Guest post

Hi Friends- I did a guest post on my publisher's blog and I thought you all might enjoy the post!

Here's the URL: http://networkedblogs.com/LgBAz

If you can't access it there, let me know. I will be sure to send it to you :)

Back in the USA

Sorry for the radio silence-

I am officially back in the USA and won’t be returning to Haiti for a while now. I came home in time for Mother’s Day and my mom’s birthday, and am planning to begin to support Haiti from the US. My fellowship officially ends on June 1^st, and for the next two weeks I will be preparing to help with Westminster’s “Haiti celebration”, a big event we are throwing to talk about Haiti with everyone who is involved with the mission here in Pittsburgh.

I have had a nice time re-entering my life here in the US. I thought it would be difficult, but so far it hasn’t been too difficult. The operative term in that sentence is “so far”, it might be difficult over the next few weeks, but for right now its not too bad.

I will continue blogging, but for the time being I think I will be writing from another blog. I want this blog to be focused on all things Haiti. I have loved keeping this blog, not only has it given me great practice as a writer but it has been a great place to reflect on my time in Haiti. If I write anything on Haiti I will be sure to post it here, but my next writing adventure will be on another site (I’ll post the URL here when the site is ready).

Thanks for being such a great audience! I’ve loved writing this, and I’ll hope to continue anytime Haiti comes in the news.

Teaching English

For the past three weeks I’ve been teaching my own English class. I am teaching a class within the Bright Morning Star English Club (colloquially known as BMSEC) and I am specifically working with the advanced students, helping them improve their conversational English. The class is taught twice a week for an hour after school. I know enough Creole to manage the class pretty well, but I instruct the students in English mostly. I think (or at least I hope) the student have improved their English speaking and writing abilities. I have enjoyed teaching the class, and the experience has been an interesting foray into the world of Haitian education.

I have never taught in a public school, but I spent a decent amount of time teaching SAT prep for the Princeton Review and teaching computer classes for Project Easton, so I like to think that I was not totally unprepared for the class. I am also a fluent English speaker, and I like to think (though some of you may disagree) that I can make conversation pretty well. The actual teaching of English was not too difficult. Though limited, my Haitian Creole did help me better understand why the students made some of the mistakes they made. Haitian Creole does not really have a word that means at. Where we would use the word at, the Haitians use the term “nan”, which best translates to the word in. This was confusing for the students, because they couldn’t really differentiate between the two ideas. They would often use at when they were supposed to use in, and vice versa. Haitian Creole also doesn’t really have a term that means to be, and there fore don’t have a verb like “is”. The students knew to put the verb am after I, or is after he, but they struggled when working with other pronouns. “The school good”, or sentences like that were quite frequent. Haitian Creole also has a limited vocabulary, and thus has to use idiomatic phrases much more than we do when speaking English. The term “vire dwat” means turn right (“vire” translating to turn, and “dwat” translating to right), but ale dwat (ale translating to go) means go straight. The word dwat has an entirely different meaning depending on the word before it. These types of linguistic differences posed certain problems, but I was fortunate because I had the advanced students, many of whom had been speaking English for quite some time. The better prepared students were able to help the less experienced students grasp these differences.

The much more difficult part of teaching English was the classroom management. Like American High School students, Haitian high school students can be pretty rowdy, especially around their friends. I try to be “respectfully authoritative”, I’m not too harsh but I let the students know that I am in charge and that I will be quick to call them out when they are out of line. This worked pretty well at first, until one student began to give me a little more trouble than I expected. This student was one of the best students in the English club and he was answering the questions I was asking the other students. I couldn’t get anyone to give their own answer because this student was consistently answering before the other students had a chance to speak. I was getting perturbed, and after the third interruption, I told the student that the next time he spoke I would kick him out. Without fail, the next student I called on wasn’t able to say so much as a syllable in English until the disruptive student blurted out the answer. I told the student that he had to leave, and then the other students started to cheer me on. I was a little confused with the situation but I wasn’t going to give up any ground as I firmly pointed to the door.

I took a step closer to the student and right as he went to get up, his friend next to him quickly jumped up and whipped off his belt. Now at this point I was totally confused. I had one defiant student who was beginning to listen to me, I have a class cheering me on as I discipline him, and now I have another student whipping off his belt. The disruptive student saw his friend (these two students were quite good friends I might add) and shot up out of his seat. They were sitting at a bench, so there were bodies moving around in all directions and the bench almost fell down on me.

I did everything I could to keep a straight face, but I couldn’t help but be scared from the peaceful class I was confidently in control of turning into the Roman Coliseum in sixty seconds.

What I soon realized was happening was that the student removing his belt was encouraging me to hit the disruptive student with his belt, and the other students were cheering me on to hit him. Now I am so politically correct that during almost my entire first year of college I never used the term “freshman” because it could be perceived as sexist. There was no chance in heaven or in hell that I was going to hit this kid, but I had the entire class cheering me on to give him a hard whack. This put me in a very difficult position. In order to teach these students I would need them to respect my authority, but I was unwilling to do the one thing that most Haitian teachers did to assert their authority. I refused to hit anyone.

I would like to think my authoritative stare was the push that caused the disruptive student to back down, though in reality it was probably the fact that the class was cheering for his hind side to meet the business end of a belt. Fortunately there was not too much time left in class, and after wrapping up with the last few questions I dismissed the class.

Sandy, one of the people who oversees all of the work that I do here, once said that certain aspects of Haitian culture are reminiscent of America back in the 1950’s. This would be one of those times. A teacher in the US can get fired for hitting a child, but here it is commonplace, so commonplace that I almost lost the respect of my class for not doing it. I feel that part of this cultural disparity is rooted in the stark poverty of so many Haitians, and that as the poverty subsides, people will begin to adopt less harsh practices of discipline. As for now I just have to keep a stern face and make sure the students respect my regardless of the consequences.

Guest post!

Hi Friends!

I have been blogging at a few other places and most recently I posted at bibledude.net. This site is run by one of the people helping me with my book, Dan King. Dan is doing a month about short term missions, and his friend and fellow writer Amy Sullivan who is organizing some of the posts asked me to write a post entitled "six ways to ruin a mission trip":

From experience, here are six ways to ruin a mission trip: https://bibledude.net/6-ways-to-ruin-a-mission-trip/

Enjoy!

Haiti Day speech

I have just signed up to speak at Westminster on their Haiti Celebration day, and today I wrote the beginning of my speech. I would love to get your thoughts on what I should say. I don't have a conclusion, but I would love any thoughts you might have on what I've written so far.

The Trouble with Candy in Haiti

Good evening everyone and thank you all for joining us for the wonderful celebration. I am so glad to see so many of you here.

I spent this past year working at the La Croix New Testament Mission and I was able to gain a unique perspective on the activities at the mission. I had the rare opportunity to see the affect we as American volunteer have on the broader La Croix community. I saw the community before, during, and after each group of volunteers came and could get a feel for what worked well, and what we can improve upon. One of the most interesting phenomena I noticed was how giving out candy to the kids changed their impression of the work we were doing. (I don’t like this sentence, if you have any remarks I’d love to hear them)

In Haiti there is, what I call, a culture of handouts. Many of the Haitians see Americans as people who come down just to give them stuff, like an unlimited ATM machine. For many of the Haitians we know who work at the mission this culture does apply, but we have all experienced this at one time or another when we’ve left the compound and ventured outside of the mission. We’ve all had children come up to us saying “give me candy” and walk away from us when we don’t give them any. When some of the medical teams were here providing mobile clinics, some people came without any significant ailments and demanded medicine. At one mobile clinic there was almost a riot. During my last month at the mission, almost every time I would go out for an afternoon hike, I would pass someone who could bluntly say to me “give me some money” or “ban m’sa” “give me that”. This culture of handouts is not something we caused and is not the fault of the Haitian people. The Haitian people are simply reacting to one of the unfortunate of symptoms of the mismanaged aid that has been dispensed all over Haiti.

Pastor Pierre and the La Croix New Testament Mission do an excellent job fighting this culture. If Pastor Pierre finds someone charging his or her cell phone in the church, he confiscates it. When people come up to him and ask for food and he sees that they have a cell phone, he tells them to sell the cell phone before he will give them food. Pastor Pierre asks every student pay a small nominal fee to show their commitment to their schooling, and if the student cannot pay Pastor Pierre asks that they volunteer for the school, paying with “sweat equity”. I have seen Pastor Pierre fight this culture first hand and I have an incredible respect for his work. This is not an easy culture to fight, but through grit and determination the mission has been able to help so many people people come out of poverty and become self sufficient members of the community.

When we come down to volunteer at the La Croix New Testament mission, we have to think about how our actions play into this culture. Is the work we do helping people climb out of poverty and become self sufficient, or are we contributing to this culture of handouts? Is there a way that we reconfigure our activities so we can better combat this culture? Unfortunately, from what I have witnessed, giving out candy usually contributes to this culture. This is not true in all aspects, and giving out candy does not do any major permanent damage, but on many occasions I have noticed that some children were less engaged in certain activities the weeks after a group came and indiscriminately gave out candy. The children would come to certain activities expecting to get something, and when they found out there was no hand out, they left.

Giving out candy in and of itself seems innocent enough, and its overall affect on the community is minimal, but it contributes to a culture that is detrimental to Haiti’s well being. In order for people to get out of the cycle of poverty they have to be able to provide for themselves, they have to be able to make their own way and get to a place where they can provide for themselves and their families. This culture of handouts discourages people from working hard in order to provide for themselves, and encourages people to stay in poverty.

I do not want to condemn all handouts or all projects involving some type of handout. Every project is different, and overall the mission has been incredibly successful helping people pull themselves out from the cycle of poverty. To emphasize my point, I wanted to take this time to highlight a few successful projects that combat the culture of handouts and have contributed to ending the cycle of poverty.

The La Croix New Testament Mission School: The school offers children an opportunity to redirect their futures. A child born to subsistence farmers does not stand much of a chance of gaining any employable skills on is or her own, and is slated to become a subsistence farmer and continue in the cycle of poverty. The school offers these children a chance to gain skills they can use to find a gainful employment beyond the farm.

Pastor Pierre does a great job combating the culture of handouts by demanding that each child pay 500 HGD (about $12) to attend school each year. Pastor Pierre does not demand that each student pay this fee in cash and will gladly accept a student’s sweat equity, or work the student does in service to the mission. The payment can also be made over time. This ensures the parents as well as the students are committed to the education and are not just using the school as free babysitting. No child will be denied an opportunity to receive an education, but each child must commit to his or her education. Each child must work hard to advance through the school. The students are given a meal each day, which ensures that they will not go hungry, but they have to come to the school in order to receive the meal. In order for a student to gain anything from their experience in school, they have to dedicate themselves to their studies.

The Wells: Every time Pastor Pierre drills a well for a community, he asks that every member of that community pay a small monthly fee to the mission to cover the maintenance of the well. Even though this fee does not cover all of the well’s maintenance costs, it forces the people to take responsibility for their community resources. The people now have a sense of ownership over the well, and see it as a resource that will serve them indefinitely if they are able to care for it. If we just gave them a well with no strings attached, they would probably see it as a one time gift that will eventually fall into disrepair.

Pastor Pierre also appoints a member of the community to oversee the well’s care, lock up the well during certain hours so it does not suffer from over use, and will report any major problems back to Pastor Pierre. This person is a consistent presence reminding people to care for the well.

Meet Your Meat

Before I go any further with this post, I want to warn you all that I am going to be talking about some of the culinary adventures I had this past week. These adventures involve some of the less appetizing aspects of food production, so if you have a light stomach you may want to proceed with caution. 

A few weeks ago when I came back from fund raising in the US, I asked Jazumen (one of the cooks here) if she could prepare some goat meat for me. I had eaten a little bit of goat before hand, but seeing that it is the national dish of Haiti, I figured that I should have it prepared in an authentic Haitian style. I was more curious than anything, and I figured I would have one good meal before I came back to the US. Jazumen didn’t say anything about it, and I didn’t want to be pushy, so I didn’t ask a second time and figured I’d just have to wait to eat some goat.

I hadn’t thought too much about the goat until yesterday when Jazumen came to my door and wanted to show me the goat she had bought for me. I was a little confused, but I attributed it to my poor language ability. I was thinking, “She wants to show me the goat? Why do I need to see a piece of meat? Maybe it was something else she needed to show me? Maybe she wanted me to ok the cuts of meat she bought?”. It was not a miss in translation, she brought me out to the school yard where there was a living and breathing goat munching on some of the weeds.

When she said “can you see the goat”, I had one of those intuitive “uh-oh” feelings you get when you know something isn’t right but you can’t put your finger on what is wrong. I passed by Edven’s office on the way down and I asked him to come along with me. Edvens would be able to translate everything perfectly, and he is also very good at preventing me from saying something that would be offensive to a Haitian. Sure enough Jazumen brought me to a little goat just hanging out in the school yard, chomping away on a few weeds. I thought that this goat might be for someone to take home, but I then saw that it was a boy, and realized that she had bought it for my dinner. She asked me if I thought it was ok?

At this point I felt confused and a bit guilty, not only was I looking my dinner in the eye, but I had never intended for Jazumen to go to all the trouble of buying an actual living breathing goat for me. I figured she could get a few goat steaks (or whatever cuts of meat goat is sold as) at a supermarket and then cook them up for dinner one night. I know how much trouble it is to buy a goat at the market, and when I go I have a huge truck that I can pile the goat into once I’ve purchased it. She would have probably had to bring the goat back to the mission on a tap-tap. I had never meant for her to do all this for me.

I was also a bit confused, when someone says “how does this goat look?” what do you say in response? Every time I go to a restaurant and order a bottle of wine and the waiter asks me to sample the bouquet, I never have any idea what to taste for. I felt even worse at this point, because wine doesn’t look you in the eye when you check to see if it is ok.

I told Jazumen that I felt badly that she had to go to so much trouble, and she said that she was honored to do this for me. I was a bit confused at first, but after talking with Edvens about it, he said that she was honored that I asked her. It was implying that I had respect for her and her cooking. She was very excited to cook the goat. Jazumen takes great pride in her work, and I think that she my asking her to prepare the goat was a sign that I held her in high regard. She prepared it today and put everything in the freezer. I declined to watch the goat being prepared, though I did catch the pieces of the goat being brought up to the kitchen.

I thought this would be the end of my culinary adventures, but I was wrong. Every few days Jazumen makes me some chicken that I can mix into my rice and beans. Usually she just fries the meat, but today she broiled it and mixed it in with some hot sauce. The chicken was good, though it was much gamier than any chicken I had eaten before. I soon realized that what Jazumen had cooked me was rooster. Rooster meat is much gamier than hen meat and is much tougher to eat. Rooster meat almost tastes like quail or game hen. We don’t eat it in the US because its not as tender and juicy as chicken meat. I didn’t mind it, but I thought it was a rather appropriate way to finish one of the more bizarre culinary experiences of my life.

This whole experience did make me think how lucky we are in the US to have the food that we have. Most Haitians don’t eat very much meat and many are protein deficient because of it. Not only is meat more expensive than most food here, but there is no way for the average Haitian to keep meat. Almost no one can afford a refrigerator, and even if they could the electricity is so inconsistent that it wouldn’t do a very good job keeping anything cold and fresh. The Haitians can eat chicken every now and then, and if they go to the city they can eat some of the meat that is sold on the street. There are some people who search out some “alternative” meats. Pastor Pierre has told me about some people who bring alcohol up the mountain and dump it in the holes in the rocks. This some how brings out the lizards who live in the rocks. Once the lizards are out in the open and intoxicated, the people hunting them catch them, kill them, and then eat them. Yet despite these more creative attempts to find meat, most days the average Haitian diet doesn’t include anything but rice, beans, and whatever other small vegetables can be found.

I feel very lucky to be born into the family that I was born into. Not only are my parents wonderful people, but I was born in a country where I don’t have to kill my dinner. Even though I am not very wealthy, I can afford to eat a balanced diet without too much trouble. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is going to come from, I don’t have to worry about the next time I will be able to eat meat, and I can always rest assured that I will have food to eat. I am going to eat the goat on Tuesday when I can share it with the rest of my friends here, and all I can hope for now is that it tastes good.

It works!

So this goat might not look like success, but I was thrilled to see him today. We were giving away goats today and a family came to the mission with a goat. I didn't notice the family come in, so I didn't think much of it, but when Edvens tied up the goat he told me that this goat was not one we bought at the market but was rather given to us by a family.

Why would a family give us a goat? When each family is given a goat, they sign a contract with us agreeing to give us one of the goat's offspring, and this family was fulfilling their duty. Edvens does a fantastic job with the families explaining the policy to them, but today I was thrilled to see that it really works out. The families really do meet our expectations.

So why is this important? Obviously its a great asset to the mission because we can continue to give out goats without having to purchase more goats*. That said, there is something else to the design of the program that makes the goat "give back" meaningful.

Families in rural Haiti (and in most of Haiti for that matter) do not have access to any form of formal credit. A report by the Clinton Global initiative indicated that 90% of Haitian families do not have a bank account, so in order to store money they have to either keep cash hidden under their mattress or keep something of value that can be sold at a later date (like a cow or goat). Keeping cash in the home is very difficult for most Haitians and can lead to serious problems. A goat or cow can retain value without the complications of cash. This practice of keeping animals as a type of savings account is common throughout the developing world. When I was back at Lafayette last winter I spoke with one of my favorite professors, David Stifel, who had just come back from a one year fellowship in Ethiopia, and he said that families in rural Ethiopia kept animals for the same reason Haitian families kept animals.

Out hope for this project is that the goats and cow that we give can act as an "investment". We only buy young female goats and cows that are able to reproduce for years to come. The hope of the donated animal is that it will continue to have offspring so the family can use it as a type of "living" trust fund that throws off interest every year in the form of two or three young goats or cows. 

 

The only problem with this is that the family, or rather someone in the family with lower ideals, might take the goat or the cow and sell it for some immediate pleasure right after we give it to them. I can see a bad situation where we give a family a goat and then the father of that family takes the goat and sells it right away to pay for alcohol. This is not what we want. We want the family to use the goat or cow as a fund to pay for things like education and medical care. Even though the families sign a contract and we do everything we can to encourage them to respect the intentions of our gift, this doesn't physically stop someone in the family from selling the goat right after we give it to them.

 

I was nervous about this, but Edvens and Pastor Pierre reassured me that it would not be a problem. Today I saw the proof that families use this goat as a step up, out of poverty. This was incredibly reassuring. Edvens said that there are many more goats to come in the near future.  

 

Before I finish I want to thank Edvens for all of his hard work on this project. He does a fantastic job with the families and I believe the success of the program can be, in large part, accredited to his ability to work with the families when they receive the goat. Thank you Eddy

 

 

*if you bought a goat, the goat that is donated in your name will be a goat that we purchased in the market, not a goat that we received from a family in fulfillment of their obligation to us.