The last hurrah.

  

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!

Back to school

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.

Making treasures

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.

School days

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