The book officially was released September 29, and we’ve been doing lots of cool parties and interviews and podcasts. Check out our brand-new website for all the details, including tons of extra images and chapters!

From vacationing golfers to local policemen, at some point every person in Santa Fe is faced with the same question: red or green? Meaning, would you like sauce made from red chile peppers, or green? For both, the answer is simply, “Christmas.”

To the uninitiated, New Mexico seems pepper-crazed – you find chiles throughout the cuisine, from sauces to stews, marinades and tamales. The pepper is even the official state vegetable (although technically, it’s a fruit). Each autumn, the aroma of roasting chiles fills the streets of Santa Fe.

Chile history runs deep through the Southwest. Indigenous tribes have grown the peppers for centuries. In 1917 scientists first introduced the New Mexico #9 variety, often called the Anaheim, and it remains the most popular strain today. The peppers are mild heat, green in color, and change to red as they ripen.

But chiles remained a regional secret until chef Mark Miller arrived in Santa Fe. A onetime anthropology student, Miller was one of the first to recognize the unique pepper’s potential outside of New Mexico, and in 1987 he opened the Coyote Café, exporting the concept of Southwest cuisine to the world.

Today, most of New Mexico’s chile peppers are grown in the south-central Hatch region, while the northern higher elevation villages specialize in boutique heirloom varieties. Much like wines, peppers’ terroir varies from region to region. Santa Fe’s downtown Plaza Café serves its huevos rancheros with a deep dusky red sauce from Bernalillo, a small town 50 miles southwest. Mark Miller’s excellent Red Sage restaurant features a ribeye steak with a sharp savory chile rub from Chimayo, 30 miles to the north.

Fresh green peppers are available only during the fall harvest months, but stores sell dried chile pods and powder year-round. You can even drive up into the villages and buy chiles direct from the farmers. Thanks to chef Rocky Durham from the Santa Fe School of Cooking, here’s a quick and dirty primer to making your own basic chile sauces (feel free to experiment and embellish freely):

RED

Sauté ½ cup diced onion in oil, add 2-3 tbl minced garlic, cook until it starts to carmelize. Dump in ½ to 1 cup ground red chile powder, stir it while adding water. Add a pinch of dry Mexican oregano, another pinch of roasted cumin seeds, and a few slivers of cinnamon stick. Salt and pepper. Bring it to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so.

GREEN

Roast green chiles over high heat, set aside in Ziploc bag, or in a bowl under Saran Wrap. Peel and chop and set aside. Sauté 1 cup chopped onion, add 2-3 tbl minced garlic, cook until soft. Add roasted chiles, water, and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper, simmer for about 15 minutes.

LINKS (if need for sidebar)

Plaza Café

www.thefamousplazacafe.com

Red Sage

www.buffalothunderresort.com/dining

SF School of Cooking

www.santafeschoolofcooking.com

(I didn’t include Coyote Café because Mark Miller has sold it, and it’s no longer the center of southwest cuisine, it’s gone more French/Mediterranean)

IMAGES:

I’ve hunted for stock photos of red/green chiles with mixed results, the Santa Fe CVB suggested contacting this photographer directly:

http://www.jackparsonsdigital.com/SantaFe/Santa%20Fe%20Htmls/ChiliBasket09.html

F/C

http://www.hotsauceblog.com/hotsaucearchives/new-mexicos-chile-pepper-farms/

http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/research/horticulture/RR719.pdf

http://chilepepperinstitute.org/documents/frequently-asked-questions.pdf

http://mfnmfoods.com/chili/index.php/New-Mexico/N.M.-Chile-Pepper.html

http://www.allamericanspeakers.com/speakers/Mark-Miller/3694

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexican_Food

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_pepper

It’s one of Mother Nature’s most beautiful and inspiring mysteries: the migration of the monarch butterfly from North America to the Michoacán forest in central Mexico and back. It’s been happening for thousands of years, and it will, no doubt, continue for thousands more. But will we ever truly understand why?

Ten thousand feet up a slope in the Sierra Nevada mountains of central Mexico, the dusty trail of the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary abruptly changes to cement steps. Above our heads, bright orange flickers dart in and out of the trees. Each autumn, millions of Monarch butterflies migrate from North America to this dormant peak, swarming across highways, riding high-altitude currents, stopping only to rest in trees along the way.

After hibernating in the Michoacan forest, they awake in the spring, mate, and begin the journey back to the U.S. and Canada to lay their eggs. It’s an incredible feat of nature. Some will travel over 5,000 miles. And they’ve been doing this every year, for thousands of years.

But the spectacular journey is not without its pitfalls. “Ohh, no.” Our guide Alfredo stops, bends down and gently picks up a wounded Mariposa Monarca from the trail. It’s a male, almost dead, feebly moving its wings and legs. “See?” he indicates. “The stomach is missing.”

The Monarch is highly toxic to the tastebuds, Alfredo explains. Even a cow can die if it eats one. The only part not poisonous is the butterfly’s stomach. Unfortunately for the Monarch, its predators have learned this. Local birds, in particular orioles and grosbeaks, will attack the butterfly in mid-air, suck out the organs, and let it fall to the forest floor, where the insect wiggles helplessly for a few minutes before it dies. A horrendous fate for such a cute creature. But nature is not always pretty.

We humans might prefer the beaches of Puerto Vallarta or Ixtapa for our winter vacation. Monarch butterflies are much more discerning. They congregate in colonies only atop 12 specific volcanic peaks in central Mexico’s Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, a 75-mile wide protected reserve.

While this region produces 80% of the world’s avocados, civic leaders also heartily embrace their other natural resource. The Morelia school soccer team is named the Monarchs. The mining town of Angangueo hosts an annual Monarch Festival each spring, and road signs throughout Ocampo boast cute butterfly icons. The footpath beginning at the El Rosario parking lot up is lined with butterfly trinket vendors, and women cooking over open flames.

We continue our hike up the trail, and Alfredo says out of the 12 sanctuaries, two are in this region. El Rosario is the most visitor-friendly, the other you have to enter on horseback. He’s been giving Monarch tours for six years, six to seven days a week. Approximately 200 million butterflies hibernate in Michoacan each winter, he says, with 20 million coming here to El Rosario.

In the U.S.and Canada, Monarchs only live 6 to 8 weeks, from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. Here in Michoacan, the migrating generations live up to 9 months, most of that in blissful slumber.

The colonies awaken and by February they’ve departed north to lay their eggs in warmer conditions. By March the first generation eggs are laid in the southern U.S. In April the Midwest will see a second generation of eggs, and a third generation is born in the Great Lakes and Northeast U.S. around July and August.

According to Alfredo, it takes three generations to reach the U.S., about five to get to Canada. The migration season roughly follows the annual growth cycle of the milkweed plant, a favorite food of the Monarchs.

As the weather gets colder in September, the newest butterflies start moving south towards Mexico, roosting overnight in trees along the way. Swarms can be spotted in the Midwest states of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa around early October, and then they cross into Mexico a week or so later. This hardy final generation doesn’t breed or die along the way, they stay the course and arrive at the volcanic peaks of Michoacan each November to tuck in for the winter.

Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains follow this North America-to-Mexico migration route. Butterflies west of the Rockies funnel down to southern California for their hibernation months.

The tiny insects are astonishing travelers. They can do 80 miles a day, at an average of 12 miles per hour, and if the winds are right, they cruise at an altitude of two miles. They travel during the day, living off their stored fat, and stop to eat only if there are flowers. If there is fog or clouds, they stay put, preferring to move only during bright sunny weather.

But why do they come to Michoacan? For centuries, locals believed the annual butterfly swarms were some sort of plague, and would kill as many as they could. The more superstitious still believe Monarchs come to this area to visit their dead ancestors.

Another popular rumor circulates that a magnetic field attracts the Monarchs to these mountains. Tantalizing, but not true. The real reason is more obvious, says Alfredo. “Butterflies look for protection, that’s why they come here. There’s high elevation, they are protected by the tall trees’ branches, there are flowers, and water. So they don’t waste energy.”

Local indigenous tribes have always known about the Mariposa Monarcas, but scientists in North America still had no idea where the butterflies wintered. Each year, the swarms just seemed to disappear south across the Rio Grande River. The mystery was finally solved in 1975, thanks to an underwear executive and a 12-year-old boy from Texas.

Volunteers had tagged thousands of butterflies under the direction of Canadian entomologist Fred Urquhart. Thirty years of research indicated that migrating Monarchs hibernated somewhere in Mexico, but Urquhart’s team was unsure of the location.

Ken Brugger, an American working in Mexico as chief engineer for Jockey underwear, had heard of Urquhart’s efforts. Being somewhat of an amateur naturalist, he offered to help, and began his own inquiries to the locals. On January 2, 1975, Brugger and his wife scaled the slopes of a Michoacan summit named Cerro Pelon, and discovered millions of hibernating butterflies clinging to the trees.

The Bruggers eagerly picked through the colony for Monarchs that might have been tagged in North America, thus establishing conclusively the exact migration route. They were having little luck, until they came upon one butterfly which stood out from the rest. It was significantly larger. And it had a tag. With a phone number.

For a few years, 12-year-old John McLusky had been tagging butterflies in Fredericksburg, in south-central Texas. He had read about the migrations, printed up his own tags, and did it all himself.

“I didn’t know there were any professionals doing it,” says McLusky, now a chemistry professor at Texas Lutheran University. “I was hoping that someone would find them. I didn’t really know I was contributing to science.

“Ken Brugger called my home from Mexico,” he recalls. “They were very excited. They found what they’d been looking for all these years.”

Alfredo and I pass through an open meadow ringed by forest, and Monarchs circle lazily above us, the sun casting their shadows on the ground. The trail turns back into forest, and he says we should be quiet. Monarchs are totally deaf, but they can apparently detect light and movement, and have a terrific sense of smell.

It’s true. Dozens of butterflies cling to bushes, then quickly flutter away just out of our reach. The treetop canopy up above bustles with tiny flashes of orange.

Alfredo opens a wooden fence and takes us off the trail. We walk a bit further, and then he stops and points. Giant pod-like clumps dangle from trees, pulsating slightly with movement. They look like grayish alien larvae from a horror film, but in fact it’s thousands and thousands of Monarchs all slumbering together, weighing down the branches, which look as though they are about to snap off. This is the Mother Lode, the starting point of nature’s most mysterious migration.

The grey color comes from the undersides of the wings, and blends in easily with the forest shade. Alfredo whispers that throughout the winter they will rotate sleeping positions, so that the ones on the outside don’t freeze to death.

Monarchs prefer pine and oyamel trees for their winter hotel, and for some reason extend their colonies out in a straight line through the forest. Each year, the location moves slightly, Alfredo says maybe 100 meters or so, because of the dust that humans kick up.

The sky comes alive as the butterflies respond to the late morning sun. Once they wake up, they fall to the ground and start flapping their wings to warm up. You have to watch where you step, because the ground is carpeted with groggy butterflies flopping around. Once they’re fully alert, they start mating furiously.

I step into a pocket of bright sunlight, and the sensation feels like wandering into the midst of a locust attack. Butterflies attach themselves to my head, pantleg, shoe, shoulder, back — at one point I count over 20 Monarchs perched somewhere on my body, curiously checking me out. I hear Alfredo say, “Look,” and turn around. One is affixed to his lips.

Perhaps it’s the 10,000 feet altitude that’s making me light-headed, but being covered in little butterflies seems like we’re all part of a spectacular Disney movie where everything is going to be okay. At any moment Miley Cyrus is going to step from behind a tree and start singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” There’s no noise at all except the woosh of tiny wings. It’s a soothing, dreamlike celebration of insect life – a combination hotel, breeding ground and cemetery.

I feel badly for John McLusky back in Texas. Of the three men responsible for discovering and verifying this amazing migration, he’s the only one still alive. And he’s never actually been here to see it himself.

Alfredo and I head back down the trail, and come upon a group of butterflies clustered on the ground, at a spring-fed rivulet. “They’re drinking water,” he whispers. Indeed, the Monarchs are guzzling like thirsty horses on a trail ride.

Alfredo describes a very moving moment in his life. One day while giving a tour, he saw a Monarch in a water puddle that appeared to be drowning. He gently picked it up and saw it was a female, she was weak and freezing. He held it in his hand to warm it up, and fed it by hand, squeezing nectar from a flower into its mouth.

“She could smell it,” he remembers. “They drink very fast.” The butterfly guzzled the contents of four flowers, then regained its strength and flitted away.

Alfredo smiles. “I never thought I was gonna be able to do that.”

Butterfly festivals occur in North America throughout the migration season, depending on location. Michoacan sightings are best during the spring season, when the region hosts a month-long Monarch Festival. Visitor info available at www.michoacan-travel.com (English) or www.michoacan.gob.mx (Spanish).

Jack Boulware contributes frequently to American Way. He was assisted for this story by an unknown butterfly who clung to his notepad for a good deal of the day.

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John McLusky

830-303-8937

jmcclusky@tlu.edu

Alfredo

c/o Mitzi Arreola

Michoacan tourism department

marreola@michoacan.gob.mx

011 52 (443) 317 80 52 Ext. 140

Michoacan.gob.mx – website of the region with info about Monarch Festival (in Spanish)

Biosphere reserve UNESCO site

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1290

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Masters+of+migration:+thanks+to+the+efforts+of+scientists+and+nature…-a0201801673

lots of facts:

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/indexCurrent.html

Brugger obituary

http://www.texasento.net/Brugger.htm

good first person account:

http://www.turkpipkin.com/mag/mexico/monarchs.htm

good history:

http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/butterflyhistory.html

Other articles

http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/monarchs.html

http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020701357.html

http://www.globio.org/glossopedia/article.aspx?art_id=41

bird predators

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v291/n5810/abs/291067a0.html

http://bird-watching.suite101.com/article.cfm/birding_mexicos_el_rosario_butterfly_sanctuary

migration generations:

http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Cycle.htm

migration maps

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_spring2009.html

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_egg_spring2009.html

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_f08_roosts.html

Tigeorges Laguerre is on a mission to save Haiti — or at least one little part of it — one coffee bean at a time.

Donkeys laden with bananas plod down the mountain path, followed by village women, carrying goods to market atop their heads. On either side of the trail, wild taro and cacao fill the slopes. TiGeorge Laguerre stops and points to a wooden shack. “My cousin lives here. She just had a baby.”

Laguerre grew up in this region of Haiti, the Nord’ouest province, on the northwest coast. Locals call these mountains “nan gro mon.” The hillside we’re standing on has special meaning for him. It’s been in his family since the 1950s, when his father George owned a successful coffee operation.

TiGeorge (“son of George”) no longer lives here, having moved to America years ago, and now owns TiGeorge’s Chicken, a Haitian-cuisine restaurant in Los Angeles. But he has agreed to show me the origin of his restaurant’s amazing coffee, which he imports from these hills.

The beans are strange bluish-brown in color, carmelized as well as roasted. He prepares it as a café au lait, with bay leaf and key lime zest. If you like coffee, the taste is like no other.

TiGeorge sells bags of Haitian coffee over the counter and through mail-order. But his plans are much larger. He wants to increase production from the family property. Export more coffee overseas. Maybe even open a coffee-themed B&B as a destination for local tourists, modeled after the wineries of California.

His vision isn’t just for profit and his family’s legacy. He also believes it will be good for the country. What Haiti needs is a sense of being, he says, a sense of responsibility, rather than the current national mindset of passivity, accepting hand-outs from relief programs with no eye to the future.

It’s no secret that Haiti is a nation climbing out of decades of turmoil. Poverty, corruption, and apathy have rendered it a shell of a Caribbean paradise. Two former presidents remain in exile. Headlines continually portray a country on the brink of collapse, policed by U.N. soldiers, and propped up by international relief projects.

Perhaps this is what Haiti needs, a countryman returning home to generate industry and promote self-determination for the locals. Why not? It’s not depressing enough to make the nightly news, but that’s not to say it won’t help.

———————————————-

We begin hiking up the hillside, and the view is a complete opposite of Haiti seen on CNN — a postcard of green, pristine valleys under the warm sun. The island of Tortuga rises off the coast, its sandy white beaches contrasting with the rocky shoreline of north Haiti.

At a fork in the trail we come to a large concrete sign that reads “Tigeorge.” He has installed this here deliberately, to let people know that coffee production will soon return to the area. Behind the sign are the abandoned ruins of the family coffee mill: a crumbling fermentation vat, and a rusty pulper machine. Everything else has been scavenged for scrap metal. This plot of ground has sat idle since the 1960s, when the bottom fell out of Haiti’s coffee market.

“The money was not there,” TiGeorge shrugs. “There was no need to cultivate coffee.”

On this site he hopes to rebuild a coffee processing plant, and jumpstart the local coffee industry. Farmers who still grow coffee must send it elsewhere for processing. This plant would keep the business here, and provide jobs.

“There’s so many things that need to get done,” TiGeorge says over his shoulder, as we continue up the trail. “We have the workers, the sun, the soil.”

He points out a coffee tree a few feet off the path. These plants grow wild, in shade underneath the taller forest, favoring the altitude’s cool humidity. Coffee can grow up to seven feet, yet the stalks are very thin, no more than three inches. The fruits are still green and haven’t yet ripened. The season will be in two months, he says.

Coffee is a delicate plant, and can take four to five years before it fruits. Much like wine grapes, several factors can affect the finished product. Coffee grown at different altitudes will vary in taste. Wild coffee trees produce different flavors than cultivated plants.

Laguerre gestures to an almost barren hillside, clearcut long ago for firewood. “All this used to be coffee. As you can see, the bigger trees are gone.”

I mention that perhaps the local farmers could cultivate new coffee plants here.

“Replanting is difficult, to bring that into their soul, because they think there’s no need to do that,” TiGeorge answers. “Whatever I’m doing, I know it’s not short-term.”

A woman stops us and says to him in French Creole, “You are the son of the agronomist George! I can see what you’re doing. It will be like in the past.”

TiGeorge speaks briefly with her, and then turns to me and says, “The beauty is when you make contact with the peasants. These are the real people.”

—————————————————-

We return down the trail, wade through a river and arrive at the small isolated village of Anse-a-Foleur, literally the end of the road on a map.

There may be little in the way of electricity or potable water here, but the modern world has definitely intruded. Teenagers wear Tupac and Florida Marlins T-shirts. A boy rides by on a bike, talking on a cellphone, which everyone seems to have. A truck drives through, a loudspeaker announcing that a soccer match will be playing on the big screen later, at the next town.

At the central square, we stop at a food booth that TiGeorge recommends. The cook is a young man named Richard that he wants to encourage. Because in the villages, cooking is for the women. Richard has a skill, TiGeorge says, and he should know that he’s good at it.

We sit on a bench, eating fried fish and a fantastic Haitian cabbage slaw called pikliz, spiced with habanero peppers. We wash it down with bottles of Prestige beer, and watch a funeral procession of mourners in their Sunday best, followed by a New Orleans-style brass band.

Although TiGeorge grew up in Haiti, he moved to Brooklyn for high school, and in 1980 got a film degree. He moved to Los Angeles to find work as a cameraman, and a few years later started a party rental business out of his garage, providing tables and chairs for private events. It was profitable for awhile, but was slowly succumbing to more competition. A friend at a party told him he needed to get back to his roots.

“I took his advice,” TiGeorge admits. “I flew to Haiti searching for any pieces that were left behind. If I could put them together, I could put myself back together.”

He returned to Haiti and suddenly remembered his grandmother used to own a restaurant. As a boy TiGeorge would help her cook, especially the squash soup. It dawned on him – he was going to do exactly what she used to do.

After endless wrangling of permits and equipment, he opened TiGeorge’s Chicken restaurant in 2002, on Glendale Boulevard in North Hollywood. He served only a few dishes, and didn’t even have a menu. Nevertheless, local press and bloggers got wind of the unique cuisine, and it started attracting more customers. One of them happened to be a percussionist for the legendary Haitian Konpa group, Tabou Combo.

“This guy called me, he says, ‘I’m selling CDs of Haitian music, and Haitian coffee.’ He sent me a humongous bag full of coffee and CDs. People start falling in love with the coffee. People kept buying, and I kept selling. Then I ran out of coffee. I call him and say, ‘Hey, I need more coffee.’ He says, ‘No TiGeorge, it was a one-time deal. I do not have coffee anymore.’ I said, wow. The product that people fall in love with, and I don’t have the product to sell.”

The enterprising TiGeorge quickly found another source of Haitian coffee – smuggling bags of beans through customs, in passenger suitcases. Ten pounds here, 20 pounds there, whatever it took to keep the restaurant supplied. But he knew he needed to turn legitimate, and eventually obtained a credit line from UPS, to ship legally from Haiti.

His coffee comes via a complicated route, from the hills above Anse-a-Foleur, along a six-mile stretch of brutal potholes that is charitably called a road, to the northern city of Port-de-Paix, then aboard a commuter plane to Port-a-Prince, the capital, and then finally UPS flies it into the United States, where it’s roasted at a California facility. TiGeorge is the first to admit, “It’s a torturous way to bring coffee.”

His patrons in Los Angeles aren’t aware, they just salivate over the coffee. Some customers even request that Tigeorge be the only person to prepare their coffee, and will call the restaurant to make sure he’s in before driving there. The popularity is a bit strange. People accidentally leave things in his restaurant all the time, he thinks, because the coffee experience is so distracting.

—————————————–

We finish our fish and walk back through the village, passing rows of extremely simple houses, made from concrete, wood and tin. Women are sweeping the dirt in front of their doors. Boys play soccer barefoot on the gravel road. Little girls in their orange school uniforms walk home in noisy packs. It’s a polite society. Everyone says hello, and they expect you to respond.

We arrive at the house of TiGeorge’s brother Reginald, which doubles as the local office for TiGeorge’s coffee business. The front room is filled with paperwork and sacks of fragrant green coffee beans. As far as I can tell, this is the only residence in town with electricity, powered by solar panels on the roof.

Someone pulls out some plastic chairs, and we sit in the office sipping beers. TiGeorge introduces me to Frankie, Remy, and Wilson, a few of his local associates, who are also helping with the coffee business. They don’t know much English, but that’s okay. TiGeorge is a great conversationalist, his strong personality carries the room.

Currently, he says, the business ships two bags a month out of Haiti, at 150 pounds each. TiGeorge sells one of these bags a month, with the rest served in the restaurant. He would love to eventually import up to 50 bags a month.

Haitian coffee has a long history, dating back to 1734, and at one time the region produced half of the world’s coffee supply. The primary growing areas were in the cool, wet mountains.

By the early 1950s, Haiti’s economy was strong. Tourists were coming from all over. Mining and agriculture were profitable. George’s father was a coffee grower, a coffee speculator, and owned the mill to process coffee. He sold primarily to European countries, who favored the smooth rich taste, particularly France.

Some processors use chemicals to remove layers of the coffee fruit, before reaching the seed, which is the coffee bean. George Laguerre Sr. used a more delicate method, instead fermenting the coffee and then carmelizing it in a secret mixture of ingredients.

“You will have bees, flies flying over it,” TiGeorge allows. “The fermentation, that’s what brings the quality.”

Although it’s slower, TiGeorge uses this method today. It’s still an eyeball process, people knowing when to add the ingredients, when to remove the coffee.

As we talk, children drop by with their mobile phones to leave them overnight for charging. The Western Union office down the street charges a fee for this, but Reginald doesn’t have the heart to ask them for money.

When TiGeorge’s father was forced to abandon the coffee business in the late 1960s, he reluctantly moved to America with his family. Local villagers simply moved onto the neglected Laguerre property, and have lived here free ever since. TiGeorge returned in the 1990s, and realized he had to resolve this situation.

“I still allow them to live on the land, but gradually I’m letting them know there will be development made there,” he says. “And every now and then, one has to leave. They’re okay with that. I’m also using them to work there, too. So therefore it is beneficial to them.”

Part of TiGeorge’s plan includes paying the farmers upon delivery. In the past, coffee producers would pay the growers a year in advance, but often the growers took the money and never delivered. TiGeorge says this is very common in Haiti. You see buildings all over the country that are half-finished, abandoned once the contractors received advance payment.

“I think that’s probably what created the failure of Haiti. That was an ongoing thing. Many Haitians still live that way. They hunt for today, but they never hunt for tomorrow.”

Giving people money or food isn’t necessarily the best solution to Haiti’s problems, TiGeorge believes. They’ll just expect the same tomorrow. People do need help, but in a way that gives them confidence. That’s why, for the past few years, he’s commissioned street signs for Anse-a-Foleur, and brought them in from Los Angeles. Like most of Haiti, the village’s streets and houses are unmarked.

“You must have an address,” he says. “A society that does not have a direction, you do not know where you’re going. People are not going to be able to communicate with you. Having a street address, it’s communication. If you allow other people to see you, they’d be able to see others.”

TiGeorge is also importing portable propane stoves, so that people don’t use up the vanishing supply of wood. But everything he does, from the coffee business to other projects, he knows it must be done slowly.

“I think we have too much character,” he says. “There’s no shortage there. Emotions. The ego. A guy doesn’t know where he’s gonna get the next meal, but yet he’ll stand up in a way where he would rather die of hunger. Pride is good, but then again you have to know when to use it.”

We finish our beers and say good nights. I walk out onto the porch to look at the sky. The streets are completely dark, except for the beam of a flashlight from someone walking back home.

——————————————————–

At the Port-a-Prince airport, waiting for a flight to Miami, TiGeorge and I check out the Haitian coffee in the gift shop. His coffee is not yet available here. His competitors’ packaging is cheap, one brand doesn’t even list an address or contact information. TiGeorge looks at this and shakes his head, as if to say, come on guys, not even a phone number?

In a sense, the Haitian coffee renaissance has already begun. Coffee is now America’s largest food import. Haiti’s product is excellent quality, and a good value compared to more expensive coffees from Jamaica and surrounding areas. Plus, the profits help support the local economy in places like TiGeorge’s base in Anse-a-Foleur.

We watch American church volunteers standing in line to check their bags. “I will always want to buy coffee only from my back door,” TiGeorge says. “That is the region I grew up, and I feel obligated to really help. And pick up where my dad left. This is something that is in my blood.” He thinks a moment. “This is something my dad would have enjoyed.”

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