The Concept of Is

I realized one of the greatest technologies that I take for granted in the US is a highly developed language. Creole is, by definition, a fully formed language born from multiple parent languages. Haitian Creole is born from French and native African tribal languages. The French influence is quite clear when you hear certain adjectives and nouns, but the structure is foreign to French; for instance verbs are not conjugated to indicate tense, rather a “te” or “pral” is put before the word to indicate if it happened in the past or future.

One of the interesting aspects of Haitian Creole is that there is no verb that means, “to be”; there is no word in Haitian Creole words that translates directly to “is”. This makes for direct translations to sound a little like cave man speech, “Kijan our rele?” directly translated means “what you called?”, but conveys the idea “what is your name?”. For me, this makes learning the language much easier because I don’t have to learn the creole for “am”, “is”, “will”, etc.,  but it poses an interesting issue linguistic development of Haitian culture.

Today when I was teaching a few students in English, one student rather sheepishly asked me, “what do I like in life?” and I responded, “I like being in Haiti”. I like to be in Haiti. He gave me a confused look, so I repeated myself, trying to speak a little slower, but I realized that his confusion had nothing to do with my pronunciation; it was because he didn’t know the word “being”. Every time I speak with the Haitians they only use “is” or another form of the verb “to be” when they are using a phrase they’ve previously learned. I’ve had many conversations that start with “how are you”, “I am fine”, but then end up with “I like mason, so I take this class”. They are trying to say “I would like to become a mason, so I am taking this class. I first help explain to this student what I liked about Haiti by saying that I liked living in Haiti, which sort of worked, but wasn’t really what I was aiming to say. Living, or existing in Haiti is difficult, I can’t drink the water, my family and friends aren’t here. What I like about being in Haiti is being apart of the community. I said that I liked the work that I do, which is true, but that still didn’t get my point across. The reason I like my work as much as I do is because it helps those around me who I care about. I like my work because it means I am a contributing member of the community, it allows me to be present in Haiti.

             Not having the verb “is” was not too difficult up until this point. Before this, the verb “is” was just used to complete a thought. “He is doing good work”, and “He doing good work” have exactly the same meaning, one is just less sophisticated than the other. But now “is” is so much more than a simple verb, “is” is a state of being present. To be apart of a something, or to be present in a situation can’t really be expressed without “is”. The “is” idea can be substituted with “actively participate” or “attend”, but even these terms are much less descriptive the “is”. Who says that “I actively show pride for America”, no one, the idea is always expressed as “I am a prod American”. The act of being is something that can’t be fully explained without the word “to be”.

          This leads me to think about the affect Haitian Creole has had on Haitian Culture. How would my life be different if I had no tangible way to express “being” or “to be”? I have very little knowledge of linguistics or linguistic development, but I know that for myself, not having the term “to be” would not only restructure my speech but would restructure how I see the world. If language is the package in which we understand the world around, how is the Haitian world constructed differently without the idea of “being” 

Scrambling for Significance

Hey readers,
I've been trying to write for different audiences, and my friend Ashley runs a blog about Neuroscience and science in society. I recently wrote a piece for her about Haitian Vodou, and the science behind the making of a Zombie.

Its one of my better posts, and hopefully you'll enjoy it!

http://scramblingforsignificance.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-to-make-zombie.html 

Ray

A Garden for Healthier Babies

  This past week a group of American medical providers came to La Croix. Sunday we went around the clinic and planned out our week. Sunday moves pretty slowly, so I went with a few doctors to the clinic, they looked at the few patients there, and then we went outside and drew up plans for a garden around the clinic. As I was measuring out distances and trying not to step on the chickens wondering around (there seem to be chickens everywhere) I felt like we were wasting our time. I was with two seasoned providers, a nurse and doctor, and we were measuring out a garden. We weren’t curing any diseases, we weren’t setting bones, we were trying to figure out if we could plant over a septic tank. Sure the clinic was having a slow day, but we’re in rural Haiti, we could have gone a mile in any direction and found someone who needed medical help. Wasn’t this a waste of our time 

  I started to intellectualize this, thinking about the opportunity cost to putting in a garden at the clinic. How many people were we not treating by spending time on another project? I didn’t get too riled up because the opportunity cost theme continued in my thinking. The clinic is fully functional and sees many patients on a regular basis. Everyday when I see Dr. Abel (one of the doctors in charge) he tells me about all of the babies he delivered that day. When we went out into the community, one of the focuses was on preventative care. Part of what Shelly (the nurse serving with me) objective for public health is to distribute at home birthing kits. Most women in La Croix deliver their children at home. I thought that Dr. Abel delivered most of the babies in the area, but even though he sees a large number of babies, he only addresses a small portion of mothers because most deliver at home.

Women deliver at home for a multitude of reasons; some don’t have the money to go to the clinic, some go into labor before they can get to the clinic (they only way to the clinic is by foot or by taxi, and I can’t imagine a woman going on a taxi after she’s gone into labor), and sometimes women don’t feel very welcome at the clinic. This isn’t because the doctors are nasty or the clinic is poorly run, the clinic is one of the best run clinics in the area. The clinic is however further away from some of the communities, the landscape around is fully of briar bushes whose seeds stick to you and cut up your legs, and it doesn’t feel as familiar as home. If I were a woman in La Croix, though the clinic may be more sterile, I am sure I would feel more comfortable giving birth in my own home. Since many women are uneducated on issues cleanliness, the sterile nature of the clinic might not factor into their thinking, and unfortunately it might give the clinic an even more uncomfortable vibe. The opportunity cost of delivering her baby in the clinic versus delivering at home is something to consider.

As I considered this, I realized the value of planting a garden at the clinic; it would make the clinic a nicer place. No, it wouldn’t directly save anyone’s life, but might make a few more people come by. Right now there are nasty weeds outside of the clinic whose seeds stick to you when you go by. My legs were all cut up after marking off the area, I can’t imagine how they might make an expected mother feel. These weeds are a minor issue, but they are giving women incentive to stay at home and deliver at home. If we planted a big garden, we would make the community feel al little warmer about the clinic, and maybe encourage a few more mothers to deliver at the clinic who otherwise would not. This garden would open up the clinic to the community more.

This type of dilemma highlights the difficulty with community development. In order for places like Haiti to develop, they need to have strong community institutions like clinics. The stronger these clinics are, the better off the community is. Part of strengthening these clinics is having competent doctors, but another part is having nice gardens outside welcoming people in. This type of community development work might sound good but is extremely difficult to put into practice. Sure everyone knows that a clinic is necessary to a community, but in order for a clinic to function it needs patients. If a medical team goes out and addresses all the issues in the community for free, there won’t be any patients to go to the clinic. This means sometimes not giving people care in the communities and forcing them to go to the clinic, which is really hard to do. This also means that we sometimes have to plant gardens instead of treat people. Community development is not only a shift in actions, but it is an entire shift in perspective; we have to stop thinking “how much good can I give these people” and start thinking “what is my part in this community”.

Many times the result of community development is quite boring and anticlimactic. Setting a broken bone in rural village is a thrill, making a clinic look nicer is a bore, but which supports the greater needs of the community institutions? When we do work out in the communities, we have to think about how we affect the permanent community institutions. The needs of the community are usually pretty mundane, but the only way for Haiti to move forward is for Haitians to build themselves up. American doctors can only cure so many people in one visit, but a community clinic can treat the community indefinitely.

Many people will come to Pastor Pierre saying “I’m starving, why can’t you give me food”. If he sees that they have a cell phone, he’ll tell them to sell their cell phone before he can give them food. Even though this is better for the community as a whole, This is extremely difficult to do. It is no fun for Pastor Pierre and it creates a lot of resentment. Pastor Pierre would love to help as many people as he can, but if he gives food out freely to anyone who claims to be hungry, he’ll be feeding everyone, and anyone selling food will go out of business. He will give some food away, but he gives away very little, and won’t give food away if people can get it for themselves, even if that means selling their cell phone.

Though this may seem like a depressing topic, the result is a development in its finest form; clinics promoting public health, schools educating the next generation, and communities paving a new way forward. There are few days in pastor Pierre’s work where he can see a dramatic change. Much of what he oversees is pretty mundane, painting a school, purchasing a bus, planting a garden. That said, his commitment to community development over the past thirty years has created seven schools teaching over 3500 children, two fully functioning clinics, and a La Croix that improve itself.

Guest post by Jason Freyer

Today's Sunday post is from Jason Freyer. Jason is a youth pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church and came with my to Haiti back in January of 2012. Thanks for the contribution Jason!

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It is 9:20 am on a Saturday. I am sitting behind my desk at the office because we’re about to hold a memorial service for a member of our church, and they’ve asked me to play guitar. Not surprisingly, Westminster is a buzz this morning, people crossing back and forth in front of my doorway almost every minute. But this morning, the parade of people across my door makes me some sort of mixture of sad and jealous and excited. For you see, the group that is here this morning is the team that will be traveling to Haiti in the not too distant future. They’re packing the incredible suitcases procured at our rummage sale with desperately needed items for their journey.

I wish I was going with them.

If you’re like me, reading Ray’s blog may occasionally cause you to ask yourself how you could possibly help from here in the US. You don’t have the opportunity to travel to Haiti right now. Maybe it’s finances, maybe it’s family commitments, or maybe you’re even foolish enough to be taking half time seminary course work. Whatever the reason, they are there, and you are here, and you wish that you could chip in. I totally hear that. It’s where I am right now too.

And so I’d like to take a moment on Ray’s Haiti blog to talk about prayer.

I sometimes wonder what percentage of the Christian population actually believes that prayer works. Even as I’m writing about prayer for the country of Haiti, somewhere in the back of my mind is a voice screaming “Yeah, but what can I do?” I want to get my hands dirty, I want to chip in, I want to paint a school building Pepto-Bysmal Pink and I want to play kickball with the school kids. I want to participate. I want to be active.

Prayer as it would turn out is incredibly active. In Genesis, God informs Abraham that he’s about to blow up the cities of Sodom and Gomorra. Abraham, being a respectable human being, is not interested in seeing a whole group of other humans lives extinguished if they don’t have to be. So Abraham, probably giving himself quite the pep talk before hand, starts to argue with God. They go back and forth, almost like a used car salesman and his customer. God starts at if there are 100 righteous people he’ll spare the city, and ends at if he can find 10 righteous people he’ll relent. God, it seems like anyway, had his plans changed by prayer. He considered what Abraham had to ask. He took it seriously.

I’m pretty sure he still does.

I’ve been haunted for a long time by the image in my mind of the drive from Port-Au-Prince to La Croix. Years after the hurricane that we all apparently texted dollars of support to, there are still entire tent cities on the outskirts of P.A.P. To me, this is the definition of injustice. This is the definition of wrong. And this is what brings me to prayer each and every morning. While I don’t presume to know what’s going on in God’s mind, I think he takes me seriously with these prayers. I think he’s listening. And in fact, I’m also pretty sure he’s acting through people like Ray and Pastor Pierre, and the team from Westminster that’s headed down right now.

So I invite you to pray. Pray for Ray and the other folks who are hard at work in Haiti. Pray for the people of Haiti. Pray for those who are so very desperate for the touch and love of God that they can taste it. Pray for those of us who wish they could be going, but have to stay home and write papers. Prayer is not idle lip service. It’s active. It’s participatory. It’s what God is asking us to do.

But try not to get too jealous of the weather difference...

Community Dentistry

My main objective for myself and the teams coming down is to promote community development. The idea of community development is something I’ll develop in more detail through future blog posts, but the basic idea is that our focus here should be strengthening community organizations rather than doing hands on work. One of the reasons the community is poor is because it doesn’t have institutions to serve it. For instance, a poor community with sick people would benefit from a few doctors coming down and passing out medicine, but it would benefit even more from a permanent clinic. One of the best practices for community development is working along side with professionals in the community. This way the community institution gets the support it needs and it is able to address more needs (again, this is a very complicated topic which I’ll develop further in a future blog post). This past week a medical team was here and they went out into some of the remote communities that couldn’t really access the clinics and administered some care there. We had a dentist with us, and he was able to set up a mobile dentistry clinic and do some of the most interesting dentistry work as well as community development work.

Many of the Haitians have dental problems that go unaddressed. These issues have many roots, the biggest being poor diet, few opportunities to clean their teeth, and unclean water. Dentistry is also less common, so it is less of an expectation in Haiti than in the US. Most Haitians have so few resources to begin with, dentistry is just not on many people’s radar. Because of this many people will have tooth infections that can cause chronic pain and create other problems. On this trip we did a really great job of not only treating lots of people who have dental problems but also getting the local dentist exposure to the community.   

The dentist for the mission, Dr. Miguel, is not very well known in the communities, especially not in the more remote areas. He is a very competent dentist and does great work for the people who see him, but because dentistry is not as present in Haiti as it is in the US, he does not have as much business as he would like to have. We decided to bring him out with us to the communities. This was great from a public health perspective because we treated lots of people with dental problems, but it was also good on a community development level because were showing people in the community that he can help them! Along with this trip was also an American dentist, Dr. Bob Evans who worked side by side with Dr. Miguel throughout the entire trip.

I was really proud to be apart of this group because the dentistry initiative was a great example of community development. Dr. Evans, being a white American dentist, drew a lot of attention. Dr. Evans shared that attention with Dr. Miguel, and was able to promote Dr. Miguel and his work. Working side by side with professionals in the community (in this case, working side by side with Haitian dentists) is a key part to community development. Dr. Miguel could go out into the communities himself, but as a single Haitian he doesn’t attract that much attention. As a group of American healthcare providers however, we stick out in a major way, and people want to be apart of our clinics in part because we’re such a rarity. Together the two dentists were able to see over one hundred patients throughout the entire week. Dr. Evans set up a mobile dentistry clinic with Dr. Miguel and together they spent each day working on the chronic tooth pain in the community. They not only treated the pain but they promoted the dental clinic, and made the community more aware of another resource they have available to them. 

Blogging abroad

Hi everyone,
My good friend Jason Fryer keeps a blog on Youth Ministry, and I recently contributed a piece to him about the debate on religion and science. If you're interested, it I'd love to get your thoughts.

http://www.j-blog.net/bad-god-answers-guest-post-ray-van-cleve-on-science-and-religion/

Enjoy!

Martin Luther King Day in Haiti

Admittedly I was a little bummed that I didn’t get today off for Martin Luther King Day, but I did have a really nice time helping one of the medical teams out in La Coup, a small village a few miles in the mountains. Last year I celebrated Martin Luther King day by volunteering, and though I wouldn’t have minded the day off, I was glad to do the same. Though Haiti did not play a large part in the civil rights era of the 1960’s, Haiti has a very interesting place in the racial history of America.

After the Haitian revolution, most all of the white population fled back to France, or was killed in Haiti. There are a few stories about former plantation owners peacefully returning to their plantations and living among their former slaves, but for the most part the white plantation owners were not welcome. This meant that the entire government was made up of people from African descent, as most of Haiti still is today. This meant that any ambassador to the US from Haiti would have to be black. In today’s world this might not be a huge issue, we just swore in a black president for the second time today, but in 1804 when Haiti became an independent nation, the antebellum south refused to allow the US to receive a black ambassador. The Antebellum South wouldn’t even recognize Haiti as a legitimate nation. Formally recognizing a slave nation as a diplomatic equal would openly challenge the legitimacy of slavery. How could the US admit an that a nation run by Africans could exist when Africans in the US were seen as property?

            This lack of recognition was a great impediment to Haiti’s diplomatic development throughout the 18^th century. Haiti was continuously bossed around by the French and German navies and could not call on the US to assist. Under the Monroe doctrine the US was defensive of any intimidation by a European power of any independent nation in the Americas. Though Haiti was geographically in the Americas, since it was not recognized as a formal nation, it could not ask the US to advocate for it when France and Germany parked their navies outside of Port Au Prince.

            One move Haiti employed in protest to America’s actions was to divert slave-trading ships from Africa to Haiti’s shores. When the ship arrived in Haiti all of the African slaves were set free. I don’t know what affect this had on its diplomatic relations with the US, it probably just angered a few slave traders, but it sent a clear message to America. Abraham Lincoln wanted to see Haiti be recognized as a real nation, and when the Civil War was over, the first ambassador to Haiti from the United States was Fredrick Douglas. Though Haiti was going through a great upheaval at the time, Fredrick Douglas served Haiti well, and repaired the poor relationship between Haiti and the US. Unfortunately this relationship deteriorated as Haiti’s general state of public affairs deteriorated, but Douglas’s did what he could to support the Haitian cause as well as America’s best interests when he served as Ambassador.

            Looking through Haitian history, there are very few figures like Martin Luther King. I never realized how blessed America is to have figures like Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and Fredrick Douglas. We look up to these men and women and celebrate their achievement because they represent a point when we as a country took a great stride forward; they represent a time when our better nature won out. Haiti does not have as many moments as we do in the US but I’m hopeful. All I can hope is that when I return to Haiti in 50 years I’ll celebrate Haiti’s Martin Luther King and the great strides Haiti will have made.

Baking in the Sun

Rural Haiti isn’t known for its cutting edge technology, but the mission is supporting an entrepreneur who is trying to bake bread in a really interesting way. The mission has a small initiative that supports local businesses, and one baker with whom we are working is using a solar oven to bake bread.

The amazing thing about the solar oven is that it doesn’t require an external power. As seen in the picture, the oven is huge. It’s probably twelve or fifteen high, it sits on wheels, and it bakes delicious bread. It can use gas power if its cloudy outside, but the gigantic mirrors on top focus the sun light on to the oven, allowing the bread to bake fully under the sun’s rays. The oven itself, the space below the mirrors where the dough sits, kind of looks like display case, (except instead of holding already baked bread it hold dough becoming baked bread). The temperature of the oven varies, and thus the time to produce on batch depends on the weather, but it can cook bread fully just like an American oven. Some of the bread that I have eaten from it has been a little denser than I am used to, and still a little doughy, but that is a result a Haitian preference for denser bread rather than the ability of the oven. Some of the bread has been identical to the fresh bread I’ve bought in American bakeries. No matter how doughy or fluffy the bread is, it’s certainly just as tasty as any bread I’ve had in the US, and it’s been the staple of my diet since I got here. The oven produces bread in massive quantities. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the bread being loaded out, but it each batch is composed of multiple potato sacks full of bread.

Though a solar oven might not be an efficient way to make bread in the US outside of Brooklyn’s artisanal food and craft market, it has decent potential in Haiti; especially for anyone looking to start his or her own business. The initial payment to purchase the oven would probably be pretty expensive, but the only cost after the oven is bought is the dough. I don’t know the exact nature of the market for bread in Haiti, but there are thousands of men and women hawking all sorts of food in the urban areas, and I don’t see why they couldn’t sell bread in addition to multitude of other things sold on the street.  There are also thousands of people selling produce in the larger market places, and I imagine that someone could make a decent living selling bread. The bread could also be sold to schools for the student’s lunches. The main staple of the Haitian diet is rice, but many Haitians enjoy bread and, as long as the price was low enough, would integrate it into their diet.

The greatest benefit of the solar oven is that it is self-containing; it doesn’t need anything else to hook up to or to run on in order to work, it just needs sun light to cook the dough, and Haiti has plenty of sun. Getting anything anywhere in Haiti is relatively complicated, and utilities like gas and electricity are inconsistent. If someone wanted to set up an American bakery in Haiti, they would have a pretty difficult time. The power quits so regularly, so keeping the lights on would be enough of a challenge, let alone keeping something like an oven powered long enough to bake a few loaves of bread. The solar oven on the other hand, can bake massive quantities of bread in one batch, needing only sunlight, something Haiti is loaded with. The oven is also on wheels, so the baker can move it around if he is getting too much shade in one spot.

I don’t know how much success the baker running the solar powered oven has had so far, but he has certainly produced a lot of really great for me, and everyday a few more potato sacks of bread come up to the foyer outside my room. In a few weeks the owner of Bethel Bakery is coming to La Croix with Westminster to help the baker, and I can only imagine how great the fruits (or loaves) of their labor will be.

My Nine to Five

Despite most of my blog posts, I am actually working here in Haiti, I don’t just sit around and think about economics.

I had a very productive meeting yesterday with Pastor Evans, Pastor Wisner, Pastor Pierre, and Altenor Phillips about the progress of the vocational school. The vocational school is in a great place and the progress made since I’ve been gone is impressive. Right now we have three vocational technologies being taught to the students: Welding, Masonry, and Electrical work. We are looking to put in a carpentry program, a plumbing program, and possibly and auto mechanic program. These are all vocations that are in high demand and professions that could yield a steady income for the graduates.

I sat in on the masonry program today and Pastor Wisner, the teacher, did a very good job teaching the students. He started by putting notes on the board, and then continued to have a discussion with the students and gave them sample problems to work out. Despite Haiti being worlds apart from America in some areas, effective classroom management in Haiti is similar to my school days in the US. Pastor Wisner is engaging and expects respect from the students. In return he has a well-managed class and the students seem to be learning and enjoying themselves. He does a good job to get the students talking about what they are learning, and he forces them to work out problems thoroughly with him, as well as on their own.

Right now what I want to focus on is getting the entire program to be scalable. I want to make sure that when I come back to Haiti in 10 years, this program is still around. The first step to this is to develop a course outline. This will be a combination of two things: (1) a curriculum for what will be taught in the class and what the students will be capable of achieving when they are finished with the course (2) a list of requirements for managing the class. The curriculum is already written. The teachers have written some of the curriculum, and the Haitian government has written example curricula as well. Most of these trades have some sort of licensing exam, and for some of the trades there is a prescribed curriculum written by the state and designed for the exam. Some of the teachers are adding other skills that will benefit the students, as well as those needed to pass the qualification exam. For other trades there are no formalized curricula, but there are still licensing exams. This is the case with the masonry program, and Pastor Wisner has done an impressive job putting together a comprehensive curriculum. 

The second part is a set of requirements set for the management of each program. These are more general guidelines than course requirement, things like the number of students in each class, the length of the overall program, expected income upon graduation, etc. Pastor Pierre has helped me compile a list of questions I will ask each teacher and mentor. In the coming weeks I am going to be sitting down with every teacher and mentor of the program, to see what they are doing and make sure the program is working for them. From these conversations I hope to develop a guide to mange the administration of each discipline. 

I will be putting these course outlines together for a few reasons. The first reason is that this will also hopefully give some consistency to the classes and tell prospective students what to expect. I also hope this this outline will make the course a little more formal for the teachers and the students. Right now the program is in kind of a beta testing, and we are working out the kinks, and this document will make sure the kinks we work out get formalized and that the teachers have a structure to rely on when teaching future classes. This guide will also be a resource to any new teachers who come in to teach, giving them a premade formal structure to each discipline.  The teachers are very involved in the production of this outline, so hopefully it will give them a guide for any questions they might have in the future.

Another important reason for these course outlines is to document the program for people who want to donate to the school. When I was home talking about the program, I was asked be many people how they could help with certain initiatives of the school. I spoke with men who had or were currently working as carpenters and wanted to help a few Haitian carpenters. This course outline will be something I can give to prospective donors, allowing them to see what exactly it is they are supporting.

One of the biggest benefits to this is that it allows me to develop a budget for each discipline. Right now the program doesn’t cost anything from the students, but as it grows, we will want to charge some tuition. The tuition will either be covered by sponsors from the US, by up front payments by the students, or by a loan program where the students pay back their tuition loan once they complete the program and start working. Getting a budget set is not easy, but putting together a course outline is a necessary step.

I wasn’t very familiar with the trades when I was assigned this project, but I realized that the value I would add to the mission would be managing the project from beginning to end. I would need to do the bigger picture things, like making sure each discipline had a structure to it. This course outline is just one of the many things needed to ensure the sustainability of this program, but it is great way for me to give back to the mission.

Haitian Time

One of the unique attributes of the developing world is that everyone seems to be running a little late. When I was in South Africa people would say, “I’ll be there now” when they were 10 minutes away, as if the present would begin in 10 minutes. My college friend from Guatemala used to say she was running on LA (Latin American) time, which was 10-15 minutes behind, and Haitian time is a solid half hour behind schedule. This is not really not a big deal, and provides some occasional entertainment, but its so ubiquitous throughout the developing world, I couldn’t help but wonder why developing countries were always running late while people in the US are generally pretty prompt.

            One factor that certainly causes things to run behind schedule is a culture. Promptness is highly valued in American culture. If I casually showed up five or ten minutes to my job in America, I would be disciplined in some fashion, and if I’m continually late, I may be terminated from my position. In America, timeliness is directly correlated with diligence. If someone shows up late, they’re probably not working very hard. Showing up on time is also a sign of respect. Even if my tardiness is back by a good reason, its still seen as rude. The cultural importance on timeliness is not upheld in places like Haiti or South Africa.

            Even though culture is an important piece of this puzzle, I don’t think culture fully explains this phenomenon. South African, Latin American, and Haitian culture all developed separately and are all pretty different. Culture doesn’t just spontaneously happen, it’s caused by something. Each of these culture’s didn’t just consciously decide that showing up 20 minutes late was tolerable, there was some reason, some aspect of their societies that caused this phenomenon. 

            One explanation I’ve heard is that people in these societies are inherently lazy and incompetent. They don’t care enough or are naturally incapable of showing up on time. This viewpoint is very outdated and based in the theories of 19^th century Social Darwinism, most of which have been left in the 19th century. This notion also doesn’t hold water in any of experiences I've had in the developing country’s I’ve traveled to, especially Haiti. Every Haitian I’ve met in a professional context, whether they are a tradesperson, a teacher, an administration, or another professional, they all take their jobs very seriously and work very hard when they are on the job. Every Haitian takes his or her work seriously and produces good work: they just don’t always show up when they say they will.

            When thinking about this I started to think about incentives. What is my incentive to show up on time in the US? Yes, I want to be taken seriously, but I also want to be productive. There are people relying on me to be on time, so if I don’t show up on time I am hurting someone else and making the people who rely on me less productive. Lots of professions in the US are oriented toward team work rather than individual work, so if I am late I either keep the others with whom I am working from getting anything done, or I miss out on what the group does in my absence. Working with others inherently demands people be timely, and since most professions in the US involve teamwork, being late has a high cost. I have a big incentive to be on time because I want the rest of the group to be productive.

            In Haiti, especially in the rural areas, most people work alone. Every farmer tends his or her own crops by his or herself. Any farm help is generally from the children or a spose, Almost no farmers hire any help outside of their family to help with the harvest. Each farmer has a relatively small amount of land to farm, so the crop yield from day to day is going to be the same whether the farmer starts at 6:00 or 8:00 AM. If I will sell the same amount of bushels of grain or corn, why does it matter what time I get up to harvest them so long as I harvest them and sell them by the end of the week? In addition to this, there is very little going on for the Haitians to amuse themselves when they are not working. There are no movies to go to, no buses, trains, or flights to catch, and no 5:00 PM happy hours to make. Leisure time is pretty leisurely, and has no set time or place, but happens when there's no work to do. If I want to hangout with my neighbor, I’ll wait until the sun goes down and walk over to his house and say hello. Rural Haitians have less incentive to be timely because the cost of being late is much lower. This in turn, has contributed to a set of cultural norms that does not value timeliness as much as in the US, where timeliness has a much higher cost.

             Thinking of Haitians as lazy or incompetent is not only inaccurate, but it doesn’t show the inner workings of how Haiti works. Haitians are just as diligent as Americans, they just have different incentives and economic forces molding their culture.

A Nice Reminder

I went to church this morning and I was pleasantly reminded that Haitian people are very smart and capable. I know this seems like a bizarre thing for church to remind me, but let me explain:

When I was home I listened to a podcast called Intelligence Squared, which posits a proposition and then has four people debate the proposition, two arguing for and two arguing against. The episode that I heard was “Does Science Refute God”. It was an interesting, and it got me doing more research into the question of God and Science. This is a very interesting debate, and a debate that can be informative to both the religious and non-religious.

One of the arguments put forth in this debate is that people use God as a crutch, to help them get through difficult situations. This was originally an idea from Sigmund Freud, and the basic notion is that people turn to God because they need something to believe in, something to help them get through the difficulties of life. This idea has been thrown around in the psychological and religious communities for the past century or so, and though much of Freud’s work has been discredited, this idea is still popular today, especially among those who believe in the New Atheist movement.

When thinking about Christianity in Haiti, noting that over 95% of Haitians profess Christian faith, and that so many Christian missions working in Haiti, this notion may seem more plausible. In a country like Haiti where the poverty is so devastating, maybe religion is just an escape for people? Maybe the Haitians lives are plagued with so much suffering that the only way they can cope with their situation is to believe in an after life that is better than this life? This rule could be applied to the world at large, since the majority of the world’s Christians are located in the developing world. Maybe the reason religion in Europe is slipping away is because people’s lives in Europe are less miserable, so people don’t need religion.

I don’t want to speak for Europe or the rest of the developing world, but I can say with certitude that this idea did not apply in church today, nor has it applied to any of the church services I have attended in La Croix. The people of La Croix who I saw at church were not at church because they were miserable, but they were at church because they were joyful. The church is an amazing community, and people come to church not to escape from their lives but to share their lives with others. The church was filled with Haitians from all walks of life. The wealthier members of the community as well as the poorest of the poor were there this morning. Many of the Haitians were very well educated, and came to church because they believed in what the church was doing. The Haitians saw church as a place to celebrate their lives, and many of them who saw me after the service were happy for me not for the work I was doing but because I was a part of the community now. They believed in Pastor Pierre, his message, and the work of the mission.

Though Haiti as a country is desperately poor, and La Croix is one of the poorer communities, the La Croix church is inspiring. People believe not only in the message being preached at the pulpit, but they believe in the mission as a whole. They believe in the virtues of the community and the work the mission is doing. They might have theological differences, but they come together to share their appreciation for that which is greater than themselves. They believe in something greater than our material existence, a greater goodness that we are all apart of, and feel a need to work towards it.

The debate between science and religion is fascinating, but as in many debates, some ideas are over generalized and need to be checked. I believe that science and religion can co-exist peacefully and even complement each other, but that’s for another blog post. The idea, however, that people in Haiti are religious only because of their difficult situation, mischaracterizes the personality of the Haitian people. The Haitian people are religious for the same reason Americans are religious, and for the same reason I am religious. We all believe in something greater than ourselves, and our churches are good places to be apart it.

Three Years Later

Today, January 12^th, marks the three-year anniversary of the earthquake that demolished much of Haiti’s infrastructure and devastated the entire country. This is also the day that I am returning to Haiti to complete the vocational school I set out to complete last June. Fortunately for me, there was nothing earth shattering (no pun intended) that happened today and I got up to the La Croix Mission without a scratch.

The earthquake that hit Haiti holds the same cultural significance for Haitians as September 11^th does for Americans. Though these two events are different in nature, they are moments in each nation’s history that its people can never forget. The earthquake forever changed Haiti in every way possible. Not only did it destroy Port Au Prince, (Haiti’s capital) but killed over three hundred thousand people it left over 1 million people homeless, over 10% of Haiti’s population. 

As I drove up to La Croix from Port Au Prince the damage from the quake was as clear as I’ve ever seen it. There are still massive tent cities sprawled all around the outskirts of Port Au Prince and all throughout the highway there is rubble lining the road from crumbled buildings that fell during the earth quake. There has been some progress made in the past three years, and President Martelli’s push for investment in infrastructure and vocational education is apart of that progress, but the long road to recovery is a long one. The devastation seen from Highway One shows the vast amount of work that has yet to be done. I am fortunate to be living in the rural areas, which did not have as much damage from the earthquake as the urban areas, but the economic and social effects of the earthquake radically changed the entire landscape of the nation, for both rural and urban.

There are many reasons why Haiti has not rebounded from the earthquake three years ago, and I will discuss those in later posts, but for now I will just leave you with one thought. Haiti was in a pretty bad place before the earthquake hit. The earthquake hit, and then Haiti hit a new low. There were billions of dollars sunk into the recovery effort, some went directly to the up front aid, like tents for homeless Haitians, while other funds went to long-term projects like education and infrastructure. These long-term projects won’t have an immediate pay off, but will add much greater value in the future. An estimated one half of all US households donated to the recovery effort in some way, but much of that money went towards long term projects rather than immediate aid. I know that everyone who donated to Haiti through Westminster Presbyterian donated to the La Croix mission, and money was invested in long term projects, specifically education. Right now there is much criticism that the aid sent to Haiti was “dead aid” and it only exacerbated the problems in Haiti rather than help the Haitians. There are some instances where this is true, but there are other instances where money was put to productive uses who’s pay off will be in later years because it went to fix some of Haiti’s more fundamental problems.

Haiti is still suffering from setbacks created by the earthquake three years ago. All I can hope for Haiti, is that the money put towards the long term relief, the money that wasn’t spent to on tents but used to build schools, will create a citizenry that is more prepared for the next earthquake. As for now all we can do is pray, wait, and see.