Vocational Plan

So I've been busy doing work that is focused on the future, specifically the future of the vocational school once I leave. One specific thing I'm focusing on is producing a course management document,  something that outlines what the class is all about.

I just finished my first draft of the management for the masonry program. I don't have the curriculum added to it, but I do have the first part of the document that I wrote. Its only a first draft, so I would love your comments on them!

Thanks!

                     Masonry Course Structure Report

This document contains the course curriculum and a course management plan for the masonry program at the La Croix New Testament Mission

                                                 Course Management Plan

Course Overview

Pastor Wisner Marcellus will be in charge of the Masonry program. Altenor Phillip, the superintendent of the La Croix schools will be overseeing the project. There are two main components to the masonry program: (1) the theoretical course work, that will be taught by Pastor Wisner in a classroom setting, and (2) the application of the theoretical course work, that will be taught through an apprenticeship with one of the three contractors currently working for the mission. The in class work will be taught after school, and the apprenticeship will be done during the summer and during the weekends, when the students are not in school.

Calendar:

Beginning of Course: November 2012

Expected completion for current class: September 2014

The students will go to class only during the school year (September to June) and will not go to class during their summer break. They will however come in for their apprenticeships during the summer months.

Weekly class schedule: The class will meet after school for about two hours, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. This is when the theoretical instruction will take place.

Total time spent in class: Approximately 1900 hours

The apprenticeship will take place during the student’s time off, mostly during the weekends the summer break.

Apprenticeships:

The apprenticeship portion of the class is meant to give the students better preparation and training. Unlike in the US, apprenticeships are not required for state certification. Though they are not required, we think they will be beneficial for the following reasons:

1.     Masonry is a physically demanding occupation and the students should be able to see if they are physically capable before entering into the workforce

2.     The apprenticeships will give the students a chance to better understand the theoretical material and better prepared them for the state certification exam

3.     The students will be paired with professional contractors who will then be able to hire them after the finish their course work.

The apprenticeships will be under the supervision of three professional masons the mission hires for all of its masonry work.

1.     Jessner Phillip- full time employee of the mission

2.     Delin Jean- private contractor the mission hires for its building projects

3.     Dulet Jean- private contractor the mission hires for other building around the mission. This contractor will also be looking after the carpentry students as well as the masons. The masonry students who also want to incorporate carpentry into their skill set will work with Dulet.

The masonry students have done some preliminary applied on work with Pastor Wisner. They have begun to build a small building in the northwest corner of the main mission. The students will begin working with the professional contractors once they can acquire money to buy supplies for them. Right now they need about $1000 for supplies

Work after Graduation:

Minimum expected wage upon graduation: 500 GDS per day. Depending on the skill of the student though, the wage can increase dramatically. Talented masons can make over 1000 GDS per day.

Hiring expectation: Upon graduation the students will be able to work for the private contractors who oversaw them as apprentices. The students can also work for the mission. Pastor Pierre has a long list of building projects he is working on, and feels that he can help every student get started in their professional career working at the mission. Pastor Pierre said that there is enough building in Pacot alone to employ this current class of masons once they are done. The students can use this experience to get started, they can also use this experience to get in touch with other masons and network through the community. Pastor Pierre feels confident that students who graduate from this program will have many opportunities in La Croix and the surrounding areas (L’estere, Gonaives, Saint Marc) to find viable employment. The mission has a good reputation in the community, and Pastor Pierre and Pastor Wisner will recommend any student who has completed the course work to any of the reputable masons they have hired in the past.

Certification: The Haitian board of education has a certification exam to certify masons. The exam has only a written component and has no practical component. The contractors who hire masons do not take the state exam very seriously. There is no real enforcement of any type of building code, so anyone can work as a mason regardless of certification. The masons who come through our program should all be able to pass the state certification exam. Yet in the event that they do not pass the certification, they will still be able to find ample employment.

The Student Body

Student motivation: Pastor Pierre and Pastor Wisner want as many students to graduate from the masonry program as possible, but they know that the program is not for everyone. Right now they have 10 students, but they originally started with 18. The students are allowed to come for the theoretical part of the class and can drop out if they can’t keep up with the course work. This is kind of like the time period at the beginning of a semester where a student can drop a class without getting penalized. The 10 students in the class now are all exceptional students and extremely motivated. Pastor Pierre was sad to see the eight students drop out, but he feels that the students there now are there for good, and will be good masons when they finish the course.  

Evaluation: The students will be evaluated on two levels; theoretical understanding and practical knowledge. The best students will exhibit both a keen theoretical understanding as well as a strong practical ability. The students will be given written examinations in the classroom, but will also be given practical exams where they have to exhibit their ability as a mason. There will be weekly home work and in class assignment as well

Student Demographics:

The students in the masonry program will be high school students, ages 18-20. They will all be apart of the La Croix system already, and have demonstrated academic proficiency in mathematics and oral and written skills. The students will be encouraged to complete their high school education after they complete their vocational training. This is not a possibility for all students however, so for those students who have a greater need to start providing for themselves and their family, they are able to drop out of high school and begin working full time once they finish the masonry curriculum.

Supplies:

·      1/2 Iron

·      3/8 Iron

·      1/4 Iron

·      Sand

·      Solid Rock

·      Iron Wire

·      Blocks

·      Blaustais

·      Bricks

(For quantities, see attached spreadsheet)

The Question We Don't Ask

Right now I am enjoying the fifth week of with American volunteers. Being here with volunteers here is really interesting because I have a chance to see “the mission in action”. This is not to say the mission does nothing when the American missionaries aren’t here, there's always a lot going on at the mission. When the American volunteers are here however, some of the bigger projects get started. Last week when Westminster was here we wired the computer lab and we started a scarf making class. I learned a whole lot last fall when I was here on my own, but having the groups here allows me to see everything I learned last fall in a different light. 

In every group there are some people who are coming to Haiti for the first time and some people who have been down to Haiti many times before. I haven’t met anyone who’s been here for an extended period of time like me, but I have met some people who have been to Haiti over twelve times. Everyone comes down with great enthusiasm about their projects and about the mission in general, and most everyone is anxious to learn as much about the mission as they can. I’ve seen Pastor Pierre and other members of the mission talk with the American volunteers for hours about the work the mission does. Every missionary seems to have a different set of questions he or she asks, and whenever a new program is starting, those invested in the project begin to ask questions specific to their initiative. I appreciate the value of good research before embarking on a development projects like these, I certainly did a whole lot of research before I came down in September, and I applaud the missionaries who come down having already done some research on their proposed initiatives. People ask a lot of questions, but one question I’ve never heard asked is “why is what we’re doing not already being done? Why are we the first people to do this?”.

Asking “why is what we’re doing not being done?” is not an intuitive question to ask. I didn’t even ask it until just a few weeks ago, but I think it can help to explain much about the social landscape in Haiti and, more importantly, can identify the flaws in certain projects and explain why many projects fail. I’ve seen so many people who come down here and see a problem with what appears to be a simple solution. So many times the apparent solution will fall apart almost immediately because of some quality of Haitian life that an American mindset doesn't see at first. We are going to naturally apply an American framework to the problems we see, but sometimes that American framework can’t solve Haitian problems.

Most of the projects the volunteers focus on are aimed at promoting a general standard of living; they’re starting after school activities, they’re administering medical care, they’re improving the electrical system, their testing the wells, etc. Most initiatives pursued by the American volunteers are incredibly common in the US and contribute substantially to our standard of living, but do not exist in Haiti for one reason or another. In certain cases, the answer to this question is fairly straightforward and doesn’t shed much light onto the situation. Two weeks ago Sandy Conley mentored a local artist, Jimmy, and helped him sell some of his art. Why is there no one already helping Jimmy and why does he need help marketing his art? Haitians are struggling to pay for food, so I doubt they are willing to spend money on art. That also means there’s no art market, so there’s no artists in the community to help Jimmy develop his skills.

But with other initiatives, the answer is not so clear. There is a temptation to say either “they can’t afford the service” or “there’s simply no one to do it”. This may seem true, but this is rarely the case. Though Haitians are poor they do have money, and they are just as capable as we are. (most of the students in the school can afford to pay tuition, which is $240 a year. Only about a third of the students are sponsored by families in the US). One of the best instances where this question was very illuminating was with a volunteer who wanted to teach classes for the rural farmers in the surrounding areas. This person came down saying “I’m going to teach new agricultural techniques to help these farmers increase their output”. This seemed like it would be a great program. Farming in the US requires serious technical knowledge of biology and botany, the farmers in Haiti can barely read let alone understand the science of their crop harvests, a little education would probably help a bunch of people make more money, right?

Unfortunately this isn’t the case. First of all, farming in the US is done on a whole different scale from farming in Haiti. Farming in the US involves enhanced technology with things like fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified crops. Sometimes these enhanced techniques will increase a farmer’s crop yield, and sometimes they will cause a farmer to harvest nothing. Fortunately farmers in the US all have crop insurance for these situations. If the cool new fertilizer turns out to be a total bust, the American farmer won’t go broke. For many reasons Haitian farmers don’t have insurance, so if we gave them enhanced farming technology and it didn’t work, they wouldn’t get rescued by insurance, they would starve.

But even if we take into consideration the constraints facing Haitian farmers, even if we factor in things like crop insurance or the lack there of, I don’t know if you could teach Haitians very much about their own farms. The rural Haitian farmers probably have the greatest incentive of anyone to produce as high of a yield as they can. Even if they don’t have a formal education, they’re surrounded by farmers, and they probably come from a long line of farmers, all of whom have probably grew the same crops on the same piece of land. These farmers probably know what's best for their land.

This is one of the difficult pieces of development work, we have to ask questions that add complexity and make the solution seem even more difficult to reach. I’ve been working on the wells recently, and I’ve been all over the community testing the water quality currently in the wells, and I’ve come across a bunch of wells that are totally defunct. They used to work, but one problem or another came about and now they don’t deliver water. Most of these wells aren’t dry, because there is another well fifty to a hundred feet away that works perfectly fine. 

A few months ago I was sitting with a volunteer who was demanded more wells be dug. “These people are doing to die of thirst if they don’t get this well”. Though the communities he was referring to didn’t have a well readily accessible, they were getting water from somewhere, hundreds of people don’t just settle somewhere that doesn’t have water. This volunteer was also missing the major problem, which was that these people already had wells, they just weren’t maintaining the wells. If we dug another well it might benefit the people for a few months, but eventually it would fall into disrepair like the rest. The question he really needed to be asking is “why are there so many broken wells, and how can we fix them so they’ll serve the community for longer than a few months?”. A well costs about ten thousand dollars to install, maybe that money could be applied in some other way that would maintain the preexisting wells.

In America if a community needed a potable source of water,  the most likely solution would be digging a well. In America this type of solution works. There are public utilities companies who can install and maintain wells, there are plumbers who can fix the pipes that deliver the water to the community, and there are people willing to pay money for water. In Haiti there are people willing to pay money for water, but there are very few reliable plumbers and even fewer reliable companies who will maintain wells once they are dug. When we come to help places like Haiti, we have to be creative, we have to think of Haitian solutions.

Catholicism in Haiti

I am not Catholic, nor do I attend a Catholic mass or really have anything to do with the Catholic Church. I go to a Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, and I identify as a Christian, but I have a great respect for many Catholics I know and certain Catholic institutions, specifically the Jesuit and Franciscan orders. The new Pope being elected at the end of the month won’t have serious consequences for me or for the work that I am doing, but its means a lot for the Christian world and Haiti.

Haiti was initially a French Colony, and was therefore founded as a Catholic nation. Though today France has abandoned much of its Catholic identity, its former colony has continued to embrace Catholicism. Nominally 86% of the population identifies as Catholic, while 9% identify with other protestant religions. Now these numbers are a little misleading, only 3% of Haitians identify as practicing Vodou, but more than 3% practice Vodou in some way, they just don’t identify with the Vodou religion. There is an old Haitian Proverb that “Haiti is 90% Roman Catholic, and 100% Voodoo”.

Haiti has an interesting relationship with the Vatican. The Vatican and other charitable Catholic organizations have sent lots of aid in recent years, but throughout Haiti’s history it hasn’t always had a great relationship with Rome. Haiti was an independent republic in 1804, but wasn’t recognized as such by the Vatican until 1860. During French rule, most of the Catholic clergy were white, and were all expelled after the revolution. In 1806 Catholic missionaries started returning to Haiti. Though much of Haiti was still Catholic after the revolution, the Vatican didn’t recognize Haiti as an independent nation until 1860. The Vatican was not alone in this, France didn’t recognize Haiti as an independent nation until the 1820’s and the US didn’t formally recognize Haiti as an independent nation until after the Civil War. France didn’t recognize Haiti as independent because that would be giving legitimacy to their former slave colony, and the French really only acknowledged Haiti as a legitimate nation in the 1820’s when parked a few battle ships outside of port Au Prince and demanded Haiti pay reparations for the revolution (the only time in history when the victor had to pay the vanquished reparations, for the next fifty years over half of Haiti’s government spending was to France to repay this debt). The US didn’t recognize Haiti as an independent nation because no slave holding Southern politician would accept a black ambassador, or accept that blacks were capable managing their own country. I can’t find a clear answer as to why the Vatican didn’t acknowledge Haiti’s legitimacy, I suspect France’s influence in Rome didn’t help Haiti in this case, but I can’t say anything for sure.

Once Rome acknowledged Haiti’s legitimacy however, they began to send priests and more missionaries. There were already Catholic missions in Haiti, so the already strong Catholic influence became stronger. In particular, Catholic churches began to be more common in the rural areas, offering aid to the struggling population as well as services and formal religious order. In 1896 and 1941 the Haitian Catholic church and the Haitian state enacted policies against Vodou, and pushed for measures to outlaw the practice of Vodou. Some Catholic priests destroyed Vodou icons, but overall this did not have a large affect on Vodou in Haiti.

The Catholic distain for Vodou has been criticized in the past, saying that the Catholic church is being intolerant of other religions, and though this seems to be the case on the surface, I think the argument is not that simple. Vodou is a complicated religion, there isn’t a set text or clear dogma, and it’s a touchy subject among Haitians. Vodou in the US is made out to be a peaceful pantheistic religion, involving cool dances, the burning of incense, and the practice of playful witchcraft. This is true to some degree, but there is a much darker side to Vodou that doesn’t make it into American movies. Vodou has a violent side; one practice of Vodou is zombification, where a person is “killed” and then raised from the dead and forced into slavery. The person is actually poisoned by puffer fish venom and falls into a deep sleep, his or her heart eventually slows down so much that he or she goes cold and appears dead. Once the venom wears off in a few days, the person is “raised” from the dead, and forced to work as a slave. There have been many deaths attributed to Vodou. One of the men living in the Community of Hope used to be a Vodou Witch Doctor, and when he converted to Christianity he felt that his life and the life of his family was in danger. He lived in the mountain community of Paul, and he feels that had he not moved to La Croix, he and his family would have been killed because of his conversion. I am not a fan of Catholic priests destroying Vodou icons, but I understand the Catholic Church’s distain for the practice of Vodou.

The Catholic Church didn’t make a whole lot of news in Haiti until the reign of Francois Duvalier, Papa Doc. Duvalier was known for his iron grip on Haiti and the gross violations of human rights he committed against the Haitian people. Duvalier had a large police force known as the Tonton Macoutes that terrorized those who disagreed with his administration; the catholic church took a strong stance against the actions of Duvalier, and many of these police officers intimidated or killed Catholic priests. As Duvalier tightened his grip on Haiti, he created a personality cult around him and claimed to be a Houngan, a Vodou Priest. Duvalier saw himself as the human manifestation of Haiti, and in some ways saw himself as Loa, the Chief spirit of Vodou. Duvalier expelled a bunch of Haitian bishops and Catholic officials, and was eventually excommunicated by the Catholic Church. In 1983, during the reign of Baby Doc, Pap Doc’s Son, Pope John Paul came to Haiti, saying that “Things must change here” (statement by the pope during his visit to Haiti), and galvanized a movement to promote human rights in Haiti.

In the late 1980’s a Catholic Priest named Jean Bertrand Aristide rose to prominence, and in 1990, became the first democratically elected president of Haiti. Aristide was a student of liberation theology and firmly believed that Haiti could move forward if its government cooperated with the people and helped the poor. Aristide had a very controversial presidency; he elected with 67% of the vote in 1990, and then was ousted in a coup d’état in 1991. He returned to power from 1994 to 1996. He was reelected in 2001 but was again ousted in another coup d’état in 2004. Aristide claims that the CIA kidnapped him in 2004. There is some evidence to support this claim, but his administration had become more corrupt, and there was momentum in Haiti to remove him from power. There are those in Haiti who say that Aristide was a great leader and was removed because he opposed the US, and there are those in Haiti who are glad that he’s no longer in power. I don’t know enough about the history to make an informed opinion, but I do know that Pastor Pierre felt that his life was in danger under Aristide’s presidency. Aristide embodied the hope that came with liberation theology, so I understand why many Haitians were so enthusiastic about him. That said I’ve also seen how corruptible politicians in Haiti can be, and I trust Pastor Pierre, so I am hesitant to offer any opinion.

Today the Catholic Church is one of the largest organizations offering aid in Haiti, and most Haitians identify as Catholic. The new Pope will have a whole smattering of issues to address, some that will affect Haiti, some of which won’t affect Haiti. One of the biggest issues facing the Catholic church is declining membership in the developed world. Though Haiti is a small nation, I think that the new Pope could learn something from the Haiti’s Catholicism. Haiti’s churches are packed every Sunday, and they’re also more mission oriented than churches in the US or Europe. The government provides no comprehensive social services, so the church has to provide many of the essential services like health care and education. The church is at the center of people’s lives, and can become more than just a service provider; it can become a place for community development, it can effect real change. The church is able to not just help people, the church can change culture and empower entire communities to care for themselves. Catholics, like all Christians, believe in a God that died and rose again. Maybe with a little help from places like Haiti, the Catholic Church can find a way to also rise again.

Island Time

This past week I took a little break from Haiti and spent a week in Jamaica. I decided that for my own sanity I would take a small break every now and then and try to tour the Caribbean a little. My girlfriend Sarah and I enjoyed a week at the Jewel Run Away Bay Resort in Run Away Bay Jamaica. The vacation was awesome. It was a true “vacation” in that I wasn’t there to do anything but enjoy myself. I did get to experience a decent amount of Jamaican culture, but I also got to spend some quality time on the beach doing nothing. Fortunately though, these two activities are many times one in the same.

I couldn’t help but compare Jamaica to Haiti, and I came away with mixed feelings about Haiti’s development. Jamaica is not a developed country like the US or Great Britain, and has some of the classic signs of underdevelopment that I’ve seen in Haiti- there were farm animals roaming around, there was significant pollution in the areas not maintained by the resorts, the homes seemed to be pretty small, and the “nicer” homes (the ones made of concrete rather than wood and mud) were all protected by walls mounted with razor wire.

That said, overall Jamaica seemed to be in a much better place than Haiti. The water was potable, we could walk around with out feeling threatened, and the overall sense of chaos that seems to define urban in Haiti was absent. Now to be honest I did spend a decent amount of my time at the resort, so I didn’t get to immerse myself in rural Jamaica or urban Jamaica the way I have been able to in Haiti, but from the few excursions I took into Ocho Rios and Runaway Bay (the two towns near by), I experienced life as I could never imagine experiencing in Haiti.

One day Sarah and I went out to see some botanical gardens and climb a waterfall. We were on our way by 8:00 AM, and we drove to an old Jamaican estate. The drive wasn’t through a congested urban area filled with motorcycles, hawkers, and cows going in every which direction like L’estere or Gonaives. Driving through Ocho Rios was kind of like driving through down town Baltimore; its not a place I’d like to be wander around after dark, and it wasn’t especially well kept, but it was perfectly peaceful to drive through and the general atmosphere was pretty orderly. The Jamaican estate we visited was beautifully kept, and there were more species of plants and animals there than most anything I’ve seen in North America. The air was clean, the water was drinkable, and the scenery was picturesque. After that we did a little shopping, and then climbed up the Dunns River Falls. 

Haiti has these beautiful estates, and there are a few places where we can walk around with out getting harassed, but nothing like what I saw in Jamaica. The falls in Jamaica were a little under a thousand feet high, the water was perfectly clean, and the natural limestone was still intact. The beach I went to in Haiti was clean, and I am sure there are some fresh water rivers that are relatively clean, but the pristine quality of Dunn’s river falls, the natural lime stone and the naturally cleaned water, is something I couldn’t imagine in finding in Haiti. Haitian cities have canals filled with trash, all empting into the other waterways. When we went and got lunch we were able to eat outside and enjoy the scenery, which could only happen in a few select places in Haiti. Of the Haitian restaurants that I’ve eaten at, most are totally indoors. I’ve never been to a Haitian restaurant that has been right on a sidewalk or right outside in a city, the outside is just too chaotic.

The most stunning environmental difference between Haitian and Jamaica was the lush greenery in Jamaica. The term “Mountains Beyond Mountians” can be applied to Jamaican and Haitian landscape, but Haiti’s mountains are brown and yellow, covered with scrub grass, while Jamaica’s mountains looked like something out of a rainforest adventure magazine. There were palms trees everywhere, and all types of different species of plants life bursting forth from the ground. Recently there have been a few brush fires around the mission, and I couldn’t imagine any brush fires in Jamaica, everything is too green.

Haiti and Jamaica have very different histories shaping their current situations. Haiti was a French colony while Jamaica was a British colony. Though both super powers held both colonies as slave colonies, the British were much kinder to their slaves and gave their slaves a greater sense of dignity than the French. The French were known for excessive brutality against their slaves, and thus gave their slaves more reason to revolt, causing Haiti to declare independence through acts of war in 1804, while Jamaica was granted independence by Great Britain in 1962. Jamaica was also under British rule when Great Britain started to strengthen public practices like the enforcement of property rights, rule of law, and the break up of government sanctioned monopolies. These practices promoted economic growth for the entire population rather than a select ruling majority. Haiti on the other hand, had no such practices, and broke off from France before France could institute such practices. Implementing things like property rights is extremely difficult, and is something Haiti has struggled to do ever since the revolution.*

After seeing what Jamaica had to offer, I can more clearly see Haiti’s path toward development. If Haiti’s cities can figure out a way to manage traffic so that it was a little less chaotic, or figure out a way to build more permanent buildings rather than shacks, maybe Haiti’s cities could be a little safer. This would not only make the people in those cities more prosperous, but might also bring in new industries, like tourism. Yet there were also parts of Jamaica that Haiti may never see. The lush forests that covered Jamaica are totally absent on Haiti’s mountainous landscape. The deforestation is not only an eye sore, but it makes rural development extremely difficult. How can Haiti’s small farms protect themselves from mudslides if there is nothing to anchor the soil?

I was really glad to visit Jamaica, not only did I get something to contrast with what I see in Haiti, but I had a wonderful and relaxing time with my great girlfriend. 

*This is a topic for another blog post, but these types of good public institutions and practices, commonly known as “inclusive institutions”, are the roots of economic development. There are many ways inclusive institutions can be implemented, but implementing them is extremely difficult. The fact that Haiti doesn’t enforce property rights, have a steady rule or law, or embrace inclusive institutions is not a slight on Haiti as much as it is a general observation. Haiti didn’t implement inclusive institutions because it rebelled from France, the issue of inclusive institutions in Haiti and France is much more complicated. I don’t mean to imply that Haiti could not implement inclusive institutions without France’s help. I believe that Haiti is currently on the path to more inclusive institutions despite all of the current set backs, but it is still a far way off. Most nations don’t have inclusive institutions. Jamaica, in some ways, got a lucky break in by being a colony of Great Britain while Britain began to promote inclusive institutions, because Britain could help Jamaica also develop inclusive institutions.

The Gift of a Cow

Last fall, every evening around 5:30 or so I would go up to the roof and look out on to the farms surrounding the mission. I would sit there trying to figure out what I could do to help the farmers who tend the fields around to us. What I am doing with the vocational school will help Haiti in the long run, but it won’t really meet the needs of the everyday rural farmer. These people are the poorest of the poor, I am potentially helping their kids, but I also wanted to help them. I wrestled with a few different ideas, and I settled on an animal donation program. The idea was that families from the US could donate animals to families in Haiti. The families who we chose were families who had children in the school but couldn’t afford to pay tuition. These families were the poorest of the poor here in La Croix, and were struggling just to get by and survive. They really struggle when they get hit with big expenses like a large medical expense or a major home repair. Most of these rural farmers don’t have any access to any sort of capital or commercial finance, so their only option when it comes to big expenses is either going to a local money lender or forgoing the expense. This sometimes means that people have to live with a roof that lets rain water in, or with a debilitating disease. In some cases people will go to loan sharks, who charge a 200% or 300% interest rate, and many of those who go to loan sharks get caught up in a perpetual cycle of debt. One way people are able to save up money is to keep animals around. When they need to make a big purchase, they sell the animal at the market. If I could get more animals into the fields around the mission, the rural farmers would be better off.

I knew all of this information in my head, and it pushed me to collect about $3000 to purchase animals for Haitian families. Edvens, Roland, and Pastor Pierre all thought that the program was a really good idea, but there was still a small part of me that felt a little uneasy about it (for any of you who I’ve spoken to about my work here, you know that I employ a special hesitation to everything I do here so this shouldn’t be too surprising). I was enthusiastic about the program, but there was a small part of me that wasn’t sure if it would be meaningful to the families who purchased the animals. Is a goat really that big of a deal of a family in Haiti? How much would this really matter?

Well, we started giving away the animals last week and I began to see just how special this program was to the families. The families who we gave animals to were from all around La Croix, and some families walked an hour or two to retrieve their animals. Many of the children who came got dressed up, and everyone was incredibly grateful. There was a cow donated to the one family that lives in the Community of Hope. The father used to be a witch doctor, but when he converted to Christianity he felt that his life was in danger. He came to Pastor Pierre with his struggle, and pastor Pierre let his family live in the Community of Hope, found sponsors for his children to go to school at the mission, and now gave him a cow. Now the father works as a construction worker and his family is safely situated in La Croix. A boy named Anece lives across the highway from the mission. Anece has special needs and could not advance past the second grade. He is a good worker and helps his family as much as he can. He always clears Pastor Pierre’s hiking path. He received a cow and both he and his father were choked up when they left with the cow. One of the employees of the mission was given a baby pig, and she got dressed up and put her daughter in her Sunday church dress she came to collect the pig. 

Evaluating my how effective and how much value I add to the overall mission is extremely difficult. In certain cases I can see the work that I’ve done, but evaluating what would have happened had I not been here is seems almost impossible. I am proud to be an asset in the team that puts together the vocational school, and I think the school is better because of my help, but seeing specifically what I change is difficult. One indicator of success is community engagement; and the community was certainly engaged in this initiative. The people were grateful and I hope the animals will serve them well. Every family has to sign a contract saying that within the next year they will give the mission one of the animal’s offspring, and then the mission will give that baby out to another family in need. I feel good about these animals, but I also see an area where I can do more. I will be returning home in April for a week, and I plan on advertising the program again for mother’s day. If you want to give a goat for Mother’s Day please let me know.

Emergent Order: American Business Logic in a Haitian Market

-->I feel like I am becoming a regular at the L’estere market. I went for the third time today and my parents Chris Hestwood, Westminster's Choir director, and a few of the employees at the mission joined me. We had a fantastic time.

Last time I went to the market I was amazed by the emergent order; the bovine herders naturally gravitated toward the most open space to sell their cows, the swine trade revolved around an area right next to the river that supplied a large amount of mud for the pigs, and the less chaotic part of the market was occupied by the sale of luxury and higher end items. Each location uniquely suited its group of buyers and sellers. Today I saw another side of the market’s wisdom. Last week we just got cows and attempted to get pigs, so we saw a much more limited segment of the market, but today we got see almost the entire market. I had a chance to observe how different sellers in L’Estere organized themselves as efficiently as supermarkets and convenient stores do in the US.

Tuesday is the day when animals are traded in L’estere, so there were people from all over Artibonite (the region of Haiti where L’Estere is located) trading every different species of livestock. There were traditional livestock being sold, cows, horses, pigs, goats, and chickens, and there were some people selling less common animals like pigeons and turtles. When I was walking around the communities yesterday afternoon I saw teams of horses and cows coming down Highway One, all headed to today’s market. The market is so popular that people would travel overnight to the market with their herds. At the Tuesday market the only constraint dictating on where people sell their goods is the road and the physical structures; any space is fair game. There are no zoning laws directing what interactions can happen where, there are no permits required to sell a certain thing in a certain place, there aren’t even any health codes dictating where a cow can be butchered; if a person can situate him or herself in a certain place, he or she can open up shop there. Some spaces sell specific items, there is a spot where cows are traded, right next to door the place where horses are traded. There are sections of shops that sell durable goods like clothes and shoes. There is one segment of the market where all sorts of poultry is sold, one spot where pigs are sold, one spot where wood is sold, one spot for charcoal, etc. There is nothing but circumstance dictating what is sold where, and the division is guided only by the market’s wisdom.

Within each of these product specific areas, there are other things being sold: rice, beans, soap, tobacco leaves, little peppers, common every day items. Around the cow trading area there are people selling rice, beans, tobacco, etc. Each of these every day items does have a specific area of the market specializing in its sale, but these items can also found all over the market place being sold by smaller vendors. There is one section of the market that specifically sells rice, one section that specifically sells beans, but rice and beans are sold all over the market. While walking around, this all seems completely haphazard. There is a smattering of rice sellers among the higher end sales, some bean sellers randomly plopped in the area devoted to the sale of compost, and people selling tobacco leaves wandering around the fresh meat space. All of this goes on without any sense of apparent organization. Yet as I walked around I realized that the market was organized, just not by a single person. The market was organized quite efficiently by the collective wisdom of every buyer and the seller. The logic I saw in the market was quite similar to the logic that dictates the sale of everyday items in American stores. If I want to buy a specific product, something like steak, lunch meat, sharp cheddar cheese, tomato sauce, etc. I have to go to a place like Giant Eagle, a place that specializes in the sale of food. Yet if I need a general item, something like milk, water, cigarettes, or orange juice, I can go to Giant Eagle or any other convenient store like CVS, Sheetz, Walgreens, or Sunoco. I may pay a little more at the general store, but I am willing to pay more because I don’t have to go all the way to the grocery store. In the market, everyone needs to pick up the staples of Haitian Cuisine, things like rice and beans, but not everyone has to pick up a cow or charcoal. Because of this, some rice sellers will congregate in one central area, while others will disperse to other areas of the market. Those rice sellers who congregate in one area will be selling everyday rice as well as other more specialty types of rice. In the main rice area I saw some sellers who were selling yellow and brown rice as well as white rice, and some were selling rice in mass quantity. In the other specialized areas, those selling cows, pigs, charcoal, etc., there were rice and bean sellers sitting near by. Like CVS selling milk and bread, some of the smaller Haitian rice and bean sellers congregated around the charcoal and cow sections of the market, hoping to get a higher price for their goods by giving the buyers a the added convenience of not having to go all the way in the market.

Another interesting point that I noticed was that none of us were really heckled by the people in the market. Our group was led by Roland, our handy translator and all around Haitian cultural ambassador. Roland was able to blend in with the rest of the Haitians, but the four Americans stuck out like a lit match in a dark room. When I was in Port Au Prince, there seemed to be dozens of people coming up begging for money. I am obviously not from Haiti, and given my white skin the Haitian beggars assume I have money. Here no one was begging for money from me or the other three Americans with me. We came across a few questionable characters at the further ends of the market, but overall everyone was polite and courteous to us as we walked through. Once our group got over the initial shock of everything around us, we felt comfortable walking around. There are more white people in Port Au Prince than in L’Estere so we (four white Americans) stuck out more here, but still no one approached us the way beggars did when I was in Port Au Prince last Saturday. I don’t have a definite answer for why this happened, but I am willing to bet that this was because the expected monetary gain from asking us for money was far less than the expected gain from whatever transaction they were already engaging in. In other words, the Haitians thought they would make more money if they worked with each other than if they begged from us. This may seem trivial, but it implied that the market was doing what it needed to do, creating wealth for those working in it.

We ended up getting 18 goats, 3 pigs, and a cow. We spent a total of about five and a half hours in the market, and everyone involved, including the animals, went home happy. I was able to observe the market’s collective wisdom again, but observed it in a whole new light. Most likely at least half of the people at this market were illiterate or had just a basic education. This market was not organized by a specific formula for allocating goods, and none of the sellers were analyzing spreadsheets of pricing data. There was no one person or group making any central decision about how to best allocate space or product, the market work on the many different sellers trying to find the best place to sell their goods, and the many different buyers looking for the best deal. They all organized themselves efficiently, respected each other, and worked hard. I am sure some people didn’t get the best deals they hoped to get, while other people probably got better deals than they expected to get, but overall those who interacted in the market were better off at the end of the day. If market day taught me anything, it’s that Haiti’s success isn’t a magic formula. There’s no one specific policy that can set rapid growth in motion. The materials for Haiti’s success are already present in the L'Estere market place. People want to be successful, they want to trade with each other, they don’t want to beg for help. For Haiti to move forward in its development, we don’t need to implement something totally new, but rather figure out a way to spread the collective wisdom of the market.

Art Class

So my parents are here today and my mother had a fascinating time working with Sandy Conley (one of my supervisors). Sandy is working with some of the students and is teaching an art class. Sandy is a professional artist and she has been coming down here for a long time. She’s developed a very successful art program, and has even mentored a local artist. Sandy was teaching an art class today and my mother oversaw. Art in the US is something that every child under the age of six has mastered; any home with smaller children has their artwork gracing almost every flat surface of the home. In Haiti this is a different story, people can’t really afford art supplies for their children.

Sandy’s class today had about twelve kids in it, all above the age of ten. Sandy was teaching them how to draw a still life, i.e. you look at a picture or at a scene and draw it. Sandy had nice flowers for the kids to draw and Roland, our trusted interpreter, interpreted Sandy’s lesson for the kids. Though Sandy’s instructions were quite clear, the children didn’t know how to draw. Now I am a terrible artist, but at age twelve I understood how to draw a vase with flowers in it; we all did because we all spent hours upon hours when we were kids drawing whatever was around us and then put it on our parents refrigerators. The Haitians however have never drawn, so this was a totally new experience to them. This displays a depressing deficit in Haitian life. Though very few American children continue their art careers past the second grade, drawing helps us as children develop an imagination and a better understanding of the world around us. Haitians grow up without their surroundings ever being translated onto a piece of paper.

Fortunately however, this is not the end of the story. The children in the art class listened closely to Sandy, asked her questions, and figured out how to draw. They worked hard, made mistakes, and pushed through until they could produce a nice picture. Sandy is going to continue teaching art, and each day the kids are going to get better, and by the end of the week these twelve Haitian students will get the experience we got as American kids. The Haitians in La Croix may not be blessed with the material resources we in America have, but they are blessed with a work ethic second to none. The Haitians who I have worked with, both as professionals and as students have been some of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen. Though they don’t have art classes as children, they take advantage of the opportunity when they see it.

One of the boys Sandy has been tutoring for some time is a boy named Jimmy. Jimmy is a really nice Haitian student who lives about a half mile from the mission. He goes to school during the day but finds time to paint in the afternoon and during his time off. Jimmy is a really nice boy, and the walls of his home are covered with his art work. He paints in a Haitian style, depicting much of the scenery around him in a very colorful light. Jimmy also paints pictures of iconic figures, including President Michelle Martelly, Past President Rene Preval, St Augistine, and Rick Ross. I bought one of Jimmy’s paintings last week. It was a nice painting of a near by river. It was $10, and all of it went to Jimmy. Jimmy has developed a nice small side business painting pictures of La Croix and he sells them around the community, his best customers are the American volunteers who come down and volunteer at the mission. We are hoping that we can contract him to do some work around the mission. Jimmy may not ever become a professional artist, but with Sandy’s help and his dedication he’s been able to develop a small side business that throws off a little side cash that might help in tough times or provide some needed entertainment on a rainy day. Jimmy never grew up drawing but he took advantage of Sandy’s help and has been able to make a better life for he and his famil

Kalico Resort

Though I’ve come to Haiti to serve the Haitian people, every now and then I find myself without anything specific to do and I take a little break. Today one group from Westminster left and another came down. I could have gone down to the airport, but I decided to take a day off and go to the beach. There are nine people from Westminster who were staying here for two weeks so I had a nice group of people going with me. We went to a nice resort called Kalico Resort, located about half way between Port Au Prince and La Croix We went down half way to the airport with the departing group, and then met up with the arriving group as they came up from the airport.  

When Haiti appears in the news, the topics usually revolve around something bad- earthquake, political violence, massive corruption, etc. All this bad news misses the fact that Haiti is a Caribbean island with white sandy beaches and warm weather all year round. Haiti’s tourist industry has struggled as crime and political instability have increased, but Haiti used to be a tropical tourist destination to French and American tourists throughout much of the 20^th century. Bill and Hilary Clinton came to Haiti on their honeymoon in 1975, and the Mellon family also used to vacation in St. Marc, a small town about a half hour away from La Croix. Today Haiti’s tourist industry has shrunk significantly, but there are still a few resorts along the coast.

I don’t know what this says about me as a person, but I thought that I would feel really guilty going to a resort after having lived among the poorest of the poor for so long, but I had no trouble at all. Kalico is a classic tropical resort, with big open awnings and large winding pools, all looking on to the Caribbean Sea. I thought that I would have trouble with the luxury, but I oddly felt a sense of pride in Haiti. I’ve seen Haiti’s worse sides. I’ve driven through some of the scarier parts of Port Au Prince, sat in the thatched huts of the rural farmers in La Croix, and was almost part of a fight while trying to buy a pig in L’estere last Tuesday. The poverty seems to be endless, and it seems to be everywhere. Though the mission does such good work, I still feel overwhelmed with the poverty around me; is there anyway all of these big problems can be resolved?

Today I got to experience a place where all of those problems were solved. The water was safe to drink, the food was totally clean, and the electricity ran consistently. I was able to leave my wallet in my bag without fearing it would be stolen. I was at a place where Haiti worked and worked well. I was able to relax, sit by the pool, drink a Haitian beer, and even buy a small piece of Haitian art for just under $50. Everything was reasonably priced, and the scenery was breath taking. The resort was situated right in between the ocean and the mountains, showing off the most dramatic aspects of Haiti’s landscape. The best part of this was that it was Haitian through and through. Every staff member was Haitian, and every person was as accommodating as could be.

Haiti’s problems seem to be overwhelming, and after I study one problem I see in the community, I learn that it is just a small part of an even bigger systematic problem. As I don’t find very much hope when I study Haitian history and Haitian culture. But today I got to see a brighter side of Haiti, I got to see a side of Haiti that worked. Even though this success is just a small resort, it represents the potential of the Haitian people. Taking Haiti to its next level is going to take potable water, functioning roads, and reliable security, all of which was present in Kalico. Resorts won’t be the only piece of Haiti’s success, but they prove that Haiti can do it. Today Kalico Resort proved to me that Haitians are just as capable as any other people.

Market Magic

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The other day we had a really fun excursion to the market place. One of the initiatives I’ve been working on is an animal sponsorship program where American families can purchase animals for Haitian families in the La Croix community. The program has a little bit of a complicated structure, so most of the time I’ve spent working on it has been at a computer, but Tuesday was great because it took me away from my computer and off to the market where we got to buy the animals.

We got going around 8:00 AM. Tuesdays are market days for animals in L'estere, and there are people from all around selling livestock. We park the car in a less populated ally way and made our way down the street. There is no formal street parking in Haiti like in the US, but we found a spot sufficiently tucked away, and left the car hoping no one would bother it. We started walking around, and pretty quickly we were right in the middle of the bovine trade. The market isn’t as much of a place as it is an event. There is no one central place where the market convenes, rather it is a collection of open spaces all over L’Estere proper; each small square foot occupied by someone making, selling, or buying something. The large items (i.e. cows and goats) are sold in the large open spaces, while small shops selling produce and everyday goods occupy the sidewalks. Some shops consist of standing wood structures, but most sellers just sit out in the open with their goods in a basket sitting before them. Some goods, mostly small items, are sold by street hawkers traveling throughout the market with their goods in a cardboard box a top their heads. Some hawkers sell cigarettes and soda, some sell small bags of drinking water. Everyone seems to be sucking on these small bags of water, and the ground is littered with the used plastic bags. There are some hawkers with huge boxes full of medications. There isn’t exactly an FDA to regulate how prescriptions and medications are dispensed, so most every pill in Haiti is considered “over the counter” and sold on the street out of a cardboard box. In between every ally and on all of the roads there is a constant buzz of motorcycles flying in every direction. Each motorcycle is taking something somewhere. Some have four or five people on them, some have sacks of charcoal or corn, and some have animals tied up and sandwiched between two riders. Every now and then a large platform truck would come through, park, and unload its contents, never seeming to notice the masses of people moving around it. Every open space has something going on, and its all going on very quickly.

We were following Pastor Evans to an open lot filled with people, motorcycles, and cows. This was the area where all of the cows were traded. There was no designation of this area to be the cow spot, but it was one of the largest open areas sandwiched between two buildings, and through the magic of the market, all of the bovine herders congregated there. We then stood to the side while Pastor Evans went into the market and started bargaining with one of the herders. Once we parked ourselves at the edge of the cow area, we kept a safe distance from Pastor Evans. If we, five white people, were associated with a buyer, the price of the cow would immediately double. Pastor Evans started working the crowd and looking for the best deal. Buying an animal takes a fair amount of skill. First of all Pastor Evans had to appear to have no association with us. He then had to size up the cow without looking interested, and then inquire in such a way without giving his interests away. Sometimes he has to ask about another cow he’s not interested in, giving him grounds to ask for a reasonable price for the cow next to it. We sat by the side for about an hour or so while Pastor Evans selected four healthy cows.

Though we tried to be inconspicuous, our pale white skin couldn’t help but draw attention. We eventually moved back into an ally way, and were able to get up on a platform and see the entire cattle trading area. When we were standing in the middle of it, the whole place seemed chaotic, full of man, beast, and machine, pushing each other in every direction. Yet from afar it seemed to flow with an almost perfect rhythm, every buyer and seller moving with precision and purpose. We got the cows and then went to get some pigs. We had a few of the mission employees who took the cows back to the mission while we went to get the pigs, which was fortunate because the area where the pigs were traded was pretty small area right near a river. I can’t imagine that anything good coming from four cows sharing a small space with a bunch of rowdy pigs.

We got to the pig trading spot and Pastor Evans went and started working his magic. The area was  smaller, so our relationship was evident. We stood back, trying to give Pastor Evans some distance while we took in everything around us. I’ve never seen so many pigs in one spot, and I now have a new appreciation for the phrase “happy as a pig in slop”. As I looked around, a man came up to me and asked me what I was doing there. His English was choppy, but we started talking. I told him that I was from the US, that I was apart of a church, and that I was here to buy pigs. He then asked me for money. I told him that I didn’t have any money to give him, and then he started berating me. He said that he was from a church and was a good man. He said that he had a big church and that he needed the money for the church. I wanted to ask him what he, as the pastor of a big church, was doing surrounded by a bunch of pigs on a Tuesday morning, but resisted the temptation. The more I said no, the more he talked at me, saying that I should give him money because he’s poor and I’m rich. Now even if I did have money on me, giving him money would have been a terrible idea; everyone around me would have started asking for money, and before too long a riot might have ensued. Unfortunately this guy wasn’t the only one to expect a handout, because right as he started with me, Roland (the best translator and cultural ambassador I've ever worked with) started arguing with a few of the other swine herders. The guys selling their pigs blatantly told Roland that our party should give them money because we were rich and they were poor. Roland asked them what they wanted to buy, and they replied “Alcohol and something to smoke”. They then started screaming and gesticulating wildly at Roland. I know that my skin color makes me stick out like a ink mark on a white sheet and I know that white skin implies wealth in Haitian culture. I don’t know how many white people these men had encountered and how often they ask for money, but their attempt could not have been more poorly executed. I truly want to help the community around me, and I would love to try to help these exact people if I could, but I think that dishing out free money to angry swine herders looking to get drunk at 11:00 AM while standing in a congested market place might bring on a mess of new problems.

We didn’t get any pigs, but we avoided a fight so I think the over all trip was successful. We made one last trip to a less congested market place where John, an American baker who is mentoring a Haitian baker, could buy some flour. Flour is not a staple in Haitian cuisine the way it is in America, so the flour was sold at a higher end section of the market. This area had a paved road but no cars coming through, just a few motorcycles and a few hawkers moseying around. This section, like all others, had no specific designation. There were still people sitting on the sidewalk selling produce from their baskets, and there were standing shops with every day commodities. Yet some how the magic of the market designated this spot as the spot to buy higher end products. Some how all of the people selling the high grade flour and other luxury items decided to get together in the same place. There was no centralized logic to the market, there was no centralization whatsoever; there aren’t even any zoning codes. In the market nothing is really planned; people just coalesce at one spot and collectively figure out the most efficient division of space. The swine herders naturally gravitated toward the muddiest area near the river, the bovine sales were conducted in the largest open space, and the higher quality goods were sold in the most peaceful area. Without any single mind making a single decision, the rhythm of the market allocated the best spaces it could offer.

From the center of the storm, the Haitian market seemed hopelessly chaotic. There were all forms of man, machine, and beast demanding your attention, forcing themselves forward, and creating a sense of complete pandemonium. You can’t help but feel lost and almost threatened when you first walk in to the market. Yet once you take a small step back and look at the market as a whole, once you see the market as a single living thing rather than mess of individual people, the sense of irrationality transforms into succinct reasoning, the frenzied interactions between buyer and seller begin to reveal a sense of purpose, and Haiti’s noise becomes a unique melody. We tend to think Haiti is hopelessly disorganized and the only road to success is a series of complicated policies executed be from an outside force. But looking at Haiti's chaos from the center, and seeing it as a whole organism rather than smattering of different activities, conveys a different message. Everyday Haitians, when they work together, can do pretty well for themselves. Helping Haiti might mean helping Haitians do what they do best. 

More pictures

I've taken some really nice pictures recently- thought you all might enjoy