Boucan-Carré
Encyclopedia
Boucan-Carré is a municipality in the Mirebalais Arrondissement
Mirebalais Arrondissement
Mirebalais is an arrondissement in the Centre Department of Haiti, with 164,910 inhabitants.Postal codes in the Mirebalais Arrondissement start with the number 52.The arondissement consists of the following municipalities:* Mirebalais...

, in the Centre Department
Centre Department
Centre is one of the ten departments of Haiti, located in the center of the country, along the border with the Dominican Republic. It has an area of 3,675 km² and a population of 564,200 . Its capital is Hinche. It borders the Dominican Republic to the east. It is the only landlocked...

 of Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

.
It has 48,700 inhabitants. Two schools, a church, and a hospital within Boucan Carre are supported by the Haiti Outreach Program in Knoxville, Tennessee Give Haiti Hope.

Boucan Carre has seen some massive changes in the last few years with a new primary school completed in 2005, and the clinic has grown into a full-on hospital which is supported by Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer
Dr. Paul Edward Farmer is an American anthropologist and physician. He is currently the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, formerly the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician and Chief...

's organization, Partners In Health
Partners In Health
Partners In Health is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor". It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Dr...

 (known as Zanmi Lasante
Zanmi Lasante
Zanmi Lasante is a sister organization to the Boston-based Partners In Health that operates out of Cange in central Haiti. The name, Zanmi Lasante, means Partners In Health in Kreyòl. It was built in 1985 to treat patients incapable of paying hospital fees...

 in Haitian Creole) out of Boston, MA.

Friday is Market Day and the population of Chambeau (the center of town) quadruples in size. Where there was rarely a vehicle of any kind there in 2004, there are now many motorbikes (China) and even 4x4 toyota trucks in the area now.

The Boucan-Carre River cuts through the center of the town of Chambeau. Please note that Haitian maps allow for different spellings of Boucan-Carre. Here are some other examples that can be found: Boukan Care, Boukan-Carre, Boucan-Kare).

Boucan Carre is a geographic expression likened to a county in the USA. It is a huge area of land, most of which is covered in mountains and deep valleys. Agriculture and the production of charcoal made from cutting down trees are the primary ways to get by for the locals.

The UN has made substantial improvements to the roads leading to the area from Port au Prince airport (PAP) so that what used to take 4.5 hours to go 45 miles back in 2004 now takes only 2 hours to arrive in Chambeau.

Since the massive earthquake that struck the Port au Prince area in January 2010, many people are returning to family from that city which is causing further strain on the people and land. Clean water is still hard to come by and everything remains very expensive due to devaluation of the Haitian dollar and the extreme stress on the economy in general. All goods are expensive the further away you get from Port au Prince. All of rural Haiti is in flux and is experiencing a deep strain brought on by the earthquake.

There are plans and funding for a new secondary school to be built in Chambeau which is to begin construction in the summer of 2010.

Digicell built a large Cellular Telephone Repeater Tower in B.C. in about 2008, and so many of the people in the Central Plateau now ride a donkey talking on their cell phones.
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