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

Port Au Prince

I’ve talked a lot about life in rural Haiti, but much of Haiti’s most devastating poverty is in the larger cities. Haiti’s largest city is Port Au Prince, but Haiti has a number of large cities. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Port Au Prince, but I’ve also spent some time in St. Marc, L’estere, and Gonaives, all of which are relatively close to La Croix. This past week I went down to Port Au Prince this past weekend and walked around it a little while we were waiting to pick up the group from Westminster.

Port Au Prince has a few nice places, but overall it is a not a happy city. I stayed there for a few days with Deborah Schmid (an American who lives there) and toured the city when I first arrived last September. Since then I’ve made a trip down every few weeks with the mission. It has, in great quantities, everything that makes a city miserable. The roads are littered with all types of pollution, and many of the roads are lined with canals bursting with trash. The gasoline is not unleaded, so the relatively few cars create more smog than I’ve experienced in any major US city. There are people running around everywhere, and there are motorcycle taxis zooming every which way, some with four or five people on them. The pavement is ripped with potholes, making a drive through the city feel a little like an off road adventure. There are no recognized traffic laws, so driving feels a little more like Mario Kart than I would like. The city is also scattered with dry waterways full of trash. There are even some goats and pigs hanging out in them, eating whatever scraps they can find. 

There are beggars everywhere and they crowd around any car with a white person in it. The beggars give are very trying and really wore me out this past visit. They’re not like beggars in the US with a cup and cardboard sign, they come right up to you and follow you. I feel just awful for them, but I know that giving out money will just make them worse off. All I can hope is that the work I do in La Croix will, in some way, help someone get off the street. The worst thing about the beggars is that the only way to get them out of your face is to be blatantly mean to them. They come up to you, get very close, and continuously ask for money; the only way to move forward and get past them is to say “deplase!” or “move!”. The only other time I had to shout at someone in the street was in Paris this past summer when a pickpocket came up to me. I pity these beggars with my whole heart, but they are so aggressive that I have to constantly be on my guard. I turn into someone who is hesitant of everything around me, and I hate being that person.

There are street boys at every traffic intersection and street light who wipe the dust off of your car. They are kind of like squeegee men in New York, except more aggressive and; if you don’t pay them they will put their faces right up against your window and stare into your car until the light turns green. They don’t take no for an answer, making them all that more intimidating. Sometimes they will lift the wipers off the windshield or smack the hood of the car. I saw something a little like this in poorer parts of Cape Town and Nairobi, except in Haiti there seem to be at least a dozen boys at each stop light. In Kenya, our driver would give a few small coins to anyone who came up to the car just to keep them from hurting the car. Here I thought the same strategy might work, but Deborah Schmid says that if you give one boy a coin the other boys will come over and fight him for it. Many of the boys are apart of gangs and have someone looking over them on the side of the road, forcing them to hustle. I can’t describe how intimidating and depressing seeing these boys is. They stare into your car with a look of desperation, and all you can do is try to focus on the street light ahead, hoping you get a green light at the next stop. They seem to be in such a terrible situation, and I feel awful because there is nothing I can do to alleviate the situation. If I give them money then they fight over it, and whoever wins the money won’t get it in the end, it will go toward some gang that will put more boys on the street.

The most intimidating part of Port Au Prince though is all of the UN conveys. The UN’s Haiti Mission has a bunch of troops stationed in Haiti, and their goal is to prevent election violence and generally keep the peace. There are some in Haiti who support the UN’s presence, and there are those who wish the UN would pack up and leave. I don’t know what their overall effect is in keeping the peace, but they make the city feel a little like a war zone. The troops are transported in large open convoys, usually a dozen in each truck. The trucks have canvas roves and the troops inside them are totally visible. Every soldier looks like a US Army Private, complete with heavy boots, a loaded rifle, and fatigues, the only difference being their powder blue UN helmet. The convoys are everywhere, and they dwarf every other car around them. I’ve never been to a city occupied by a military, but the UN convoys reminds me of the films of Vietnamese peasants milling around the convoys full of US soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Port Au Prince is not an easy place to visit. Between the armies of street boys and the UN soldiers, it feels like a war zone, making you feel unsecure in your own car. That said, I’m glad I’ve been there. Port Au Prince, for all its rough spots, has goodness shining into it. Right near the airport there is an NGO called Rebuild Globally that has an employment program for women and street boys. The program is a mix of education and vocational training, giving the poorest of the poor a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. The company Thread Inc., a Pittsburgh based recycling company, takes the plastic that litters so much of Haiti’s streets, and recycles it into cloth. Driving down this most recent time I saw a soccer game being played by two teams of amputees. Seeing the poorest parts of the world is certainly difficult, but coming back to them allows me to see the where the darkness is a little less dark. I can only hope what type of potential Port Au Prince will realize in years to come. 

Holy Diversity

The greatest difference between my time in Haiti this past fall versus this spring is that there are American volunteer groups working here with us. Having the groups can be difficult at times, but overall it has been a wonderful blessing to have them here. This week Westminster is here and I am having a wonderful time with them. There are a total of seventeen volunteers, thirteen of them are from Westminster and four are friends of our church but not members. One of the volunteers who came down is a minster at Bethel Presbyterian, and he spoke today in church. Pastor Pierre likes to bring in new people to speak to spice up the services. To be perfectly honest, I have not been thrilled with the sermons that have been given by the American preachers. Some have been nice, but some have a pedantic tone and don’t exactly convey a sense of community. Some of the people who come to preach feel that they need to educate the Haitians. They feel their sermon is going to contain wisdom and knowledge foreign to the Haitians, and that they have a duty to “preach the truth to those who don’t know it”.

Though Haitians are, on average, are a little less educated than Americans, they are extremely well read with regards to Christian theology and Christian thought. They know their Bible from front to back (much better than I do), families often pray together, and most members are involved in other church activities beyond Sunday Chapel. Yes, the Haitians might not understand the nuances of biblical Greek or Hebrew, but they’re just as, if not more, familiar with the stories that define Christianity and the virtues preached by Jesus. Not all pastors who come here are like this, some are more humble than others, and they all have the best of intentions, but too often American pastors preach with an air of superiority, coming across as conceited rather than humble.

Today was a wonderful change of pace though. Josh Brown, the American pastor who preached, talked about the great celebration we have to celebrate with each other. He spoke from a passage in Revelations that described people, “from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne”. Josh talked about how we all are different in some way from each other, but we are all called to worship together. We might have different skin colors or come from different countries, but God doesn’t care about that, God loves us as the people we are, and loves us without hesitation. Theses differences might divide us in some circumstances, but in church they should be celebrated. How great is it that an American congregation and a Haitian congregation, being so different in so many ways, can enjoy church together?

Church has been tough for me at times, especially when I am the only American, because I stick out and look different. Today was joyfully different; I still felt different but I celebrated that difference with the Haitians and Americans around with me. Today Josh Brown didn’t try to impart his grand knowledge of systematic theology on the Haitians, nor did he tell them what is right and wrong, he celebrated our differences and the great God we all worship together.    

Pictures

Here are some of the picture's of the wells that I've been trying to download: 

Well Care

Before I go forward, I want to apologize for not having pictures recently. I have tried to put pictures on in the past few posts but the internet connection is so terrible that I can't upload them without the site crashing and getting kicked off permanently. Hopefully this will be fixed soon. 

For the past few days I’ve been working side by side some of the members of the Friends of Haiti fixing a wells all over La Croix. We went to Bocon Tony, Perisse, and around the mission. The entire experience was a wonderful demonstration of community development. (the idea of community development is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently and will be writing more on)  

Pastor Pierre has worked with various contractors and NGOs to dig wells all around La Croix. Digging a well is a long and intensive process; first there have to be diagnostic tests done to confirm a continuous flow of water below the ground, then Pastor Pierre has to get a rig to come and dig the well. The rigs that are capable of digging 50 feet in the ground are huge machines (there’s one pictured below), and require specific trucks to transport them. In some cases, the roads to the wells have to be repaved (or paved for the first time) so that the drill rig can get to the well. Putting in a well is pretty expensive, but it’s a great resource for the community. The alternative source of water if a well is not present is the rivers. The volume of water the rivers carry varies depending on the season, and carries any pollution dumped up stream. 

Pastor Pierre understands the value of these wells, so he tries to put in as many as he can. Every time Pastor Pierre puts in a well he generally gets the initial payment from donations, but also requires a small fee from the surrounding communities who will benefit from the well. This money is intended to go to the well maintenance, but it’s primary purpose is to give the community a sense of ownership of the well. This way the surrounding community is more likely to take care of the well and keep it in good condition. Pastor Pierre even assigns one member of the community as a person who looks after the well, and gives him a lock and key so that he can keep the well will only be used at certain times.

One of the villages near by, Bocon Tony, had a well put in a few years ago. The well in Bocon Tony was not working to its fullest potential, so Dave Errit and Mark Gilbert, two Americans who came down with the friends of Haiti team, went to take a look at the wells. Mark is a builder and does a lot of work with wells in Vermont, and Dave has been heavily invested in the well maintenance in La Croix for quite some time. After looking at the well for a few minutes, Dave and Mark saw that the chain inside of the pump had limited mobility and needed to be greased. Dave went back, got the needed oil and grease, and took care of the well. When Dave and Mark first got to the well to diagnose the problem, they brought Tirese with them (pictured below). Tirese is a groundskeeper here at the mission, maintaining everything from the water to the electricity, and he one of the handiest men I know. Every I had trouble with the pump or the power he was the first guy I saw. After Dave showed Tirese what needed to be done and fixed the well, he got Edvens and had him tell the community how to properly use the well so that the grease on it would last longer (if people perform short choppy pumps on the well, the grease will not last as long as if people pump fully). I felt a little uneasy about the whole thing, I wasn’t sure if the community was really understanding what was going on, but right after Edvens finished explaining the Well Maintenance, one of the men in the community prayed over us, thanking us for our help. What we did seemed simple but it made a huge difference to the people who used that well.

This didn’t take long, we were back in time for lunch at 12:30. It didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment, but as I thought about it more I realized that it was a perfect demonstration of successful community development. Pastor Pierre has had a well in Bocon Tony for quite some time, and it is used almost on a regular basis. The community was invested in its best use, and when they noticed a problem they told Pastor Pierre who sent Dave to fix it. Dave then taught Tirese  a permanent resident of La Croix, what he did and how to care for the well in the future. The maintenance was pretty simple, but Tirese wouldn’t know to grease the chain unless Dave showed him. Lastly, we gave the community a small guiding lesson to keep the well running at its fullest potential.

There are many different ways Pastor Pierre could take care of these wells. He could hire a company to always come through, he could just drill them and leave them, or he could try to empower the community to take care of them. Giving the well responsibility as well as the well itself to the community involves a lot of work on his part, but it’s the only solution that holds any potential for real change. Mark and I spent the rest of the week checking out the wells that the mission maintains, greasing the ones that were not doing so well, and checking the water for bad bacteria. We also took Tirese with us, and he got the hang of what needed to be done to keep the wells up and running. Now all we can do is hope that the next problem a well in La Croix has, it will be Tirese going out to fix it rather than us. All we can do now is continue to make sure Pastor Pierre has all of the administrative resources he needs (mainly money to employ people like Tirese . This type of community development is very difficult, but if it works the whole community not only gains another resource, but pushes itself forward.