Retou (return)

I returned to Haiti a week ago, January 11, on a half-full plane from Miami to a beautiful Caribbean day - hot and sunny with a dusty breeze coming off the street - complete with a signature PaP blokus (traffic jam) and a plate of rice and beans with warm bananas.  After a couple hours in the office, I headed up to mountain to Kenscoff, where Frantz was waiting at my house. 

For a while we stood on the cement balcony outside the house, catching up and talking about the differences between our last few weeks.

"No work tomorrow, ou konnen, paske se 12 janvier."

"Yea, I kind of figured. Ki sa w'a fe demen? Epi pep la - ki sa yo pral fe pou sonje?" (What will you do tomorrow? And the people - what will they do to remember?) 

He turned and looked at me. "Prey."

"At the church?"

"Everywhere."

January 12 was the calmest, most peaceful day I have seen in Haiti. At a time where nothing is certain in this country, stinging fear and tensity were absent, replaced by reverence. Some people marched in their good clothes to church, where they stayed the whole day; others remembered the people they lost on their own. Like any shared solemn and memorable day, every person remembers exactly where they were at the time of the trembleman de te; everyone has a mental image of how they reacted during and just after the earth beneath their feet shook violently for over 30 seconds. 

On the long days without work, I find it is best to content myself with the bel repoze - the beautiful relaxation; an art that Haitian people have mastered from adjusting to things never working properly.  I read books and then sat outside my house, observing the people walking by in their white and black dress clothes, then went on a walk up the mountain. 

There is a gray stone skeleton of a mansion past Tetbwape, the last real developed outcrop in Kenscoff, where the suburban feel of the town begins to erode into something more overtly rural. The building, complete with 12 foot columns and what would have been a sprawling balcony, was abandoned in 1986 after the man who commissioned it to be built, Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, was exiled from the country he brutally ruled for 15 years. It remains good for a foray into the world of a dictator and for housing a few families who have constructed little tin shacks using one of the overhanging rock slabs as a roof.  Like so much in Haiti, it is a reminder of the treacherous in the midst of the unique and beautiful.  In front of the house, in what would have been the tyrant’s sprawling yard, lies a long clay soccer field, framed by the spine of the mountains rippling off into the southwest. 

At the time of the house’s abandonment, there was a similar echo of some thread of hope throughout the country, as there is now.  Authorities and people alike have rallied to the idea that the earthquake gives Haiti a chance to “build back better.” As the finish of the Duvalier era did in 1986, the election of Aristide in 1991, and the bicentennial in 2004, offered hope, so does this chance born out of the earthquake.  But hope then was squelched by various power grabs and excuses, and hope now is not easily separable from cynicism. 

Four days later, without much explanation, Duvalier has returned on an Air France flight to Haiti, throwing the political climate into even greater uncertainty.  Absent for 25 years, people wanting of times when they could drink water without fear (although they could not freely speak their minds) speak about the dictator in fair, even glowing, terms. And so the people welcome back a man who endeavored to control the country’s problems with violence and who left it broke and vulnerable. Already, supporters of charismatic ex-President Jean Bertrand have called for his return from a six year exile in South Africa.  It seems that every big ego of Haitian politics is deciding that the current crisis and uncertainty warrants their help (read ‘help’: an easy chance to exploit things for their own gain).

And so another act begins in Haiti’s horrible parody.  MINUSTAH, Clinton, Preval, Duvalier, Cholera, Manigat, Mickey, 10,000 NGOs, and 2 million starving people – imagine a stage with scores of hungry actors all vying for one small spotlight.  One is hungry for power, another for money, another for victory, and still another for …. just food.  But which is which? Whose intent matches their words? Who knows the answers or even where to begin to find them?

Not me.

I know that I respect the hope and determination of the people knee deep in this mess; people like James, who wrote today, “I’d like to go to school or an institute to learn about interpretation to finally become somebody in my life, not a nobody, to be a useful person in society, and help those who can’t help themselves. If only I had the means I would.”

I know that I can’t stand the focus on one person or another and the corrupting entitlement that inevitably appears for the people in power here in Haiti.

I know, finally, that 3 months seems like an awfully short time now; but being back, I know that Haiti is to be under my skin, in my head, and provoking my thoughts far beyond then.

M’ap Swif (I’m following)


PS - Something you can do to help

http://www.ezilidanto.com/zili/2011/01/haiti-pres-obama-there-are-55000-reasons-to-be-fair-to-haitians/

 

Members of Congress have already proven that they are willing to take diplomatic action in Haiti (Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has called for a passport freeze for Haitian government officials and their families until the electoral strive is resolved).  As mentioned in the article, 55,000 Haitian visas approved before the earthquake are being delayed behind thousands of other visas. These are legal immigrants already approved by the US government who could provide much-needed help to their countrymen (Diaspora contributions account for almost 25% of Haitian GDP).  So you can write your federal congresspeople and senators and remind them that Haiti is still in trouble and there is something very clear they can do to help - expedite these visas.

Let's make the one year anniversary rhetoric of continued support really mean something.