The Trial

>>**The Trial**<<
  
>>January 20, 2012<<
  
Sherley is a case manager in Bay Tourib. She and her fellow Bay Tourib case 
managers have been working feverishly to buy assets and transfer them to the 
CLM members they're responsible for. Purchasing and delivering assets, like 
livestock and construction materials, is time-consuming, and the worst thing 
about losing that time is that it interferes with the regularity of weekly 
visits to members' homes during a phase in the process that is especially 
fragile. 
  
Members have been trained to take care of their goats, the first
income-generating asset they receive, but that training needs regular
reinforcement, reinforcement that can only come through weekly visits. Many of
our members are unaccustomed to having their own goats to look after. And their
poverty makes caring for those goats those goats even harder than it would
otherwise be. The goats require grazing, and for families that have little or no
land, ensuring proper pasturage is no easy matter. Unless they receive support
and direction regularly, many members incline to the easiest solution, free
grazing. They simply let the goats loose to fend for themselves.
  
The problem is, is that the goats get into people's gardens -- they are
especially fond of pigeon peas -- and do a lot of harm. Farmers who catch goats
in their gardens can react harshly. The They throw rocks to chase them away, or
do much worse. In the areas where we work, we encourage farmers to capture the
stray goats and get payment for their return. That's one common Haitian solution
to the problem. But it's not always what happens.
  
Chape is the husband of a CLM member, Elimène, and a farmer in Bay
Tourib. Elimène has being doing well so far. She received two goats from
us, and they are both pregnant. She's taking good care of them. She also bought
a third third, with money that she saved up from her weekly stipend, and it is
pregnant as well. Chape planted a small garden with pigeon peas and sorghum, and
they were looking forward to the harvest. Things were looking up.
  
Then one morning, Chape got to his the garden and found it ravaged. Livestock
had devoured almost all the sorghum. In the middle of the garden, he saw several
goats and assumed that they were the culprits. Enraged by the loss of a yield
that he had been counting on to feed his children, he reacted badly. He caught
four of the goats and killed them. This, too, is a common Haitian solution to
free grazing. All four goats belonged to CLM members, two to Marie Rose and two
to Milouse. Two of the four had been pregnant, one with two little kids. So the
total loss was seven goats: a huge setback for our members.
  
When Sherley heard the news, she reacted swiftly. She spoke to members of the 
village assistance committee (VAC) for Fonpyèjak, where the incident 
occurred. We establish these committees as a vehicle that permits community 
leaders to play an active role in CLM. By doing so, we bring a range of men and 
women on board who know the communities we work in and the communities' 
residents better than we do and who are, what's more, in those communities all 
the time. They help us support our members by extending our reach in several 
ways, such as adding emergency contacts and field supervisors to our team by 
putting a community's own resources to work.
  
Sherley went to see all three members affected with Emonès, a leading
member of the committee, and the two CLM members who serve on the committee as
member representatives. They made a preliminary decision to confiscate the
assets we had given Elimène, pending a decision. Some of the committee
members had wanted to insist that Chape and Elimène pay for the goats they
he had killed, but Emonès pointed out that, if the couple had had that kind
of money, they wouldn't be in CLM. The committee members went to the couple's
home, and led away all three goats. They also took away the roofing material we
had given them for home repair. Their The members' initial thought was that we
should consider removing the family from the program entirely.
  
Killing the goats, even under serious provocation, seemed to them a very grave
offence, offense, especially since Emonès concluded that the goats had not
done the real damage to the garden. He observed the damage done to the sorghum,
and concluded that it had been eaten by animals taller than goats -- horses or
cows -- and also noticed that the pigeon peas -- which larger animals don't feed
on -- had been left alone. As the dry season continues, owners of large
livestock sometimes let them loose to feed at night, not knowing how else to get
them fed. This is a crime against the neighbors in whose fields they graze, but
it is one that is very hard to uncover.
  
The committee didn't want to make a final decision, however, without a hearing. 
They thought that it would be better to let a few days pass so that cool heads 
could prevail, and they also wanted CLM's leadership to have a say. So we 
scheduled a hearing for Tuesday evening. I got to Bay Tourib Sunday afternoon, 
so I would CLM's representative.
  
On Monday night, I had a long talk with Emonès. He said that Marie Rose 
and Milouse were very different victims. Both had obviously let their goats 
roam, but Milouse was known to have done so regularly. Marie Rose never had. 
Her goats had gotten free because she had rushed to the hospital in Tomonn with 
her husband, who had been suffering with prostate problems. The person who had 
agreed to look after her goats had failed her.
  
I told him that I wanted to avoid removing Elimène from the program. She
was in it because she needs it. Kicking someone out solves nothing. I proposed
that we return the roofing material to Elimène and ask her to give a goat
to Marie Rose and one to Milouse. That would distribute the harm that had been
done. Emonès agreed.
  
But we had the hearing the next night, and that's not what we finally decided. 
We started a hearing with a report from Sherley. We asked her for a general 
summary of the facts, as she understood them. Then we asked Elimène, Marie 
Rose, and Milouse each to respond. Milouse defended herself against the claim 
that she habitually lets her goats roam. Marie Rose explained how unhappy she 
was that her goats had gotten free. Elimène talked about how much she and 
Chape had counted on their harvest and how little they had to show for all 
their farm work now.
  
When they were finished talking, I announced the decision I had made, but I 
framed it as a proposal.  I asked for their feedback. 
  
At first, everyone agreed. But then Emonès spoke up. He had, he said, been
thinking about the matter constantly since he and I had spoken about it, and he
wasn't quite comfortable with what I had proposed.
  
He had not previously known Elimène. He met her when he went to her home 
with Sherley and the other committee members to seize her assets. He had been 
very much impressed by the way she conducted herself: polite and helpful. His 
original thought when he had heard about the incident had been to remove her 
from the program, but when he visited her home he realized that she was just 
the sort of person the program had come to Bay Tourib to help. 
  
Though he could not condone the killing of the goats, he had been thinking 
about ways to minimize the damage all around. He knew that the two women had 
sold meat from the slaughtered goats. This is common. If it's sold quickly, it 
can bring in some money, though not much. He suggested that Elimène be 
asked to give each of the other women only the difference between the money 
from the sale of the meat and the price of a goat. He had done a rough 
calculation. Elimène might still have to sell a goat to generate that 
money quickly. She probably didn't have it on hand. But she'd still lose only 
one goat instead of two. We all agreed that this seemed like the best solution, 
and left it in Sherley's hands to help the women make it work.
  
Emonès was, obviously, the star of the evening. His patience, first as an 
investigator, then as a sheriff, and finally as a juryman and a judge, brought 
us to what was perhaps the best solution of an unhappy case. And it went a long 
way to helping us through the process without rancor, too. He exemplified the 
role we try to give to leaders in the communities we work in. If we could help 
such leaders establish themselves everywhere that we work, that would go a long 
way towards guaranteeing the success of the members whom we, and also those 
leaders, serve.