Money is "good"

The currency of Haiti is referred to as "gourdes" -- prounced like "food," but with a "g." This refers to a time in the early 19th century when actual gourds were used for buying and selling. Currently, the exchange is about 40 gourdes to the dollar. In most countries, this is all you would need to know to shop and haggle and buy things. But Haiti is not most countries.

In 1919, during the American occupation of Haiti, the Haitian gourde was pegged to the dollar at five to one, meaning that regardless of what was happening economically in either country, one dollar would always be worth five gourdes. That was the case until the gourde was unpegged from the dollar in 1991. So for 72 years, there was no fluxuation in the exchange rate, and plenty of American money circulating in Haiti. At some point, Haitians started referring to five gourdes as a "Haitian dollar." So there were physically two currencies, dollars and gourdes, and a third that didn't actually exist, but was helpful for keeping the relationship between the other two straight. Sometimes here you can find old money that was printed in the 80s that says it is guaranteed to be worth its denomination, divided by five, in American dollars. If I'm very, very bored sometime I might take one of these bills to the Haitian treasury and demand they exchange it for me at that rate. They would no doubt laugh at me.

Why? As I mentioned above, the Haitian gourde now trades at 40 to the dollar. I'm no economist, but I think that means that there has been an inflation of 800% between 1991 and now. One Haitian dollar is only worth an eighth of what it was 16 years ago. The bizarre thing is that people still count in Haitian dollars, even though they bear no relationship to American dollars anymore. It takes some getting used to. You go to the market to buy a bunch of bananas and ask how much it will cost, and the fruit lady says fifteen gourdes while holding up three fingers. All grocery stores and gas stations run on Haitian dollars. When you get your total, you have to do some quick calculating to know roughly how many gourdes to hand over. When I'm writing a check and need an exact number of gourdes, they'll calculate it for me. But I'm thinking that by the end of three years I'll be like Rain Man when it comes to multiplying and dividing by five.

And the physical money itself is another story. There's plenty of brand new crisp bills floating around, but most of them are pretty limp and dirty. Sometimes you can hardly tell how much a bill is worth, the print is so smudged and faded. I've seen some that are stapled and taped together. I've mentioned Matt and Esther and their baby Gabriela here a couple times. Gabriela, like most babies, will put anything she finds in her mouth. Matt and Esther are pretty okay with this, but they'll still jump to keep money out of her reach at all times. I know one guy who sets up teams of doctors and dentists to come to Haiti and do free clinics. He saw a sign by the door to an operating room that said no Haitian money was allowed inside the OR under any circumstances. I guess that money is fairly germ-ridden in any country, but it's positively filthy here.

Haitians themselves, however, are the opposite. I don't think I've mentioned here before about how meticulously clean most Haitians are. It's not uncommon for people to bathe two or three times every single day, often with heavily scented French soap. Many rural folks won't talk to you or look at you in the morning until they've had a chance to wash their face (or at least their eyes) and brush their teeth. For some, it's just courtesy, for others, there's a belief that you can curse someone if you don't clean up in the morning before saying hi. Apparently Haitians have shared this love of cleanliness for a long time. I read an article that was written by an emmisary of the NAACP in Haiti during the 20s. He was sent to investigate the stated reasons for occupaion and whether they were justified. Fascinating reading, actually. Parts of it could almost pass for current if you replaced "US" with "UN" and "Marines" with "MINUSTAH" (which is the name of the UN mission here). Point is, the author gives the statistic that at that time, Haiti imported more soap per capita than any other country. If you've got the history bug, give it a read here.

I don't know where these hygene habits came from, but I'm curious, just as I'd like to know why Europeans on average bathe less than North Americans. In the case of Haiti, I could theorize that it has its roots in slavery or some of the repressive governments that followed independence. It's interesting to ask yourself: if you were basically powerless, and were socially, culturally, and most of all financially limited from improving your situation in any way, what would you do? I think you would cherish the things you do have control over, one of them being how clean you are.

But I really have no idea.

Oh, and I should throw in a Gabriela update since I mentioned her: she can stand!
Check it out:



It's a video her dad took. I got my own chance to play dad last weekend. Esther and Matt were in Port, but Matt was doing a training and Esther wanted to go to the gym, so I took care of little Gabby for a couple hours. There were no exploding diapers or fits or anything. She crawled around for a bit, until she started making whiny hungry noises. So I mixed up some formula and put her on the bottle, and after that she was out cold for the rest of my babysitting time. Best. Baby. Ever.