When Joegodson Déralciné was still a small child, his parents left rural Haiti to resettle in the rapidly growing zones of Port-au-Prince. As his family entered the city in 1986, Duvalier and his dictatorship exited. Haitians, once terrorized under Duvalier’s reign, were liberated and emboldened to believe that they could take control of their lives. But how? Joining hundreds of thousands of other peasants trying to adjust to urban life, Joegodson and his family sought work and a means of survival. But all they found was low-waged assembly plant jobs of the sort to which the repressive Duvalier regime had opened Haiti’s doors—the combination of flexible capital and cheap labour too attractive to multinational manufacturers to be overlooked. With the death of his mother, Joegodson was placed in his uncle’s care, and so began a childhood of starvation, endless labour, and abuse. In honest, reflective prose, Joegodson—now a father himself— allows us to walk in the ditches of Cité Soleil, to hide from the macoutes under the bed, to feel the ache of an empty stomach. But, most importantly, he provides an account of life in Haiti from a perspective that is rarely heard. Free of sentimentality and hackneyed clichés, his narrative explores the spirituality of Vodou, Catholicism, and Protestantism, describes the harrowing day of the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath, and illustrates the inner workings of MINUSTAH. Written with Canadian historian Paul Jackson—Joegodson telling his story in Creole, Jackson translating, the two of them then reviewing and reworking—the memoir is a true collaboration, the struggle of two people from different lands and vastly different circumstances to arrive at a place of mutual understanding. In the process, they have given us an unforgettable account of a country determined to survive, and on its own terms.

"Intimate and elemental, rooted in earth, sky and a mystic wisdom, the poems in James Scott Smith's Water, Rocks and Trees are 'hymns of / becoming.' Each is the 'old soul' of the book's first poem, the work of a gracious and trusty guide, observant, nimble, never didactic, ever an acolyte of the infinite." -Catherine Abbey Hodges, author of Instead of Sadness

The 10 lessons in this module introduce students to the processes for observing, identifying, and classifying rocks and minerals. Students investigate fossils, soil formation, and erosion, and examine human impact on the natural landscape.Also included:materials lists activity descriptions questioning techniques activity centre and extension ideas assessment suggestions activity sheets and visuals The module offers a detailed introduction to the Hands-On Science program (guiding principles, implementation guidelines, an overview of the skills that young students use and develop during scientific inquiry), a list of children's books and websites related to the science topics introduced, and a classroom assessment plan with record-keeping templates.