Creole Pig - Haiti Observer Blog

Learning to speak in the mother tongue is very important for a child's overall development. All children, no matter which language their parents speak, learn a language in the same way. When babies are born, they can make and hear all the sounds in their surroundings. When you talk to your child, you support her language development. A child's brain develops during the first three years of a child's life. Research indicates that learning through mother tongue leads to a much better understanding of the curriculum as well as a more positive attitude towards school. Research has clearly shown that mother tongue has a very important role in children's overall development. The stronger the children's mother tongue, the easier it is for them to discover new areas. UNESCO has encouraged mother tongue instruction in primary education since 1953. Mother tongue is crucial in framing the thinking and emotions of people. Language is clearly the key to communication and understanding in the classroom.

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February 7, 1986 will forever remain a historic day in Haiti. It was on that day that Jean Claude Duvalier dove with his family in their Mercedes to the airport where a pre-arranged US government flight took them to Paris for exile. The cause of his ousting from power was a combination of several issues: the deepening of poverty in Haiti, corruption and a lavish lifestyle initiated by the new First Lady, Michele Bennett.

While life was beautiful at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian population was falling deeper and deeper into poverty. The biggest single event that caused the population to be fed up with the government was the eradication of Creole pig.

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There are many things that can be said that play on the Haitian peasant and the Creole pig, but there is true tragedy behind every punch line. In one of the government's single most devastating moves, done in the 1980's to placate the American's fear of a swine flu outbreak in the Dominican Republic contaminating their Pork industry, a nationwide slaughter of Creole pigs, noted to translate to 30% of the income of peasants, was undertaken.

Another serious misstep was the government's method of damage control. Seeing the devastation wrought on the livelihood of the peasant farmer, they attempted to replace what had been taken with American pigs from Iowa farmers. This too proved a failure, as the new breeds could not adapt to the inevitably harsher methods of farming, including but not limited to table scraps for food and no formal shelter.

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