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Thomonde

Thomonde

Formerly, Thomonde was called “Cabral”. This is the name of a former Dominican general who, according to some information, was the owner of the area. The city of Thomonde was founded in 1930 and raised to the rank of commune ten years later, in 1940. Ruled over by a city council and mayor, it has a population of 4,000, with French and Creole its official languages. A Catholic community, its population celebrates the feast day of its patron saint, Saint Joseph, in March of every year.

History: The city of Thomonde was founded in 1930 during the American occupation. Thomonde, of his former name Cabral, had a strategic geographical position. For more than 25 years, the new municipality depended administratively on Hinche, the county town. It was not until 1957, when François Duvalier came to power, that Thomonde met his first administrator, Mr. Sauveur Benjamin, a surveyor by profession. The latter, a man of confidence of the regime, remained at the head of the communal administration for almost the entire term of President François Duvalier. The mayor was then appointed by the State Secretary of the Interior.

The second mayor was Mr. Clébert Charlot, from Mirebalais. Protected by the Member of Parliament for the first constituency, Mrs. Ulrick, he was dismissed by the Secretary of the Interior for political reasons; Savior Benjamin took the reins of the communal administration. The MP Mrs. Ulrick then tried to put André Bélizaire at the head of the town hall but without success. After a long illness that led to the inability of Mr. Sauveur Benjamin, in the late 1970s, Deputy Mayor Alphonse Joly took over.

The third mayor was Miss Kételine, from Port-au-Prince, of Thomondois parents. She started the construction of the premises housing the border mayors’ office intended to be the city hall.

The fourth mayor was Mr. Astrel Vernet, from Gonaïves. He was also commander of the VSN Corps, Volunteers of National Security, better known as Tontons Macoutees.

The latter, considering his relations with the executive, when he decided to take a break, he passed the power to his Colt Honore Saint-Louis who played the role of mayor of lining. Mr. Vernet remained at the head of the town hall until the fall of President Jean-Claude Duvalier. Carried away by the wave of anti-Macoute demonstrations, he left Thomonde to settle permanently in Port-au-Prince, where he died in 2010.

Here is the list of mayors who succeeded each other from 1986 to 2015: Mr. Jean-Nathanaël Pierre, nicknamed Tijean, Mr. Jean Joseph Béjamin, nicknamed Djo, Mr. Jean-Robert Marcellus, nicknamed Tonton and Mr. Delva Souverne Jean. The commune had passed over the control of the departmental delegation of the Center after an assassination attempt perpetrated on the person of the young journalist of the city Wendy Phele. Jean Robert Vorbe, the alleged perpetrator of this assassination attempt, former security officer close to Jean Souverne Delva, is on the run, he is the subject of an international arrest warrant. He was wanted by INTERPOL since October 2012. Remember that Thomonde was already under guardianship for 27 years before the arrival of Duvalier in power. Since January 2016, the town of Thomonde is led by a municipal cartel headed by Matheus Bernadeau.

Thomonde was raised to the rank of constituency under the government of René Garcia PREVAL with the first elected parliamentarian Mr. Enel APPOLON (LESPWA), the second elected was Mrs. Marie Denise BERNADEAU (PHTK), and currently it is the deputy Enel APPOLLON (PITIT DESSALINES) who represents the constituency in parliament.

The municipality has 56,274 inhabitants, according to the 2009 census estimate.

Emigration: The inhabitants of Thomonde emigrate to the United States of America, and very little to the Dominican Republic. For several decades, given the political and economic instability in the country, there has been a brain drain. After long studies, 98% of our young people dream of leaving the country for the United States and reside there. The majority of Thomondois emigrate to Massachusetts more precisely to Boston, from where the creation of an association (CORECTHO) committee for the recovery of the commune of Thomonde created in the 1990s by the community Thomondoise who lives there.

Currently (in 2017), the alumni of the Marie Help of Christians School of Thomonde gather to improve the image of this school and at the same time prepare for the jubilee of their school in 2018. FAEMAT, the foundation of the former students of Mary Help of Christians are looking for all the alumni of this school for this event.

The school was created in 1968 by the Reverend Father Henry Garssou, who was at the time the parish priest of this parish.

Geography: The name of the inhabitants of this municipality is Thomondois. Thomonde is a border town, its dominant relief is the plateau and its climate is normal. The city (section) of Thomonde has no extension areas. Its population in 1998 was estimated at 4,480 inhabitants, or 14.44% of the total population of the municipality, estimated at 31,016 inhabitants in 1998.

Thomonde is 18 km from Hinche (capital the Central Department), 92 km from Port-au-Prince (the Haitian capital), 150 km from Cap-Haïtien (the second largest city of Haiti) via RN3, 200 km from Gonaïves (via RN3 and RN1); 300 km from Port-de-Paix, 300 km from Fort-Liberté via RN3, 400 km from Les Cayes via RN2, 300 km from Jacmel via RN2 and the route of friendship, and 600 km from Jérémie and about 200km from Nippes via the RN3 and RN2.

Economy: The town of Thomonde is essentially food. The local economy is based on growing fruits (mangoes, avocados, pomegranates and lemons), tobacco , peanuts, coffee , maize, millet (sorghum), banana and sugar cane. Recent soil analyzes have concluded that the town of Thomonde is rich in hydrocarbons and is home to uranium deposits. Note also that the rivers of Thomonde are very rich in clay.

With deforestation leading to a massive rural exodus, coffee trees and banana plantations have disappeared; all that remains is tobacco grown in the second communal section (Terre mouscadille) transformed in Port-au-Prince by the tobacco company Comme Il Faut .

Thursday is the main day of the public market, but open on other days of the week. Thomonde has the biggest market of the department (nan casse) which is in the fourth communal section (Hoye) near Las Cahobas. The main day of this big public market is Monday. Some traders from the capital, the Dominican Republic, the lowlands and the highlands meet to make economic exchanges.

In terms of economic and financial infrastructure, the municipality is very poorly equipped. Commercial establishments are almost non-existent. Agriculture, livestock and trade are the main economic activities of the municipality. Although agriculture is an important activity in the commune, there is no representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, no agricultural credit bank and no representative of the Ministry of the Environment.

Agricultural farming predominates, and farmers grow crops of bananas, mangoes, coffee, and tobacco. Some farmers are beekeepers.

Economic solidarity: Given the political instability that has known Haiti for several decades (36 years) since the fall of the Duvalier, the Thomondoise diaspora weighs heavily on the economic balance of the town with the financial aid sent to relatives and friends.

Thomondois who live abroad bear a lot of relatives and friends who live in Thomonde and even in Port-au-Prince. According to sources, every second family in Thomonde has a relative living abroad (United States, France or the Dominican Republic).

Infrastructure: To strengthen the town’s infrastructure, the Thomonde city council has partnered with the Border Development Commission to fund an $8 million project. The goal is to build greenhouses that will house plant varieties indigenous to the region. Deforestation has left large acreages of land barren and disrupted the ecosystem. Plant cultivation for use in reforestation efforts, plus tree seedlings that have already been put into the ground, will strengthen agriculture production in these areas.

Transportation: Although located in a rural area of Haiti, Thomonde is only 90km away from the Toussaint Louverture International Airport. In town, most residents depend on donkeys and horses for transportation.

Currently, with the construction of the Route Nationale 3 (Departmental 3 or the D3), Thomonde aspires to a new life. It is 92 km from the capital, which takes an average of 1 hour 32 minutes to drive 60 km / h and about 50 minutes to 100 km / h. At times it can take up to 10 hours for motorists to take this route and even more time during the rainy season.

The economy of the town seems precarious but it could be flourishing. The sugar cane is processed into sugar (rapadou) in a traditional way and then transported to the capital. Given the lack of infrastructure (roads impassable during the rainy season), carriers could spend about 48 hours on the road before arriving at the capital.

With the construction of the National Number 3, we can think of the resurrection of the Thomane economy.

Baille-Tourible is the culmination of Thomonde, market gardening (vegetables) is grown in this communal section.

Education: The Ministry of Education of Youth and Sports is not represented in the town of Thomonde. Two kindergarten, 11 primary schools including 4 public, and 6 private, one congregational, and 4 secondary schools were inventoried in Thomonde. In addition, there is a sewing center and a single literacy center.

The Mary Help of Christians primary school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny founded in 1968 by Reverend Father Henry Garssou, the Jean Baptiste Décoste College headed by the Parish Priest, Saint Mathias College, El Shaddai High School and College . All these institutions are ecumenical.

Health: The Ministry of Public Health does not have representation in the commune. There is a public health center with a trainee doctor, a dentist, a nurse, four auxiliaries, four certified matrons and a laboratory technician.

In the area of healthcare, a non-government organization, the University of Miami, is helping make improvements treating infectious diseases, and has launched the Thomonde Community Health Program. This program recruits, gives instruction, and avails local healthcare workers of the knowledge and implementation methods to fight infectious diseases like HIV and AIDS.

Housing: Another phase of the program will build affordable housing units. When completed families will be moving into two- and three-bedroom homes.

Utilities: For water availability, the town of Thomonde has two rivers and two sources that are used for consumption and mainly for domestic services. In addition to these water points, dozens of taps and pumps also supply households with water. Electricity of Haiti is the institution that ensures the distribution of electricity in the city of Thomonde which is the only electrified area. Thanks to an electric motor, this current is provided for 25 hours a week.

Security: At the level of the Administrative and Judicial Infrastructures, the commune has a police station, a court of peace and a registry office which does not work very well.

Projects: The construction of the agricultural village (Thomonde-Ville) is a pilot project between the town hall of Thomonde and the Dominican Republic. This project aims to reunify these two republics from the same island but politically distant since 1843 when the Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer directed the entire island. This project also contributes to the establishment of a sport little known in Haiti, the Baseball, the favorite sport of the Belgians implanted in the Dominican Republic for about 25 years. The town hall of Thomonde through this launch aims to accommodate about 500 families at the beginning of 2011. Today, we hear more about this project.

All these projects help to reduce the unemployment rate in the municipality and encourage young people to stay there to put their know-how at the disposal of the city.

Religion: Nearly 22 temples have been listed in the commune. The number of churches and chapels for denominations such as Catholic, Baptist and Episcopal does not exceed 4; the Pentecostal churches (5 in total) represent the best represented confession (in number of temples) in the commune.

Organizations: Two popular organizations, a peasants group, and two non-commercial co-operatives form the political institutions and other organizations of the commune.

Commuinication: At the time of the inventory the commune had no telephone. On the other hand, it has a postal service that operates in a very special way. Today, with mobile telephony, Thomonde enters the new generation (advanced technology). ADSL (ASYMETRICS Digital, Subscriber Line) broadband internet is accessible, the municipality is not removed from the rest of the world’s “live technology”.

The municipality had two local radio stations not functional for several years. One of them was “Radio Péralte” which was broadcasting on the FM (Frequency Modulation) band on 106.5. This station broadcasts educational programs. It is directed by Mr. Georges Benjamin.

Since March 2017, the alumni of the School of Mary Help of Christians at Thomonde have been providing the town of Thomonde with a new modern communications and broadcasting service known as “Thomonde’s Faemat AIR WFHX”.

FaematAIR WFHX of Thomonde is a general Haitian National radio. It uses a complex emission system by combining several modern and variable technologies (digital, terrestrial, radio, etc.). Thus, it is able to cover a very broad spectrum and reach a Haitian audience locally, nationally and globally – including listeners living outside Haiti.

In March 2017, FaematAIR announces its presence on the global TuneIn network and on the Haitian AudioNow HAITI RADIO network, as well as Call-To-Listen telephone listening services for Thomondians living in the Dominican Republic (849-943-5679). United States 641-552-8075 and in Canada 867-675-1572

Leisure: At the level of Leisure, the situation is not too different. Apart from the football (soccer) which remains the only sport practiced in the commune and the six gagères that work six days a week, there is no library, no museum, no theater/cinema, No night club nor dancing restaurant. During the holidays there are many activities: musical entertainment in the public square, interzone championships, etc. Saint-Joseph is the Patron Saint of the Catholic Church of the Commune. A big celebration is celebrated every year on March 19th on this occasion.

Thomonde is a valley, it is located between two mountains. The greenery of this commune, if exploited, could attract a lot of tourists, the cave of Boucantis in the 3rd communal section is also of avail. The construction of the hotel CILINA in Tamarin and the road that leads to Baille tourible are assets to attract tourists, both local and international. With the construction of the national road number 3 this municipality becomes a tourist stop in the Central department.