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

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.

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.

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.