COUNTRYSIDE NOSTALGIA

TONTON LELE,  A LOVE FOR LASILE

Some men share their love not only with women.

 Himmler Hyacinthe is one of them.

Nothing however that could take him  there. But, being born whether in Aquin, the beautiful southern  city sprwaling  along turquoise beaches  or in Pt-au-Prince, H. Hyacinthe aka Tonton Lele grew up to become torn apart between his neighborhood Fouchard and Lazile, the place from where his mother came.  Nested deep within the first steps of Macaya Chain,  Lasile is more than a passage way between Aquin and L'Anse a Veau.

Tonton Lele wants to remove Lasile from darkness since the remote times when Roland Bosse, a bus driver used to take people back and forth to Pt-au-Prince the Haitian capital. Lescot and Bosse worked as partners in the same transportation car. Morne Oco was a kind of stronghold before getting to Lasile. Tonton Lele remembered all these peregrinations and hardships on the road to visit his family. It was also fun.

As times went by, Tonton Lele sentimentally tied to his uncle and aunt, Ms Gloria  Dubos Lapaix, keept dreaming big for the small town while asilois and asiloises gathered to create an association to help in the healthcare and economic fields.  As expected Tonton Lele became the leader of ADA ( Association pour le developpement de l'Asile). He did his best to the point to have an hospital built thanks to everybody's efforts.

But, where Tonton Lele marvels a lot, it is in getting information and historic details about Lasile's past. After moving from ADA and settling himself in Miami, Tonton Lele is working on a website with a new project named FAR ( Famille Aziloise Reunie). Obvisously, there is still emotional feelings in doing so. But, Tonton Lele, a born entrepreneur, envisions to give scholarship and other incentives to the young and motivate them to serve their birthplace.

" Lasile means a lot to me. My extended family, on  the summer vacations, the fun we got as teenagers when Lescot, the bus driver,  knew first at all how to kill time under his way  to Lasile" so  Tonton Lele used to speak. Matter-of-factly,  although Lasile is moving from the past. it is not really on the move, but today is better than yesterday. Tonton Lele wants lasile to have schools, power, drinking water. Few Haitians are so stuck to their homeland, ever though it is an unknown place.

Tonton Lele is maybe the last sample of a dying old fashion Haiti. His family shares two cities, Aquin and Lasile. According to Enaf Hyacinthe, a former scholar  priest, Hyacinthe name was traced back to years before independance when marroons fought for themselves and  the king of France. La Colline, in the Aquin countryside,  seems to have been the craddle of this epic family. Nevertheless, the Hyacinthe, the Charlier, the Anglade and the Dumoulin continue to run the Haitian countryside politics alongside with  Anse a Veau and Miragoane families while at the same time  branch out in Cavaillon and Cayes.

With the support of his sisters,  Andromaque Hyacinthe , a Boston-based nurse and a social worker Martin H. Adolphe, Tonton Lele continues  to fight on for Lasile. His recent move will consist of developing  new crop such as "ananas pin de sucre" there. Lasile could easily succeed as a nationwide provider of this fruit, Tonton Lele believes.