And now a word from our sponsor: MCC Action Alert

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.

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

Meet Mother Necessity: A blogpost in five acts.

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.

Hey, solutions!

Grassroots International has added an updated preface to a 1997 report 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."

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

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.

Geez-us

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

And now a word from our sponsor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our team finally concluded:

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

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

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

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

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

Returning to the Pearl of the Antilles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plastic: in the end, how we did.

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.

Mixed reviews.

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

Into the hills

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.

Since you might have found this anyway

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.

Reforestation or Agroforestry?

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

It's so complicated.....

Before I got to Haiti, I loved looking at Appropriate Technology (AT) websites to get ideas about what I could do when I got here. There are usually a lot of bicycle-powered devices, so I am of course immediately drawn to them. If you need a brief refresher, Appropriate Technology is taking things that are cheaply and readily available in an area and finding some way to use them to relieve a problem.

Usually AT is really interesting and totally MacGyver-inspired. Some bailing wire, a box of matches, and some duct tape, and people don't go hungry. It's really amazing stuff that I totally fell in love with. There are bicycle-powered electricity generators, water pumps, corn grinders that could pretty much save the planet. But after my love affair with AT, I came across some other commentators that spoke to the challenges of AT.

I heard a story of a village in Africa where women spend hours and hours every day washing clothes by hand. Someone saw this and thought, what an amazing waste of time! So they gave them some time-saving bicycled-powered washing machines. However, the project was a total failure. The first challenge was the deeply-rooted thought that women should not ride bicycles. It also turned out the time the women had been spending on laundry was also an important time for them to hang out and talk, and once they could wash clothes in 3o minutes the community became more disconnected. Okay, that's just to point out that there are always multiple layers in considering whether a project will actually work.

I still thought AT was great as long as you work out a few kinks here and there, but still didn't quite get it. An example that hits close to home here in Haiti is cutting trees to make charcoal.
A lot of people in Haiti do this (When I say "a lot," I mean that it almost seems like everyone supplements their income at some point in the year with a little charcoal-making). Obviously, finding alternate cooking fuels would alleviate the pressure to cut down much-needed trees. I found a website that describes how to make briquettes with waste material from other crops, and there are people here that are trying to promote the use of propane gas stoves. But a lot of Haitians think food doesn't taste as good cooked over a gas burner, and they prefer charcoal fires. When you hear this it's almost mind-blowing that they prefer taste over environmental sustainability. But in reality so does every American...right? We prefer eating a perfect banana shipped from Costa Rica more than food grown in our area, and that's a taste preference, right? It's hard to argue when it comes to such a cornerstone of culture of food.

After having these ideas swirling around in my head for awhile, I now see AT from the other end of the spectrum, the receiving end. I see people come to Haiti with a million ideas, a few thousand dollars, and expect to change the whole country - but really don't sit for more than a few minutes to get to know a Haitian. It's usually "what can I buy? how can my money be most effective here?" Well, first save your money and sit with some people, share food with them, visit their homes, ask about their kids, look at family photos and see them as people and not as problems that need to be solved.

I just get hung up on the fact that people seem to think that it's so easy to solve "basic" problems like food, water, and fuel - that because Haitians are relatively poor, they will eat or use anything we suggest.

Several times here I have seen folks offer suggestions for "Haitians," and our teammates look at the ideas and say, "That may be good for the peasants up on the mountain or folks in Gonaives" - when the intended audience is in fact them. It's so easy to solve other people's problems, right?

Appropriate technology enthusiasts (like me) sometimes seem to get caught up in the simple brilliance of a new idea and lose track of the person/people it's for. I don't mean to discourage anyone from offering new ideas to help people, but after being here for 6 months I now see how complicated it can be. Someone recently asked why people don't cut open their tin cans and flatten them to make roof tiles. I said they don't because they buy sheets of tin roofing. The person pointed out that it would be cheaper if they used tin cans. True. But my new litmus test for suggestions is to imagine asking the same question to someone in North America:
"Save all of your cans for the year and flatten them out to re-roof your house."
"Well...It might save money, but it's easier to just buy shingles!"
People in Haiti think the same way - who wants to be the only one in town with "trash" for a roof? I guess what I'm trying to say is that just because people are poor doesn't mean they have no pride, that they don't have opinions and want to make choices.

I will also admit that we live in a relatively wealthy part of Haiti. We live in a town where people do not go hungry. They have gardens that are productive and extended family networks to support them. When a hurricane comes they lose some crops, but they don't lose everything. I still see people that wear old clothes and get up at 3:30 am to work in their gardens, but they have old clothes and they have a garden which is a lot more than some people have.

I guess I'll just say that I personally feel bad that I used to only see the "developing world" as the "developing world." They weren't people I knew or friends, they were "developing cultures"....right? Well, now they're not "Haitians" anymore; they're Jean, Meleck, Frantzo, Fritzner, Nahomie, Francklin, and Michelet. Now when people come with all their ideas the only thing I want them to do is see how great Jean is (they're all great, but he is really great) and we can save the grand idea for next week.

I guess this is me finally realizing the MCC point of view that relationships are the primary
reason for us to be here and the rest will, hopefully, fall into place.

Thanks for reading,

Bryan

This is a long one, so go to the bathroom if you need to, and get a drink and a snack

I've been reading a book titled African Friends and Money Matters. A previous MCCer said it helped a lot with her cultural orientation to her work in Africa and Haiti. I've been reading it over the past week.

In the past I thought of culture as the type of art, architecture, food, etc. that a culture produces. In many places we've experienced "culture" by eating the food, visiting museums, walking the streets, and looking at homes, and people-watching. I've thought of myself as a fan of foreign culture. The energy conservation and bicycling culture in the Netherlands intrigues me, narrow cobblestone streets in Lyon draw me in, and open markets in China are great fun.

This new book has opened up a whole new world to the word culture. Haiti has a distinct art culture, architecture, and cuisine. The underlying pressure on each of these is that there is not a lot of support in the way of money or government infrastructure. That being said, it seems many cultural traditions evolved from this reality and colonialism (of course).

In Haiti there are almost no governmental services or infrastructure. For example: If you have a bad road that is in need of repair, you don't wait for the township to fix it. Instead, you gather everyone together in the morning by walking the streets with a megaphone; as you work on the street, you extract tolls from those who want to pass by. (Sharon experienced this firsthand Friday morning.) In the U.S. we pay taxes so the roads are taken care of, trash picked up, poor given food, police walk the streets, etc. If you have never known of these services - and think they will never work effectively - you live in a different economic reality.

At some point in life, everyone everywhere needs or wants more than they have. In the U.S., we use credit cards, buy cars on loan, finance our houses or lawn tractors, get TVs on a 0% interest credit card at Best Buy, pay for college with student loans, etc. You then owe all of these institutions a monthly payment for...forever. Here none of that exists: you may be able to get a loan from a bank, but it's not common.

So what is the normal Haitian to do? They borrow from whoever they think has more than they do. Friends, family, and wealthy strangers are all viable options. They borrow from others as we borrow from lending institutions in the U.S. (present economic conditions aside). They generally have no qualms in asking someone for money. If a stranger on the street asked me for money in the U.S., most likely I would say no and be on my way. Here they see me and see Wealthy American That Most Definitely Has More Money Than He Needs so they feel just fine asking. It seems that anyone that has money is almost obliged to give it to others.

Being asked for money in Port-au-Prince is very common, and as in most other cities in the world, people keep on walking and going about their business. Where we live in Desarmes, the people that ask for money are your neighbors, co-workers, and business associates. You will see them almost every day for the next few years.

This is my current struggle and culture clash. My knee-jerk reaction to being asked for money is NO, but their knee-jerk reaction is to ask for money. In the U.S. if you lend a friend money, the friendship becomes very fragile, and it just may be ruined if everything is not paid back. Here, it seems that friendships are made by lending money and helping out; it's seen as standing in solidarity with that person. As the book notes, when you lend money, the recipient is then somewhat obliged to come and visit, possibly pay some of the money back, and when you are in greater need than he/she in the future, come to your aid. Friends are your savings account to help you in the future.

Sound easy? Well, reading this book has been helpful. Before this, when I was asked for money I quickly bristled and wondered if I had BANK stamped on my forehead. Now at least I can see it as a valuable quality of the culture. The difficultly now is piloting this foreign financial reality without offending too many people and without destroying relationships along the way.

Some things we have been asked:

Bonjour, Give me five dollars.
Bonjour, What do you have to give me?
Blan, give me ten dollars.

I know Haiti has its own unique culture and is not simply a small African country in the Caribbean. But it does seem there are many things in Haitian culture that can be directly attributed to its African roots, and many things in this book seem to be reflected in Haitian life.

Mo' money

Okay, forgive me if I wax a little financial here.

On Thursday, MCC Dezam's Pwogram Edukasyon Anviwonmental (PEA) hosted a first-annual student conference to get them pumped about all things environmental. I think the conference went relatively well, but the thing that most impressed me was the food preparation. We were serving a morning snack and gwo manje for about 150 people, so there was quite a to-do.

We spent an entire day at the Dezam market securing provisions, which is always an expedition in and of itself. By the way, here's a brief explanation of Haitian money:
The current exchange rate of gourdes to U.S. dollars is currently about 39 to 1. However, back when the U.S. Marines were openly occupying Haiti in the first part of the 20th century, the exchange rate was 5 to 1. The 5-gourde note became known as the Haitian Dollar, and - you guessed it - things are still sold in Haitian dolas. So a fairly straightforward answer to my "How much is this?" - "37 dola" - produces a long pause from me as I frantically try to run the numbers. Thirty-seven times five divided by 39... So is that a good price? I can't ever tell.

Anyway, back to the konferans. They slaughtered three goats [hey, meat-eaters: is slaughter the technical term, or is there a more neutral word?] and prepared steaming vats of coffee and rice and bean sauce and a pickled-cabbage relish and juice.

I peeled shallots and washed dishes and tried to generally help out, but the whole time I was nearly bursting open, I was so impressed. In my brief Summer of Food Service, I discovered that cooking mass quantities of food in the U.S. generally involves opening a lot of cans. Here, it involved:
- Buying, roasting, and grinding coffee beans
- Shaving heads and heads of cabbage by hand, with a knife
- Sorting out tiny stones in the rice and then winnowing it
- As mentioned, preparing three goats from the ultimate scratch
- Making peanut butter
- Picking pecks of citrus fruit and hand-squeezing each and every one

That level of freshness qualifies this as gourmet, right?

Now imagine doing all of this at a primitive campsite without running water or electricity and over an open wood fire. Wow.

Here's where the money comes in. Maybe I'm coming into my honeymoon with Haitian culture a little later than expected, but I feel like I'm so impressed by their hard work and used-to-it-ness that I don't think of this lifestyle as a poverty situation. Like:
- You're more well-off if you have a concrete house than a tin-and-wood house.
- Having access to a faucet is pretty lux.
- Being able to take a bucket bath is better than having to bathe in public in the river.
- Who really needs constant electricity anyway?
- Gas stoves are almost over-the-top compared to charcoal and wood fires.
I know that poverty can be defined in relative terms, but I do feel like my perception about what qualifies a person as "poor" will change, courtesy of Dezam.

In fact, I am often uncomfortable with the idea of The Poor or Serving the Poor, because in a way it's an objectification that can dehumanize (or deify) individuals just as much as anything else. And I can even confess that, as far as Serving the Poor goes, it was easier for me to come to Haiti than to really engage with poor people in Philadelphia. Maybe that extra layer of cultural differences makes it easier for me to relativize poverty and see it less as something to which I - as part of the dominant culture - am personally connected.

Even here, it's easier for me to play peasant ("Washing clothes by hand! How fun!") than to own up to the fact that I still have far more resources than many people around me. In Philadelphia I was conditioned to not give money to people on the street (perpetuating dependency, there are so many social systems in place, enabling drug abuse, etc.), even though it seems like an easy fix, an easy way to feel better about having resources and sharing them.

The drawback is that giving money to people who ask for handouts does not feel good at all. I'm not opposed to sharing or helping people in need, but it feels ten times more awkward and self-demeaning to do that than to give money to someone in need who doesn't just ask for money because of my skin color.

On the other hand: given the legacy of colonialism that has long-favored people of European descent, should I just count mandatory giving as a white-privilege tax?

I still believe that one important way to responsibly use money is to seek out locally-grown and handmade items as a way to support the people around me who are part of our local economy. And of course, to make responsible choices about consumption.