Once upon a Time

“There was a time when, if I wanted, I could just climb a tree and take all the fruit I wanted. Mangoes, coconuts, anything – I could eat them until I had no more room in my stomach. Even, for example, in a place I was not from. I am from Okay, but I have a friend in Leogane. If I went to visit my friend, there would always be a big basket of fruit waiting when I arrived, and I would take as I pleased. 

Now, it is not so.  Those times are gone, here and everywhere.  Everything is commerce, money.  Even in prosperous places, people don’t have all they need. I lived for a time in New York. You know, even there, people are sleeping in the streets. Even in New York some people don’t have enough to eat.

Our hardship will continue, I think, for the earth is punishing us now. There are too many of us here, and we have mistreated the earth for too long.  And the earth is all that matters. Apre mwen pase, apre w pase, apre nou tout pase, late a se anko la. After I pass, after you pass, after we all pass, the earth will still be here. And it is angry with us for cutting the trees and destroying the soil. I do not know if there is anything we can do to stop the earth’s anger now. So I wait.

I await the return of Jesus. I await God. Paske lavi pa ka kontinye konsa. Because life cannot continue like this. What can we do?

 

And yet, this is still a good place. Always it is a good place. It is home, and so mwen renmen Ayiti.”

Lekol

“Come on, I need your assistance if I’m really going to help you learn anything. What are some words we use every day?”

“Well, good morning is something.”

“Yes, it is, you’re right.  For bonswa? Do you know how to say that?”

“Good… afternoon.”

“See, I’m telling you, you know how to speak this language. Now how about nouns – like things or objects that you talk about every day?”

“Well, I don’t know…”

“Ok, I’ll give you a few examples. House, that means kay; clothes means ràd, food means manje, bed means kabann –“

I pause, looking up from the little list of words I’ve prepared for our English lesson to find Guerline in a fit of giggles. “What?” I ask her, “What is it?”

“Oh, Chris, I don’t have one of those. I sleep on a piece of carpet.” She’s laughing hysterically.

Taking her cue, I begin to laugh easily as well. “Well tapi is carpet in English, dear.”

“Caaarpet,” she repeats slowly, still holding the ‘r’ in the back of her mouth, as is habit for a Francophone such as herself. Her laugh dies off, but her huge smile remains.

I’m happy when she turns her head down towards her notebook for half a second; it gives me a little time to release the embarrassment I’ve been hiding behind my eyes as I glance at my own paper. And, after the brief moment, we continue.

“Desk,” I say, “that means biwo. School, you know that already. It means lekol.”

Inescapable

“Always when you live in Ayiti, your life is not good.  Because even when you are doing well yourself, you can arrive another place to find that the people you love are suffering. Even when you are becoming someone, doing good things, upon reflecting you understand that others are hurting.  And then you cannot be happy yourself. In this country, it is always happening around you.

When I am lot bo a, in the other place, I am making money, doing well for myself, and learning. But today I return here to find that my family is not well.  My father is sick, my brother and sister cannot find work, and my family does not have enough food to eat. This will always stay in my head, taunting me.

Everywhere you go in Ayiti, you cannot escape this reality. It is always there. It is not a life.” 

Fighting the Tide

It is nice to occasionally affirm one's role as someone aiding others, but it is equally if not far more important to recognize and constantly re-acknowledge the enormity of the challenge. The following comment took place in a conversation with a middle class Haitian businessman who had just heaped a torrent of undue praise upon me. This is only a small segment of the problems we really have to tackle in serving our youth, and a small segment of the concerns that he presented.  As we continued to think about our options after the following comment, the last words in the conversation were, "Support your local revolutionary forces." It was a good reality check.

“I liken it to a prison.

"Here you are with access to exercise equipment, books, educational materials, and what have you. But you’re locked up for 30 years. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of focus, determination, patience, and what have you to actually follow through and continue to read those books, be invested in your education, in yourself. It’s going to take someone special even to stay interested in following a sit com, because here you are watching people do things you’ll never be able to do, at least not for 30 years. People driving cars, going to basketball games, and just generally being comfortable; these are all things that you realistically can’t do.

“So you say, 'You will make it if you work hard and try hard,' but you realistically have no idea if that can be true. There's certainly no way you'll make it without that, but even with you doing all these things, life is likely to be a pretty uncertain situation. And we can't say there's anyone looking out for them in the political structure. You're on your own.

"That is what it’s like being 22 in this country right now."

Di djab, 'Bonjou,' l'ap manje ou.  Pa di djab, 'Bonjou,' l'ap manje ou.

Say to the devil, 'Good day,'  and he eats you. Don't say, 'Good day,' to the devil, he eats you.

Haitian Proverb

DLO/EAU/Water

Today, as I passed Route Frere during one of the 5 hours I spent in the taptap, I heard a familiar noise. The usual noises of trucks, cars, and buzzing motos was interrupted by what at first what I thought was a novelty horn. Except it kept repeating, and quickly I recognized the drone of - could it really be? - the song of an ice cream truck.

But of course, it was not an ice cream truck. It was the water truck. Try to imagine running ecstatically after the man bringing clean water to your neighborhood. A slightly different thought than cold, sugary, delicious snacks, no?  

This past weekend, I walked from Kenscoff to Seguin, a 6-8 hour walk. The Haitians that take that walk often do it on a routine basis; for example the ladies in Segiun will bring their big baskets of oranges to sell at the public market in Kenscoff. We even saw a guy carrying 3 trees he would sell in Port au Prince. Almost no one brings water, and by almost no one I mean I saw one person with water on the whole walk.  One old man stopped to ask us for some, and upon receiving it, the 10 ounces disappeared in seconds.

Imagine walking from here over the mountain in the background without a single drop to drink... in the middle of the Caribbean heat. 

 Also, Cholera continues to threaten the Haitian people, especially in the poorest areas where there is not good sanitation.

"Can't we just get some affordable water into this country?" you say. A decent question. Although really clean water should be free, consider this: already, for a 5 gallon jug of treated water, the standard price is 60 gourdes. That's $1.50 (meaning a bottle of Fiji might cost 3 times that).  In December, a student of mine in Cite Soliel came to the office having not eaten in 2 days and having missed school because he got sick from drinking bad water.

That, when with $1.50, he could have had safe water to drink for a week.

If I saw the water truck, I would scream like it was ice cream too; talk about things to be thankful for.

Respe