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.