FARMING LIFE

QUIET COWS

MANMEL KA BATAY

A

longside a historical setting made of old bricks and collapsing walls owerhelmed by  by wild life and uncontrollable vegetation, Permele ruins display an eerie look that is unbearable to many even natives. Fifty years ago, women used to sit down at the so-called  “ Kafou Pemerle” in front of  country bread and other  farm products. A famous gentleman farmer named Charlot Dennery has been running his store with a kind of bucolic paternalism. Today everything is gone, save what had survived the passing of time.Those ruins are however  so alive that even  past seemed dying with a  deep sorrow.

\

But, something new  is about to challenge  the worst side of history .  New comers and mostly  young people try to lengthen the bright era of Charlot Dennery. By the way, Dennery’s time date back  years before the 1915 US  occupation . Peasants still have a good memory of  Me Chalot ‘s stay. Almost  a century later, a new start is launching over there thanks to Manmel Ka Batay, a farming enterprise set up by Jn Pierre E. Bataille.

A native of Pemerle, Jn Pierre E. Bataille, aka.Manno Bataille recalls the Manuel’s saga of  the Roumain’s novel: withered aqueducts, burn up crops and the rest.. Pemerle had endured  the months of “soley tombe” of  the hot summer. But to say the least, unfortunate places always attract. M.  Bataille had long fallen in love with his native land.

Between Les Cayes and Camp Perrin, this vacation and tourist destination where famous colonels and generals such as Henri Namphy and Pierre Haspil went to enjoy early retirement and rural good life, this southern countryside calls for adventures and ocean evasion. As a nearby backdrop the Macaya sierra lets every one  glance at horizons and extended plains. Permerle get this" beautiful coup d'oeil" watched at the time a careful writer Moreau de St Mery did a deep report on the French part  of Hispaniola.

It is there that Manno Bataille along with his nephew Yves Marie Fantal, a  Boston-based technician, have gathered cows, goats and some 15workers to bring a new life in this apparently desperate area. In the early fifties, Permerle was a booming place when seasonal cane harvest made money flowing a lot. Peasants were in a hurry behind their  donkeys and loaded burros that were  pacing muddy pathways. By the 70s, tobacco overwhelmed the sugar economy. Then later came migration; many were leaving for the city or overseas. Even Manno was leaving. But, tied to his land, he spent only one year in the US.  “ I grew up among and with farmers...I like gardening”

Today, after having recently married his daughter, a lawyer graduated from a Queens College,he came back to his passion like to an old loved one.

 With a herd of 60 cows and bulls, Manmel Ka Batay delivers every day dozens  gallons of  milk to customers coming from far away as Les Cayes. These animals receive good care from veterinary specialists and have their own drinking water system. " I am doing my best to have a minimum of standard over there", Manno Bataille claims.

A former teacher and farming entrepreneur, MM. Bataille and his nephew Fantal are doing gardening as well. While in the US, their mango plantation would be very soon good for the market. Smiling, M. Bataille expects to make a good deal of money with his mango francique, in high demand anywhere in the US.

As if rural life were never useless.

CAMP GERARD RUINS

Cows relaxing on a cloudy horizon as backdrop...