blend of characteristics that are sure to generate experiences never to be forgotten.

An event that makes me smile to this very day is an incident that occurred late one night. The culprit was a cow: Cows roam the streets of Pedernales every night (to avoid people and the hot sun) in search of food. On one particular night I had left the fence door open; a huge mistake. A cow had entered the premises of my home that evening and took huge chomps out of my 2 foot high, newly planted banana trees, trees that I had been caring for since the very beginning of my internship. Surely enough, due to constant watering, good soil, and the resilient nature of banana trees, the trees grew back their leaves and will live to bear bananas (if the fence door remains shut).Since the banana plants were too small to bear fruit, I would do my shopping for bananas and other fruits and vegetables at the ‘bi-national’ market.

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Developing Haiti (and the DR) from the border inwards

Meeting with a fishermen in Pedernales


We’ve spent nearly six years wrestling with development in the Haitian-Dominican borderlands. We’ve made some big mistakes and had some big successes. As we begin sharing what we know of the borderlands, it seemed appropriate to start with our lessons learned. Read the rest of this entry »

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