Chickens

I was struggling to explain why living in Port au Prince is such a bizarre and awesome experience to a friend of mine the other day, and here's what I came up with:

So you're in the taptap, which is like a pickup truck or cargo bus designed to cram in as many people as possible, riding along, probably in the middle of a traffic jam, on any given day.  At last, life seems normal enough; the sight of a woman carrying a fifty pound bag on her head or a guy selling pharmaceuticals out of a bucket no longer phases you. You're in the zone.

Then, as the taptap pulls over to the side of the road, the plastic bag next to your feet emits a series of load squaks and you hear the desperate fluttering of wings. The woman next to you pulls out her chicken from under the wooden bench, its head protruding from the plastic bag, with necessary force and a routine manner. She probably bought her live chicken 5 minutes ago, in the middle of the largest city in the Caribbean.

And you are reminded that, yes, this is a normal day in Port au Prince.

Prestige

Need

Think about how many times every week you tell someone what it is that you need.  The words, “Mwen dwe” – I must, and “Mwen bezwen” – I need, were some of the first words I committed to memory after arriving in Haiti (right after “kob” – money).  I find it essential in communication to tell others what I must do; it conveys an immediate sense of obligation and reminds me of the importance of the task at hand.  But most of the time, it’s really a convenient linguistic inaccuracy I employ to stress necessity or urgency.  Most of the time, it’s really just a lie. 

When Haitian people, most people really, describe the more repetitive, mundane events in their everyday lives, they tend to focus on the immediacy of their condition.  One says, “I am hungry,” much more than, “I need to eat.”  One says, “I am sleeping in a tent,” rather than, “I need a house.”  Maybe communication has so developed because the power involved in describing one’s condition elicits some level of empathy in others, who know the impossibility of living without food or rolling around on a cold dirty floor every night.  Maybe it has so developed because of the more regular inability of the speaker to see past condition and identify necessity.  Maybe there’s just no one listening who can provide.  

But maybe, the things so mundane and repetitive, the things that every person really needs on a daily basis, become more like the facts of life in an environment to which one must adjust or face life as a speck in the desperate oblivion of poverty.  Every day, true needs take a back seat in the minds of those who fight to break their cycle of misery.  They convince themselves that their needs can take a backseat while they fight to become more than a casualty to their circumstances.  For the word “need,” when used sparingly, evokes a far greater response both to those who hear it spoken and to those who give themselves permission to speak it. 

I have seen “need” written only one time that I can remember in my month here.  It was on a small white cloth sign, hanging on the fence of a tent camp.  “We need food, water, tents, a doctor,” it read.  I hear the word, in one form or another, on a very regular basis in contexts things you might expect (we need jobs, we need a real government, you need to get on the bus or get out of the damn way, etc.).  But the most consistent usage I’ve heard occurs when young people, most of whom have little means of support and no family, enter my office.  “I need to go to school,” they say.    

The school is all that matters.  Without the school I am nothing.  The cost isn’t even too much, really.  I want to study medicine, I want to own my own store, I want to speak English, I want to go many places, I want to help my country. You have to understand, you have to, you have to.  And in their expressions, always carefully reserved, intentionally collared to shield hope from the much greater possibility of rejection, they scream, “I don’t want to be something.  I see something. I have lived something.  My family has disappeared into the thick, ugly fog of something.  Every day the threat of something lingers just around the corner.  Let me be my own.  Let me be someone.” 

If by some fortune, they are granted the chance to continue their studies, the struggle multiplies.  “Some of your students,” warned a Haitian graduate, “will not make it.  Me, I knew that I needed to go to school, that it was the most important thing.  That meant some days I would not eat; some will not continue to understand that.”  It will not stop there.  They will face these tradeoffs every day.  Use the precious daylight hours to study or to sell sodas for a little income?  Save what little extra money you have for a rainy day or give it to your sickly grandparents?  Shower or wash your clothes?  Cold medicine or condoms?  

Theirs is a struggle against all odds: they fight to untangle themselves from the web of poverty and despair into which they have been born and bred.  Making it requires constant discipline, careful consideration, and precision of movement.  And even for the most Spartan, following that lifestyle is sometimes not enough.  Also required is the ready attention to the unpredictability of the condition itself, for the web continually moves and tightens, squeezing inexorably the parts that one has pointedly ignored for the sake of concentration and ambition.  It is a web, most of all, which tugs at the blurry divisions between the immediacy of superficial want, the power of the deepest desire to overcome, and the inescapable call of true need. 

Because after all, like anything humans have the capacity for, one’s ability for transcendence is limited.  Need gone untended, when it is true and undeniable, will eventually eat away at health, ability and conscience. No one has the ability to concentrate and study without nourishment in mind and body.  

And yet the ones that make it, who stick it out through all circumstances, do indeed teach us something.  Need is not quantifiable or definite.  Nor is it confined to one place or another within one’s self.  It is a balancing act, pliable enough to bend but strong enough to always remain intact.  In practice it may be meted out, manipulated by the definition that one chooses to apply him or herself.  

And it will return unseen to attack them, clawing its way up and biting voraciously with big, horrible teeth that sink in too deep and too painfully with such a strong grip that it will stop them from moving at all. Caught, they will hurt and they will withdraw and they will cry out and they will most certainly sometimes fail utterly.  Then, with a helping hand and with the recollection of the task at hand, they will continue.  For as with one’s language, one can mold the conscience, so that the idea of need becomes a convenient existential tool employed to stress necessity or urgency.  Except, in the realm of our thoughts, maybe it’s less a lie and more a choice.

What is it you really need?  Really. And when you can’t figure it out, what is it that you really want?  It’s likely contingent upon a lot of things.  The first one is you.

No time to waste

Photos!

The link leads to a few pictures of my time here, both personal and a little bit of work.  More will be on the way soon as a part of the same album; hope you enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/copolicr/Haiti?authkey=Gv1sRgCICTx6Wd1u7mHA#

In case you were wondering

It costs less than you would think to put a young Haitian through school:

For a year of ecole classique (high school) at a private school:

Yearly Fee and first trimester  $306.50

Second Trimester  $220

Third Trimester  $170

Supplies (uniform, shoes, student ID)  $75

Books – $100

Total = $ 871.50 USD

For a year of classique at a public school:

Including yearly Fee, School, uniform, coat, shoes, and books

Total = $250

Professional School (Example is in auto mechanics; 4 month course)

Uniform $40

Materials $100

Registration, monthly, entry $256.25

Total = $396.25

For a year at University (at the Academie Nationale Diplomatique et Consulaire)

Entrance Exam $25

Orientation and Yearly Fee $600

Session Fee (2 included) $1150

Renewal of Session Fee $25

Uniform $200

Total = $2000

For the sake of some perspective:
The costs for a full time, in-state student for a semester at the illustrious yet relatively affordable James Madison University (a public school) in 2009-2010 was $3,622 (more than all the rest combined).

So, in conclusion, I'd like to encourage anyone interested to consider sponsorship of a KCH student with your family, company, community, class, or on your own if you prefer. You can even co-sponsor a student with another group. 

VIV!
(live)

For this week

To lighten things up a little bit and give a few program updates:

We had a very productive week at KCH; we’ve started our first group, putting 14 people into school, most of who are enrolled in ecole classique (high school equivalent) or professional education programs.  Four students will be enrolled in university classes at the Academie Nationale Diplomatique et Consulaire (for diplomacy and political science students) and will start classes on November 2.  We’re also in the beginning stages of our livelihood program; this Saturday we will have a meeting with interested potential entrepreneurs who are applying to enroll in a 29 day training program.  I had the opportunity this week to tour a Haitian school where one of our students is enrolled; the students, teachers, and administrators were all very polite and kind.  Our program has a lot of work still to do, but we are headed in the right direction. 

Haitian meal of the week – spaghetti with beans, carrots, and hot sauce (Haitians eat spaghetti and anything, but it tends to include hot sauce)

Creole words of the week

Pike’ – hot sauce (accent on the e)

Bliye – forget

Pote – bring

Montre – show

Poze – relax, chill

Taptap word of the day is in homagge to the country that all Haitians seem to love for some reason

BRASIL

From last Friday (things are just so busy!)

Best day in Haiti so far I think

Such an exciting day.  Note: Life here runs on a different pace. There is a different set of criteria for what constitutes excitement, which are entirely dissimilar to what those criteria might be in the US or elsewhere.  On the best days, it seems that my head overflows with new sensory experiences and interactions. 

Since my last post I’ve been through the worst low as of yet.  I find that being tired or hungry or irritated about my inability to understand 90% of the conversations swirling around me everywhere is difficult in itself; it is at these times that I have to stay especially cognoscente that both desperation and stigmatizations appear in many unforeseen disguises.  I can certainly take in the scene of poverty and humiliation while retaining my dignity and patience of conscience, but the inescapable personal confrontations, invariably presented at a moment of unrelated weakness, always seem impossible to shake.  These moments rattle free my misconceptions (which are plentiful), overshadowing other likely important lessons that have passed in my inattentiveness, because they leave stabbing imprints of the truth.

My low point came at the end of the day last week, when finally I had the realization that Haiti will truly be my home for 6 months (the prospect of which was and is still very exciting but difficult to process at that moment).  Mostly, I was tired, hungry, very dirty, irritated at the isolation caused by a temporarily broken internet connection at our office, and annoyed at my lack of language comprehension.  The dark gray sky accompanying the rain cloud that had followed me up the hill on my walk from work didn’t help much either.  After a guard chased me out from the front of a luxurious hotel where I stood waiting for my ride, I sat down on the corner by a packed intersection in Peton Ville across from a tent city that envelops what was once a lush park.  I could hardly look around without the piercing sensation that I was a part of some insane circus. 

Just then, a little old lady approached my pathetic concrete stoop.  Now I’m a pretty big fan of little old ladies; they tend to know more than others how and when to extend some bit of therapeutic pleasantry.  As she approached, she looked right at me with the hint of a guarded smile, and said “Bonsoir.”  I let go of any reservations about this new contact immediately, attempting to return her good evening wish but instead stupidly spitting out the first thing that came to mind, “Merci.”  And right as the relieved word escaped my mouth, my conversant put out her hand in front of me and with the confidence of feigned kindness stated, “Ban mwen kob. (Give me money)”  

Neither her request nor the unkind words she eventually sent my direction after my refusal to give really stung so much as left me deflated and hungry for the safety of solitude.  It began to rain again a few minutes after my run in with the little old lady.  I sat trying to quietly accept this circumstance, putting out of my mind the expectation of a small positive interaction.  As the rain began to come down harder, people in the vicinity ran underneath the hotel awning.  A man, jogging towards the awning spotted me on the corner, and quickly looked my way saying, “Monsieur, vini,” and motioning towards the shelter.  At first I resisted, preferring my own spot, but he continued to encourage me to please just do the commonsensical thing and get the hell out of the rain.  I submitted, and although an overt thank you would have seemed unnecessary, even rude, I was glad for the man’s insistence. 

Earlier that day, I listened to the advice of a priest who insisted that to truly face a difficult task, instead of attempting to be strong enough to handle the situation, to acknowledge the weakness that accompanies difficulty.  At the time, I tried to remember his advice, not attempting to escape somewhere else in my head.  In hindsight, I don’t think times like that offer any other option unless we are actively willing to interpret things in a more hollow way.  Any superficial strength I would have conjured up would only have calmed my ego while a chance at real empathy for the people that have so displaced my thoughts blew by.  I think for me, burying turmoil when it reaches a level where it is really just that bothersome only enforces the desire to withdraw to my own familiar and comfortable state of mind; and then my ego instead of conscience or empathy or something else justifies my actions.  And that is a great way to end up isolated from anything reasonable.  It was uncomfortable because it had to be.  Either that or the old lady was evil, the weather was out to get me, and all of Haiti is generally insane.    

Today, we met with Fonkoze, a microcredit bank that has programs all over rural Haiti.  The meeting was very informative and exciting; it left us with a lot of pointers for what will certainly be a great deal of work.  We also left the meeting reminded of how important it is to target our specific group and with the sense that our program is brimming with possibility.  Some days, everything seems to work.  I got to talk to all the people I wanted to both here and at home, had the chance to see the potential in our program, talked to some intelligent and driven Haitian students.  I took the tap-tap up to Kenscoff, and the whole time, although I could only understand about a quarter of what was going on, people talked loudly and laughed, and the women next to me lightly chided me for my fairly obvious ignorance.  Today I had the chance to relate to things that are so enjoyable to people on such a basic level that I couldn’t possibly be overwhelmed with the more challenging parts of the day.  Some days it works, some days it doesn’t.

One misconception of note, if you haven't figured it out already: life in Port au Prince does not just continue through the rain; in fact it stops in a ton of places as people run under such things as hotel awnings (the director of my program called me out on my assertion that people ignore the rain).  I think it just seems that way because there are people everywhere at all times and not everyone can get out of the way.

Patience

5 days in

It’s raining in Kenscoff right now, as it does almost every afternoon around the same time.  The clouds roll in from the mountains and make their way along the hour long drive down the hill that commuters take every day into Port au Prince.  When the rain starts up here, people generally scatter to stay away from the rain for a few minutes, jogging to their house or the awning of a neighbor.  In Port au Prince, life goes straight on through the rain.  The boys selling bags of bread continue to walk through the street holding their goods with both hands high in front of car windows.  The ladies selling beans, mangos, and oranges out of their big burlap bags cover only their eyes as the water runs through their fares and their over their skin.  The only rain jackets are the lime green ponchos on the backs of the Voila cell phone sales reps; 3 or 4 children crowd under an umbrella if there is one available.  And from the mountains to the lowest part of the city, people of all ages use the torrent of dust colored water pouring through the gutters of the street and the drops from above to wash themselves.

After five days in Haiti (my flight was delayed in Miami and consequently I arrived here on Wednesday instead of Tuesday), my experience of Haiti resembles the sound of the Kreyol language to the untrained ear: a complete blur.  Without picking out a specific imagery, it all washes over, an uncontrollable ebb and flow of contentment, weariness, and wrenching irony.  I really can’t imagine what’s to come in the next few months.  But before I wear you down with all these new thoughts, let me tell you something about why they have come about. 

  My first day in Haiti was long and full, and we covered many corners of the city.  It is suffice to say that as the land gets lower the people get poorer; the land by the airport therefore is some of the most beat-up.  Up we drove in our little jeep to the Tabar neighborhood where St. Damien’s hospital, MINUSTAH (the UN mission), and the US Embassy sit (the embassy is to this point the biggest and most modern looking building I’ve seen in Haiti).  After driving through some of the worst poverty I have ever seen, we drove to the Peton Ville neighborhood of the city, where the KCH office is located.  Across from a tent city that envelops the park, we entered a restaurant with prices in US dollars for a productive and helpful discussion about our developing micro credit program with World Bank and SOFFIDES representatives. The compromising feeling one gets drinking four dollar orange juices while someone bathes with a bucket outside is one of the wrenching ironies that I’m glad to have experienced the very first day.  I think it will only get harder to have that kind of experience.

After 5 days, I have met with close to 70 of the ex-eleves in our program, visited a tent city, toured a few worn out residences, ridden in a mid-sized pickup with 15 other people, driven through the mountains sprinkled everywhere with rows of crops, and been awakened every day by a rooster.

It’s time to stop writing; there is so much more to do tonight and tomorrow.  As I wrap this up, four or five children are walking through the dark street outside my house singing rhythmically and someone has just started to play Haitian music out of a speaker far away.  The sights and sounds that beg for attention continue at all hours of day and night; for now I will try my best just to keep up.

I’ll try and sign off with a phrase I see painted on a tap-tap (kind of pickup-truck buses). So tonight…

One Love