twa mwa

...that's how long I've been here: three months. It feels like the time has flown by in some ways, and yet memories of North American life are so distant. And as much as I'm impatient to speak Creole fluently, I'm now to the point where I dream in the language and find myself saying words I don't remember learning, if that makes any sense. Things are good. Felix abides.

A new couple arrived here yesterday. Talking to them made me realize even more how much I've acclimated, even if it all continues to feel fresh to me. It's great to have other people who also feel fresh. When I arrived, everyone on the team had been here for at least 16 months already, and in some cases much longer than that.

The new couple will both work as "policy analysts." Their job is to network around Haiti and get a feel for trends in economics and immigration and things like that, and then work with MCC volunteers in DC, Ottowa and at the UN to lobby for change. One of the easiest targets, and most difficult hurdles, is rice. That is, the subsidized rice from the United States that continually floods the Haitian market. Shorthand for it here is "Miami rice," just as "Miami" is a sort of shorthand for the whole USA.

"Where do you come from?"

"Have you heard of Seattle?"

"Where's that?"

"In the United States."

"Oh! So you're from Miami."

"Well, no, but, uh, nevermind. Yes, I'm from Miami."

The other way of referring to the states, which I love, is "lot bot dlo." Say that five times fast. It means "the other side of the water."

But anyhow, back to Miami rice. The USDA spends so much in subsidies keeping American rice growers from going out of business that it can actually undersell the rice farmers here in Haiti where the average income is one dollar per day. Most of the rice that Haitians eat is grown in the states. So at the same time that Haiti is chastised for not accepting the most draconian "free market reforms" it's being economically strangled by the richest country in the world.

I want to share a story I found fascinating. Another MCCer, Esther, who does reforestation was telling a story about one night she was preparing a meal with some Haitian women. They gave her the job of cutting up the tomatoes. Once she'd diced up a few, one of the women checked in on her and demanded that she stop, saying that she had cut them up wrong. The women shook their heads and decided they would have to throw the tomatoes away, or maybe feed them to the pigs. Esther protested that they would taste exactly the same, but it hardly mattered. For these women, there was only one way to cut tomatoes, period.

What does this story mean? First of all, let me point out that I don't know if all Haitian women are so strict in their tomato cutting rules. That said, I think it's a great picture of how easy it is for miscommunication and frustration to occur between Haitians and North Americans. I feel fortunate I haven't endured too much of this frustration as of yet, but I'm three months in and 33 months to go, so it's bound to happen. But my coworker Jessica said it best. When people back in British Columbia ask her why she likes Haiti, she says, "Haitians know who they are." I don't know if that will make sense to anyone who hasn't been here, but as soon as she said it I knew exactly what she meant. There's a sense of shared culture, shared identity that is beyond anything I've experienced before. As soon as she said it, I thought to myself that the only things that can span the culture of North America like that are probably TV and movies. I keep wanting to sum up my observations about Haitian people. To say that they are a proud people, or a shamed people, or a people tortured from within and without. A beautiful people, a scarred people. But I hope I can resist the temptation. It's just wrong. From my experience thus far, it's enough to say that I'm glad to be here. Haiti is a complex place with complex people; human beings, like anywhere else. But who know themselves in a way that somehow escapes me.