t-shirt

Once again, my time has evaporated. I hope I'll be able to put a couple videos and photos up tomorrow from the police training as well as Easter weekend. For now, I want to start doing something new here, which is to tell you about the hilarious t-shirts I see around Port-au-Prince. Here's three of my favorites so far, which were all written in English:

• Fat People are Harder to Kidnap
• I Survived Haiti!
• Hebrew School Dropout

As is the case all over Latin America, second-hand clothing from the states is really popular here. One of my favorite t-shirts ever was one I bought in Nicaragua. It has a picture of a plate of rice and beans, the preferred breakfast, lunch and dinner of Nicaraguans. The other day I saw a Haitian boy wearing the same shirt! Within the last year, that t-shirt probably traveled about as many miles as I did, minus the trip to Europe - and who knows, maybe even including that. Bizarre.

Anyways, I hope to get more interesting stuff up soon. I'm determined not to get lazy here. It's true that I'm settling in more and more and Haiti is becoming home. But there's no lack of things to write about or photograph.

Good cop, bad cop

So this last weekend I was up in the central plateau on a delegation to do a training for police officers. For two days in a conference room, we explained to these policemen, prison guards, and SWAT-team-like elite unit dudes how they were expected to go about their work without violating the human rights of Haitian citizens. It was a very interesting time. I'll try and post a video next week of one of the songs we made the cops sing to keep from getting too drowsy after lunch.

At the end there was a time for general debate and discussion, and several of these cops talked about how they were underpaid (if their paychecks were coming at all) and understaffed (roughly one officer per 1,000 Haitians in some areas). My coworkers were able to get it across to them that as difficult as these conditions are, they are never an excuse for violating human rights. Still, it was a grim reality check. The whole thing coincided nicely with a book the MCC team is reading for discussion, called "Walking with the Poor." The author points out that non-poor often play god in the lives of the poor, making them believe a "web of lies" about who they are and why they are in their place. But what's often missed by development workers and peace and justice activists is the fact that these local, oppressive non-poor are often held under the thumb of some wealthier group that spreads its own lies, and which is also a victim to some even wealthier, more powerful group. This ladder goes from local to regional to national to international. And where does it end?

It's tempting to say that it goes to the desk of the president of the United States. There's no doubt that he has the ability to make decisions that ripple around the world, and even affect people in rural Haiti. But, and this is especially true of late, it's hard to see George W. Bush as a man in control of anything. I can't help feeling sorry for him sometimes, torn as he is between so many competing interests and facing all of the consequences for the horrible decisions he has already made. He seems just as trapped in the web of lies as anyone else.

Anyway, this will be quick. I'm taking off tomorrow for an Easter weekend with my fellow MCCers in a big pine forest that rests up agains the border with the Dominican Republic. Should be wonderful. Word is that it get's cold at night there. Woo hoo! Anyway, I'll have more to share when I get back. Hope you all are having a nice Easter or Passover or whatever else.

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.

Aristide p2

I'll start this out by responding to a comment by one Brendan Bollman on my last entry regarding Aristide. I don't know Mr. Bollman personally, but a lot of the things he writes have been themes for me while reading and conversing about the Aristide phenomenon.

Forgive me if this gets esoteric.

First of all, I agree that it's well known that Group 184 -- which backed a lot of the protests against Aristide -- was funded by the International Republican Institute, an organization funded by US tax dollars. The leadership of Group 184 was somewhat split between two men, one of whom was calling for change within the democratic process, and another who once endorsed assasination in one candid moment. FRAPH, the group of mostly Haitian ex-soldiers that "invaded" Haiti from the DR, is not as clearly linked with the US government, but there's plenty of shadiness there too.

For me, it's telling that people like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, whose opinions I value a lot, either acknowledge Aristide did go astray, or harbor suspicion that at least some of the rumors are true. Paul Farmer has not been so critical, but his support seems carefully worded, and after all he is a personal friend of Aristide. I was struck reading one passage of Mountains Beyond Mountains: it mentioned a time when Farmer was hanging out with Aristide when he was still a priest. He said something along the lines of "hey, can you believe the crazy rumors about you running for president? As if you would ever get involved in something as corrupt as Haitian politics!" Aristide dodged the question and publicly announced his candidacy a week later. Farmer has remained a loyal friend, but maybe he was on to something even then.

The strongest support for Aristide is still, as it always was, among the poorest Haitians. But that's not to say that all poor Haitians support him. On the same token there are rich and middle class Haitians who still support him. I get the sense that there are those who know he did wrong, but still support him because they detest the double standard Mr. Bollard mentioned. And there are those who support him because they personally benefited when he was in power. Two things come to mind: Port-au-Prince's worst slum, Cite Soleil, getting electricity 24-hours a day, when the rest of the city had to make do with much less; and the time Aristide bought TV sets for every house in Cite Soleil for the World Cup. A little gimicky, no? Better than the DC lobbying industry, but still.

One last thing I'll say for now, on the question of violence. I guess there's a chance that Aristide never armed any youth gangs, and was just framed. But this is beyond the level of rumor here. And when he describes himself as a pacifist, I find that a little hard to swallow. Liberation theology walks a fine line when it warns that poor people will react violently if they don't receive justice. The fine line is crossed when violence is threatened, or even encouraged. I can think of a couple examples in Aristide's book, "In the Parish of the Poor" where such threats, though very subtle, are made. He's a master of inuendo, and his speeches often contain things that can be taken a number of ways.

At the end of the day, it's absolutely true that Aristide's downfall was caused by many factors, not least the impossible double standard that is applied only to leftist and populist leaders, especially in Latin America. But that's still no excuse. He probably did blow it.

In other news, I recently finished reading 100 Years of Solitude. Yesterday felt like a scene from the book. The MCC guesthouse in Port-au-Prince has an enormous backyard that could be turned into all kinds of things. After weeks of talking about what to do there -- garden, plantain orchard, pigsty, picnic area -- we decided to do all four. And yesterday work started. Clearing brush, picking up garbage, hacking at vines with machetes, I kept thinking of how many other MCCers or other previous tenants had put hours of work into making the yard a useful space, only to watch their work diminish and disappear with time. After a few hours of raking and shoveling, with my clothes soaked in sweat, it started to rain. At first it was nice and refreshing, then it got stronger and stronger. We called it a day and Jes and I started driving up the hill to Petion-Ville.

The streets were turned to rivers. The whole city is built on a steep hill, and even where we were starting from, which is relatively uphill, the water was already flowing with a fierce strength. People trudged up the sidewalk with the water beating against their shins. Bags of garbage floated happily down the street. Children soaped up and rinsed under gutter spouts. In front of us was a tap tap, a pickup with two benches in the back and some kind of covering. The guys in the last two seats didn't quite fit under the canopy, and sat there laughing at each other as they went from wet to couldn't-possibly-be-wetter. One handed his cellphone to a dry stranger who was a little more sheltered. The whole scene was joyful, bordering on chaotic. At one point a troop of guys came jogging by, laughing and chanting in a big splash, with huge drops pounding them relentlessly. But traffic was more hectic, more desperate, with the feeling that anything could happen. One car parked on the side of the road looked like it actually might wash away.

It all made me think of Haiti as a state of ongoing disruption. In the first world, big storms are exciting. When the power is knocked out, isn't it fun to take a break from the computer or TV or whatever and fumble around for some candles? Disruptive moments like this happen all the time in Haiti. And a lot of the time it's just as fun. Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating. Seattle has plenty of bad traffic, but I don't think I've ever been forced to simply give up on my plans and turn around and go home because there are so many jams. But that's not so uncommon here. Or when insecurity is at such a level that school is canceled for fear of children being kindapped, it's equal parts snow day and 9/11. I don't mean to be trite, I just think it's interesting how disruptions can be frustrating and even terrifying, but on some level they can also be a relief. There's a strange satisfaction in scrapping your plans because you have no choice.

Aristide

So this is probably the longest lapse I've had between blog entries so far. I apologise. I really do wish I had time to write a lot more, but two thing happen most times. I sit down to write, and I get roped into a game of backgammon, or long overdue e-mails take a long time, and before I know it the inverter is out of power, the generator doesn't have any more diesel, and the city power, surprise surprise, isn't on. I was actually pretty hard on good old EDH (Electricité d'Haïti) when I wrote about it before Christmas. Back then, we had about two or three hours of city power each night. Well, turns out they were saving up their diesel (most city power comes from enormous generators) as a nice big bright Christmas present for Port-au-Prince. There was a week of almost constant energy, and through January and most of February we could count on several hours a day. The last couple weeks have been a little thinner, so that's excuse number one.

More often though, I have sat down to blog something out, and instead of focusing on some little topic, my mind keeps scattering itself all over the big, big issues. Poverty, development, race, peace, violence, God. I spend a lot of time thinking about these things, but when I try and express any of it, the subject expands exponentially. But I still want to try, so tonight I'll start with the littlest big issue in Haiti, who at 5'4" also happens to be a little big person: former President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

You may be familiar with his story, but I'll assume you know about as much as I did before I decided to come to Haiti, which was very little. Aristide was a radical Catholic priest. He speaks (I think) seven languages and is a brilliant orator. He was Haiti's most vocal spokesperson for liberation theology, and he bears no small part in bringing down the Duvalier dictatorship after decades in power, as well as the brutal military dictatorships which followed it in the 1980s. During this time there were several attempts on his life, one of which took place in the middle of mass and resulted in the deaths of several parishioners and the burning of St. Jean Bosco church in Port-au-Prince. In 1990 he ran for president of Haiti and got 67% of the vote in the first truly free and fair elections here, becoming by far the most popular polititan in the Americas. Nine months later he was pushed out by the army in a horrible coup, followed by three horrible years of military rule. This was perhaps the darkest hour for the people of Haiti, which is saying something.

During these three years, while Aristide was trying desperately to return to Haiti, he took refuge first in Venezuela, and then eventually in Washington DC. This was as interesting turn of events. The administration of George H.W. Bush had opposed the candidacy of Aristide, and there's plenty of evidence that points to some level of collusion in the coup. No big surprise there. Aristide was a fierce critic of the United States, as well as Canada and France. I would agree with him on many of those points, but that's neither here nor there. What's important to note is that it was his criticism of these rich, powerful countries that brought him such popularity in poor, powerless Haiti. So what happened? Why was Aristide suddenly welcome and/or comfortable in the belly of what he had described as a beast? Bill Clinton came to power, and his administration was highly critical of the military government in Haiti. But this story has no heroes, and that goes especially for Clinton. Under pressure from the Black Caucus and the Haitian American community, Clinton agreed to send 20,000 marines to reinstall Aristide as president in Haiti. But this was done only on the condition that Aristide agree to a raft of economic "reforms" to "liberalize" the Haitian economy. Years later Aristide would openly admit that he made this deal even though he knew it would hurt the people of Haiti, because at the time he was ready to do anything to return to power and end the military's disastrous rule. After he came back, he did what he could to obstruct and bog these liberalizing measures down, but a deal's a deal. Since that time, Haiti has been at the mercy of corporations who dump their surplus and subsidized goods on this island. As a direct result, Haiti now imports 90% of its food. It's shocking and tragic, especially considering that this is a nation of farmers which certainly has the ability to feed itself.

When he was first in power, Aristide had the support of some 90% of Haitians. Even many of the middle class and wealthy elite were behind him, despite his radical politics. But the first great wave of disenchantment seems to have come after he returned in 1994 with the help of the US Marines. In the years that followed, many said that he had changed in his time away, that he had been corrupted. Even if he made that deal because it seemed like the lesser of two evils, he had learned a harsh lesson in realpolitik. Nevertheless, he was still supported by a solid majority for the scant months that remained in his first term.

The Haitian constitution forbids any president from serving consecutive terms. So even though he was exiled for most of his presidency, he had to step aside, and his prime minister, Rene Preval (the current president) was elected. It was generally assumed that though Aristide was no longer president, he was controlling everything behind the scenes. As the years went on through the second half of the 90s, there were rumors and allegations and political entanglements too convoluted to recount here. In 2000, Aristide was again elected. From that point on a lot of the rumors gained steam. Eventually there were marches against his government. The business community, the NGO community, the missionary community, and even much of the university student community became mobilized against him. The allegations included corruption in the form of skimming money off of the nationalized telephone system, sanctioning drug trafficking, arming youth gangs, and inciting violence against those who demonstrated against the government. Eventually a rag tag group of about 300 former soldiers swept through the country taking city after city until they arrived in Port-au-Prince in late February.

On February 29th, 2004, Aristide left the capital in the custody of the US State Department. Aristide insists that he was basically kidnapped. The US government says that he asked for their help. I don't trust my government, especially considering that they seem to have tried the exact same thing in Venezuela when Hugo Chavez was ousted in a coup in 2002. However, as time goes by, and the more I ask people about it, the more doubt is cast on the kidnapping version. I should emphasize that I have no idea, nor do I know what merit there is to the stories that Aristide profited from the drug trade. It seems fairly certain that was inciting violence against his political opponents, or at the very least that he didn't try to stop his more fanatical supporters from doing so. But most of it is shrouded in mystery and nobody seems to know anything for sure. I would pay real money for the truth at this point. And although it's taken for granted by most of the upper and middle class that Aristide was indeed corrupt on some level, he probably still has the support of over half of all Haitians.

Currently, Aristide is a university professor, exiled in South Africa. He recently said that he wanted to return to Haiti, but not for politics. It's impossible to imagine that he would come back to shuffle around the campus of the University of Haiti in a tweed jacket. He casts a shadow on this island, even from the other side of the world. There are plenty of people who believe he is still in contact gang leaders and it was he who orchestrated the waves of kidnappings which have terrorized this city. Again, there's no way to know. Kidnappers do claim to support him sometimes, but I wonder if this is like the FARC in Columbia claiming socialist ideals for acts that are just plain criminal.

I don't know who I could possibly compare him to in the United States. Bush, Clinton, Reagan -- none of them come close to inspiring the kind of fanatical support - or fanatical hatred - that Aristide has. Only Castro or Chavez seem to have that kind of ability to polarize. But if anything, the story of Aristide is more dramatic and potentially tragic. He didn't set out to be a revolutionary. He was a promising young Salesian priest who stood up for the poor when nobody else would. There may be no better example of the corrupting effect of power. And yet something in me wants to believe that he's still the passionate advocate of the poor, that there's a perfectly good explanation for everything, and that idealists can be trusted with power. But it's probably a waste of time and energy to think so.

Education

So I just got back from my first delegation with work. Some delegations go to do training, some go to do monitoring. Mine was the former. We drove to the southeast corner of the country and stopped at schools along the way to step in for a couple hours and educate kids on their rights. Every school I've seen so far requires uniforms. They're different for boys and girls, though coordinated, and the girls always wear ribbons and ties in their hair that match the uniform colors. I was amazed at the age of some of the students. One class had at least four in their thirties - and yet they were wearing the same uniforms as the youngest kids. The reason for this is that a lot of kids are forced to quit school when they're young to help out on the field or move to the city or whatever, and then they decide to pick it up when they settle back down, which can take over a decade, apparently. Better late than never.

The delegation included myself, two coworkers, and our driver. The driver's name is Mesguerres, pronounced "mezgeh" - a literal translation is My Wars. I'm not sure that there's a non-literal translation, but I'd love to know why someone would name their child My Wars. He's built like a bouncer and he shaves his head bald. One night at dinner he asked me how many beers I could drink. I told him that I didn't know because I'd never counted. I asked him how many he could drink. 15. Last night we went out to find an internet cafe in Les Cayes, where we stayed both nights. It was like having a bodyguard. When I got my computer, he pulled up a chair next to me and watched intently as I wrote.

I've noticed this in general, that Haitians aren't shy about looking over your shoulder if you're reading or doing something on the computer. Normally this is a pet peeve, as I'm sure it is for most every North American, but I'm getting used to a different definition of privacy. At my home, the woman who does cooking and cleaning for my landlady comes to clean my place, my dishes and my laundry twice a week. I felt really, really wierd about this at first. Well, I guess I still do, in the sense that I don't want to get too comfortable paying someone to do things that I have the time and ability to do. It's just one of those moral quandries for westerners living in poor countries everywhere. I may not like the way it looks, but I don't miss worrying about laundry, and the fact is that it would be highly resented if I chose not to employ a housekeeper.

But, the point I was going to make, is that when she cleans, she goes through absolutely everything I own. She isn't sneaky about it, she's just looking for ways to tidy up as much as possible. She'll find my jeans crumpled on a chair, and she'll take out the pocket change and leave in in nice little stacks, by denomination, on the counter. When it began to sink in to me, after the first couple of cleanings, just how much she was sifting through all of my stuff, I got nervous. Should I be hiding my important documents, just so I know that they won't get moved around? And if so, where? But that was a while back. More and more, I'm getting over the idea of having my own domain where I control everything. It's actually kind of freeing. And I've still got more space to myself than the vast majority of Haitians. So the real problem remains the moral one. Is there some way for me to let my housekeeper know, even symbolically, that I don't consider myself better than her? I always thank her when I see her, but I feel like I owe more to the person who has to empty my used toilet paper. In case that didn't make sense, I'll close with this little detail of life in Haiti, and most poor countries that have weak sewage systems. You don't flush the paper. You put it in a wastebasket by the toilet. The amazing thing is that it doesn't smell bad. But don't worry, I'll try and retrain myself before I come visit you.

Big Fat Tuesday

It feels like a long seven days. A week ago I went to church with Josef, one of the employees of MCC who takes care of a lot of the driving and other errands. His church starts at 7:00am, so he met me outside of my house at 6:30 and we took a tap-tap (pickup with two benches and a cover over the bed) down the hill. They meet in the basement of a building not far from the MCC guesthouse. People were packed in like sardines, and there were ushers that would come along now and then with new arrivals, looking for a few inches of bench space where they could be squeezed in. The sermon was pretty heavy on the prosperity gospel. I thought it was interesting that the guest preacher began by asking everyone to keep the main pastor in their prayers, since he had been really sick for the last couple of weeks. Then the preacher got going into his sermon, talking about how God always blesses people who are faithful, and how your health and finances are indicative of your spiritual wellbeing. I had to wonder if it was an intentional jab at the main pastor, or if it was just assumed that he must be some exception to the "rule" that health and wealth depend on godliness.

Then, Sunday night, was the first night of Carnival. In the middle of Port-au-Prince, next to the palace, is the Champs de Mars, pronounced "shahn-mahs" -- the largest single public space in the Caribbean. For Sunday, Monday, and of course Fat Tuesday, the square is absolutely loaded with people. Monday through Wednesday are a national holiday -- most stores are closed and few people are working. From what I've heard, 500,000 is the conservative estimate of the crowd. People either watch the events from stands, where you have to pay to get in, or down in the street, where things are much more exciting and sometimes dangerous. I was only in the crowd when I was on my way to a stand with those I came with, and then again on our way back to the car. Both times we had to hang on to each other and charge through the crowd, still getting pulled apart now and then by a surge to the right or left.

Each day, the festivities begin with bands that march around the plaza Then there's the floats with people decked out in ornate costumes. Then, from probably 10pm until 3 or 4am, if not later, is the "shahs." Each of these is an enormous stand on wheels with a couple hundred people and a live band, pulled by a semi and with a huge generator in tow. Depending on who the sponsor is, they'll be throwing things out to the crowd in the street, as well as the people watching from the stands. The loot includes t-shirts, handkerchiefs, cigarettes, lip gloss, bags of rice, candy, you name it. I was only there for Sunday, but the majority of people, especially those who aren't paying for a spot in one of the stands, go for all three nights. And unlike myself, they aren't able to go get a nice long rest in between sessions. For most, it's a 72-hour party that stops only when they drop. Fortunately, there was very little violence this year compared to in years past. I don't know if it's true, but I heard there were no gunshot wounds. Most of the injuries that did take place were just the unavoidable side effects of too many people in one place. As with every year, there were a good number of people asphyxiated. In the middle of a crowd like that, it's common to get squeezed so that your feet don't even touch the ground, and any number of things can set off a stampede. It was a thrill to be there, but one night was enough.

The rest of the week felt like a nice long vacation followed by two short days in the office. Then last night I went to the Canadian Film Festival. The couple who until last year ran MCC Haiti were Canadian, so they often got invitations from the embassy for special events. We received invites to the opening of the film festival, also in Champs de Mars, so I took advantage of the opportunity, assuming that there would be some kind of fancy reception and little cakes and wine and what not. I got dressed up and went together with two other volunteers and a Haitian friend. Unfortunately, there was no reception. It was an open-air event, with the movies projected onto a large screen in the middle of the plaza. I assumed that the movies would be recent, but the first was probably from around 1989, and the second from the late 90s, I'm guessing. The first film was just 30 minutes, and not much more than a history of Haiti. But at least it made sense why it would be chosen as part of this film festival.

The second film was baffling. It was called Mambo Italiano, a Canadian film, dubbed from English into French, but French with an Italian accent. Basically, it was a gay romantic comedy set in the little Italy of Montreal. Boy meets boy. Traditional parents of boy freak out, in a very comedic and ethnic way. Eventually they come to love and accept their son and everyone is happy. This was a bizarre choice of films. I try and avoid unfair generalizations, but I'll say that most Haitians are very, very conservative on the issue of homosexuality. That's not to say it doesn't exist here, but the context is quite different from that in North America. I work at a human rights organization, and gay rights isn't even on their radar screen.

For one thing, it's complicated by the issue of AIDS. In the 80s, Haitians were listed, along with Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs, and Heroin Users, as one of the four "H" groups at high risk of HIV. There were even assertions made that HIV and AIDS originated in Haiti and spread to the US. Research done in the 90s showed that the opposite was true -- North Americans brought AIDS to Haiti. Through the 70s and 80s, Haiti was a popular place for sex tourism among Americans and Canadians. They frequented clubs in the red light district of southwest Port-au-Prince; places full of young Haitian men who, regardless of their own sexual orientation, would do anything to make a little money. Since that time, the AIDS in Haiti exploded in a way that it never did in North America. For this reason, homosexuality is seen by many Haitians as yet another example of North American extravagance and moral decay that has come to prey on poor, vulnerable Haiti. And this is in addition to the plain old cultural conservatism on the issue, which exists in most societies worldwide.

So, try to imagine sitting in the middle of, say, five hundred conservative, rural Americans, and watching Brokeback Mountain. That's about what the atmosphere was like. In fact, Brokeback Mountain would have been a more appropriate choice, because at least it acknowledges a deep social stigma attached to homosexuality. Mambo Italiano was more like a wink and a nudge to some old curmudgeon to say, hey, c'mon, get with the times. That message was completely lost on the audience, which included a lot of homeless children who came not because they got a fancy invite from the embassy, but because they were hanging out in the plaza anyway. Any displays of affection between the male characters in the movie were met with shouts of "masisi!" -- you can take a guess what that means. The Haitian friend who came with us was incensed. He said he was going to write a letter to the Canadian government in protest. For him, it was a horrible message to send to these kids; social stigma was the only thing that might keep them from falling prey to the sexual exploitation, and this movie was undermining that.

But while I recognize this, I can't help the fact that I've lived in Seattle for the last 10 years, I've had gay friends and coworkers and fellow churchgoers. While it's a very complicated issue, I just don't see it as a disorder or a sign of spiritual decay, nor in most cases as a choice. It's just how some people are, not that there's anything wrong with that. I think a lot of the North American and European volunteers who come to work in Haiti feel the same way. I wish that Haitian boys and girls who grew up knowing that they were "different" had a chance to be themselves without fear of persecution, or at least to know that there was a place in Haiti they could go and be safe.

But at the same time I'm uneasy with this tendency to look at Haiti as "not ready yet" when it comes to the question of gay rights and gay romantic comedies. It smacks of cultural imperialism, as if to say that someday, when the moment is ripe, that Haitians should be expected to have a cosmopolitan, Western attitude towards sexual orientation.

Perhaps this is the reason why some committee at the Canadian Embassy chose Mambo Italiano, of all Canadian films, to show at the premiere of the Canadian film festival. Maybe they wanted to go out of their way to show Haitians a prime example of cultural difference -- rather than follow some paternalistic notion of what parts of Canadian culture Haiti is "ready" for. Either way I think the point was totally lost. To be sure, there are places in the world where this film would have sparked riots. It wasn't like that. It was just a few hundred people who for the most part were flabbergasted by what they saw.

I'm curious how this strikes you all. Please comment if you have thoughts to share.

This and that

Here's a photo I meant to publish a while back. Our team spent a day and a night in the lovely town of Ti Goave. We went to a pristine beach and ate coconuts, walked along streets that were surprisingly free of litter looking at brightly colored houses full of friendly people. And somehow this is the only photo I came back with:



I took it for Heather Riden and all the rest of you arachnophobes out there. That is one giant cobweb. On closer look, it's dense with leaves, trapped insects, and big fat spiders. On that note, here's one of a spider in my kitchen. I don't know how you define a tarantula, but this thing was hairy, and you can compare its size to that orange there. Sorry so blurry.



Here's some photos of the training seminar. First, me with Gibbs and Viles, coworkers of mine who organized the training. I'm holding a drum that was used for the song we sang as a group to welcome each trainer, and then again to thank them when they were done.



Here's another coworker, Lelene, with her son who sat in on her talk about gender equality:

'

Here's the group photo of most of the trainees. See if you can find me (hint--I'm the bald one):



I've written here before about how people who live outside of Port-au-Prince rarely smile for photos. This is a great example of that. The only people smiling in this photo are those who live in the city. Everybody else is playing it cool.

Here's the chapel, upstairs from where we had our training sessions:



Early every morning there would be a half dozen or so sisters scattered around the pews praying. Then at 7:00 they'd start singing in a transcendent, echoing acapella.

Now for something completely different. If you've got Google Earth on your computer, I've found my exact coordinates, and you can check out my pad from space: 18°30'33.59"N/72°17'18.52"W should take you to my deck, where I like to get my quota of hammock time each week. My studio is just the bottom left corner of the structure you see. A block east and you'll see the bright green roof of the Kinam Hotel across the street from St. Peter's Place, a city park. As you'll notice, I'm on the edge of the tight grid of streets that is known as Petion-Ville, one of the few areas like this in Port-au-Prince. But just west of my place, you'll see an enormous bidonville, or shantytown, called Jalousie. Unlike the squareness of Petion-Ville, Jalousie is like a blanket of houses draped over the contours of the steep hills. From above there's a sort of organic look to it, resembling a seashell. The houses are built right on top of each other, and some of them collapse each year when heavy rains erode the ground that they're leaning against. Many of them are about the size of my studio, but there might be 10 people sleeping there each night. Now, look just to the south of the Jalousie, further up the hill, at the sprawling mansions, some with swimming pools. The ultra rich and ultra poor, a stone's throw away from each other. Is it any wonder that Port-au-Prince is a tinderbox of class tension?

Well that's it for my grab bag of a posting today. Hope y'all are enjoying your Sunday.

My Haitian Valentine

The title is a little misleading. Here's what I'm talking about:



I made this video with some help from the people I work with. We held a five-day training seminar for members of grassroots organizations all over Haiti. The people came to learn about the prison system, the police hierarchy, the judicial works, women's rights, children's rights, and nonviolent conflict transformation. Some of the participants appear in the video. I got the idea when I saw one participant named Hubert (pronounced "ee-bear" in Creole) wearing a Seattle Supersonics tank top. And the scary guy with the glowing tomatoes is Sayil. He's the caretaker for the MCC office/guesthouse. Kind of a gentle giant. The video I took of him was so dark he was invisible, so I tried to mess with the effects and that's how it came out.

I'll write more about the training later. I'm pretty sure that with the exception of a phone call from my folks, it was the longest I've ever gone without interacting with a native English speaker. Coming back to the office today and reading my e-mail and talking to Jessica and Bethany was like diving into a swimming pool after five days of trudging through a dusty desert. That's overstating it a little.

The setting for the training, and most of the clips you see, was a beautiful spot called Our Mother of Wisdom, or something along those lines. It's a Catholic facility with dormitories and nuns and an enormous collection of potted plants. I'll get some of those photos up too.

Anyways, best Valentine wishes to all. Like Sayil with the radioactive tomatoes said, I love you and miss you.

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.