Reflections of Two Mouns

The last hurrah.

2010-06-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

While we have disappeared from ye ole blog from time to time in the past, the last two weeks of deafening silence indeed signal a sea change. After some reflection, we've decided to stop posting here, now that our time in Haiti has come to an end.

It's definitely time, although our last few days in Port-au-Prince were too full and I didn't get to post about Ben and Bryan's impromptu gardening lesson our last morning in Haiti:

Or publish my mini-rant on Haitian standards of craftsmanship, as evidenced by this giant box built to hold keys:

Or gush about how much I loved this tap-tap painting:

Next time, I suppose...

This blog will hang out here for a while, although Bryan and I will both be posting on our new lives in Nashville & Philadelphia at nashadelphia.blogspot.com. Come on over!

Where in the world...

2010-06-02T16:07:00.003-04:00

Yes, Carmen Sandiego is here in Haiti! - or was here at least long enough to have her portrait painted.

Speaking of comings and goings: today is our last full day in Haiti. We have many mixed feelings about this transition, but at the moment we're sad to be leaving. It's been two difficult but good years, and we're glad we did it.

What can you do to help victims of the earthquake?

2010-06-01T12:47:00.007-04:00

This.

Stop Forced Evictions of Haiti's Earthquake Victims

The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti writes,

After the earthquake of January 12th, over 2 million survivors left the wreckage of their homes and sought refuge in camps constructed on any open land. The Haitian Government and private landowners have evicted thousands of residents from these encampments without a viable alternative for their relocation, and in some cases with no alternative at all.

The UN and Haitian Government agreed on April 22 to an immediate 3-week moratorium on forced evictions which expired, Thursday, May 13th. Within that period reports of evictions continued. Humanitarian aid, including food, water and sanitation facilities have been cut off in targeted camps (1, 2). In other locations, residents are being harassed and abused by the police. The people most affected by the earthquake, those who have lost their families, homes and livelihoods, now live in fear that they may be violently forced to leave their present settlements without viable options established for relocation (2).

These actions are prohibited under the UN’s Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. The UN Principles, which are based upon international humanitarian law and human rights instruments, establish the framework for protecting the rights of displaced people, including the right to basic services (food, water, shelter, education, medical services, and sanitation) and to be protected from violence (4). When these rights are not upheld, UN agencies are obligated to call on relevant parties to respect them (5). Specifically, the OCHA CCCM Cluster-designated Camp Coordinator is charged with developing an “exit/transition strategy for camp closures while ensuring that responses are in line with ... standards including relevant government, human rights, and legal obligations" (7, 8).

(for footnoted version go here - http://ijdh.org/archives/12237)

For a concise summary of this issue, click through to Alexis's blogpost.

Haiti, sometimes you shine up real nice.

2010-06-01T11:58:00.015-04:00

We lucked out and were able to spend last weekend in a pine forest about a three-hour drive from Port-au-Prince.

It was magical - a green and misty wonderland where we were able to wander the woods for hours, soaking up the beauty of it all:

We waded in streams, collecting watercress and wild mint...

We stayed in an enchanting little cabin, one of about 20 scattered throughout the woods:

Bryan spent time lounging around with Ben and his still-busted knee:

- except when they tried to get the perfect hammock shot. I do believe this is the one photo the dignified Mr. Depp couldn't take himself:

And Kurt even showed us where to find wild strawberries and raspberries!

Rave reviews. I can't believe we didn't discover this place until our last weekend in Haiti.

Religious math?

2010-05-28T15:38:00.005-04:00

These figures are scrawled on a wall near the MCC office. I'm mostly intrigued by the formulaic attempts to prove...something. Insight, anyone?

The great white wave.

2010-05-27T17:50:00.009-04:00

You may have heard about the "second earthquake" that happened in Haiti after January 12, which is what some people call the great influx of foreigners that has appeared in Port-au-Prince. As foreigners here before that moment, I should confess that we feel a certain level of snobbery - so when some hapless white person greets us with a hearty English "hello!" or waves while standing in the back of a passing truck, we're not always apt to respond.

We realized that this is similar to the Jeep Salute or the Motorcycle Wave that happens in American traffic. But really: why settle for a wave?

Yes, that is the word blan finger-spelled out.

Advantage: Creativity. Toughness.
Disadvantage: it takes a bit of wrangling and more than a few seconds to pull this together.

But loads of toughness, right?

"Haiti appears well advanced on the track that the rest of the world seems hell-bent on following."

2010-05-26T09:59:00.027-04:00

Yesterday we finally managed to download and listen to This American Life's episode on Haiti, "Island Time." Run, do not walk, your browser to this page, because you do not want to miss this. It points out the incredible complexities of life in Haiti, from the challenges of capacity-building to the difficulties inherent in small business development. This episode is such an interesting, accurate peek at this little country, although it also made me nearly unbearably sad. The longer we're here the steeper the road ahead seems to get.

[Six Degrees side note: the Gary mentioned at the beginning of Act Three is the Depps' sixty-something neighbor, a self-proclaimed curmudgeon who came to Haiti twenty years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer, married a Haitian woman, and stayed. Before his two kids went to the States, they would sometimes come through the broken wall between the yards to use the internet.]

Yesterday Alexis and I also interviewed a group of folks who lost their homes in the earthquake. MCC had been distributing food to the approximately forty families who have set up camp in an open space in their hillside neighborhood, but because MCC ended that phase of the disaster response on April 30, we wanted to see how that change has had an impact on people.

I was trepidatious about having these conversations because saying, "hey, we stopped giving you food and we're not here to give you anything else - does that work for you?" seemed so awkward. However, I was pleasantly surprised. They were not that upset about the end of food aid, since most of them can now afford to buy food nearly every day. They pointed out that free stuff is always nice, but if they had their druthers they'd like to choose their own things.

And how would they like to do this? They'd like jobs. Working for money, not food.

A job is actually the number-one thing the average Haitian wanted before the earthquake. Jobs mean salaries and security. Jobs mean being able to support a family.

It's a perfectly reasonably, perfectly dignified thing to want, but I've always been struck by the fact that even Haitians who run their own small businesses still want jobs. Many people don't seem to think of these enterprises as jobs - or perhaps they want other benefits that come along with being an employee at someone else's business?

Speaking unscientifically, I think there are more entrepreneurs per capita in Haiti than in the U.S. Most of that 70% counted as "unemployed" in Haiti actually work: they are street vendors, or operate one-pot tent restaurants, or build houses as day laborers.

So what is stopping these folks from a.) thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs/ small business owners, or b.) growing their businesses to the point at which they can hire others?* Why would so many prefer to work for an international company/NGO?

* Some are, some do. For example, we talked to 9 artisans in Jacmel a few weeks ago, and nearly all of them run workshops employing 5-15 others.

This situation is a mystery to me (okay, partially due to my ongoing incomprehension of economics and how you "build" an economy). Is there a tax structure that should be changed to make it easier for people to officially start new businesses? Should classes in management and accounting be made more available?

One of my dreams for Haiti is to see thousands of middle managers roaming the streets of every city and small town in the country. Having middle managers means having larger business owners and having workers to oversee. It means people with enough money to pay for things like a casual meal out with their families. It means service industries. It means a wide range of jobs, at all levels of income.

Oh, if it were only as easy as handing out briefcases...

The late-y doth protest too much.

2010-05-24T11:12:00.007-04:00

This is the clock that came with our apartment. Look, it's...7:30? 8:03?

For someone like me who, shall we say, struggles with punctuality, perhaps this isn't the best timekeeper.

But whatever. I've got plenty of time to change it.

I think.

Remember when everyone was smuggling suitcases full of blue jeans into Russia?

2010-05-21T20:21:00.006-04:00

Well, maybe it's time to sneak suitcases full of coolers into Haiti. A local grocery store has priced this model at 29,900 gourdes. For those Yanks out there, that's $747.50 U.S. That's SEVEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN DOLLARS. And FIFTY CENTS.

Seriously. You could make a fortune selling coolers at even half that price.

Two week's notice.

2010-05-19T17:29:00.020-04:00

Okay, time for some news.

Bryan and I will be leaving Haiti and MCC two weeks from today. The past few weeks have been a mixed time for us as we're sad to say goodbye to the folks we know and love on this little island, but in the end we feel like it is good to be moving on.

So where to from here?

We are moving back to Philadelphia to live with my brother and our sister-in-law for the summer. After a 10-week internship at Art-Reach through the Samuel Fels Fund, I will start a(nother) master's degree program at Vanderbilt Divinity School. I'll be studying Ethics in Society with the ultimate goal of continuing on to earn a PhD.

Bryan was accepted as this year's arboriculture intern at the Morris Arboretum. This program will allow him to study trees and urban areas, and after a year he'll be certified to risk his life 60 feet up in old trees with a chainsaw for pay. ( If you have a tree problem in 2011 and want to pay scads of cash to save your beloved tree, he'll take care of it for you.) To keep the adventurous spirit alive in the meantime, Bryan will be bike commuting and loving every minute of it.

In fact, we're trying to live sans car to keep our living costs low (graduate student and intern...aren't we too old for this?). We're also planning to keep our thumbs green this summer and plant greens and other yummy things. Depending on the good graces of our familial hosts, we would also like to keep composting worms because they are just crazy to watch. (Bryan doesn't even mind if they actually compost - it's like an ant farm or ant lion desktop Zen thing for him.)

In leaving Haiti, we're most sad about leaving amazing friends. We've had lots of great times here - but we're confident that our friendships and our adventures are not ending. Here's to the future, ya'll!

Bon Fet Drapo!

2010-05-19T17:00:00.015-04:00

Happy Flag Day!

Yesterday was one of Haiti's national holidays, and lots of people spent the day off doing this:

(Forgive the last-minute drive-by photo of this much-better-in-real-life parade)

We instead headed with Alexis and our friend Megan to the lake at Tomasek:

After a little negotiation, we rented two (ridiculously rickety) boats with two pole-men each and set out against the wind.

Bryan, about to fearlessly risk life and limb in our little watercraft. (While he and I crushed to the left to keep the boat balanced and one man poled us along, the other bailed water. With his sandal. )

Ben is still laid up with a busted knee and couldn't come, but Alexis and Megan made a handsome duo in the second boat:

They had a third Haitian man in their boat, which caused no small amount of distress for the man poling our boat along. I'm not sure why he was complaining to us.

Despite my constant fear of capsizing, it was wholly pleasant to be out on the water with the breeze blowing and no one around:

Well, horses and...

Yes! Flamingos!

I've always thought that flamingos were a little cheesy, but it turns out they're much more impressive in real life. Despite their gangliness, and the outrageous pinkness of them, they were breathtaking.

By far one of the most beautiful things we've seen in Haiti. Wings down.

Addendum: click through to Alexis's blog post for more photos and details about the bird itself.

The article that wasn't.

2010-05-19T10:41:00.006-04:00

I wrote this for MCC about a month ago, but since it's still making its way through the MCC publication process (i.e., it looks like it won't be released after all) I've decided to post it here instead.

Perspective: Global aid threatens Haiti’s economy

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Dozens of Haitians, usually young women, crowd together in Port-au-Prince, awaiting food distributions. As they wait for free food, they buy plantain chips, bananas, peanuts and other snacks from vendors selling to those in line.

This tension between free food aid from international aid organizations and Haitian producers and vendors is not new to Haiti, but it has become more blatant since the Jan. 12 earthquake. Many countries and organizations, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) included, have shipped food and supplies into the country.

While emergency food relief sustained affected families in and around Port-au-Prince, where millions were homeless following the earthquake, ongoing free food from outside the country undermines the local economy and makes it harder for Haitian farmers to support themselves and their families.

Local markets shut down in the wake of the earthquake, and food and water were difficult to find and expensive when they were available. In response to this need, MCC immediately sent 33 tons of canned turkey and beef and 1,000 water filters to Port-au-Prince.

“Canned meat is a good way to provide nutrition to people when local markets aren’t functional,” said Margot de Greef, one of MCC Haiti’s Material Resources coordinators. “It’s especially appreciated in Haiti because meat is an important part of preparing rice and bean sauce in the traditional way.”

In addition to providing canned meat, MCC also actively procured food from local producers to give to earthquake survivors in Port-au-Prince. While international food aid shipments were delayed at Haiti’s only international airport, MCC was able to purchase rice, beans and corn in the countryside and distribute it to disaster victims in the capital within days of the earthquake.

Haitian farmers took pride in being able to help earthquake victims, and recipients took pride in knowing that other Haitians were contributing to relief efforts. Buying food locally also supported Haiti’s ability to feed itself in the long term.

However, local food aid is only a small percentage of the overall relief effort. Because of the influx of international emergency food aid, the prices of Haitian-produced rice and black beans have already dropped to below pre-earthquake prices. PAPDA (Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif), the Haitian Platform for Advocating Alternative Development, predicts that prices will continue to plummet to the continued detriment of Haitian farmers.

In an interview with Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) at the end of January, Haitian president René Préval said, “We cannot continue to rely on giving food to the population that comes from abroad, because we’re competing against our own national agriculture.”

Although food aid shipments have increased dramatically since Jan. 12, the presence of U.S. agricultural products in Haitian markets is not a new phenomenon. In 2009, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), sent 83,020 tons of food for “long-term development and emergency needs.” USAID pledged an additional 14,550 tons of food as emergency response.

The U.S. has acknowledged the practice of “dumping” subsidized rice on the Haitian market. In the 1980s, and again in the 1990s, the U.S. successfully lobbied to reduce Haiti’s import tariffs on rice to a remarkably low 3 percent (compared to the average of 35 percent for other countries in the region). Haiti has since become the third-largest importer of American rice despite having a population of only 9 million people.

The effects of these measures have been far-reaching, undermining domestic agriculture production and diminishing Haitian capacity for sustainable livelihoods. In a remarkable public acknowledgement of the negative impact of U.S. policy in Haiti, former President Bill Clinton apologized last month for promoting the agricultural policies that have devastated Haiti’s agricultural production.

Clinton is quoted by The New York Times: “It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

These economic measures made it unprofitable for many Haitian farmers to continue working the land, and scores of people chose instead to emigrate to Port-au-Prince and other urban areas. The resulting magnitude of vulnerable people living in urban slums has had drastic repercussions on human life and to the economy, as was made obvious by the earthquake.

Nixon Boumba, an MCC Haiti advocacy worker, says, “Earthquakes are natural phenomena. But the destruction of Jan.12 was not natural.” The high levels of devastation and astronomical death toll reflect structural policies in Haiti that have fostered destructive and dangerous living conditions.

MCC Haiti is working to address underlying issues through advocacy—especially advocacy geared toward influencing North American governmental policies that affect Haiti—and by incorporating livelihood generation measures as part of its overall disaster response. As a result, MCC will stop distributing food aid at the end of April and will move to the next phase of helping Haitians rebuild.

Those in temporary camps currently receiving food aid from MCC will continue to receive nonfood items such as relief buckets, tarps, sheets, tents and first-aid supplies. In response to the needs identified by these communities, MCC will also begin income-generating activities like cash-for-work programs so that people can begin to rebuild their lives.

In the long term, MCC will focus its advocacy efforts on the question of food security, partnering with local organizations to both ensure that international trade agreements protect Haitian farmers and to encourage Haitians to build economic independence by buying locally-produced food. MCC Haiti will also continue providing support to build Haiti’s educational system and its agricultural infrastructure.

What a week.

2010-05-14T12:45:00.022-04:00

This time we do not plead laziness for our lack of blogposts - au contraire, we've been super-busy over the past seven days.

Last Friday my brother Danny came to visit for a long weekend. A whirlwind tour of our life in Haiti ensued, complete with a hike up the river to our favorite canyon ever.

In fact, Danny ranked this as a highlight of the trip (that, and a cookout in which we introduced him to most of the rest of the MCC crew). Lowlight: buying groceries in the Dezam market (too hot, too many people).

He left Monday, and we returned to Dezam on Wednesday for the weekly team meeting and Fritzner's wedding (!).

Only in Haiti is a wedding held on a Thursday morning at 8am...in the spruced-up MCC office.

Our entire team was dressed to the nines, Nahomie (left) and Denise especially. Even Jides, MCC's helper-kid, spiffed up for the occasion.

Frantzo (right) was the best man, and Fritzner and Frantzo looked great in their matching new suits.

They tried to keep it a small affair (so small, in fact, that Bryan and I were nearly not invited because we're in Port!), but people came in droves anyway.

After the ceremony the crowd filled four vehicles and drove up the mountain to the home of the bride's family. They were worried about having enough food for everyone, although the spread was impressive:

Felisitasyon, Fritzner ak Melita!

On our way back to the city yesterday afternoon, Ben and Bryan stopped at a national landmark for a little bike-video action.

To our entrance contribution we added an hour of entertainment for the gaggle of boys who came along.

I don't know if riding through an amazing waterfall has been a dream of Bryan's, but if so, check. Dream come true.

Sometimes God appears in papier-mache form.

2010-05-05T13:47:00.003-04:00

"But you too, good Jesus, are you not also a mother?
Are you not a mother who like a hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings?
And you, my soul dead in yourself, run under the wings of Jesus your mother and lament your griefs under his feathers.
Ask that your wounds may be healed and that, comforted, you may live again. Christ, my mother, you gather your chickens under your wings; this dead chicken of yours puts himself under those wings . . .
Warm your chicken, give life to your dead one, justify your sinner."

—Anselm of Canterbury, Prayers and Meditations

Gras a agribusiness.

2010-05-05T13:03:00.017-04:00

A friend recently pointed out that in the manner of saying grace, thanking God for food from the earth, it makes a certain sense to thank Agribusiness for meals that come straight from the chemistry lab.

Confession 1: I love cereal. It's my all-time comfort food.
Confession 2: I love cheap things...er, saving money.

So 1 + 2 =
Oh yes, we did, last Thursday night. It was a second-tier anniversary for us (the day we started dating, EIGHT years ago!), so we celebrated with cereal from Argentina. Pay Only for Taste indeed, since I think this cereal was nutritionally valueless. Hello, food desert in a box. Add a little soy milk, though...irresistible.

Saturday we atoned for our sins by making pasta from scratch:

Basic pasta, as it turns out, is the simplest recipe ever:

3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoons salt

Mix, let rest 30 minutes, roll super-thin, cut into noodles, dry. To cook, boil for 5 minutes in lightly salted water. Can be stored for weeks. Easy peasy.

We embellished ours with greens from a local tire garden, tomatoes and garlic from the street market, and feta from...well, far away. Delicious. Recommended. I'm not sure if you actually save money by making pasta, but a sense of accomplishment is really one of the best seasonings you can use.

So, the lesson for this week is:
Celebrate humanity. Cook food.

And now a word from our sponsor: MCC Action Alert

2010-05-05T10:20:00.006-04:00

Support immediate assistance for Haiti

Urge your members of Congress to move quickly to pass a supplemental funding bill for Haiti.

Background: On March 24, President Obama sent his request to Congress for a supplemental spending bill to support relief and reconstruction efforts in Haiti for the remainder of 2010. Given the extent of the devastation and more than 3 million people affected by the January 12 earthquake, it is vital that Congress votes to support this funding.

With more than 230,000 people killed, 300,000 people injured, and at least 1.7 million forced from their homes by the earthquake, Haiti will require ongoing support throughout 2010 to address emergency needs in health, nutrition, shelter, sanitation, rural livelihood and food. The rainy season, which has already started, and hurricane season, anticipated for later this year, will only exacerbate this situation.

Faith Reflection: As the situation in Haiti becomes more desperate with the start of the rainy season and due to uncoordinated aid delivery, Christians in the United States can respond to the urgent need. The biblical vision from Micah 4:1-5 implies access to basic human rights, such as food, health care, meaningful employment, security and education, as central to the establishment of God's Kingdom. It also illustrates how necessary justice is to the fulfillment of a vision of peace. Empowering Haitians helps to assure that they will experience healing after the earthquake accompanied by meaningful development that allows them to access those basic rights.

Action: Urge your representative and your senators to move quickly to pass a supplemental funding bill for Haiti. Click here to send a message to Congress.

Alert prepared by Theo Sitther, Legislative Associate for International Affairs.

Lotsa kaka

2010-05-03T10:32:00.023-04:00

On Friday, Sharon, Ben, and I went to Kenscoff to "camp out" in the guesthouse there. When we arrived, the dog was jumping around and waiting for us as usual. It looked like the barrier that I constructed last weekend had worked and she couldn't get into the house any longer.

We unlocked the door - and could see that, contrary to our belief, the dog had gotten inside as there was kaka everywhere. Nothing like arriving to a house full of dog crap and urine....on hardwood floors. Ugh. We cleaned it up and proceeded unpacking - and then I realized that my bike had a flat tire. Hmmm. And Ben's bike was not where we had left it - it was in the little room off the kitchen with a water bottle canteen-thing tied to it.

We scratched our heads and wondered who had been in the house. Maybe someone else from MCC came up and borrowed the bike(s)?

I went to get something from the truck, and the boy who lives under the house in a room that looks like a hostage bunker (seriously, if I ever disappear under mysterious circumstances check that room first) approached me. He asked me how everything was. I responded, "Not good - it looks like someone has broken into the house, used our bikes, and is generally not respecting our property."

He was shocked, because he is there a lot and thought he'd know if someone broke in. Then he asked about the bike. I said that yes, for sure someone borrowed it without permission.

He responds, "Yeah, that's bad. I don't know how it got a flat tire."
Me: "What?"
Him: "The flat tire."
Me: "I didn't say anything about a flat tire."
Him: "Yes you did!"
Me: "No, I didn't. How do you know about the flat tire?"

Et cetera. Accuse deny accuse deny. Back I went into the house, somewhat furious but trying to stay cool. Home invasions are near the top of my list of Things That Make Me Angry. At the very top of the list might be messing with my mountain bike, and this was double trouble: a bike invasion, if you will.

I tried to let it go, and we started a campfire.* Amazing. We lost track of time, mesmerized by the sheer magic of the fire.

* A dream come true for me. I've been scheming about how to have a fire ring on the porch, and finally we just used an old half of a steel drum and drum lid and burned a huge branch trimmed from a tree in the Depps' yard.

Around 11:00pm I went inside to use the toilet, and since it was dark my ears told me that I was not urinating into a bowl of liquid but a bowl of...kaka. Ewww gross. So, now someone has broken into the house, borrowed bikes, flattened a tire, and used a toilet several times and did not flush?! Could it get worse? I flushed it all away and poured bleach into the toilet.

The next morning we put the pieces together. It looked like a window had been left unlocked - one of the few unbarred windows in all of Haiti - and if one were determined enough, it would be possible to inch across the narrow ledge on the outside of the house, above a 20-foot drop, open the window, and hop in. One of the doors was only locked by a deadbolt from the inside, so once in, he/she had easy access. It seems that our criminal friend found the spare key and kept it for more easy access. It is indeed a scary ledge.

To further incriminate our non-hostage hostage-room resident, the gardener stopped by and told us he had seen this kid riding our bikes around. He went and found the kid (okay, who is actually a nearly-full-grown 17-ish-year-old) who denied the whole thing again. I told them that it doesn't matter who it is, just tell that person to throw the key(s) back into the house after we leave and never do it again. The kid left and we're hoping the case is closed.

For prevention of future unauthorized indoor kaka production, I re-blocked the space the dog had been using to enter and installed new padlocks on all the doors. Our bikes came down the mountain with us, so that if by some stroke of luck the intruder returns he/she can no longer borrow our bikes.

Weekends in Kenscoff, sigh. It seems there's always drama up there - and it lately involves kaka.

It's a regular Food Week around here.

2010-04-30T14:55:00.012-04:00

Tchaka!

I've been in Haiti for almost two years, but last week was the first time I ever had my new favorite Haitian food. Serve with a warm sourdough loaf, and wait for the rave reviews to pour in.

A note: this recipe might be for more advanced cooks, since everything is proportional (i.e., I was given no measurements) and therefore everything is to taste.

Haitian Tchaka
Prep time: maybe an hour?
Serves: flexible, but if there are only two of you you're likely to have leftovers.

Pressure cook red, butter, and black beans (choose two) until soft.

In a separate pot, boil chopped pumpkin, scallions/onions, cloves, and garlic together until pumpkin is soft. Puree.

Return spicy pumpkin puree to pot, and add chopped green peppers, carrots, potatoes, and corn* (it seems like you could really add any vegetables you have around). Cook until vegetables are soft.

Add cooked beans and salt and pepper. Let simmer until flavors are blended. Serve hot.

*Our cooks here use dried corn, which I would identify as popcorn. If you choose this route, add the corn to the beans and pressure cook until soft.

Enjoy!

The goods.

2010-04-28T12:27:00.016-04:00

Okay, just to counterbalance my recent criticisms about being a foreigner here, following is a list of things I especially like about Haiti:

The trees. The big ceiba/mapou trees, mangoes, avocados, citrus, neem...so many really interesting trees. Here's to more in the future!

Beaches. I've enjoyed some very nice tropical paradises here in Haiti.

Seau Kontrere. The river/ravine in Desarmes. One of the coolest places I've ever been - and I think it's almost completely void of tourists. Except MCCers.

Mountain biking in Haiti. I've been on some really fun sections of singletrack here.

There are more. I do have a tender spot for Haiti, but I just want to be sure the tender spot does not rely upon the poverty of the country for me to enjoy it.

Yumness you don't want to miss.

2010-04-27T14:34:00.016-04:00

Last weekend we were invited up to MCC's guesthouse in Kenscoff (yes, our former home) for a tres delicious breakfast of homemade eggs benedict, garnished with edible flowers.

Pancha, Alexis, and Rachel did the heavy lifting in the kitchen, making irresistible piles of toasted croissants, sliced avocado and tomato, poached eggs, and homemade hollandaise sauce:

Bryan, Margot, Joel, and I were the most enthusiastic fan club ever:

Especially Margot*:

* although she would not, could not be convinced to taste even the tiniest nibble of nasturtium.

Since there's always a weekend a-comin', I have re-posted the recipe here for your brunching pleasure. The original can be found at Joel & Rachel's blog.

Egg Benedict with Yogurt Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

1 cup plain yogurt

3 egg yolks

Juice of 2 key limes (or 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

Ground pepper

Other ingredients

Poached eggs

Toasted bread (English muffins, croissants, Turkish bread, etc.)

A BUNCH of cooked bacon [I left this in as part of the original recipe, but avocado & tomato are much better...]

Beat together the egg yolks, yogurt, lemon/lime juice in a double boiler. Cook for about 15 minutes until sauce thickens. Keep stirring - it might become thinner then thicker, but just stay with it.

Remove from heat and add the salt, pepper and mustard and stir it in.

During all this I would start cooking the bacon or slicing the veggies. Then poach the eggs and the toast the bread.

Serve like this: Place a piece of toasted bread on bottom, then add veggies (you could also use wilted spinach or a favourite roasted veggie), then the poached egg, then pour the warm hollandaise sauce over everything. Enjoy!

Meet Mother Necessity: A blogpost in five acts.

2010-04-26T10:15:00.039-04:00

I promise this is going somewhere, so stick with me...

Part One
Here in Haiti, everyone has to get by with very little. One of the most endearing things about Haitians is the way they can find solutions for almost any problem. A few examples:

1. A car key snaps in two in the door. After fishing the key from the door and realizing that the car can't start with the key in this condition, a Haitian finds a scrap piece of aluminum and a file and starts making a copy by hand. The improvised key works and everyone got home safe and sound.

2. A car gets a flat tire. The passengers realize there is no lug wrench and flag down other cars. One stops and lets them borrow a lug wrench, but unfortunately all four sizes on the lug wrench are too large. Someone finds a large washer and a rock in the dirt and shapes the washer around the lug nut. The lug wrench is pressed on, and after a few tries the nuts are freed and the tire is changed.

The list goes on and on. I love this kind of stuff, and really think it's cool and amazing.

Part Two
Over the last few months, a lot of MCC Haiti alumni have been coming to help with post-earthquake-related activities. They reminisce of their time here, and the question always comes up: Do they miss Haiti?

The most common response I've heard: they miss the daily adventure. Life in Haiti is always so interesting - the examples above happen fairly regularly and most people living here have these stories to tell and retell with great enthusiasm.

Part Three
Often foreigners see the countryside as the "real" Haiti.

- When the paved road ends and the dirt road begins, I hear "Now I'm in Haiti!"

- When we are indoors and the lights go out: "Yup, this is Haiti!"

- When you see a huge truck broken down and the driver has the entire transmission laid out in front of him on the side of the road, a smile comes to our faces: "Now this is Haiti."

- When we watch the tire repairman beat a tire from a rim with an old axle and patch a tube with a few scraps of metal and an old piston into which he pours a flammable liquid and lights it and few minutes later your tube is patched - MAGIC! Haiti is amazing!

My only problem with all of this is that I wonder: do we like Haiti for these reasons only? If Haiti is to develop and tire repairmen become obsolete along with the potholed roads, will foreigners still be interested in the "culture"? Or is the culture so entwined with poverty that the eradication of poverty is the end of Haitian culture? No longer will people carve keys out of scrap aluminum, they will simply go to ACE Hardware down the street and have a copy made.

Part Four
Why are we as foreigners here? If adventure is part of it, isn't it just a little selfish that we are here to enjoy all of the Haitian inventiveness that is in reality a result of necessity (i.e.,poverty)?

And why are we so boring? Why is it that life in North America is so boring we need to come to Haiti to have an adventure?

Adventure is around every corner in the U.S. Buy an old car and when it breaks down, fix it yourself. Instant adventure. Ride a bike to work and I'll guarantee you will almost die at some point.

Instant adventure. Go camping and don't bring a tent - adventure.

Go for a walk in a new neighborhood. Adventure. Is this so hard?

I guess I am just questioning my reasons for being here. Sure, some good is being done, but is that enough?

Part Five
All the sustainable development theory we have learned over the years has pointed squarely at the need to change systems, trade policies, and politics. But to really change Haiti, advocacy is still seen as blah by many North Americans: "Advocacy? Not interested. But if you need something done, like building an orphanage or wiring a church or sending old clothes to Haiti, sign me up."

Theses things are all tangible but also finite. Very finite. I feel like I've seen too many schools/orphanages/churches started by a Generous Gift from a church in North America only to be abandoned a few months after the sponsoring church ends its support (or as we like to say, "hands off the project to local leadership").

Was that real development? No. Am I critical of people that have great ideas and some money but very little skill in planning for the future, for sustainable development? Yes I am.

A friend who visited a few weeks ago pointed out that Haiti is the place Americans come to make them feel grateful for what they have. Pay a couple thousand dollars for a missions trip to Haiti and you return home thankful.

As development tourists, we come, have an adventure, and leave, rich with "souvenirs": these stories of the resourcefulness of Haitians. And apparently we wouldn't want it any other way.

These things always happen in twos.

2010-04-23T12:55:00.017-04:00

Sharon has a theory that all bad things happen in pairs. This means that whenever something bad happens (speeding tickets, oversleeping) she's immediately ready for the same thing to happen again in the near future.

So yesterday evening I headed out on the motorcycle. I saw another moto coming, but I saw that I had plenty of time to pull into the opposite lane. As I pulled out, he decided not to continue going straight but instead turned to avoid me. Unfortunately, and weirdly, he veered into my lane...and crashed right into me.

Well, his moto was torn up a bit, and I heard plastic bits hitting the ground and saw a brake line come off his front wheel. My moto and I were knocked over. I stood up and looked it over, and all was fine. A small group of people were ridiculing the other driver for driving into me on my side of the road. Since the only advice I've received about getting into accidents in Haiti is to get away from the scene as quickly as possible, I took the opportunity to start my moto and get out of there before the gathering crowd changed their minds. I hope the other driver is able to fix his bike without too much trouble.

This morning while in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the motorcycle with Sharon, I had to stop behind a tap-tap. These are the small pickup trucks that serve as public transport here, and suddenly the driver decided to reverse...what?...into us. We yelled for him to stop, which he fortunately did. But who reverses in traffic (#1), and if you do embark on such folly, why wouldn't you look to see if there is a car or motorcycle behind you (#2)?

Anyhow, this cycle of misfortune has begun and ended fairly quickly. I'm happy neither I nor Sharon were hurt, but it adds a new level of fear to the daily commute when I can't trust other drivers to keep their eyes open and stay in their own lanes.

Hey, solutions!

2010-04-20T13:56:00.008-04:00

Grassroots International has added an updated preface to a 1997 repor t on Haiti's situation entitled "Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy." I haven't been able to download the original report yet (thank you, internet - if anyone can download this and email it to me, I'd appreciate it), but the summary is worth reading partially because it briefly outlines many of the issues facing Haiti today AND because Camille Chalmers of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (with the Creole acronym PAPDA), one of MCC Haiti's unofficial partners, actually proposes solutions to problems (!).

From the preface:
"What would a holistic rehabilitation and development plan of this nature require? Much more than money! It would require a reversal of policies which are at their heart counter to healthy, sustainable development. It would mean a stop to attempts to pry Haiti's economy open to imports; it would mean an end to balancing Haiti's budget by cutting health and education spending; it would mean implementing policies for environmentally-friendly food sovereignty so that Haitians can eat the food they grow in fields that hold the soil; it would mean a massive virtuous circle of support for both the governmental and non-governmental sectors so that they can grow strong together."

Biking in Haiti

2010-04-19T11:10:00.003-04:00

Ben and I have been mountain biking the past few weekends and this is the result.

Good thing it's my favorite conversation, because I have it several times a week

2010-04-19T10:24:00.004-04:00

Haitian: [question in French]
Me (Creole): Oh, I don't speak French.
Haitian (Creole): You don't speak French?
Me (Creole): No, I don't speak French.
Haitian (Creole): What language do you speak?
Me (Creole): English and Creole.
Haitian (Creole): You speak Creole?
Me (Creole): Yes, I speak Creole.
Haitian (Creole): O-oh....

Gas.

2010-04-15T14:08:00.007-04:00

Just another day here in Port-au-Prince: a few days ago we heard a rumor that gas was running out at the stations and it would be like $25 a gallon for gas. Ha! we said, but here we are a few days later with very little gas to be had, and even though the price may be under $25/gallon I'm sure it's not cheap.

Just try to imagine for a moment the ripple effects of your city/town of not having gas or diesel. Everything starts to grind to a halt. In Port there are fewer and fewer tap-taps and mototaxis; big trucks are parked; even many private cars are sitting idle, conserving the last little bit of gas they have in their tanks.

Last night we drove home and there was almost no traffic - the sky was clear, flowers bloomed, and the birds were singing.....not the people though, as lots of people waited for tap-taps that were just not abundant enough.

I consider myself someone who is low on the gas-use scale, but when I really look at it - ugh, that's a long walk home (2.5 miles) uphill (both ways) raining (only when walking). And grocery getting, phew....maybe Ben will let me use one of the cargo bikes.

Why no gas? Well, we've heard that a tanker is on the way from our good friend Chavez in Venezuela, but it's late because the Haitian Consortium of Gas Company Owners was mad at the government for trying to force them to lower gas prices, so as a little jab they delayed their fuel order just long enough to make a point.

Taken. But really? here we are in a poor country destroyed by an earthquake and etc. etc. and now they take the time to make a point about who has their hand on the faucet? Well, I guess now is the time to make that point. Airline strikes over Christmas, utilities strikes over the winter months, etc. Do we really have to get to take this moment to puff up our chests and strut around? Apparently we do.

Well, that's where we are, walkin' and bikin' and not drivin' a whole lot, waiting for the magical day the clear combustible liquid we all know so well comes springing forth again.

Back to school

2010-04-13T14:23:00.014-04:00

Monday afternoon marked three months since the earthquake. Just this week we've started to see gingham-shirt-clad students headed back to class, and Tuesday MCC resumed teaching classes at a nearby seminary, Centre de Théologie Intégrale de la Caraїbe. Actually, MCC* was teaching three classes before the earthquake: Social Justice Issues, Advocacy, and an Advocacy Practicum. The seminary has decided to cram the rest of the semester into three whirlwind weeks, so each class runs from 2-6pm.

* Meaning Nixon and Alexis, our advocacy department.

I've signed on to work with Nixon to develop our teacher's guide and make the curriculum replicable, so I attended the class yesterday afternoon. The second-year teacher didn't show, so those students crammed into the first-year classroom to take part in the discussion on neoliberal market and governmental policies.

"To change the system, you must first understand it" - and try to understand it they did. I was also encouraged to hear things like:
"We must take responsibility for our problems."
"Haiti's history is different from all other countries, so we need to seek a solution to problems that fits in with our history and our heritage."
"Other countries can't change Haiti; only the Haitian people can."
"As pastors, we are leaders who can make a difference."

Hear, hear. Sometimes I get exhausted with the fact that everyone, but everyone, is more than willing to point out problems, but rarely are people willing to propose solutions. I know this is difficult in any context, but I particularly appreciate any conversations in which participants move past identifying problems and start thinking about responses. Here's to creativity, hard work, and personal responsibility and engagement.

Moving on

2010-04-12T11:21:00.016-04:00

This past weekend we moved, again. It gets easier and easier every time, as we shed things that we really don't need. It reminds me of the scene from Up in the Air when George Clooney talks about putting your life in a backpack and how all of your stuff weighs you down. Well, our backpack just got a little lighter.

Before leaving the house in Kenscoff, Ben and I went mountain biking around the area, through dirt roads and on some nice singletrack. We're scheming about making a movie about biking in Haiti and we're looking really great places to film, so we took the video camera along to see how these places looked on film...well, errr, digital film? Needless to say, the locals all have something to say and want you to give them "a little gift of your bike" as you pedal by.

The best part of the ride, though, was one particularly sketchy part of the trail. Ben went down it, and then got out the camera to shoot me coming down. I waited for a woman passing by, who stopped and told me "not to fall down into the rocky chasm to my right." I laughed, said I wouldn't, and thanked her for the advice. I threw my leg over the bike, and as my foot landed on the ground on the other side...there was no ground on the other side. All of my weight had been behind that foot landing on solid ground, and the "ground" I was aiming for turned out to be just a hole covered over by long grass. Ah, the aforementioned rocky chasm! I tumbled down the nasty rocky hole, and by some sheer stroke of luck, mostly landed on my feet some 8 feet or so below where I had been standing a half second earlier. I had cut open my hand earlier in the week, and of course the fall ripped off the scab and blood came pouring out, uck.

All who watched were amused by the white guy on a bike falling off a little cliff, which guaranteed they would watch us as much as they could. They started hiking ahead to the next semi-dangerous-looking section to sit down and wait for us to come by and fall again. It was sort of like NASCAR where the audience is there for the wreck, or hockey where everyone is there for the fight...well, in mountain biking in Haiti, everyone is there for the crash.

Anyhow, we disappointed them time and again since there were no more wrecks to speak of for the day - and we found some really amazing places to get on video. We went back on Sunday to search out a trail to another mountain we had spotted earlier, but when we arrived at the valley it was all fogged in and raining and the visibility was just about 0%. We followed a few trails, but since we couldn't see where we were going, we didn't make it to the correct mountain. We may try to scare up a spare GPS to use or scope it out more with Google Earth.

In other news, the caretaker of Bella made an appearance and left some food for her. The owner is away in Miami and had indeed arranged for someone to take care of the dog. So, no kidnapped dog for us, since she seems to be sufficiently looked after. That, and the fact that when she comes into the house she pees. There are like 12 million rural acres in Kenscoff, and she prefers peeing on the floor inside the house. Go figure. (Yes, I know, I could train it out of her, but along with the fact that she has not been abandoned, I'm not going to spend the time to train her, - also, as you may remember from way back in line 1, we have moved.)

So we're living in Petionville now, in Josh and Marylynn's/Pancha's/Kurt's old place. More on the "new" place later - it has a pretty cool flat roof that we can hang out on and an open sun room out front for plants. Maybe some pics to come - all this reading is probably driving everyone crazy...where are the photos?

Here's one to get you started...

In the doghouse now.

2010-04-09T17:16:00.008-04:00

Last night Sharon and I had the pleasure of hosting our friend Jeremiah on his last night in Haiti. He's been working with a program in Gresier outside of PaP. He met us at the office, went to the market with Sharon, and welded with Ben and me. We stopped at the overlook in Boutilliers on the way up to Kenscoff, made supper together, and - but I know all of you are waiting with bated breath for news about our new dog friend Bella.

Once we arrived at home last night she came running (and shaking) up to us. This dog is about as nervous as you can get, and always pretty cautious of humans. Smart dog: most dogs get hit a lot in Haiti so she has plenty of justification for being afraid of us. After she shook her skinny nervous body over to us, she seemed hungry and thirsty so I gave her some water and a granola bar. (Really, it's all we had.) She was totally excited and proceeded to spend the rest of the night curled up next to Jeremiah and the edge of his sleeping bag trailing on the patio. When we went in for bed she cried and cried, and when we left at 6am the following morning there she was eager to greet us... and eat a few pieces of bread.

It looks like the neighbor, also known as the dog's owner, seems to be absent. So there's no one to feed the dog or give it water. Really, who abandons a dog? Anyhow, my new theory is that the owner is MIA and since we love the dog more we should rescue her from her negligent owner. (I just looked at the implications of this possible decision and it is indeed easier for a Haitian dog to enter the USA than a Haitian. Dogs don't take other people's jobs, I guess, but they may unfairly compete for resources at PetCo. Hmmm.)

Well, not to be too philosophical, but it does raise the question: why am I willing to care for a dog more readily than a person in need? Is it just because the needs are so much more finite and easier to address? Is it that dogs don't ask me for help six times an hour? Maybe animals are just easier to deal with than people sometimes. Maybe I should have a softer heart. Whatever the answer is,I'm wondering what it would mean if this is the only life I save in Haiti.

Getting published is so last century...

2010-04-08T10:13:00.011-04:00

Yesterday afternoon we stopped to pick up a few groceries at the supermarket. While we loaded up the truck, we were approached by a smiling young man selling photocopies of a poem his brother had written. Well, how could we resist?

After the Night

While we contemplated the tender smiles of the new year
Announcing an arrival
beautiful curves full of gaiety
New horizons of all shades

We hoped for coming days of light
evenings of illumination

Oh! It's too terrible to imagine
that such misfortune draws up,
that the trigger of destiny awaited us
packed away our souls. The hearts of our fellows
collapse, dreams absorbed by despair
shaving a third of the seedlings sown over the years

We are suddenly lost
in the density of shadows
We need a candle
we even lost the stars

When evil was sown
Hope already germinated
We hope for the coming of the dawn

after the night, the sun always rises

Lazy blogger

2010-04-07T12:40:00.017-04:00

Since the earthquake I've been pretty reticent to post a non-earthquake-related post. Sharon has really insightful posts about trade inequality, as do A&B. Maybe I'm not quite as philosophical or well-spoken but I know I am earthquake (EQ) fatigued, and after being around post-EQ Port-au-Prince and working for a development/aid NGO I just can't bring myself to then sit down and write about it as well. On that note, and with Sharon's encouragement, I am going to rejoin the blogosphere.

As you may know we are living up in the mountains above PaP, and it's about an hour drive to our mountain chalet. Last night Pancha came up with us to spend the night and enjoy the cold mountain air. We had a good time hanging out, and upon our departure this morning I realized I had locked the keys in the car last night. We poked around the truck for a way to get in, but I coincided my first keys in the truck experience with my first-fully-successful locking of all four doors experience. We tried the ol' clothes hanger trick and then moved on to trying to grab the inside door handle through the seam of the door. After several tries I actually managed to grab the handle and pulled as hard as I could and ....nothing. Apparently it's one of those vehicles that makes you lift the little thing, then pull the lever - I know, so 1990s, right? Some cars don't even have keys anymore, and here I am stuck with one that doesn't pop its own lock when the latch is pulled. What about emergency exits? I smell a Toyota recall here.

After that didn't work, we called down to the office and asked them to send the back-up key up to us. Actually, I asked Ben to bring it up as I could think of no one else willing to drive 1 hour up a mountain just to turn around again. That's what friends are for. We didn't make Ben go down right away - while we waited we made some coffee and offered Ben a complimentary cup of Joe for his rescue services. After the java we made our way down the hill, a mere two hours late to start our workday. Sorry MCC.

While we were drinking coffee and waiting for Ben, the neighbor's dog made her way up to our house to inspect our goings-on with the truck and general laying-about that had then ensued. I have a soft spot for black lab puppies, and although she's not 100% the neighbor-dog is enough of a lab to make you miss your very own skinny lab puppy of yesteryear. We let her in the house - by the way, her name is Bella - and she was super nervous inside, so she's most likely not allowed in her owner's house. We are now the neighbors that spoil the neighbor kids. I'm all ready to buy dog treats for her just to woo her over to our house as often as her owner will let her.

I know I said I didn't want to talk about EQ-related things, but just a quick story about my day to day. Each day we get people that come to the office. They hear people talking on a tap-tap about MCC and that MCC is amazing and give aid that is new (not secondhand goods) and give aid in a way that is respectful to Haitians, with no guns, no batons and no threats.

(First, why are people surprised that we are giving away new items? Shouldn't nice new items be the norm? Obviously not. Also, people are pleasantly surprised we arrive for distributions without a UN security detail. I won't go on, but it's sad when people are surprised by these things, as they should be the norm.)

Back to my story. We get people every day that represent communities throughout the area, roughly 10 per day. Each has a heart-wrenching letter about the devastation in their community and the total lack of aid they have received because they are not in a big camp visible from a road. They have handwritten lists of names of families, with ages, gender, etc. Hand. Written. When was the last time you wrote 5-6 pages by hand? They all ask that we come to their communities to see the need and assure me that once we see their communities there is no way we could refuse help. Ugh. Unfortunately, when you do the math, 10 letters per day X an average of 500 people per community = 5,000 new people in need every day. Not counting weekends, that's 25,000 new people in need each week. You see where I am going. These people are asking for shelter, food, whatever they can find. I am in the delicate position, along with several others, of having to decide who finds and who does not find aid. Ugh.

That's it for now.

Meditations on trade and development (or, please excuse the following preachiness)

2010-04-06T10:10:00.013-04:00

Lately all signs point to this topic: the value of trade over aid.

One. A few weeks ago I finished reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. While the discussion of disaster capitalism was alarming (and maddening), I was struck more by Klein's depiction of what happens after a country's financial system collapses. Humanitarian aid and relief organizations rush in to address the poverty, lack of educational access, compromised local markets, and host of other social problems that result from privatization and low import tariffs. I support these humanitarian missions (obviously) as stopgap efforts, but how much more effective would we be if we kept our eye on the policy ball? If we preemptively advocated for just trade around the world? If we combated poverty by preventing it?

Two. While at home on stress leave, Bryan and I checked out Black Gold, the 2006 documentary about the international coffee trade. In tracing coffee from the fields of Ethiopia to the espresso cups of New York and Italy, the film's strongest moment is at an international trade forum. Representatives from disadvantaged countries argue forcefully that what they want is trade, not aid: they want the chance to receive a fair wage for hard work.

Three. Last night the Bob Edwards Show featured an interview with Iqbal Quadir, founder of the Legatum Center at MIT and GrameenPhone in Bangladesh. He's an advocate of business and technology as a way to fight poverty, and while there are clear pitfalls to that approach I appreciated his emphasis on developing human potential as a way to create opportunities for people to help themselves. In the interview he advocated market-based solutions that allow people to carefully utilize their time (e.g., Americans can be more "productive" than their Bangladeshi counterparts because of time-saving technology) and that respond to actual needs in a community (e.g, bicycles are welcome in areas not served by public transport). He pointed out that education is often named as a panacea - but that the educated few often leave their homelands in search of opportunities to use those educations when the local markets aren't strong enough to hold them. He also argues that international aid doesn't always reach the populace, whereas microfinance and small business stimulation focuses exactly on that group of people.

Okay, so these are obviously simplistic renderings of complex ideas, and I'm conscious of the need to not conceptualize market-based development or trade policy reform as a silver bullet. However, I like the idea of trying to level the international playing field just a bit through trade reform, and I heartily support the idea of small business development that allows people to find their own, dignified way to support themselves (hint: that does not involve standing in long lines waiting for food handouts).

Yes, the earthquake is different, and material and food aid are highly appropriate and much-needed at the moment. I am just wary of development organizations getting comfortable with giving handouts to Haitians, with not engaging the many Haitian voices that should shape the vision for a reconstructed Port-au-Prince, and with continuing to disregard the structural policies that make Haiti more unlevel than any earthquake could.

(A caveat for those of you agreeing with me: taking on unjust trade policies means reshaping our American spending habits. Are we willing to vote on this with our dollars?)

Last week I heard someone joke that Haiti has experienced two earthquakes: first the one that struck on January 12, and then the invasion of foreigners here to "help." Let's hope the aftershocks of the second won't upstage the terrible first.

"Memory at 'The Modern'"

2010-04-01T15:30:00.004-04:00

We had seen bare land
And the people bare on it
And men camp
In the city. The lights,
The pavement, this important device
Of a race, I wrote then,
Twenty three years old,
Remains till morning. Nobody knows who died
On the road of that time, of the fact of roads.
I am a man of the Thirties

'no other taste shall change this'

- George Oppen
from New Collected Poems, page 295

What we found.

2010-03-24T13:40:00.006-04:00

Bryan and I arrived safely in Haiti yesterday morning (after a bit of last-minute drama with our tickets that gave us a 19-hour layover in Puerto Rico). After spending a few hours at the office, we headed up the mountain to the house in Kenscoff* where we'll be staying for the next few months.

* The lease was up this month on the house in Dezam, and rental properties in Port-au-Prince are few and far between at the moment.

Along with an amazing view, here's what welcomed us:

- The electricity lines had been transferred to the next door neighbor, whose house is owned by the same landlord. (At least candlelight is romantic.)

- A pile of mildewy clothes in the closet, thanks to the moist and cloudy climate in the mountains. (If anyone has connections to a great Kenscoffian washlady, do tell.)

- A teenage boy living in a small shed attached to our house. (We hear he's friendly, but...)

- An ever-expanding number of people who work in the yard. It turns out the landlord has also leased part of the property as a small farm, so that explains why the hedge has been cut to make a path to that new "field." (Who needed privacy, anyway?)

- A yard-sharing neighbor who seems like she will be awesome. (No parenthetical comment necessary.)

Overall, mixed reviews. We're happy to be working again after a terrific few weeks of rest, and as usual we'll keep you blog-posted.

A few links

2010-03-10T10:58:00.007-05:00

Sharon and I are in the U.S. through March 22 on stress leave. Haiti's still on our minds and in our hearts, and we've been particularly wrestling with the question: how can Haiti rebuild? One (simple?) way to help is through purchasing one of the few things Haiti exports:

Coffee. We all know the importance of buying fair trade, so add a bag of Haitian coffee into your rotation or get your church or workplace to use Haitian coffee for a few months instead of Folgers.

Art. Haiti exports paintings and metal art (in which artists flatten steel drums and then craft different images by hand). Haitian art fundraisers are happening all around: there's one here in PA, or you can always buy art at your local Ten Thousand Villages store.

We've been realizing more and more that trade - and not simply aid - is incredibly important for Haiti's economic future, earthquake or not. More on this subject soon.*

* A note on "more soon" alerts: Sharon still remembers that she promised details on the Haiti Response Coalition's conference. That update has been delayed because of her grandmother's death and our travel, but it's still in the works.

Where's a speedboat when you need one?

2010-02-26T09:31:00.013-05:00

Late Wednesday night I learned that my dear grandmother, Lula Dowell Morrison, passed away after an illness of few weeks. We did get to see her over the Christmas holiday -- but that fact still doesn't make the loss feel any lighter.

I spent all day yesterday trying to get a flight home in time for the funeral this evening, only to discover that every seat on every American Airlines flight (which seems to be the only commercial airline operating right now) is booked.

This is actually how things went:
Me: When is the next seat available?
AA: It looks like there's one seat open next Wednesday, but you'll have to pay an extra seven hundr-- ah, nope, now that one's gone too.

Super frustrating. Especially since the only place I want to be now is home with my Granddad.

Our stress leave is scheduled for March 7-22, but I'm hoping to get home sooner than that. Right now I'm trying to book a flight through the Santo Domingo airport and then I'll figure out how to get over to the Dominican Republic. Wish me luck.

An assortment.

2010-02-20T13:57:00.026-05:00

Earthquake fatigue. I know that we are just starting down a long and hard road - but now, after the immediate aftermath, it seems people around these parts are longing for normalcy on some level. Let's not get lost in pity but rather remember that all those "IDPs" are people who would love to get back to the boringness of everyday life. Camps are starting to sport small restaurants and cell phone charging stations, and today I noticed that you can get a manicure at a camp in Delmas for 75 gourdes.

Hope. Most evenings at the MCC office staff members and volunteers sit down for a few minutes of reflection. On Thursday night, just after the approximately six days of prayer that happened in lieu of Carnivale this year, we took up the topic of hope. "Who or what embodies hope for you in Haiti?"

I have a hard time pointing to any one person as an inspiration of hope. Stories of post-earthquake generosity and bravery abound, but I still feel angry that this catastrophe happened to necessitate that selflessness and courage in the first place. (Is the beauty of a family sharing with others the little food they have left worth losing more than 200,000 people? I know that the scale of this disaster is not natural and that it reflects an unjust economic system, but I can't help feeling like this "lesson" is being communicated with literal overkill.)

Head-bound as I am, the most hopeful thing for me is a statistic. The World Health Organization shows that Haiti's annual suicide rate is exceedingly low - actually, at 0% it's tied for last place (in 2003, the last year for which figures are available). Given that many Haitian families were in dire economic straits before the earthquake, you would assume that suicide might be considered a valid option for those who find themselves at the end of one rope or another. But all that knot-tying and holding on in years past gives me confidence that Haitians will pull through this as well. It's not fair that they have to, and they're not going to be able to do it without a lot of support, but they'll do it.

Relief vs. development. Speaking of support: the line is blurry between these two raisons d'etre for foreign NGOs in Haiti. So many people have been living so close to the edge for so long that any free help is very much appreciated, and there are reports of folks with intact houses moving into tents to qualify for disaster relief or people coming into Port-au-Prince from the countryside to participate in food distributions. This is of course a very small minority, but it points to the fact that earthquake recovery must include a rural development aspect as well - especially as many of those in the countryside have opened their homes to migrants from the city, and especially if the all-important work of decentralization in Haiti will take hold.

I'm still happy to be working with the Haiti Response Coalition, which despite a certain internal chaoticness is focusing on ensuring that Haitian voices are a loud-and-clear part of the mega-NGO reconstruction conversation. There are three meetings scheduled this week in which Haitian leaders and Haitian NGOs will develop a vision statement that will, we hope, guide the overall process. Stay tuned.

Happenings

2010-02-18T16:54:00.005-05:00

Well, here we are 10 days after our last blog post. After looking at that date, I've been trying to remember what's happened since then. The biggest recent event is me getting malaria. It's not official as there was no blood test, but the symptoms seemed like malaria and the course of treatment isn't too long so I figured I would play it safe and take the chloroquine. (You may ask why I just don't take chloroquine all the time. I guess it just comes down to convenience and not wanting to take a drug regularly for 3 years when, if you do get malaria, the treatment is quick and effective. So that's that.)

The Depps have been letting us stay at their house as we are still working in Port-au-Prince (and will be for the next few months). They're coming back from stress leave on Wednesday, so we've been trying to find alternate digs so as not to overcrowd them. MCC has rented a house in Kenscoff, which is up a cooler and greener mountain overlooking P-au-P -- and is a mere 45-minute drive from the office (it seems we are just not destined to live in this city proper, sigh). This house will serve as a retreat for MCC staff and a space for groups that are coming to Haiti. Sharon and I will be staying in this house for the next few months, so it will be our new temporary home. Since it's almost totally empty, this weekend we're getting some things from our Desarmes house to make it livable. Two good things about this move:
- just maybe there is good mountain biking in the area and I can get out once or twice in the next few months.
- there are almost no mosquitoes.
(I'm trying to talk MCC into a fireplace and a hot tub, but I'm skeptical they'll agree. But here's to hoping.)

A couple of trucks will be delivering material relief in the next few weeks to us here in Haiti. This is great news, but our one big challenge now is receiving all of this aid and consequently getting it to those who need it. The volume of material may not look like a lot, but when it gets here each big pallet that is loaded by a forklift in the U.S. must be unloaded by hand and carried into our makeshift warehouse. Once there it must be loaded by hand again into our mid-size truck to go out to all the communities we are helping across this, unfortunately, traffic-snarled city.

Still we have no photos! Maybe we can get around to taking a few photos of something interesting one of these days. We're headed out to Desarmes tomorrow to get a few things and take a team of engineers to evaluate a school near there, and then we'll spend the night, pack up our stuff, and head back on Saturday.

On a sad note, our friend and former MCCer Josh has been here for the past few weeks but is headed home to Canada tomorrow - this is sad for us but great news for Marylynn. Here's hoping next time they can both come.

Making sense of it all.

2010-02-08T16:03:00.013-05:00

I feel like I should update just to let you know what's happening with us here in Port-au-Prince. We've been busy working in the office, which is something new for us in Haiti. City life is nice (odd to say as the city has been so severely damaged): there are people around, electricity to be had, and an abundance of food items that we don't have in Desarmes. The weather is cooler and the distance between our temporary home at the Depps' and the office is more than a five minute walk (this may sound odd, but when your entire week is composed of walking across the street from your home to the office and the odd 10-minute walk to the center of town, a little distance can be nice).

How is the city? Some days I forget that an earthquake happened because stores have opened again, banks are open, and street vendors are crowding the streets as usual. Of course I didn't lose my home, no one in my family died, nor friends, nor co-workers. Every once in a while a bad smell hits you in the face and you remember what has happened, or you drive down a road and look across the valley and an entire neighborhood is rubble.

It's strange to be in a position of judging the level of need that people have and deciding whether or not they merit help. Most of Haiti would not turn down free food aid, tents, tarps, water, or shoes a few months ago, and now everyone is saying they need help. What do you say to a family who hasn't lost their home? What do you say to someone who is still employed and earning a salary? Sometimes the people that have the means and know how to ask are the ones that find aid before those that have more need but don't know how to ask for help.

The other difficult part about watching "aid" pour into the country is that a lot of the aid is going to Americans or Canadians or other international staff members. They are being paid with donation dollars and living and eating within the walls of the UN compound and all sorts of new vehicles and motorcycles are flooding the roads. I can judge other international workers just as much as I can be judged, I guess, but it's just the idea that millions of aid dollars are coming to...pay the salaries of non-Haitians, buy imported foods, etc.

Trying to finish this post... a few days later. Yesterday we dropped Ben and Alexis off at the airport and then we went over to the UN logistics base to try yet again to get IDs for easier access into the logistics base to coordinate with other NGOs or simply get more information about what is really happening here. I left there frustrated, and the drive to the office only heightened my frustration with everything, the international aid response, the traffic, work, etc. The prospect of going to the office just overwhelmed me and as I dropped off Sharon I hopped on a motorcycle to go "home." I got back, showered and sat with my book until I finished it and hung out in utter bliss in my 100% complete privacy (well, except for the cat).

All this to say, it's a bit surreal at times being in the position I'm in and the gravity of the new reality that is here in Haiti. Everything feels somewhat different now, and the country I've come to know over the past 1.5 years is a new place and the job I've come to know over the past 1.5 years is a different job.

For now you'll have to settle for the 1000 words

2010-02-01T10:26:00.006-05:00

A brief note on why there has been an absence of photos on our blog. We felt that the devastation of Port-au-Prince has been widely documented (if you don't believe me, just ask Google), and that us taking photos would be somewhat akin to taking "souvenirs," if you will, of the earthquake. Somehow it didn't feel respectful to be out snapping photos of fallen-down buildings, etc., when all that those photos would communicate is that we were there.

But we are indeed here, and now that our roles are becoming more defined we will start taking/posting photos on specific things happening in our day-to-day lives.

Speaking of specific things: the MCC meat is due to arrive TODAY! Attentive readers will know that we've been working on getting this here for the last 10 days or so. It's been delayed multiple times: because of a problem at the Port-au-Prince airport we had to route the flight through Santo Domingo, from which it was trucked across the border (slooowly and bureaucratically) and to a local warehouse. Today we're meeting the meat and will hopefully be able to finish the distribution process soon. Canned meat photos likely to come.

From the second lines.

2010-01-30T17:33:00.016-05:00

We've again been negligent with our blog, although this time I'm going to plead limited internet access (no power = no internet) and a series of meetings that are flying at us faster than you can say disaster relief.

My time lately has been split between collaborating with Alexis on various advocacy materials and working to get the Haiti Relief Coalition started. Founded as an association of smaller NGOs who were in Haiti before the earthquake and will be here for the long haul, the HRC seeks to support development organizations run by Haitians and to provide a space for and amplify their voices in the international conversation. Discussions about Haiti's future are happening nearly round the clock at the UN logbase, and scant few Haitians are present to be a part of these conversations.

While we have had a few difficulties ourselves getting access to the logbase (still waiting for our security badges), many Haitians face an embarrassingly-racist security mindset that blocks their access to meetings. The HRC envisions "holding the place at the table" for our Haitian partners until they are able to speak directly for themselves (as well as connecting them with the physical supports needed--food, shelter--in order for their staff members to continue doing development and advocacy work).

I find it maddening that the state of the world is this, that Haitians are "ethnocentrically treat[ed]...as tragic objects to be rescued -- [rather than] equals to walk with and learn from" (Jo Ann van Engen, "The Cost of Short Term Missions"). I suppose these are attitudes that we are here working to change, and the earthquake has made all-too-clear the relevance of this approach. It's not perfect yet, and it feels like we spend a lot of long hours in meetings, but the longer I'm here the more I see the value of these collaborative efforts.

It's been helpful for me to remember that Haitians are also people trying to figure out how to work with the new reality that is Port-au-Prince - and who are proving to be amazingly resilient (the vegetable vendors are already back on the streets, the occasional game of dominoes clacks from someone's yard). Even if we as foreign- and Haitian-run NGOs haven't yet achieved true collaboration, I find that the vision of such an inter-respectful and dialogic working model has kept me going in those moments when it seems like it would just be simpler to do the work without asking for input from others. However, I recognize that in learning from one another, we can potentially achieve the "mutually-transformative relationships" MCC values (yes, those values that are so easily endangered by daily minutia). I am not yet fully able to live this approach, but I want to continue striving in this direction.

To tide you over until our next post

2010-01-27T14:06:00.003-05:00

"You have a choice in a situation like the one we're confronting. You can sit back in your chair and fondle your nihilism, or you can try to be original and work toward something creative." - Amy Wilentz, "The Haiti Haters"

Read the rest of Wilentz's insightful (and indict-ful) commentary in The Nation here.

A quick word

2010-01-20T20:29:00.008-05:00

We've been neglecting the internet this week because Monday morning we came to Port-au-Prince and tried to hit the ground running. I've been working for the last two days at the U.N.'s logistics base, working to get MCC's canned meat to people who need it here, as well as helping Alexis organize a database of assessments of camps set up around the city. Bryan's been delivering food, talking with neighbors, and generally helping things run smoothly at the MCC office.

At the moment a bunch of folks are sleeping at the Depps' house, which is where we were this morning when the 6.2-level aftershock swept through the city. Even though we were sleeping outdoors on a covered patio, we all leapt up and ran out to an uncovered area - it was unsettling to say the least. So far we've only heard of minimal damage from that tremor, so that's positive.

There are fewer people on the streets than usual (I guess that "usual" will never come back), although lots more with big bags and lots more just hanging out. Many, many people have started to leave Port-au-Prince to go live with friends and families in the countryside, and a concern is making sure those areas receive the help they need to absorb the population increase. Fortunately (or really unfortunately) many Haitians are used to living without electricity or running water and having to bathe outdoors. Things are bad and there's need everywhere you look - but people are still able to be kind, to kick around a soccer ball, to start to clean up the mess. It's been encouraging for us to come here and see how much actually is being done, how people are caring for each other, and how people are starting to cope with what happened.

A quick trip to Port-au-Prince

2010-01-16T14:59:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Sharon, I, Jean Remy, a friend of his who's name I forget, and a Belgian who has been working in Desarmes all went into the city. Our Belgian friend was going in to catch an evacuation flight back to Belgium and the rest of us were delivering sacks of rice and corn and other supplies for distribution and to find out what else we could do to help. We bought what rice we could in the local market - it turned out to be 4 sacks of rice and 1 sack of ground corn. We also took in 2 pickaxes and some new solar panels we had just bought for the Desarmes office but had yet to install them, so they went in too to help keep the batteries charged for the folks in Port.

Driving in was just as easy as normal - when we got to the last mountain crossing before descending into the valley where the city is, many large boulders had fallen onto the side of the road but were not blocking it. When we arrived in the Croix-de-Bouquet area, we sat in a traffic jam where a once-small makeshift bus station has now turned into a very large and crowded makeshift bus station for people trying to get out of the city. A small gas station had cars and trucks lined up trying to get fuel and ended up blocking the road. In this mess we came across two ladies who work in the MCC office in Port and their families, who have been living outside since their houses were destroyed on Tuesday. They were relieved to see us and asked for a ride out of the city - for about 15 people (!). We told them we would drop off the supplies and come get them on our way out. After 30 minutes or so we squeezed through the jam and found roads to be actually much less trafficky than normal.

Our normal road to get into Port (Delmas 33) was clear but was blocked by a few big MINUSTAH trucks so we had to make a detour to one of the main roads (Delmas). We passed close by the airport and saw helicopters and convoy trucks with what looked like search and rescue teams inside. Going up Delmas towards Petionville was eerie: people were walking up and down the street and traffic was almost nonexistent.
Everyone was either wearing a mask over their mouth and nose or had smeared a white cream under their nose (possibly to keep the scent of bodies away?). Many big buildings were flattened, and in a few places we saw heavy machinery working to remove rubble, most likely searching for survivors. We made our way to Petionville fairly quickly and dropped off our supplies . We saw Ben, Pancha and a friend named Carlito, holding up as best as possible. They had to leave soon after we got there so we started on our way back to Desarmes.

We made our way out of the city and found our group ready to head out to the countryside. Miraculously all 17 of us (I think, it was hard to get a head count) and luggage fit into the pickup, where we slowly (35 mph) made our way back to Desarmes, chugging up steep mountain roads in 2nd gear. The normally 2.5 hour trip was stretched to 4.5 hours but we all arrived safe and sound. This morning Jean-Remy loaded them up again for another long slow drive to a city in the central plateau called Hinche where they have family. Hopefully they all get there safely and Jean gets back without any problems; we still have no cell phone contact which makes everything more difficult, especially if vehicles break down.

It's obviously not the most dramatic story of Haiti right now, but we just wanted to share a little bit about what we're doing in all of this mess. With the arrival of MCC disaster-response folks and more organization and coordination with other NGOs we hope to figure out the best way for us to help.

Something you can do

2010-01-14T15:34:00.001-05:00

from MCC:

Haiti Needs Temporary Protection Status

Issue: On January 12 Haiti was a hit by a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The quake hit close to the capital city of Port Au Prince, affecting up to three million people according to the Red Cross. Details of the human cost are still unclear but some estimates put the death toll in the tens of thousands.

Background: Mennonite Central Committee is responding to the disaster through emergency aid and the U.S. government, along with other aid agencies, has pledged support to the Haitian people.

President Obama in a speech on Wednesday morning said, "Let me just say that this is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share. With just a few hundred miles of ocean between us and a long history that binds us together, Haitians are neighbors of the Americas and here at home. So we have to be there for them in their hour of need."

In addition to emergency relief efforts, the U.S. government can take another important step to help the Haitian people in their "hour of need." The Obama administration can immediately grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitians already in the United States. TPS would allow immigrants who are unable to safely return to their home country - because of ongoing conflict, natural disaster or other extraordinary conditions - to extend their stay in the United States on a temporary basis.

In 2008, tropical storm Gustav and hurricanes Hanna and Ike caused more than $1 billion in damages in Haiti - the equivalent of 15% of the country's GDP - destroying crops, washing out roads and bridges and killing an estimated 800 people. According to USAID, approximately 35,000-40,000 people were left homeless and over 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. Haiti has still not recovered from these storms and the earthquake just compounds the problem.

Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants already living in the United States will help in the recovery effort. There are an estimated 30,000 Haitians in the U.S. facing the threat of deportation. TPS status would allow them to apply for temporary work authorization and the money they send home would assist in Haiti's recovery.

Action: Send a letter to President Obama and urge him to immediately grant TPS for Haiti.

Alert prepared by Theo Sitther, Legislative Associate for International Affairs and Tammy Alexander, Legislative Associate for Domestic Affairs.

The story from Dezam

2010-01-14T15:01:00.004-05:00

- is nothing compared to what's happening in Port-au-Prince. People here are starting to find out about family members missing/killed and a few funerals are already being planned. Unfortunately the earthquake happened right after the semester started (unfortunately it happened at all) so a lot of students had just returned to school from Christmas break - it's especially heartbreaking to hear of families who have lost children. We've seen more people than usual arrive in Dezam on taptaps and buses that are still running, so it seems that everyone who can is leaving the city to stay with family in the countryside.

A quick update on our teammates: three of our Haitian coworkers are still unaccounted for and several others have lost their houses. Joel and Rachel were supposed to be evacuated this morning. People are sleeping in the yard at the MCC guesthouse in Port, which is cracked but still standing - we're still experiencing faint aftershocks here in Dezam and are hoping they're not any stronger there.

So far being in Dezam is sort of like being in Philadelphia during 9-11: you're only two hours away and feel like you should do something, but you also don't want to go and be in the way. Right now the decision is for us to sit tight here, but we're hoping to find a way to help a bit more actively.

The earth moved

2010-01-13T09:50:00.004-05:00

Just a quick post about the earthquake. We're okay here in Desarmes. In this area there were a few minor collapses (a mud wall here, a few cinder blocks there), but other than reports of a fatal heart attack during the quake we've heard nothing of local casualties. All cell phone services have been down since the quake hit and haven't yet returned, so a lot of people are worried about family that lives in Port-au-Prince or other towns (our coordinator, Jean-Remy, actually drove to Port this morning to check on his daughter and other folks). It looks like Port-au-Prince got hit harder than us because of the number of buildings and people and the number of poorly-constructed buildings with multiple stories. For now we don't know how the rest of the MCC team is in Port-au-Prince but we're hoping they are okay. We welcome your thoughts and prayers for Haiti, and we'll post more as we know more.

UPDATE: We just heard through MCC Canada that all program staff, including all international staff, in Port-au-Prince are safe and accounted for (although it sounds like Joel and Rachel had a narrow escape!). We're still waiting to find out about support staff members and are praying and hoping they are safe as well.

Ironwomen.

2010-01-10T14:40:00.008-05:00

Yesterday afternoon six of us intrepid MCC women set out for a 28-mile bike ride through the Artibonite Valley, from Mirabelais to Desarmes:

I'm not really that short. It's just the wide-angle camera
lens and the tall Rachel standing next to me.

Sometimes we stuck together, sometimes we spread out, but either
way we were the biggest spectacle to hit the Artibonite since Fet Dezam.

Pancha won the award for Toughest Cyclist, considering the size and
weight of the brand-spankin'-new cargo bike she pedaled the whole way. (And good job on successfully completing Bike #2, Ben!)

Margot was the second toughest with her long-tail
cargo bike...this cow was pretty interested in the whole affair.

- or was the cow more interested in Esther's balancing act?

The trip was challenging and definitely stretched us
(couldn't resist!), but was a great time.

These photos are courtesy of Ben Depp, and I'll add links to the photos other folks took as they become available online.

These photos are also proof that we returned safe and sound to Haiti. It was really helpful to have people around for the sixty-to-zero, Philadelphia-to-Dezam transition that was challenging last time. We're hopeful this bodes well for the next few months!

En route

2009-12-16T19:25:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-11T12:16:00.004-05:00

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.

2009-12-10T14:09:00.008-05:00

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

2009-12-08T16:20:00.012-05:00

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

2009-12-07T11:32:00.011-05:00

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.

2009-12-04T11:32:00.004-05:00

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

2009-12-03T11:08:00.010-05:00

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?

2009-12-01T16:07:00.014-05:00

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:

2009-11-30T11:42:00.005-05:00

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

2009-11-29T16:14:00.005-05:00

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.

2009-11-27T16:40:00.009-05:00

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.

2009-11-26T11:37:00.006-05:00

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

2009-11-23T12:23:00.008-05:00

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!

2009-11-18T12:34:00.007-05:00

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

2009-11-16T11:24:00.007-05:00

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.

2009-11-13T15:03:00.009-05:00

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.

2009-11-12T08:42:00.005-05:00

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...

2009-11-10T17:10:00.005-05:00

...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

2009-11-09T17:35:00.001-05:00

Quotidian observations.

2009-10-25T15:03:00.014-04:00

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.

2009-10-14T11:40:00.005-04:00

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

2009-09-27T14:35:00.012-04:00

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

2009-08-20T17:44:00.014-04:00

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.

2009-08-05T16:09:00.008-04:00

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.

For fans of Simply in Season

2009-07-28T14:33:00.004-04:00

The authors of one of the best seasonal cookbooks ever are putting together a new book that "will help readers meet the challenges facing the earth and our communities by offering realistic alternatives to many of the consumer choices they make everyday."

Simply Sustainable will feature practical tips and experiences from contributors around the world - click here to submit your ideas.

Ah, 2010 is looking better already...

Making treasures

2009-07-17T11:08:00.015-04:00

This week the environmental education team hosted a program in "trash formation" with a group called the Asosyasyon pou Konbat Fatra Plastik (the Association Against Plastic Trash, or the AKFP). We invited nine extra-interested kids from our Environmental Agents program to participate in the 5-day training.

The goal was to learn how to make these:
- which are fashioned from snack wrappers and strips of cardboard (cut from USAID vegetable oil shipping boxes, naturally). Not only is this a creative way to transform unsightly used packaging into something useful and pleasing, it gives these kids the tools to start a small business if they choose.

They divided into teams, each person cutting, folding, and stitching together the long strips.

After a day or so, they warmed up to each other and passed the time having fun hanging out.
See? It's not a sweatshop!

(Remember the Agent on the far right? That's Silmique, who rocked the mountaintop tree planting day a few weeks ago. He confirmed overachieverness today when he mentioned that he's already started making these bags at home in the evenings. No, he says, his hands aren't sore from all this detailed finger-work.)

A few of the finished products:

So this is a dream development project, right? It offers a creative solution to Haiti's ubiquitous trash problem and provides a way for kids to make money and protect the environment.

Win-win...almost. I do think it's a great project, given a few caveats:

1. "All Haitians have is trash, and they make such great things with it!" True, there is a lot of trash here, but there is a danger in thinking that empty plastic wrappers are the only resource this country has. Making these items can be seen as a true act of creativity, since Haitians aren't obligated to work with these materials any more than Americans are.

2. Finding plastic trash is easy, but finding carboard is surprisingly difficult. It can be had, but having it might present too much of a challenge to starting a business.

3. Where is the market for these bags? At $15-20 US each, they're out of the price range of the average Dezam area resident - and as Frantzo pointed out, you can buy a goat for that kind of money, which will reproduce and create a return on your investment.

(If I could step on a tiny soapbox for a minute: price is actually a really interesting question. $20 is next to nothing for a week's worth of work, but all too often tourists and travelers are on the hunt for bargain-basement souvenirs and treasures: "I got this great handmade X for $2!" We in the developed world need to change the way we financially value the labor of others, regardless of where they live.)

4. Reusing does nothing to reduce consumption, of course still the primary way to reduce trash production.

I am encouraged by the fact that these issues are being addressed by AKFP and my Haitian coworkers. This morning they discussed the idea of having multiple price points to allow more working- and middle-class Haitians to afford the bags. They discussed the value in using these bags with pride, showcasing local handiwork. They recognized that this is a stopgap measure while we all work on reducing consumption.

And that discussion, my friends, is something of a development dream come true.

Fete Saut D'eau/Fet Sodo

2009-07-16T11:53:00.031-04:00

Last Sunday, after a yummy birthday breakfast for Bryan (strawberry preserves! baked oatmeal!), we headed to the waterfall down the road for the annual week-long Vodou/Catholic festival. Yes, that's right: Vodou and Catholic. The Catholics celebrate the Vierge-Miracle, or the appearance of the Virgin Mary in a palm tree near the waterfall in 1847, while the Vodouisants come to pray to Erzulie, the goddess of love (often considered the Vodou equivalent of the Virgin Mary). Handily enough, both festivals run from July 7-16.

The waterfall itself is gorgeous enough to be a draw any time of year. We wore bathing suits and hiked up to stand under the rushing water, laughing with the dozens of people around us. It was the first time in a long time I've been around more than two ethnic groups (i.e., Haitians and me), since Sunday seemed to be some sort of UN/MINUSTAH visiting time.

Yesterday afternoon a few members of our team decided they wanted to check out the festival (for the first time ever, a fact I find somewhat astonishing considering that Dezam is pretty close to Sodo). Since the main part of the festival was supposed to be happening last night through this morning, we tagged along to see what we could see. What a difference a few days make! The waterfall was so loaded with people we didn't even attempt to bathe.

Along the road headed up to the entrance point, spur-of-the-moment rara bands sang and danced.

People stopped to light candles and leave offerings - rum, herbs, and plastic rosaries - at various places along the road.

We couldn't figure out what this carcass in the tree was - goat, perhaps?

Things were pretty similar last year, apparently, although it seems like the road has really improved since 2001 - now you can actually drive nearly all the way to the entrance point if there's space for a vehicle to pass.

I was glad we went yesterday for the sake of the experience, but overall it was one of the worst days we've had in Haiti. People were wildly aggressive: making fun of the blan, throwing things, telling us we weren't allowed there. I was cursed at more times yesterday than I ever have been in my life. I think our Haitian teammates were pretty surprised at the things people were yelling - and fortunately they went out of their way to look out for us.

Since this sort of unofficially kicks off the summer festival season in Haiti, many participants will head from Sodo to Limonad to Veret and onward. For me, though, this is the end of the party line.

Plastic: in the end, how we did.

2009-07-02T11:29:00.009-04:00

June is over and we're now allowed to buy toilet paper and dish soap again. It's a bit irksome that it's impossible to acquire basic necessities without also acquiring a container that will be with us way past the lifespan of the product. In addition to our previously posted "sin list," I will confess to acquiring the following:

- An unseen plastic seal on an otherwise metal-lidded glass jar
- 3 plastic bags
- 2 medication packages (diarrhea gets old but quick.)
- 5 lids on otherwise non-plastic containers
- 18 buttons (technically durable goods, but still...)
- Saran Wrap (!)

While some of these were humblingly avoidable, we couldn't find a way around others.

The point of this month, however, was not to feel bad about mistakes but rather to heighten our awareness of our consumer plastic consumption. It forces me to ask: is what I'm about to purchase actually a necessity? Is there a creative way to solve this problem, a way that doesn't need that plastic push? It also helped me see the patterns in my purchasing and work toward alleviating those demands. It's true that I won't be able to cut out my plastic usage entirely, but simple changes can have a long-lasting impact (e.g., think of how many yogurt containers I didn't buy since I started making my own).

As Alexis pointed out, the ability to generate trash is sometimes a sign of upward mobility: it's no accident that it's much easier to be plastic-free here in Dezam, the least-affluent place we've ever lived. For those of us who aspire to live simply so that all may simply live, maybe the ubiquity of plastic can remind us that we are among the haves of the world. And maybe taking steps to reduce our consumption can be an act of creative solidarity with those who don't have the option of paper or plastic.

There I'm happy, I'm planting trees -

2009-06-24T16:41:00.011-04:00

Oh hallelujah, nature is more beautiful!

- so goes the song.

Today we hosted a konbit, or work day, to plant trees on a nearby mountaintop called Three Ravines. Mountaintop-planting is one of MCC Dezam's priorities for the year, and this konbit also gave our 4th- and 5th-grade "Environmental Agents" the chance to participate.

The kids marched through the center of Dezam carrying trees and singing before we hopped in big trucks and headed up the mountain:

I also think this kid in his sneakers is
adorable. He totally deserves to be line leader.

We parked the trucks and loaded up with cases of seedlings to continue upward on foot. There's no photographic documentation, but both Bryan and I carried cases Haitian-style. It's both easier and more tiring than it looks:

Most cases hold 96 trees, and we carried up about 65 of them.

Not even an official Agent, this kid was amazing:

He lives near where we parked the trucks, tagged along, and
was a tree-mendous help. (Ah, the pun was just too easy!)

A truly amazing Agent, Silmique can heft the heaviest loads without complaint:

This was him taking a break.

Several local officials and two community nursery committees helped organize the konbit:

These folks worked so quickly we could hardly get trees
in the newly-dug holes fast enough.

We headed back down the mountain for lunch:

In many community konbits, people work in exchange for a meal (the same way that North Americans are obligated to buy pizza for friends who help them move). What a beautiful valley it is, and how tree-filled it will one day be.

Mixed reviews.

2009-06-14T16:12:00.018-04:00

Livrezon is finished! We distributed thousands of trees from 22 community nurseries in 7 work days. Phew. This morning I relaxed and slept in until 6:30am.

It was pretty interesting, actually, to have the chance to go on a condensed "tour" of the nurseries and see the committees (and communities) in action. Some committees ran the distribution like old pros, asking people to line up and calmly wait for each kind of tree. In other communities the receivers were less gracious, pressing impatiently against one another as they waited their turns - and even turning up their noses at certain species.

While on the one hand watching seedlings go out into the big wide world in the hands of people who will care for them is heartwarming, and makes the last year's work all seem worth it, there is something about the tree distributions that made both Bryan and me uncomfortable. We knew that some trees were sold and some were given away - but for some reason we thought that most of the trees were sold; in reality, the nurseries give away 90% of the trees and reserve only a few to sell. We thought that if someone pays for something, even just a nominal fee, that person is more likely to value and care for that thing, right?

As usual in Haiti, it's complicated. Since MCC has been giving away trees for most of its 25-year history, it's hard to change this strategy quickly (a former MCCer in Dezam pointed out that MCC nurseries only started selling trees within the last 5 years). The community members expect a certain number of trees, and in a way, not giving them trees is a vote of unconfidence, a gesture that would be perceived as a lack of faith in their ability to plant and care for trees. Also, if our primary goal is reforestation and not community development, it makes sense to take advantage of the thousands of volunteers willing to plant and care for trees on their own land.

Community development, however, is an overarching goal of the program. Even in the short time we've been here, I've noticed how people take pride in their work with MCC. Our teachers and nursery committee members are learning about community organizing, running small businesses, and getting students involved. As foreigners in Haiti, a country where many people have developed a mentality of dependency on foreign aid (with the accompanying expectations and attitudes of entitlement), MCC's emphasis on empowering Haitians to run this program has been its most heartening aspect. From this perspective, grand-scale distributions make us feel like just another couple of white people here to hand something out.

Last week, a few people frustrated with the number of trees they were getting (only about 25 each) told Bryan, "If MCC won't give us trees, we'll just grow our own!"

So, um. Wouldn't this be the best possible outcome, that the people living in these communities would start to improve the land on their own?

Maybe we should start to rethink the way MCC's program approaches the issue of deforestation, encouraging communities to think of our nurseries as a resource for their own endeavors.

-posted by Sharon, from Bryan's account

Confessions of a Hitherto Unknown Plasti-holic.

2009-06-09T15:45:00.009-04:00

Well, there's nothing like hard data to destroy your self-image. Here I was, thinking that Bryan and I were doing a pretty good job of leading a plastic-free life - this might just be one of the few places in our hemisphere where it's almost harder to find packaged things than not - until I took stock of our week.

To wit, so far in June we have acquired:
- 4 toilet paper wrappers
- 3 plastic lids on cardboard packages
- 2 plastic bags (egregious. simply uncalled for.)
- 1 plastic bottle of Pepto Bismol (Haitian stomach-itis strikes again.)
- 1 soda bottle (ah, that Bryan.)
- 1 small bottle of travel shampoo (well, we stayed in a fancy hotel for our anniversary and it was just sitting there and it smelled so good.)
- 2 water bottles (also from the hotel.)
- 4 noodle wrappers
- The disposable plastic lid to our reusable plastic Culligan bottle
- 1 plastic gallon jug (although this one is technically a durable good, for buying milk.)

So, wow. It's been 9 days and I was sure we'd be 100% new-plastic-free. Piece of cake, right? Guess I learned a little something here.

Nevertheless, we renew our efforts and continue mostly undaunted...

Livrezon

2009-06-09T15:29:00.012-04:00

Kreyol for "distribution/delivery," this is what we call the weeks of the year when all the trees our committees have been growing go out to make their way in the big world. Each nursery picks a day within these weeks to distribute, and MCC staff divides and covers each site.

This is how it works: the nursery committee estimates how many people from the community will come, and we divide up the trees among those people. Usually each person gets around 100 trees. If people want a specific species of tree or a specific quantity, they buy them. We also sell some of our trees to other NGOs that have projects nearby - this year we have a huge order to fill, so at every livrezon we separate the trees for this order and truck them away (well, in some cases after we carry them out over mountain and river).

Each livrezon starts at 5am, which mean an early day for everyone. Some nurseries are a 15-minute drive away, while others are a 30-minute drive plus a 30-minute hike and better yet, some are a 30-minute drive with a 2-hour hike which means waking up at the very unhealthy hour of 2:15am to leave the office at 2:30 to be at the trailhead by 3am to hopefully be at the nursery by 5am. Not much sleep this week.

Well, here are some photos of livrezon in a place called Chanpyon - it's about an hour hike after a 20-minute drive. Enjoy! More pictures to come.

Inside the nursery as the trees are on their way to the public.

A few ladies leaving with their new trees.

Every camera finds a ham.

Loading up buckets and baskets with seedlings.

Into the hills

2009-06-01T14:52:00.013-04:00

Nothing says "Saturday fun" like a 5-hour roundtrip hike to see a fort built by Christopher Columbus's crewmates (or so our guide said). The hike was as gorgeous as the actual fort, and we were introduced to an enchanted village high above Dezam.

The people in this pretty place were hard hit by last year's hurricane's - some are still living in temporary A-frame shelters made of scrap metal or branches - and are especially focused on rebuilding their school. Our guide and one of the local villagers asked us if we would consider contributing to this fund, and ask our friends and families to help out as well.

Aside from my usual reluctance to throw money at a problem - it perpetuates dependency and does nothing to address unjust power structures - I felt hesitant to commit to this project. They weren't sure how much the total would be, and they don't yet have a plan for a hurricane-resistant building to replace the old one. My American fundraising mind wants that sort of data before taking on a capital campaign.

However, I recognize that I'm in a position of privilege to be able to say things like "giving money perpetuates dependency." Is helping people in a moment of outstanding need more important than proving a point? In a way, making a small donation could have been an act of solidarity. As our guide said, "If I give a gourde, and my friend gives 5, little by little we'll have enough." And despite what it can look like, it's hard to see communities in need and not reach for the instant gratification of the wallet ("I gave money. I helped.").

I know this is an issue wherever wealth and want rub elbows, but it's especially complicated in Haiti. Many people here are so used to receiving, receiving, receiving from foreigners that it's hard for them to think of themselves as capable adults who can work toward improving their own lives. From that perspective, not giving money has a larger payoff in the end.

So am I cold-hearted for not wanting to shell out cash to those who ask? Or am I wise for keeping my money off-limits? I think that what I should strive for, what I'm working toward, is finding the third way. Maybe I won't give money, but I can give advice and encouragement. Maybe I won't give a handout, but maybe I will create a small job so that the asker can earn the money.

In the end, that's what we did. We gave our guide a generous tip for his work that day, and left it up to him to decide how much should go to the school rebuilding project.

Across the ridge to the fort.

The school is temporarily holding classes in some of the fort's old rooms.

An ancient water-catchment system.

Roadside cemetery.

Passing under two huge mapou trees (or ceiba, as we learned they're
called in English and Spanish) on our way down the mountain.

Take the plastic challenge.

2009-05-31T16:37:00.004-04:00

Litter is a problem in many countries, and Haiti is no exception. There’s little waste management infrastructure in our area, and often the best you can do is sweep your trash (plastic, metal, paper, whatever) into a small pile and burn it. As you can imagine, this presents its own challenges. A better strategy here is to either recycle your own consumer byproducts (using cans and bottles as planting containers, refilling the same bag of flour in the market) or avoiding waste altogether (choosing a refillable glass soda bottle over a plastic one). I know trash management is a large and complex issue, but becoming aware of how much we participate in the problem is an important step in finding a creative solution.

We were talking about this with a few of our fellow MCCers, and decided to step it up a notch. The challenge is simple:

No new plastic for one month.

No wrappers, no bottles, no lids. No see-through windows in cardboard boxes. No plastic buttons on clothing. No new flip-flops. I don’t even know if this will be possible, but trying will at least help us become aware of how much plastic we have in our day-to-day lives.

Why plastic? Even those advertised as “biodegradable” often don’t break down for decades, making our temporary containers a rather permanent part of our environment. Anybody for a vacation to the Pacific Trash Vortex?

Since I assume you’re all already doing things like foregoing Styrofoam, recycling, and using cloth shopping bags, I invite you to participate in No-Plastic June. You can keep the plastic you already have around the house, but don't purchase any new plastic for one month.

Then tell us about it! We’ll be posting here about our attempts to be plastic-free, so please feel free to leave comments about your own challenges and successes.

May Retrospective

2009-05-29T13:04:00.022-04:00

Wow, how the weeks fly by! Here's a little of how we've been filling our time this month:

The Great Cherry Meltdown.
Our resources in Dezam are limited even compared to those of our coworkers in Port-au-Prince, so when I learned that there were cherries in Port's local markets I felt discouraged and more than a little jealous. But lo and behold, I found this in front of our house:

And this behind our house:

And this at the MCC office:

The lesson, it turns out, is to keep my eyes open to what's happening all around me. It might just be the thing I think I'm missing.

Visitors from the North.
Hooray for:
Beth & Jason! We had a fantastic time showing them our favorite haunts, checking out the local arts scene, and cooking up a tasty cherry crumble. After receiving B&J and Bryan's parents, and hanging out in Dezam with the Steckleys last week, we can say again that we LOVE having visitors (hint hint, for those of you weighing the pros and cons of trekking to the Caribbean this year...). It's really what makes it possible for us to keep living in the Artibonite Valley. Well, that and the internet.

Taking to the seas.

Last Sunday a group of MCCers, visitors, and friends headed to a small island off the coast of our small island home for a day of snorkeling and splashing in the waves.

For photos and details, click through to Rebekah H.’s blog.

Induction into MCC's Ajan Anviwonman Program.
Well, we didn't actually become Agents, but the Environmental Education Program welcomed 30 new students (2 from each partner school) as AAs. These kids were selected by their teachers based on their enthusiasm for protecting the environment, and MCC's program plans special activities throughout the year to encourage them to pick up trash (or reduce their trash creation in general), plant trees, and spread the green word to other kids.

Changing of the Season.
Goodbye dust, hello mud:
After months of hauling water from the river for our garden, the rains have come and brought everything back to life!

We hadn't realized how much we missed the sound of rain until we started hearing it again. This means that our water worries are over (no more driving to the river to find water for our garden) but our electricity worries have begun (less sunshine means less time for our solar panel to convert rays into power).

The arrival of Bryan’s first true love.

I’ve become a bike widow again, but I don’t resent for a minute the pleasure he gets from tooling around on two wheels. We cannot thank the many hands that made its arrival possible. Danny and Courtney pulled it out of their basement and got it boxed up, Beth and Jason lugged the thing around a few airports and Frazer Mennonite paid the oversize luggage fee. We can't thank you all enough for making this happy reunion possible – THANK YOU!

You never forget how.

2009-05-03T00:51:00.009-04:00

May 1 is a national holiday (Agriculture Day), and we decided to spend the long weekend in Port-au-Prince for some always-needed out-of-Dezam time.Our friend Ben just bought a bike a few weekends ago in St. Marc, which brings the total number of bikes at the Depps' to 2. On Friday morning Ben and I decided to go for a ride. Port is built on a hill, so everywhere is up or down and we decided to go up first to get the hard pedaling out of the way.

I hopped on the Ardis Silver Bike, which bears a sticker proudly announcing that it was handbuilt in the Ukraine. Ben was riding his new, circa-1980 Trek road bike. We pedaled out to the main road and start cranking up the hill. Immediately my heart started thumping and my lungs turned to fire. As I was cranking up the hill I put my head down and just thought about breathing and spinning the pedals. Maybe I was taking in too many deep breaths of exhaust, but fatigue hit me hard and I asked for a breather. Okay, not so bad, I haven't been on a bike in 9 months so what can I expect? We stand, I breathe, we continue on.

Another mile up the hill - wham-o, I start feeling nauseated. I pedal over to the side of the road where I, um, expeditiously empty the contents of my stomach onto the pavement. What a milestone: first time I've ever experience exercise-induced sickness. I got it out of my system and drank some water. I didn't feel 100% sick, just the very urgent need to throw up. (I guess I didn't look too bad, as Ben told me he wished he had his camera. Thanks.) We continue to the top of the hill in Petionville where I chicken out, deciding that it's best we turn back as I don't want to throw up again.

We tear back down the road, passing cars and buses. The feeling of speed, wind and weightlessness from the top of a bike was amazing and I remembered why I missed biking so much. So it sucked to throw up from biking (and it's only the 4th time in my life I remember throwing up at all), but well worth it. In a few weeks some friends are coming to Haiti to visit us and they agreed to bring my mountain bike with them. Now I have this crazy nervous anticipation eating away at me, first because I can't wait to ride more and second because I'm not quite sure I can handle it. Ah, let's blame it on midday heat and lungfuls of exhaust.

Bring on the hills and the heat. It's worth it.

Mango and Poison Ivy

2009-04-28T11:39:00.003-04:00

Mango season has just begun here in Desarmes. The rest of the country seemingly has had them for quite awhile, but now here in the Artibonite Valley all the mango trees are giving us baskets and baskets of the sweet fruit. This week I was reminded of the Mango / Poison Ivy connection. Both plants are in the same family and both contain Urushiol, the chemical that makes your skin develop a rash. Well luckily this stuff is only in Mango skin and eating it poses no problem, but if you handle it and get some sap on your hands you just may develop a rash.

So as our first PSA, be sure to wash your hands after you cut up a mango and wash well between your fingers.

Happy mango eating!

My new favorite thing.

2009-04-23T14:26:00.006-04:00

I know we're supposed to be living a rural life here in Haiti without the luxuries most people have, but every once and awhile we find ourselves in the 21st century. We do have the internet in our office, and we use it just about every day. We did, however, feel like news was getting lost in the shuffle. When Obama took office (he is our new president, right?) we didn't have a TV and the internet was down so we missed all the news surrounding his inauguration.

In our quest to be just a bit more connected to the rest of the world we turned to radio. Make that satellite radio. We now have news, music and lots of stations I will never listen to, but my oh my I didn't realize how much I missed NPR until we sat down last Sunday and listened to This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and Car Talk all in a row. It was amazing. I don't want to sound like a commercial or anything, and in the U.S. I had no need for such a device, but our new little radio is the greatest thing since rice and beans.

On another note, it appears that Dezam's rainy season has finally come. We've had rain several times in the last few days and the air is cool and fresh like is hasn't been in months. Hopefully this won't kill our solar-powered battery system and leave us without the aforementioned internet and radio...here's hoping for rain at night and sun during the day.

So what's your question?

2009-04-20T17:32:00.007-04:00

That is what I asked a nursery worker about 5 times this morning.

I went to do a regular nursery visit, which was only my second without another member of the MCC team with me (despite the past 7 months, I'm still new to this). It started off pretty well: we filled plastic planting bags with soil, planted seeds, situated them, and counted all the trees to keep up to date with the number they have in the nursery. As we're wrapping up, we move on to a few points of discussion.
O
ne of the nursery guys says he has a question. Okay. He says, "I think it's a good idea for everyone to show up for work days."

Okay, what's your question?

He says, "Maybe you don't understand Creole too well."

Okay. What's your question?

Another person says, "If we have a work day, it's much better when we're all here."

Yes, I agree. Still: question?

They start getting angry and frustrated that I'm not understanding. Finally I realize they're having a problem with everyone showing up, and want someone else (i.e., me) to reinforce the rule that everyone should participate in work days. I end up giving them a little speech about how it's not quite that black and white, what if a child is sick, you are sick, there's a funeral, and I cannot outright say that they have the right to miss a work day here and there, but I also can't say everyone better be there for work days or else. I remind them that they are a team, and as such need to talk more and discuss among themselves what works best for them. They don't have to wait around for MCC to show up to discuss issues like this.

After this frustrating session, I returned to the office and had this conversation:
"Bryan, we need to decide who should go to St. Marc on Wednesday."
"Okay."
Silence.
"I can go if you want."
Silence.
"Ummm, if someone else should go more than me, that's fine too."
Silence.
After a little while, I realize that the other person wants me to volunteer to not go so that I can be at the office for our weekly meeting. I think.

One day, and lots of indirectness. I just got so frustrated that I understood the words but still totally misunderstood the intent, and now feel like I've lost my confidence in my ability to understand other people.

Well, to bluntly overstate it, I hope to start learning indirectness soon.

Since you might have found this anyway

2009-04-09T16:29:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago, we were asked to respond to a questionnaire as part of MCC's strategic planning process, New Wine, New Wineskins. Unbeknownst to us, our responses were to appear online here and here. (For some reason, Bryan's response posted twice.)

This should give you a sense of the types of questions MCC is asking itself when it looks to the future, as well as some of our thoughts in brief about our experience here.

Everything but and the…

2009-04-08T16:56:00.017-04:00

Kitchen sink, ultimate quotidian, veins of a kitchen, total luxury, signifier of the working class, dish bathtub, art object, vegetable soaking station, chore center, hand rinser, pot filler, kitchen keystone, spouse of stove, new prosperity, a culinary hearth.

Our house was piped for water when it was built (complete with a 200-gallon tank on the roof, which generally lasts us about a month), but up until this week our only running water was a shower fixture (but hey, we have running water).

Most people in Dezam don't have a sink, kitchen or otherwise, but that's no reason to pity them. Haitians seem to get along just fine without one - it's we foreigners, we North Americans, who rely on such unnecessary luxuries. I suppose I should view our new kitchen sink as a weakness, a coddled dependency on infrastructure and convenience.

Having this sink, though, makes me feel more settled. We even went hog-wild and bought a dish drainer, as you can see above. Growing up in a house with 8 people and no dishwasher, I spent many formative hours elbow-deep in hot soapy water, with someone else drying and yet another someone putting dishes away. O, the songs we made up! The conversations we had! In high school I permanently traded dish duty for laundry detail, and although I got the easier, less repetitive chore, I can't help feeling now that I lost something.

In that sense, a kitchen sink feels like family. Domesticity. The open days of childhood. And since our sink was installed with the much-appreciated help of Dad Thompson (their week-long visit, by the way, was great fun and a welcome time of talking, relaxing, and utter familiarity), I think of them - and all the people who support us, who provide our personal infrastructure - whenever I turn on the tap. Out splashes home. Bliss.

And as for the "everything," I give you Notes from Dezam:

- We met Nahomie's baby yesterday! Our coworker has been on maternity leave since the beginning of March, but just had the baby March 26, an adorable little girl named Mesanifta and nicknamed Melissa.

- If you were ever worried about whether Haiti is a God-fearing country, you can lay your fears to rest. A few Protestant churches have teamed up to present evening revival services all through this week, while the Catholic church next door is also marking Easter week with daily activities. Megaphones galore.

- Thirteen of the teachers in our program (who are all male, by the way) spent a day of their Vakans Pak (Easter/spring break) participating in a day of training focused on the last unit for the year. These 5 lessons reflect the heart of the curriculum: Planting and caring for trees. Writing letters to the Haitian Minister of the Environment and local officials. Learning about the water cycle and the ecosystem. Training days also give the teachers a chance to develop camaraderie and a sense of pride in their profession, often missing amidst the missing salaries, small staffs, and isolation of several schools. They have such a good time together the air fairly crackles on training days.

- Fritzner's mother, a bonbon siwo (sweet treat) vendor up in the mountains, was involved in a fairly serious tap-tap accident this week. I'm not sure how many people were involved - the truck was full - but Fritzner's mother was relatively fortunate to sustain injuries only to her foot. She was in the hospital but is home now, and we wish her a continued speedy recovery.

- Senatorial elections are scheduled for Sunday, April 19, and campaigns are in full swing. (If I had a vote, I'd cast it for Joseph Joel John/John Joseph Joel/Joel John Joseph just because he's being advertised with all of those variations.) Election day unrest is anticipated this year because preparations for the election have been uneven at best and 1/3 of the candidates who applied were not permitted to run for office. Dezam is usually pretty calm, but we're hoping folks in the rest of the country can sail through without too much difficulty.

Photo of a tree.

2009-03-29T19:52:00.003-04:00

Tree. Haiti.

Reforestation or Agroforestry?

2009-03-19T16:14:00.014-04:00

Lately I've been noticing a problem with the terminology used to describe our program. I understand why it's easier to call our program reforestation because that's what the world wants to hear. People want to know that other people are reforesting land by simply planting trees and not ever cutting them down. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The other day someone asked, "It sounds like your program is agroforestry and not reforestation, is that true?" I thought for a moment and said "yes."

Dictionary.com provides this enlightenment:

re·for·est: to replant (an area) with forest cover.
re'for·es·ta'tion: n. the restoration (replanting) of a forest that had been reduced by fire or cutting. v. (used with object) to replant trees on (land denuded by cutting or fire).

ag·ro·for·est·ry: a method and system of land management involving the simultaneous cultivation of farm crops and trees; agriculture incorporating the growing of trees. Agroforestry ensures a continuous food supply, some continuous economic return, and the avoidance of soil degradation.

And courtesy of Wikipedia, there's also
sustainable forest management (SFM): the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfill, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.

I think agroforestry fits us better than reforestation, and we're not yet at the whole-forest level of SFM. Maybe each of the definitions fit us in some way, but which one sounds sexier and which will get funding? Reforestation, of course.

I just feel sometimes like we are misleading people. Our supporters think we plant trees which hang out in the ground and grow, and everyone is happy. Most of the Haitians who plant MCC trees cut some of those trees every year to make money. They make charcoal, harvest firewood, mill lumber for building, etc. I get a little agitated (just a bit) when people think that we shouldn't let them cut trees. The people in our communities still need to make a living, and I think it's awesome and amazing that we have arrived at a program that both reforests the land and grants people a way to achieve some financial independence at the same time.

From now on we will have to reference this project as the KSM (Komite Santral Menonit) Reforestation, Agroforestry, and Sustainable Forestry Program. And in Haiti acronyms never make a pronounceable word so we can call it MCC/KSM RASFP. Easy, eh?

I guess that's it for now, even though now I feel like one of those people that are always trying to explain their very technical job to someone and eventually just say "I work with computers."

I plant trees.

Bryan

School days

2009-03-19T15:40:00.016-04:00

Ah, routine. Happens to the best of us.

Having this blog helpfully reminds us that our routine might still be of interest to those of you who are worlds away, and that sharing our experiences with you is a big part of the - well, experience.

Approximately four mornings a week, my routine sends me to visit a 4th or 5th grade classroom somewhere in the countryside around Dezam. I'm proud to say that after a mere 6 months, I am able to make some of these trips alone (yes, I am speaking Creole. or trying to, anyway). The farthest one is a 2-hour hike over a mountain range (haven't done that alone yet) and the closest is a 20-minute walk up the paved road (was just there by myself this morning).

Visiting schools is a completely polarized experience for me. I love the opportunity to get the Not-for-Tourists view of these communities, hang out with teachers, students, school directors, and the marchanns who are always ready to vend at recess. I enjoy feeling like the work I'm doing here might actually matter in someone's daily life. On the other hand, the unending curiosity the students have about foreigners can wear on me. (Yes, you've seen me before. Shouldn't you be in your own classroom instead of staring through the windows of this one?) And while I like kids, I wouldn't say I'm particularly talented when it comes to working with them.

From what I've experienced so far, I can tell you the following about the schools here:

- There are at least three kinds of schools: private, church-run, and national. Private and church-run schools require an attendance fee, while the national schools are technically free (students must still pay for books, uniforms, school supplies, etc.).
- Teachers in private and church-run schools speak of national schools as something close to a plague. When a national school opens, enrollment in nearby schools can plummet. One of the classes in MCC's program currently has 3 students, thanks to a national school that opened this year.
- School fees are usually paid monthly. These don't seem exorbitant, but are still enough to exclude many children from attending. I don't know how the schools feel about it, but we usually try to let any non-student hangers-around observe the MCC lessons.
- Months after the world has stopped paying attention to the tragedy of Gonaives, several schools in the Artibonite are still feeling the effects of the 2008 hurricanes. Families are unable to pay school fees because they're trying to replant their fields or rebuild their fences. One school had just finished constructing a new concrete block schoolhouse - only to have the building destroyed before the school year started.
- Teachers sometimes aren't paid for months at a time. I have no idea how they manage to keep these jobs at a seeming loss to themselves.
- While of course the levels vary, it seems that most directors and teachers genuinely care about the education of the children. They're working with highly limited resources (many are in one-room schoolhouses where students are fortunate to have a desk attached to the bench they share with others) and struggle with the legacy of decades of teaching by rote memorization (a tradition unfortunately still alive and well).
- Students care about the color of the uniform. All schools require them, and they all feature a gingham shirt with cotton skirts for girls and shorts for boys. Color combinations range widely: pink and khaki; yellow and brown; navy blue and white (the national colors). I would care too.

From Haiti

What's normal?

2009-03-07T10:41:00.012-05:00

Both Kurt and Alexis have commented on their blogs about how after you live in Haiti (or any new place) for a little while, the things that at first blew your mind and inspired blog posts are now totally normal. I started thinking about what I've gotten used to so far, the things that don't surprise me at all:

1. Kids/adults shouting "BLAN!" I still get annoyed, but now I can ignore it 95% of the time.

2. Naked people - they're everywhere. They're not always 100% nude, but they're pretty close.

3. People on horseback, just like the wild west. Almost.

4. Farm animals: goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, cows, donkeys. They roam freely: you name it; they're walking around.

5. Trash. Plastic bottles, bags, etc. There is nobody here to take it "away" so it stays on the ground or is burnt.

6. Fires. These are usually for cooking, but people also burn trash, leaves, farm fields, and tires. Sometimes at night we can see fires on the sides of the mountains surrounding Desarmes, and sometimes we get a nice chemically whiff of burning plastic. Ah, fresh air.

7. Toyota trucks. If Toyota ever thought their trucks were not invincible, they should look at the trucks here. If you remember commercials from a long time ago, they showed odometers of 200/300/400/500,000 miles and still running. Now, imagine these same trucks being shipped to Haiti, where almost every aspect of preventative maintenance is ignored, they get overloaded so that their bumpers are almost dragging on the ground, and they drive over roads that should be called trails. These trucks are unstoppable. (Toyota, you can send a check for this ad to MCC Akron.)

8. Stars. No infrastructure means no lights, and no lights means no light pollution, which means STARS!!! everywhere! We've seen a few spectacular meteor showers - but really, most nights are spectacular.

9. Vodou drumming at 2am, almost every night.

10. Home church services at 3am, not every night but often. These are louder than the drumming.

11. People walking through the streets shouting news through a megaphone. They usually start between 4-5am.

12. Little animals. Lizards, inside and outside. Tree frogs in the house, hiding in hats, behind curtains, or wherever it is dark.

13. People everywhere (really, everywhere). It is impossible to do anything without being watched. Who needs Big Brother when you have 8 million of his younger siblings?

Sojourning in a Lent time

2009-03-01T18:11:00.002-05:00

Always a meaningful time of year for me, the forty days of Lent are a period in which to experience the starless night that comes before the Easter dawn. Fasting provides an impetus to identify and forgo distracting habits in favor of meditation on the divine, to mirror the sacrifice Christ embodied on the cross. Lenten fasting is beyond the level of a New Year’s resolution; temporarily denying a physical desire symbolizes our yearning for the redemption of the world. It exacts flesh from flesh, the very nature of the thing. As Christ set his face toward Jerusalem, we too look forward to the moment of salvation. We wait. We wait.

Now, during our first Lent in Haiti, during such a defined period in my life (how often do we see 3 years so clearly?), I find myself thinking about the nature of sacrifice. What does one ever hope to get out of voluntary sacrifice? Pride in being able to say, I did it? A heightened appreciation for what is later restored? I’m torn between saying that I haven’t sacrificed anything in coming to Haiti (living here is much easier than I thought it would be; all our basic needs are met, I go through most days with an unflappable sense of physical security, and we have the opportunity to do something wildly interesting) and in voicing my loneliness, the personal sacrifice of giving up ready friends, visits with family, and the security of a familiar home culture. The things I’m missing cut close.

Somewhere in my soul is the conviction that sacrifice will teach me something I couldn’t learn otherwise, the hope that pushing through temporary discomfort will make me a stronger person. Sacrifice in search of the unexpected, a growth period that will allow me to shoot off in a new direction. Just as rules make a game possible, sacrifice is essential to abundance. I choose to see Lent as time given with expectation, balancing now and soon. Not lightly present. Borrowed time.

Oh...the places you will go.

2009-02-26T12:34:00.020-05:00

- or the places you will have been. We just wrapped up a whopping 10 days away from "home" with Kànaval celebrations, a 5-day trip to the D.R. with our team, and a few days lounging at the beach in Labadee/Cap Haitien in the north.

Kànaval

Nothing but the biggest celebration to hit the Catholic world each year, Kànaval is the last great splash before Lent begins. In

Haiti

it's a break from daily routine, a chance to fe dezòd (go a little crazy), and an amazing marketing opportunity for Haitian companies. Since this is our first year, we decided to head south to the annual parade in Jacmel (usually a week earlier than the rest), a town known for elaborate papier-mâche costumery:

Our working hypothesis is that things creative in Haiti are usually
political or religious. Yes, that is a MINUSTAH man getting mauled by a tiger.

The team's excursion
The morning after we returned from Jacmel, we loaded our team into the "bus," as Sharon likes to call it (our Toyota Landcruiser; it seats 12 Americans or about 20 Haitians) and set out on the much-anticipated trip to the D.R. For 4 of our teammates, this would be the first time they left Haiti. (Last minute maneuverings: we still didn't have Fritzner's visa – it was dropped off at the Dominican embassy for processing, and was supposed to be ready the morning of our trip. Luckily for him, it was.) Our frontier crossing went off without a hitch, even though we were stopped at SEVEN police checkpoints after we entered the country. Does the same thing happens in the U.S. along the Mexico border, or is this just really over the top? A lot of Haitians do cross the border illegally to find work, so I guess this is the Dominican way to catch them. Still. Some of these checkpoints were only a mile apart from each other.

11 hours after leaving Desarmes we arrived in Piedra Blanca, home base of Floresta, a reforestation program actually working on both halves of the island. They have had amazing success working with the Dominican government, which has made reforestation a national priority. (Tourism is booming, and tourists would much rather see trees than bare burnt earth and some cacti.) We toured eucalyptus and cacao forests, and also checked out Floresta’s agricultural work: oregano, cilantro, and pineapple fields.

Pineapple.

Jean, looking both studious and majestic.

Chocolate in the wild.

Learning about organic fertilizer with Rafael, a Floresta agriculturalist.

Our last day was spent taking in the sights of Santo Domingo. The best part for us was listening to the reactions of our Haitian co-workers:

Fritzner screaming to Frantzo, “Look! a road over our heads!” as we went under an overpass.

Nahomie whispering, Mezanmi! (“Oh my gosh!”) as the gate lifted after we dropped in our toll. (Tolls!)

Total silence as we drove past a big TV billboard; they sat enraptured.

It was a little sad for us that things that are so routine for us (and are actually nearly outmoded – who doesn’t have EZ-Pass?) were so remarkable to them. We so admire the bravery and persistence of Haitians in just living, but feel frustrated that it has to be that way – but we’ll leave the complexities of development for another post.

Labadee/Cap Haitian (Okap)

We decided to hop off the bus in Port, as we had decided to use the 5-day Kànaval weekend to take the bus south to Les Cayes to visit a friend. At the last minute, we were made an offer we couldn't refuse. Kurt (our new Country Representative – hooray!) and his girlfriend Hillary were headed north to the beach at Labadee and to check out Kànaval in Okap. The huge advantages for us: we wouldn’t have to sit on buses for hours, we could check out a place we’ve heard is unmissably great, and they could drop us off at our doorstep afterwards. We're in.

The town of Labadee is pretty much owned by Royal Caribbean; they’ve fenced off a section of the beach as a huge tropical tourist playground. Since we were not guests of Royal Caribbean (we stayed at a beautiful fort-turned-hotel with a little beach) we were not able to access this wonderland, but gawked Haitian-style at the cruise ships that arrived in the bay each day. They’re huge!

The ethereal mosquito net in our hotel room. See the greenery
outside? And the fan in the corner? That's a little slice of heaven.

Our "roommate": an intrepid hermit crab.

The next day we took the boat taxi back to Cap Haitian for Kànaval. To give you a sense of what this is like in Port-au-Prince, thousands of glitter-covered Okappers dancing in the streets to the loudest music ever is considered pretty tame. It was fun to see everyone enjoying themselves, taking one day to dance away sorrows.

Returning home was bittersweet: we love to travel, but living out of a bag gets old after a week or so. Hello, garden! Hello, home cooking! We missed you.

Score one for hummus

2009-02-12T12:57:00.005-05:00

We've been trying to cook as much as possible with food from the market here in Dezam, but this week we used four imported ingredients (tahini, olive oil, cracked wheat, and celery) to make a Middle Eastern feast. Hummus! Tabbouleh! Baba ghanoush! Yum.

The next evening, we took the leftovers from the MCC fridge for round two of deliciousness. Jean was still in the office, so we offered him a taste. "Sure, I'm used to foreign food." Brave man.

Halfway through his plate, we checked in. "What do you think?"

He pointed to the hummus. "This is really good. This is the first time I have ever understood how you could have tasty food without meat. These other things are good, but this is amazing."

Now if we can just get a crop of olives, sesame, celery, and wheat to thrive on our roof...

Rats!

2009-02-07T10:29:00.009-05:00

Okay, I know you all would never admit to having rats/mice in your homes in the U.S., but I know you do, and so do we here in Haiti.

You may have seen Ben's post on the rat they had in Port-au-Prince and his semi-automatic- sniper-rifle-filled dreams to take that sucka out. We too have a rat. Instead of dreams, though, the rats themselves wake me up in the middle of the night as they find some scrap of food that interests them.

Our first clue that we may have rodents were those little black grains of rice that aren't actually grains of rice. Shoot! We have mice! -but it gets more complicated than that, because we also have lizards everywhere that eat bugs and don't bother anyone or anything, so we ignore them. These lizards also poop, and it's very close to mouse poo, so I told myself that we don't have mice, it's just the lizards. That was a few weeks ago.

This thought lasted until we found a tomato on our counter with little teeth marks in it. Not a lizard for sure; they don't eat tomatoes and they don't have teeth. So we have mice for sure, ick. We then obtained every lidded and lockable container we could to store our food in and became totally anal about keeping all food under lock and key. Well, they kept on coming, or so we heard in the middle of the night. Our search continued for how they were getting in the house, and eventually I found a hole in a window screen on a window that is fairly high off the ground (it's in our "bathroom") . So I sewed it up and figured that was the end of it. Next night the patch job was chewed out again! ick! We were headed to Port-au-Prince that day so I stopped worrying about it, packed my bags and left the rodents to our house.

The first day in Port I went to the grocery store, and saw a new rat/mouse shelf in the aisles. I stopped to look at every type of poison, sticky trap, snap trap, poison blocks, poison pellets, and poison that smells like peanut butter. This was like a sign from God that I should buy some supplies to get rid of these little buggers. I start looking at everything and putting things in my basket, reconsidering and putting them back on the shelf and trying to calculate how many, how big, and how vicious are my rats. I spy a trap called the Tomcat on the shelf; this thing has serrated edges, it's all black and truly menacing, and as I fondle the cool black trap of destruction and figure out how it works........SNAP!!!...... the thing springs on my thumb, a squeak comes out of me and I try to look like it doesn't hurt. A little stream of blood appears as I pry the trap off of my thumb. A man is watching me from the next aisle over and I whimper Li fo which means "It's powerful." Who leaves a set trap among grocery store merchandise? I gather my sticky traps, other means of mouse destruction, and aim for the checkout. Maybe God is telling me to leave them alone - ick, but they're so gross! Can't they just frolic in the fields outside with the bunnies or something?! Why do they have to put their gross little disease-infested bodies near our food?

So I get home and set the sticky trap on the window ledge under the hole that has been chewed and think, "this is it, tonight it's all over!" In the middle of the night I hear something hit the floor and the sound of a rodent struggling to get out of a sticky trap. I get up turn on the lights and search everywhere. The trap is gone, the mouse is gone, it's all gone. Where the heck did it go? So I get out another trap for the next night and put it in the window.

The next evening we walk into the house around 10pm and there it is a medium-sized brown devil on the floor. Sharon screams, it runs for cover, and then we corner it and set up a series of traps in all of its escape routes. I grab one of those hippie juggling sticks (the things you find when you move into a house in Haiti) and tear off its tassled ends and turn it into a rat whacker. The rat is scared and Sharon is still screaming each time it moves. And here I am, a 15-year vegetarian ready to whack the life out of an animal. It's cornered and it knows it, so it climbs up a wire (for our solar panel) that gives it access to a curtain string and WHACK! I swing at it, it falls and runs for the bedroom where a door is normally open. It gets to the door, find it closed, freaks out, runs up onto the dresser....."no, not on our dresser!" I go over to it and scare it out, and WHACK! again, and this time a screech comes out of the little bugger so I know it's injured, and it runs back into the kitchen and under a counter. I'm ready for it to come out again and block off its escape routes again. As I sit there poised with a flip-stick in my hand, the rat lays on its side and....dies. In the meantime, our neighbors come over in their jammies to ask why Sharon is screaming and we now have a dead rat in our house...is that worse? So I collect it and throw it outside as Sharon immediately grabs the bleach bottle and starts disinfecting the entire house.

We are freaked out and happy all at the same time; we go to bed happy because the walking disease in our home is now dead. We're also happy because we have house guests coming the next night that just might sleep on the living room floor (gross, I know).

Ben and Alexis arrive the next day and when its bedtime they decide to sleep on the roof under the stars. Awesome! No rats there. All is good until the middle of the night, when it starts raining. What?! Rain? it hasn't rained in 3 months and we have another 3 months to go until rainy season, but here is rain, real rain falling down and not stopping. Down they come, bedding in hand and slightly wet; we turn on the light to get them set up in the living room and there it is...another freaking rat. I grab the stick, it's cornered, and Sharon stands by the door to block its path. A few seconds goes by and somehow it manages to go just past Sharon's legs and just past Ben's foot as he tries to stomp on it (that would have been gross 'eh?) and out the door.

We all calm down and try to go bed. After a few hours we fall back asleep and pray that more little devils don't come into our house.

So here we are, house sealed up, window patched, and an order in for screen doors so we can still sleep with a door open to let cool air in. Good times, good times.

Sorry for everyone out there that loves rats, but really...I don't eat meat. So every animal saved can advocate for me when I kill a rodent.

Ick.

Munching munchkins

2009-02-05T10:25:00.014-05:00

Many of our friends know that Bryan and I have been vegetarians for years and years, which makes the following phenomenon especially weird.

A few months ago, I started noticing that little kids were running away from me as I walked around. They'd dash into their yards, or try to dart behind an older brother. (If they were lucky enough to not have an older brother who would hold them out toward me while they quivered and cried, terrified.) I figured that these kids were just shy.

However, Bryan told me that many children in Haiti believe that white people will eat them (!). What?! I've been trying to investigate since then:

Me: So did you believe that white people would eat you when you were little?
Frantzo: Oh, yes. I finally stopped thinking that when I was 9 or so. Fritzner when he was 12.
Me: Why then? Why at that point?
Frantzo: I realized I was big enough to protect myself if someone tried to eat me.

Me (joking): I think that woman didn't get in the front of the truck with us because I'm a blan. Maybe she's afraid of me.
Old guy (also getting a lift in the MCC truck): Because you're a blan?
Me: Yeah, you know, like how little kids think that white folks will eat them.
Old guy: Hahaha...but do you? Do you eat them?

I've found that my efforts to reassure kids hasn't gone over very well. When the lady doth protest too much, when I try to anticipate and address their fears, it can be even more worrying: "Don't be afraid, I won't eat you."

Sarcasm doesn't work very well either: "Don't worry, I already ate today." "Oh, I'm not hungry now."

But what I'd really like to know is how this idea took such root among the elementary school set. Marketing genius.

Of jobs and interviews

2009-01-21T15:59:00.010-05:00

Despite the current global financial crisis, MCC Dezam is hiring a new person to work on the reforestation team. We're specifically hiring a woman to even out the gender balance on our team, and Sharon and I were both pretty interested to see how the process would play out.

A few weeks ago we sat down as a team and wrote a list of criteria. Among other things, we wanted an agricultural technician with team spirit, creativity, flexibility, and skill in capacity-building. Asking the team to participate in this process was important, because hiring here is a difficult dance around nepotism. We received 9 applications from qualified individuals, all of whom were known by at least one of our coworkers. Through a secret-ballot scoring process with each person choosing their top three candidates, the team narrowed down the candidates to be interviewed to 2.

I was asked to sit in on the interviews this week, and was supposed to come up with a few of the questions. I did what every red-blooded American does when in need of information: I Googled "typical interview questions." Of course I found hundreds of the same old old standards everyone expects to hear on an interview. W e narrowed down our list to 18 questions, and each person on our interviewing committee scored the response with a 1-5 scale. I quickly realized these questions I think of as "standard" are not at all standard here. I chalk confused and evasive responses up to the fact that these questions really are weird unless you were raised in a Western culture:

Us: "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
Both candidates: [puzzled look]
Us: "Where do you want to be in your career or personal life in 5 years?"
Both candidates: "Working for MCC in Desarmes, of course."
I was reminded that this new position is most likely a life job for our new hire, as finding another decently-paying job will be difficult at best.

Us: "The average MCC day varies a lot. Do you feel like you can be flexible when it comes to work?"
Both candidates: "Flexible, flexible...can you define the word?"
After that, one candidate described her physical flexibility.
I wondered if fleksib is not actually a kreyol word, although Jean designed the question.

Us: "Tell me your strengths and weaknesses."
Candidate: "I have no weaknesses."
Not every culture is so open with admitting personal strengths and weakness as ours, I guess, and no one has coached them on how to list weaknesses that are really strengths.

Us: "What would you do if you had MCC work and a personal obligation at the same time? How would you handle that?"
Candidate: "I would wake up earlier."
Us: "No, we mean at the exact same time."
Candidate: "Like I said, I would wake up earlier."

Us: "What parts of this job do you look forward to more than others?"
Both candidates: "I look forward to everything equally. I have no work preferences."
Maybe they really do like it all.

Us: "If we hire you, what salary are you looking for?"
Both candidates: "I will accept whatever the good people at MCC deem as a good salary."
Like I said, there are not a lot of jobs out there, so who wants to be picky?

Afterwards, I asked our team what they preferred: the truth, or an answer they wanted to hear. For example, if I were being interviewed and I described a weakness, and another person said "I have no weaknesses," who would they think was a stronger candidate? The person with no weaknesses, of course. They wanted the candidates to be honest, but it's still hard to hear someone describe their weaknesses. That was kind of tough for me to hear, since I had the exact opposite response.

Overall, the process reminded us that economic development is difficult and uneven. If a person in a developing nation goes to school and earns a degree, there's no guarantee that the job market will be able to provide a position upon graduation. It's common for people here to have no work experience, although they graduated from agricultural school ten years ago. In the U.S., we're used to candidates seeking professional positions to have significant, relevant work experience. Here our new colleague will establish all her work experience with MCC Desarmes.

The interview committee decided that they want to hire the second candidate, who was actually a stronger interviewee. Sharon questioned whether the committee just like her more than the other person or whether they really like her (i.e., should we continue interviewing more people?). Each affirmed the choice - so we're inviting her to start work in March. We'll let you know how it goes.