En route

Over the past few days we've been busily preparing for our trip home to the U.S. for the Christmas season (yay!). Mostly things went smoothly, but there were a few little hiccups:

Leaving Dezam on Monday, we were all set. Our bags were packed, the house was cleaned, the worms were fed with hopefully enough food (but not too much) to tide them over the next few weeks, and Jides was all lined up to water our plants. We even brought a motorcycle with us in the truck to Port-au-Prince, knowing that the vehicles in Port would be few and far between. Everything was set. Almost.

The first hiccup was Jean-Remy telling us - halfway to Port - that he wasn't staying there until Wednesday (the day of our flight) as originally planned, so he couldn't drive us to the airport. Also, the motorcycle he was going to take back with him now needed to go back on Tuesday afternoon. Okay, sigh. Let's try to find another vehicle and someone to take us the airport.

The second hiccup came when we were using the motorcycle to run some errands after reaching the Port office on Tuesday. Within 15 feet of leaving the office, I ran over a seemingly innocuous black pile of dust...which turned out to be the remnants of a burnt tire. Unfortunately, this was a steel-belted tire - and by "belts" I mean hundreds of steel wires embedded in the tire that hadn't burned away with the rubber, a mass of which entangled in our rear wheel. The rear sprocket looked like a perfectly executed moto-destruction weapon. Fortunately, a passerby found some wire cutters for us and we cut and pulled until it looked like we could escape, so we did.

We made our way to the street and onto the main road, which was clogged with traffic. I slowly drive up the hill...until 5 cops caught up to me on foot and demanded that I pull over. Hiccup. Apparently, my license is bad, I don't have the right motorcycle designation, hiccup, I don't have the registration, hiccup, and the license plate is the "old" kind. Apparently, hiccup. Kurt came to our rescue and talked them out of confiscating the motorcycle and my license. Shockingly, we were allowed to leave, sans bribe, sans problem - just don't use the moto again until it's legal. OK.

Tuesday night we were presented with a pleasant hiccup, if such a thing is possible. Joel and Rachel invited us to their house for dinner, and we also got to go to the surprise birthday party of a new friend's fiance (two social activities in one night, wow!). We had fun watching a very stubborn pinata get whacked while cries of excitement and laughter floated up from the Haitian guests. After that we hotfooted it over to Joel and Rachel's and had a great night eating pizza (thanks!) and talking about all sorts of things. It was totally great, since we never have dinner with people in Dezam and never ever ever have two things to do in one night.

Our last hiccup came this morning as we left around 10am for the airport to catch our our 1pm flight. Usually this drive takes about 20 minutes, so as we sat in traffic, cars inching along, we started to sweat. Alexis, our intrepid chauffeur, was driving fast-and-furiously (okay, mostly slowly but still furiously) and managed to get us around a roadblock and to the airport about an hour before our flight. That's a little too close for comfort given that things in Haiti can sometimes (read: usually) get complicated. We got in through security, through check-in and another security point, and we started to calm down. Once inside, we bumped into not one but two friends who were also on their way home for the holidays.

So here we are safe and sound in Ft. Lauderdale, taking advantage of nice and fast and free wireless internet, a live band playing jazzy tunes about 15 feet from us, coffee, pizza, and English. On a super happy note, our only checked bag was the first to emerge from the luggage carousel, (when does that happen?) and when we got to the torturous customs check they waved us through (again, when does this happen?), which means we did not have to unpack and show each and every one of our stashed Haitian goodies.

This might be the last post for a little while as we will be seeing most of you shortly. Once we are back in the land of eternal summer we hope to return to posting frequently posts.

Merry Christmas! (hopefully without hiccups)

Geez-us

We get a subscription to Geez Magazine here, and every so often when we visit Port-au-Prince we return to Dezam with a copy. Their tagline is "holy mischief in the age of fast faith." The magazine is based in Canada but writes for a decidedly North American audience (so if you are an American no need to worry about Canada-specific articles, eh).

I just finished reading an article about international development work being a form of neo-colonialism, and I was convicted by the article and offended all at the same time. I like to think we're here in Haiti doing "good" - but are we? Or are we here to make ourselves feel better and rake in the kudos from friends and family back home? Jesus did say:
"When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." -Matthew 6:2-4

Here we are with everyone looking, and we're even blogging about it.

Well, that being said I do enjoy the mental exercise of reflecting on these topics. I've read stories on Shane Claiborne and The Simple Way, the New Jerusalem Project in North Philly, new monasticism and many more alternative Christian endeavors in the U.S. and Canada. Sometimes the articles are for and sometimes against these "new" Christian endeavors, but they're always looking at them with a critical eye and dissecting their intentions.

Many times I finish reading an article with more questions than when I began, but in an age of Christians blindly believing whatever the Christian market and its gurus want us to believe in order to sell a new book, music, clothes, etc. Maybe it's not bad to question the motives of those on top of the soapbox. Is giving money to a faith-based development organization what Jesus wants us to do? Is that NGO actually doing what they say they are, or are they just using a savvy advertising campaign with photos of the poor to get more money?

Maybe this is too cynical, and I apologize for such a critical attitude, but sometimes I just really want to do good without doing evil, and sometimes I just want to do good without doing too much evil.

So, with all that said, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Geez or go to their website and check it out. Sometimes the questions they raise may make us uncomfortable, but that is the growing edge of our Christian faith, isn't it?

Amen.

A brief meditation on food.

Our days were elemental, filled with nothing but eating and cooking. A food-oriented existence, asking questions only about taste. Scratch that: asking questions about the experience, wondering about what it’s like to make yogurt, curry, bagels, ginger ale. Fruit cobblers. Tomato soup. Chutney. Whole wheat rolls.

Our days were like menus, unrolling special after special. Variety was the spice of the kitchen, a way to log the passing seasons. Inundated by eggplant. Mangoes a-go-go. The knives were sharpened and the cast-iron in constant use.

The way to our stomachs was through our mouths, past tongues that professed nutrition but chose always taste. We slurped and sampled, becoming ingredient snobs. We accept only the freshest, the shapeliest, the most local. We felt cheated when foods were not in our market, when tastes available to others were denied us.

We had never felt more body, working directly for caloric intake. No salary-middleman. Hours of our lives, sacrificed on the altar of continued existence. How much effort it takes, how much work, to produce one loaf of bread, one pot of soup.

(Check it out: a grad student in England is working her way through one of the classic Mennonite cookbooks. Even though Extending the Table is not exclusively vegetarian, there are enough good recipes to make it enjoyable and recommendable.)

What I imagine you imagine us doing

This morning we had a konbit grefaj, or grafting work day, to prepare 100 citrus trees for planting in the mountains. We hired four local experts to help, so even though I enjoy grafting I worked suuuper-slowly so that most of the seedlings would be grafted by people who really know what they're doing. (As an enjoyable bonus: citrus trees smell just like Fruit Loops.)

Super-local wildlife

In the endless summer of Dezam, we generally measure seasons by the kind of insect or animal that invades our house. We've been through little brown centipedes, crickets (our least favorite: chirping + a concrete house = ear-ringing noise), a winged ant, spiders, and tree frogs. They come in hordes for a week or two and are then replaced with something else.

We do, however, have a few old standbys: ants (boo, hiss) and lizards. Most lizards in Haiti are arboreal and climb on everything, so when we kept seeing lizards on the floor (and helping them out of the sink when they get stuck) we pitied them. "Poor little things - guess they can't make it out in the world since they can't seem to climb."

It turns out these are terrestrial lizards (ah!) and that they can climb a little. We recently hung a new curtain in the kitchen, and one of them loves to hang out there in the evening. You have never seen a snugglier lizard - you would think we wrapped up a hot water bottle and ticking clock in a soft towel and tucked him in, he looks so comfortable.

And we recently found another checking out one of our papier mache dinosaurs:

(Sorry the photo's a little blurry - it spooked after the first shot and I couldn't get another.)

We don't really mind the lizards, but we do wish they would take a little more advantage of the revolving buffet the world brings them in our living room. Come on, guys: you eat the bugs, we promise not to step on you. Deal?

And now a word from our sponsor.

MCC occasionally sends alerts for action opportunities in the U.S., so here's an easy way for you to make a difference in the world:

Dec. 7 - National Interfaith Immigration Conference Call: This year we have seen an unprecedented number of people of faith come out in support of just and humane comprehensive immigration reform. From over 170 prayer vigils in February to hundreds of other events in April through November, people of faith have helped sound the urgent call for reform legislation that will protect immigrant families and provide a pathway to legalization for all undocumented immigrants. Join the National Faith and Immigration Conference Call on Monday, December 7 at 4 pm EST as we reflect on the great things that have happened in 2009, and as we look forward to the important challenges ahead of us in 2010 to urge our elected Members of Congress to support comprehensive immigration reform.

• National Interfaith Immigration Conference Call
• Monday, December 7, 4:00 pm EST
• Call-in number: 800-920-7487
• Access code: 76723736

Dec. 8 - Faith Call-in Day: While many of us are looking forward to being "home for the holidays," thousands of immigrant families are kept apart by our broken immigration system. On Tuesday, December 8, people of faith in will be calling their Members of Congress to urge their support of just and humane immigration reform that will help put immigrant families back together. Calls are particularly needed in the states of Arkansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.

You and your faith community can add your voices to the call for justice by calling your elected leaders on December 8. Urge them to keep families together this holiday season by supporting just and humane immigration reform. We can make a real impact as we head into 2010!

Recruit the members of your faith community and have them call your Representative and both Senators and say:

Hi, my name is _____________ and, as a person of faith, this holiday season I urge you to support legislation that will keep families together and fix a broken immigration system.

---

Alert prepared by Tammy Alexander, Legislative Associate for Domestic Affairs (Immigration, Environment, Health Care).

Fet Dezam

I hope everyone has recovered from last night!

If you forgot, yesterday/today is Fet Dezam (Desarmes's founding anniversary, even though there was no mention of how old Desarmes is). It's almost like New Year's in the fact that the big day is the night before and the actual day of is a quieter day when people sleep in a bit and recover from a night of music, gambling, eating, and drinking.

Actually, the party has been happening almost every night for the past 10 days or so. What this means is that the road gets blocked off and traffic gets diverted to side streets (read: dirt roads with no signs) while in the main road they make a little soccer field by painting lines on the pavement and making some tiny goals with no goalkeeper. This game is called ti kan - I think that means "little camp," but there must be another translation because that doesn't really make much sense. Anyhow, a stage was erected, speakers and stereo equipment were brought in, and generators and gas seemed to be in abundance.

We went out last weekend with Matt and Gabriela and bought "juice": the options were breadfruit, manioc, banana (all with spaghetti mixed in, of course) and the best-sounding but unfortunately elusive papaya. Hot dogs were on the grills, and snacks were everywhere - patè, marinad, banan peze, and grillo (hot pockets, fried dough, smashed fried plantain, and fried/grilled meat). There were also many tables selling klerin (raw rum, about 78% alcohol) mixed with juice or milk. We tried to watch the ti kan match, but unless you were right at the fence it was very difficult to see over the heads of the other spectators.

Last night we went back out around 7pm since it was the Big Night. (Trust me, Fet Dezam is bigger than Christmas: "When's Christmas again? Oh right,the 25th.") The sound was incredible! There was also a wake with a generator (= loud music) and the Vodou version of the party (= drumming and dancing and singing). The main stage featured a DJ spinning Haitian rap and konpa (= people standing around hoping to watch other people dance but no one actually dancing). We walked around for a little while, and then went to Jean-Remy and Gerda's store and hung out for a few hours eating fried food and watching vehicles trying to follow the detour and make their way through the crowd. We called it a night around 9pm, ate leftover soup, read, and went to bed with the music thumping us to sleep.

Today the Catholic church celebrates the anniversary of some St. Francis (not Assisi - that was clear - but I'm not sure which saint this is. Maybe Xavier?). That celebration features about 12 priests from all over, a lot of food, and a 4-hour service. We checked it out but couldn't find a seat, so we didn't stay very long.

Maybe I should just think of Fet Dezam as preparation for New Year's Eve as I am getting out of the habit of staying awake past midnight - but that's what Red Bull is for, right?

Can someone please do this? Pretty please?

I've noticed how "process" blogs and books are all the rage now, like The Year of Living Biblically, Julie & Julia, or Simply Me: A Year of Eating Locally, Mindfully, Simply (highly recommended, by the way).

I would LOVE to read a blog tracking someone's page-by-page progress through the projects in this amazing 1981 Reader's Digest publication:*

Basically (get it?), it covers a wide array of survivalist and hobby skills, from organizing your garden to candlemaking to to basketry to the fine art of scrimshaw.

Our office copy here is a little beat up, but it still asks helpful questions...

shows you how to beautify your environment...

and have fun while working:

You can even learn how to look great - because "For Well-Dressed Hikers, Fashions Never Change":

But the book also throws down a few challenges:

Well?

- with proper surveyor's tools, of course.

Now there's nothing stopping you from having your dream barn!

And as if all this wasn't enough, it even tells you how to harness the energy of the sun.

The person blogging through this book would be one of the most inefficient people ever, but man alive. You could do anything.

* I can't start the Back-to-Basics blog because I'm in the midst of writing My Year[s] of Being a Foreigner in Rural Haiti, aka this blog.

After a mere 8 hours in the kitchen:

Yes We Can!
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Esther and I spent Saturday making leek potato soup and black bean vegetable soup, and this is our half of the bounty (okay, we did eat some over the weekend). You might be surprised to know that this was our first time canning anything - it's easier than you would think, fun, and a good way to not only save seasonal food for later but have a nice alternative to Ramen noodles on the I-don't-feel-like-cooking nights.

Another thing we CAN do: check out the cargo bike Bryan and Ben made!

worms

One of the things we brought back with us from our trip to MPP the week before last was about a pound of red worms. I've been thinking about vermicomposting for quite a while now, but the thought of buying worms on the internet and having them shipped in the mail just seemed too excessive. So when presented with an organization that has an abundance of them and will give you a bucketful of worms for about $15 we figured...why not? We split the cost with the Depps, so half went off to Port to be city worms and the other half are here with us in Dezam.

MPP fed their worms a steady diet of horse droppings and then used the worms to feed their chickens. I've heard a lot about how worms can eat a lot of kitchen waste. We cook with vegetables almost every day and produce a fair amount of organic waste. Despite our best efforts, our other methods of composting haven't been able to keep up with the amount we produce. So I put the worms into a smallish Tupperware container (hopefully temporary, as I have read they like lots of room to roam around - they like to be able to escape hot spots or excess water or dry spots or whatever they don't like at the moment). After a week of feeding them cabbage, beets, bananas, and tomatoes they still prefer horse droppings (which I have been, um, gathering from the road).

I'm not sure if I should try to wean them from their addiction or just let them indulge in their sweet tooth as there is plenty of horse poo around for them to chow down on. The only problem is that our compost predicament gets no help, but now we can have a bunch of nutrient-rich fertilizer for our garden.

Well, next time you need a laugh you can imagine me walking the streets of Dezam with a bucket and little shovel looking for horse droppings - when people ask me what I'm doing I tell them I'm looking for food for my worms.

Another funny/sad thing: I was just informed that Haitians generally hate worms and will kill them when they see them in the garden because they look similar to snakes. Really? Isn't that a bit excessive? I heard this a few days after I heard that farmers in the area are killing honey bees because they don't like them. I asked them why and explained that without pollinators every garden in the area would be in a lot of trouble. Response: smiles and nods. A little piece of my hope for environmental recovery was lost.

Anyway, here's to living bees, thriving worms, and a Haiti developing into the lush tropical wonderland it could be.

Thanksgiving redux.

Well, although yesterday was not a Haitian holiday, Bryan and I did things up in style anyway:


Eggplant Parmesan! Edamame! Pie! Yum!


Since our suppers are usually one-pot wonders, we were both overstuffed after eating dinner and sampling this faux-apple pie made with a local vegefruit called meleton:


In lieu of sharing our table with anyone this year, Harvey and Reginald kept us company:

The meal was delicious and pushed us into Thanksgiving food comas, but the best part of the afternoon was being able to talk with family at home. Hi everyone! See you in a few weeks.

A honey of a day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

No, it's not a holiday in Haiti, but it's hard to shake a day like that from your psyche after celebrating it for a few decades. Say hi to a turkey for us.

Anyway, the most exciting thing happening this week is that the bees who had been living in MCC's storage shed for the past six weeks were finally moved to their own home by Miguel, a local miel-man. (The other beekeeper in Dezam is named Millefleur. Amazing.) Miguel got stung about 30 times, but we got to enjoy the fruits of his labor:

(I will admit that the little dead bee-grubs you can see there are not that appetizing. I think I'll stick with our refillable bottle of cleaned honey.)

When was the last time you chomped down on a sweet piece of fresh beeswax? It tastes better than those weird little candies that still linger in some grocery stores, but the mouth-feel is similar.

Bon appétit!

A Tale of Two Papayas

Last Thursday, the environmental education team trekked to the Central Plateau to visit Mouvman Peyizan Papay, a 36-year-old peasants' movements in the town of Papaye. We are planning to bring all the teachers in our program here in December, so we came to check out MPP's work and make arrangements for our excursion with their staff.

We started with a tour of their experimental gardens, learning about their soil mixture, irrigation systems, and permaculture strategies:


Their small-animal husbandry addresses the problem of elvaj lib (in which goats and other animals roam freely and eat what they like from various gardens). These goats are fed from the farm - the woody stems they don't eat are later used to build erosion barricades on sloped land.


Tire gardens protect plans from ranging chickens and provide a more controlled environment for managing the soil:


The mandala garden was bursting with garlic chives, cabbage, chard, peppers, and spinach:


This horse was not technically part of our tour, but isn't this one of the greatest saddles you've ever seen?

I think our teachers are going to have a terrific time.

The second papaya is a little closer to home. Our neighbor/landlord let us know that she disapproves of our rooftop garden:

"Why are you growing those papayas? You know they won't do anything."
"Yes, but it's more for fun [and shade] than anything..."

Pilgrim's Progress-fashion, we've nicknamed her Madam Pa Renmen (Mrs. Doesn't-like) because of her many complaints. If she can see us do it, she doesn't like it. It's hard to take her seriously after a while. This is a situation we're trying to improve with a spirit of humility and cooperativeness, but in the meantime I've realized that "love your enemies" and "love your neighbors" are basically the same commandment.

Happy November 18!

What, you didn't know today is Fèt Batay Vètyè, the day that commemorates the last battle of the Haitian Revolution? Time to brush up on some Haitian history:

- On this day in 1803, Jean-Jacques Dessalines led Haitian forces to victory against the French at their fort in Vertières, near Cap-Haitian in the north.

- Because of this blow to the French forces, the Haitians were able to declare independence a mere six weeks later: Haitian Independence Day is celebrated on January 1 and is the biggest holiday of the year.

- Whether Haitians actually achieved their independence in 1804 appears to be a matter of ongoing debate. In 2005 Fondasyon 30 Septanm argued that
"Just as Napoleon's Army in 1803 was a multinational army with soldiers from many European countries, so today's MINUSTAH, the UN army, is composed of soldiers from Jordan, Chile, the US, France, Canada and 15 other countries -- with the same objective, to crush the aspirations of the Haitian people and re-establish colonial rule. The Haitian people have the opposite objective -- to complete the liberation begun on November 18, 1803. That's why Haiti Liberation Day is so relevant today, and why we are encouraging demonstrations, teach-ins or other activities on or around November 18th."
I'm not totally sure I agree with this perspective, but MINUSTAH's mandate in Haiti is one that surely merits attention and further questions.

- As far as we can tell, no one in Dezam is doing much to celebrate, other than taking the day off. We are marking the occasion by sleeping in, making lots of yummy food, and catching up on various odds jobs.

- More productively, Amnesty International is honoring the spirit of independence by launching a campaign pressing the Haitian government to end child slavery and protect the rights of child domestic workers throughout the country. The restavek system is a major human rights issue in Haiti - let's hope this campaign helps make a difference. (Isn't it almost 2010? Shouldn't we all be alarmed that this type of problem still exists in the world?)

More on Vodou

We regularly listen to Speaking of Faith on NPR. I went to the website trying to find more information about a recent guest on their show and found this story on Haitian Vodou and a link to a photographer who has visited ceremonies in New York. I'm not sure if we posted these links before but they're worth a look.

The other thing I've been thinking about this week is an interview with an author who asked: wherever you are in your faith, and whichever faith you choose to practice, how do you treat your wife? your friends? strangers? Are you a pleasant person to be around? Or in other words, do unto others as you want them to do unto you. So, treat people kindly, with respect, patience, and genuine interest.

Sometimes here in Haiti I feel like I am an unpleasant person to be around. I complain about not having a toilet and electricity, I bicker with the neighbors/landlord, I walk past countless strangers everyday who are asking for help from me directly. So where do I go from here? I've thought about meditation as a way to relax, focus on God, and possibly improve my outward disposition towards others. Maybe that will help, who knows, but whether or not I agree with author Frank Schaeffer I think he poses a valid question that deserves further reflection if I want to consider myself a Christian.

That's the...nicest? thing anyone's ever said to me.

Twice a month, the environmental education team visits two schools in Savanawòch (literally, a "savanna of rocks"). To get there, we have to drive, hike, take a canoe ferry, hike, take another canoe ferry, and then hike some more. I consider it to be a "moderately difficult" commute.

The wooden canoes are often leaky, overloaded, and poled by young men who may or may not know what they're doing. Since many Haitians can't swim, embarking in such a vessel is cause for no small anxiety. This anxiety is often remedied with singing or praying. Yesterday's tune was, rather mysteriously, "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder I'll Be There." They sang,

Le Jezi nan bàk mwen, m pa pe tonpet la
M pa pe tonpet la, m pa pe tonpet la (repet)
Le m vwayaje lòt bò

("When Jesus is in my boat, I'm not afraid of the wind
Not afraid of the wind, not afraid of the wind (repeat)
When I travel to the other side.")

After that verse came one about not fearing the gòl, or the long pole used to move the boat. And after that, the boat-man looked at me and sang,

Le Jezi nan bàk mwen, m pa pe blan...

Wow! So I as a white person was put in the same category as a force of nature and a piece of wood.

I of course immediately reassured him: "You don't need to be afraid of me. I already ate today, so I'm not hungry."

Too many motorcycles? Or, in search of a silver bullet.

Each week during our team meeting, we each have the chance to share news: local, national, and international. As TV is almost nonexistent and the internet is available only to some, the local radio is Haiti's #1 news source. Yesterday we talked about the new prime minister, the local soccer team, and then one story topped them all. Frantzo told us about a recent study that has at last figured out what Haiti's development problems are: motorcycles.

According to this study, there are 4 million made-in-China motorcycles in Haiti, and the purchase of one of these apparently causes the new owner to drop out of school and stop doing anything that contributes to sustainable development. So if all we have to do to "save Haiti" is get rid of all these motorcycles, what are we waiting for?

"Really, Frantzo? You have a motorcycle and you do development work."
"Well, it's not people that work for an organization, but private people."

Our team finally concluded:

- 4 million motorcycles would mean every other Haitian owns one. In Michelet's hometown of Valere, to take one example, he estimates there are 5 motorcycles and approximately 30,000 people. Looks like Valere is short by 14,955 motorcycles.

- Most motorcycles are not private vehicles but are small businesses - the owners "make traffic" (it's so great that that's the verb) by operating their bikes as moto-taxis. So if there are no moto-taxis that would mean even fewer jobs, right? They are indeed dangerous, but there are already a lot of young men hanging out with nothing to do, and taking away all the motos in Dezam would create another sort of crisis. I'm all for advocating bicycles over motos but putting blame on motos as a stumbling block to development seems like a unliklely culprit.

- Moto-taxis make it much easier to take goods to market. With a motorcycle you can carry drums of oil, sacks of produce, 4 or 5 people, and we once saw someone carrying another motorcycle.

- Yes, it is bad that so much Haitian money ends up in the hands of Chinese manufacturers, but that's a problem faced by more countries than this one. Hey, maybe the solution is to start a business manufacturing Haitian motorcycles! Anybody up for a new development project?

As a final note, as I was searching for verification of this story I came across a new website: www.wehaitians.com, which seems to be a news source for Haitian diaspora. Here I learned President Preval is again a married man. Congrats.

It's that season again...

...for Vodou, that is. In the Artibonite Valley we hear the night-drums and see the assorted odd bits of Vodouiana from about Halloween to Easter. Last year we nearly stumbled into a torchlit cow-sacrifice processional as we locked up the office gate one night, and I'm hoping to avoid that experience this year.

Not only has the subject of Vodou recently appeared here and here, it came up in conversation yesterday with our teammates Frantzo and Fritzner. As we returned from a meeting with a group in the next town over, Bryan accidentally ran over something we've come to recognize as clearly Vodou: a calabash bowl with a candle in it sitting in an intersection. Everyone hastily reassured Bryan that because it was the truck that broke the bowl, and the truck is not alive, it would be fine because magic can't affect machines.

Well!

me: So if trucks represent technology, can we say that technology is more powerful than Vodou magic?

Frantzo: Yes! If everyone had technology, Vodou would be finished. The more technologically-advanced people become, the less they rely on Vodou.

Fritzner: Yes, Vodou definitely gets in the way of development. If it helped, then Haiti and Africa would be the most developed nations on earth.

(So - can we think of technological development as a form of evangelism?)

It's really interesting to me to think of the role that people expect religion to play in their lives - F & F seem to think that Vodou fulfills some need that is more apparent when physical needs are not being met, but once a person is able to meet basic needs the role of Vodou in the life of that person drastically shrinks.

The Artibonite Valley is known as the Scary Center of Vodou by people in other parts of Haiti, but it seems to me that what F & F point out is true. People turn to Vodou when there's an illness the local hospital can't address. They turn to Vodou when they feel like someone is taking unfair advantage of a situation. They use Vodou to access power that feels otherwise remote.

Is this an indictment of the Christian church? Of the Haitian government?

Dismissing Vodou as a religion of the peasants is sort of akin to throwing out the cultural baby with the ceremonial bathwater, since Vodou has long been the primary way that Haitians have addressed questions of spirituality. I think it's important to take that means of expression seriously and pay attention to what it can tell us about a perception of God that is unique to this culture.

I know a lot of evangelical Americans in particular think that Haiti is the way it is because of the practice of Vodou, but it might turn out to be just the opposite.

(By the way, be sure to check out the American Museum of Natural History's archived exhibition, The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. It provides a nice overview that covers many aspects of the religion.)

MCC Haiti - Annual Retreat

Quotidian observations.

After being in Haiti over a year now, I'm sure everyone has noticed the decreasing frequency of blog posts as tree frogs in the kitchen, revival services at 3am, and poverty have (for better or worse) become normal. So here are a few things that have caught my attention - in no particular order - over the last few weeks since we've been back.

1. We use a lot of bleach. Every time we wash dishes we use a bleachy rinsewater which has led to some sad clothing mishaps - white splotches if you're lucky and holes if you aren't.

2. We use a lot of matches. We light a new match every time we use the stove, candles, oil lamps, incense, and mosquito coils. I even have a preferred brand of matches which happen to be made in Gonaives, Haiti. These little suckers are nice.

3. Coming to the office one day we saw 4 or 5 young guys sitting around a laptop right outside of our driveway, pretty obviously filching our wireless signal. When I came into the office and mentioned this, everyone else thought they were just enjoying the nice shady patch in the road. Needless to say, I put a password on the wireless signal as we do pay for a meager 400 MB per day and a couple of young men on the internet can eat that up pretty fast.

4. Trying to get through a blocked intersection in Port-au-Prince, I stopped to let an old lady with a wheelbarrow pass through the mess of cars. The guy next to me decided to hit her wheelbarrow instead. She simply straightened it up and rushed away from the driver without saying a word.

5. I got a new pair of shoe/slipper things when we were back in the U.S. and they are the most amazing thing in the world, especially for Haiti living. Sanuk.

6. A pretty tough virus is going around Haiti. Half of the Port-au-Prince staff was hit by it and one of our team members in Desarmes was out for a week with it. Despite the fact that he is a very devout 7th Day Adventist, he believes it was an evil spirit that overtook him in the night.

7. Last week Sharon and I hiked about 2 hours into the countryside to visit a school. The trail had us following a river for awhile, then hiking up a mountain to go around a narrow, cavernous section of the river, and then back down to the river until we arrived at the school. On our way back we decided to walk back along the river the whole way and discovered a new waterfall and pool, and another new waterfall that we had to bushwhack to get around as we didn't want to jump into an unknown pool of water. The big question was answered though: "Is it faster to take the mountain path or the river?" Answer: The mountain. But the river is prettier.

8. Progress on the cargo-bike welding project is happening. Almost everything is welded; we just need to get a longer chain, brake, and derailleur cables. Photos forthcoming.

9. I sat down on a hammock and instead of falling into its pocket I fell off and whacked my head.

10. Work is somewhat slow during this season so I’ve read a few books: The Power of One, and I've just finished The Brothers K (700+ pages).

11. Desarmes is still really hot.

12. Driving to the MCC office in PaP I accidentally snagged a drooping power line on the metal cage covering the bed of the pickup. Oops. A passerby kindly pulled it off for me.

13. Ben and Alexis got a new place with two bedrooms so now we can sleep indoors when we visit the city. Bonus.

14. I saw one of those 3-wheeled motorcycles with 2 wheels in the front and one in the back. Hmmm, these displays of wealth always seem odd - I know I'm a wealthy person here in comparison but then you see one of these and you know there's lots of money here, somewhere. Check out the MSRP.

15. Our rooftop garden is a thirsty, thirsty place, which is not much fun. See point 11.

16. I try to keep up with U.S. news, and as someone who couldn’t afford health insurance for a while despite having a full-time job, I’m all for government-sponsored healthcare.It just seems like everyone that is lucky enough to have insurance is against the rest of us getting it. Really, if I break my leg the day I return to the U.S. I will kill our savings and drown us in debt. Yay!

17. From the padlock that falls apart every time you open (on the gate to our yard) to the one that no longer will open (on one of our trucks), we see all kinds of padlocks here.

18. Utensils: Sharon and I have a favorite spoon and a favorite fork. You know you’re loved when your spouse gives you “the” spoon or “the” fork.

19. Despite having carrots and potatoes at the local market and a usual healthy cooked-from-scratch lifestyle, we keep a stash of Ramen noodles in the house for all of those “I don’t feel like cooking” moments. Well, Everybody Loves Ramen...

20. We miss Josh and Marylynn and their visits to Desarmes and all the good talks about God and development. Oh, and watching movies together.

21. We got scolded by our landlords/neighbors about locking the gate too tightly and not locking it often enough. Their request: lock it every time you go in or out no matter who is home - just don’t lock it too tight. (Update: now we're not supposed to lock it if they're home. I might need a wallet-sized cheat sheet on this.)

22. Fireflies are amazing. They're in the house at night and their cool green abdomens float above us as we lay in bed.Unlike ‘merican fireflies, they don’t flash; they just light up and fly around.

23. I am on an all-things-bicycle reading spree right now. It's kind of boring reading when I can’t actually get my hands on the stuff, but I’ve just finished The Art of Wheelbuilding by Gerd Shraner, and now am reading Tim Paterek’s bicycle building manual. Maybe Barnett’s Bicycle Repair manual will be next.

Nothing to see here.

Last week was jam-crammed with introducing new MCCers to Dezam, our quarterly MCC Haiti meeting, and a trip to Port to help friends move and meet a brand-new baby. But despite my nicely filled-in calendar for this week, I've had one cancellation after another:

- The teacher whose class I went to visit Monday morning was sick and the substitute was covering two classrooms and couldn't teach the environmental lesson.
- Our regular education-team meeting was canceled yesterday because we needed to go to St. Mark to renew the insurance for MCC motorcycles.
- My English student didn't show up for his lesson.
- Our weekly team meeting was canceled because the reforestation team is distributing money to the nursery committees at the bank.
- Our second attempt at an education-team meeting today was canceled because...well, I'm not sure why.

So if anyone can pass along suggestions for a super time-consuming project, I'm all ears.

Returning to the Pearl of the Antilles

It's been over a month since our last blog update, and for good reason. We were busy packing and preparing for a trip home to the U.S. to visit family and friends for 3 weeks and then to busily get things together to return to Haiti.

Overall, it was an amazing trip home - we slipped right back into our old lives just like we had never left, and when we bumped into old friends on the streets of Philly some of them never knew we had been away. We biked through our own city on our own bikes and slept in our own bed and ate at all of our favorite restaurants. And of course we visited friends and family, which took us to Bristol, TN, Norfolk, VA, back to the Philadelphia area, and up to Boston, MA. Lots of smooth highway driving and cheap rest-stop food took care of any longings we had had for both in our year-long absence (well, we could take more of the smooth roads). We even got to attend our annual church retreat and hang out with a lot of church friends, attend a book discussion group (intellectual stimulation!), play shuffleboard, go on hikes, skip stones, and have lots of great conversations.

The time flew by. Haiti felt like a distant memory and almost like we had never even been there and that the past year never really happened. Near the end of our trip I had to write an e-mail in Kreyol and forgot the word for Thursday (ouch!).

The day of our trip back to Haiti, we fumbled around with suitcases and scales and measuring tape to make sure our bag wasn't oversize or overweight, an offense for which Spirit Air could charge us $150. We stressed over our almost-too-big bag while we stood in line at the check-in counter at the Atlantic City "International" Airport (our airport of choice because of the hundreds-of-dollars difference compared to flying into PHL). We got halfway checked in, bag and all, before the attendant asked us about our return ticket.
What?
"Well, we have no return ticket because we originated in Haiti, and this is our return flight."
"Hmmm," she said. "Do you have a Haitian visa?"
"Yes." We handed over our permis de sejour. She paged through them, obviously not understanding the French, and said, "These aren't good enough."
"What?!"
She politely responded that we need visas, not a permis whatchamacallit thingy.
"But no, this is it, this is the document, there is no other thing!"
She smiled a practiced Spirit-Airlines-customer-service smile and said, "my hands are tied." For an added measure of drama, she said, "I could lose my job over this, and I'm sorry, but it's just not worth it."
Lose your job? over what?
She told us to take a seat while she talked to a supervisor. As we sat, a few curious TSA guys walked over and asked us what the problem was. We explained, and they were shocked that we couldn't fly - but of course they could do nothing, and added that the customs guy just went home and wouldn't be back until 8am tomorrow morning.
"But isn't this an international airport? How can you have no customs official from 4:30 pm until 8am the following morning?"
After a few seconds of laughter the TSA guys admitted that ACY isn't really an international airport - but they may get a flight to Canada next year. Wow.

We finally talked to a supervisor, who proclaimed again and again that her hands are tied and it's not the fault of Spirit Airlines that we have just fallen through a crack in U.S. government regulations. We inquired again about how we can get to Haiti. Can you move us to another flight? She informed us that we need to buy a return ticket. Great, a nice affordable ticket, I'm sure.

We stepped aside to discuss for a minute whether this is the hand of God telling us not to go back or just some huge inconvenience through which we need to persevere. Huge inconvenience won out by a hair, and we bought a fully-refundable return ticket to Atlantic City for a random date within the next 90 days.

Of course the fun didn't stop there. Our connecting flight to Haiti didn't leave until the following morning, so we tucked into a corner of the Ft. Lauderdale airport and tried to get as much sleep as possible in the midst of fluorescent lights and the midnight-shift work crew making repairs to the terminal.

The rest of our trip was uneventful - we arrived in Port-au-Prince, where Ben and Alexis picked us up. It was great to catch up with them, since we hadn't seen them for about 6 weeks. We ended up spending the night at their place in Port, since Jean-Remy had errands to run and didn't want to return to Dezam until the next day. Hurray!

Being in Dezam the next day was good and bad. Leaving the U.S. and friends and family was hard, and hanging out with A&B had cushioned the blow, but in Dezam we were welcomed by our musty house, overgrown, untended plants, our neighbor's construction material stacked against our door, broken potted plants, and no water in our water tank. Welcome home!

Coming back has shown us how drastically different our lives are in the U.S. and Haiti. Here we still feel like strangers in a strange land and breaking into a new "community," especially this one, is much harder than one might think. Our trip home made us appreciate the community we have in the U.S. and the ease with which we can understand and make ourselves understood. We've found rural living to be much, much more difficult than living internationally, and have been reminded that we are social people that thrive on having lots of friends and acquaintances and lots of things to do.

So where does that leave us now? It leaves us still trying to build a life here. To find things to like. To find things to do. To find a place in this culture that lands us somewhere other than "development workers here to give handouts " or "white person here to exploit the market." To try to enjoy our remaining time of rural living, since it might be the last time we ever get to live in a place like this.

Haitian road trip

Last weekend, we hit the ole dusty trail with the trusty MCC truck to visit Bois-de-Laurence (Bwadlorens, for the Creole spellers among us), where MCC has funded a spring-capping project for the last several years. Our guesthouseguest, Leah, spent three years there as an MCC kid with her family and was eager to check out her old digs.

Bwadlorens is a long, arduous drive away, but Bryan and I agreed to go for two reasons:
1) It's always easier and more pleasant to travel in Haiti with someone who has connections.
2) As I've said, never say no to a change of scenery. Or a little adventure.

Bwadlorens is in the Central Plateau district in the northeast corner of the country, only a 2-hour hike from the Dominican border.

Did I mention it's in the middle of nowhere? It's easy for me to complain about Dezam being in the middle of nowhere, but I was amazed at our comparative population density. We actually managed to go whole minutes at a time without seeing anyone on this road.

We passed Lake Peligre, a construction byproduct of a the Peligre Dam/ hydroelectricity generator. It's gorgeous if you don't think of all the people displaced by its formation. Paul Farmer's hospital, Zanmi Lasante, was created partially to address the health care needs of this population.


Ah, electricity! I felt like a local yokel taking this picture, but power lines are not something you see in Dezam:


...along with tree-covered hillsides, although Dezam is getting there:


Leah made arrangements for us to stay with this lovely family. Niniz was one of Leah's childcare providers as a kid, and had the photo album to prove it.

Despite the fact that we were only in Bwadlorens for about 9 hours of daylight, we packed in conversations, walks, and visits.

(Did you notice that Bryan s wearing long sleeves in this picture? The
temperature was actually below 80 degrees!)

Bryan's knee also had a great time getting to know folks.

We also got to check out various embroidered projects, as this cottage industry can be found in nearly every household there.

After giving us a pretty rockin' garden tour (complete with samples of cocao, coconut, cherry tomatoes, and some kind of wild grain to take home with us), Niniz's sons showed us how to press juice from raw sugar cane.

Did I mention it was in the middle of nowhere?

All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. Be sure to click through to Leah's blog for more photos and details of the trip.

Never say no to a change of scenery.

Bryan and I took advantage of an unexpectedly free weekend to visit the southwest part of Haiti. It's like a whole different country down there! Paved roads...trees...the ocean...

We stayed with a friend in a nearby town on Friday night before heading to a small guesthouse on the coast:
Good: mosquito-free "camping" indoors.
Bad: not having any photos of our hosts to show you. (Not taking photos of people we like? That's how we roll.)

We drank it all in:
Good: cooling off in the gentle waves.
Bad: brushing my foot against a sea urchin and getting a splinter that ended up staying in my toe for a week. Ouch.

Good: sitting in the shade feet from the water's edge.
Bad: well, there's not much bad about that, is there?

Good: staying at the beach until dusk.
Bad: dusk comes before 7pm in these parts this time of year.

I need more weekends like this one. Total spirit-lifter.