On Phone Calls at Bedtime and Unexpected Delights in Haiti

It's my week of staying home.  I did yoga and had dinner with my friend Gabe, who was contemplating whether or not to go see the local band, RAM, at the Hotel Oloffson (of Graham Greene's The Comedians fame).  After much hemming and hawing, he finally decided to go home.

I was happily Skyping with Stacey, already under the covers, when I got a call from my temporary housemate, Emmett, that ARCADE FIRE was at that very moment playing in the lobby of the Oloffson.  Gabe neglected to mention that they were going to play since he had never heard the Grammy Award winning band before (and people say I live under a rock?).

Oloffson lobby.  Just add Arcade Fire.

I threw on a pair of jeans under my pyjamas and met Emmett downstairs.  We dashed across town with dodgy directions and found the hotel in time to catch Arcade Fire's last three songs.  I was about three meters from the band, but of course couldn't see a thing.  The music was soaring and wonderful and I felt like a little kid who woke up on inauspicious day in June to be told it was Christmas!

The band wandered around after their set, blending in pretty well with the hodge-podge of sweaty expats wandering around in a happy, beery daze.

On Isle a Vache

One last hurrah, we thought, before our friend, Marcy, leaves Haiti.  So four of us ducked out of our respective offices a few hours early on Friday, caught a tiny plane to the coastal town of Les Cayes, and caught a boat to the tiny island of Isle a Vache.  The island is sparsely populated.  There are two little hotels, each in their own cove and invisible to the rest of the island.

The sun was approaching the horizon when we took the 20 min boat trip to the island.  It was my first time on a boat bigger than a kayak since I left Papua New Guinea and I was surprised by how much I missed the water and how beautiful the golden sunlight on the water was.  That trip itself made the weekend worth it.  We arrived at the private little beach in time for a dip in the water to watch the sunset.

There are only a few cottages that make up our hotel and save the interruption by a boat-full of missionaries, we felt like the beach was ours.  Highlights of the weekend:

• My mornings by the water with a coffee and a book, enjoying the sound of the waves 
• Rum sours and beers in the water

• Putting beach chairs in the water and being read out loud from a great book (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton)
• Lobster for dinner
• Taking the sit-on-top kayaks out to the sand bar where the waves were breaking and trying to ride them without getting tossed into the water.  The waves won, I think.  Emmett had a real kayak with no spray skirt, so every time he capsized, his boat threatened to sink and we had to haul his boat on one of ours to get the water out.  Fun!
• The boat trip back to the mainland in the silvery dawn

On the Surreal Business of Helping People

There are A LOT of organizations with A LOT of different projects trying to absorb the A LOT of funding there is for Helping the Haitians.  Its a confronting to see how ad hoc and unstrategic these projects often are. Imagine a Martian who has never visited Earth having a chat with a Plutonian in a Saturnian bar and concocting a plan to save Libya's teenagers from ennui.  Yeah.  Something like that.

An acquaintance here heads up the country office of an international NGO and asked me to meet with some people who were in town to discuss how social marketing could be used for an agriculture project.  She suggested dinner tonight.

Introductions were made and I settled down to hear about the agro project they had in mind.  But instead of laying it out for me, they all turned to me expectantly:

Them: "So we want to help farmers and thought that social marketing would be a good approach.  Tell us about PSI's experience in Haiti with social marketing."

Me (Huh? Help farmers do what?): "Well maybe you can tell me about what you want to accomplish with your project."

Them (head scratching): "That's a really good question."

Them (mumbling and more heads scratching): ........

Me (is it too late to make a run for it?  I haven't ordered yet....): "Well, I can tell you that in PSI's experience, our challenge is to get our products beyond the towns to the small villages that are several day's walk away from the towns.  Since we can't go to every one of them, and our target group is women caregivers who sell their produce at the market, we focus our activities on market days when these women journey into town to sell their produce...."


Them: "Well, we could encourage people to buy Haitian products.  You know, I saw a package of eggs in the supermarket that said 'produced in Haiti' in big letters on it.  Maybe we should have a Buy Haitian! campaign.  You know, instead of all that fancy French stuff that the bourgeoisie buy."

Me (trying to hide shock): "I don't understand.  Are you talking about in a supermarket?  Is this a campaign aimed at expats and rich Haitians who buy things in a supermarket?"

Them: "It would be for everyone!  A change in attitude!  Like those US campaigns encouraging people to buy local!"

Me (wondering if there are hallucinogens in the water): "I'm confused.  We're talking about agricultural products, yes?  Who do you think is not buying their produce locally???"

Them: ..........

Them: "We just want to help the farmers."

Me: "I don't think Haitian people need to be convinced to buy Haitian produce.  Maybe you can think of ways to help people get their produce to the market if that's an area that that they've identified they need help with."  (Not saying: don't you think the are 103 other organizations already working in this sector who have a much better understanding of the needs of the Haitian agronomy than you??)


Them: "Well we went and talked to some farmers who didn't really have a system for who they were growing produce for.  We thought that instead of proposing another project with community outreach and educational sessions and surveys that everyone else does, we'd use social marketing to make our proposal look different."

Me (Not saying: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, WHO YOU WANT TO DO IT WITH, OR WHY!  AND NOW YOU'RE SAYING YOU SORT OF THOUGHT IT MIGHT LOOK NICE IN PROPOSAL TO PUT IN "SOCIAL MARKETING" WITHOUT A CLUE ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO MARKET FOR WHAT OUTCOME!!!  HOW DO YOU OPERATE???):  Ahhh...  well, it seems that you can look into whether farmers would like to be better organized in how they sell their produce. Maybe you can think about helping them with their supply chain?  I'm not sure social marketing is what you need...."

Several minutes after we finished this maddening conversation, they all started talking about how great it would be to relocate Haiti someplace far away from those do-gooder church missions from the US and what a great idea it would be to spoof clueless aid workers.  REALLY????

On Election Day Sunday

Start the day with the best coffee ever.  The yellow kind, mind. you

Emmett toiling away on the terrace

I'm happy to say there is nothing to report this election day!

In fact, it was a lovely sunny day of reading the news, catching up on blogs, skyping, and getting some work done.  Even reports of Wyclef getting shot in the hand seem to be...exaggerated.  In that he was not shot at all.

If only all days could be this tranquil!

Works is better with beer, no?

A well-earned snack.  You see how we suffer?

On the Delivery (heh) of My Stuff!!!

I didn't have time to tell everyone the special news!  After over 9 months of intense frustration borrowing my maid's iron,I had a successful delivery of all my worldly belongings last Friday.  I celebrated with a few rum sours and then went into an unpacking frenzy late at night with the Scissor Sisters and a few Hello Kitty band-aids.

The prodigal iron!

Emmett and Marcy: Fun with Packing Material

On Bad Travel Plans

Haiti is the land of rumors.  Aristide has been rumored to be returning to Haiti for months.  I didn't think twice when I was leaving Haiti and the immigration officers were discussing his return on the 18th.  Which is tomorrow.  You know - the day I return to Haiti. Seems like the UN and the international press are confirming that rumor.

Rumor has it...he's on my flight.

On a Summit-Attendee's View of the Bahamas

I'm not sure why I've gotten such a strong reaction about me being in The Bahamas.  It's an island.  Haiti's an island.  It's in the Caribbean.  Haiti's in the Caribbean. What's the diff?

Hee. I kid.

I'm here because I was sent an invitation to the Caribbean Regional HIV Prevention Summit by some US government agency.  Or agencies.  It's unclear.  No one, not even the USAID/Haiti officer I came with, knew what the agenda was or who was being invited or what a summit is. I was pretty sure that as soon as I got off the plane, I'd be bundled into a dark car and never be heard from again.

I'm still here.  I have spent a lot of time in a window-less conference room in the most over-priced Sheraton in the known universe (true fact).  I've had glimpses of The Bahamas.  Let me list what I know of it for you:

• The immigration form looked like it had been developed by a very eager and friendly tourism agent.  Similar questions as those Cuba asked, but without the sinister Big Brother feel.

• The road from the airport is lined with a trim lawn and flowering shrubs and trees.  Nary a pothole in sight!  My colleague from PSI Caribbean wasn't impressed.  Apparently all [non-Haitian] Caribbean islands look the same.

• Did I mention it's Spring Break?  I realized this when I saw packs of pasty boys in flip-flops, knee-length cargo shorts, polo shirts, and baseball caps along the road.  

• The Sheraton has a nice lobby/atrium.  It's a bit disconcerting to see people walk around in there with their shirts off or wearing just bikinis as if they were at a beach bar.

• On the first day of the Summit, they served us breakfast in a room next door to a very loud and joyful brass band.  And guess what?  It was the police band!  And they were playing in our conference room!  For us!  They played throughout the opening ceremonies (this being the Caribbean, it went on for a couple of hours).  Then the St Margaret's Senior High School Choir sang for us.  They were good!  Then the police band played for us while we waited for the US Ambassador.  Then they played when she left.  Then one of the guys got up and sang some hip-swaying, Caribbean ballad for us while the moderator desperately tried to call the Summit to order and salvage some portion of the morning for work.

• The Caribbean waters lapping at the white sands outside the hotel are, in fact, turquoise in color. True!  I saw them once when I went on my run/first-excursion-from-the-hotel today.

• The band by the pool is playing "Hot Hot Hot", that ubiquitous Caribbean song that you don't think you know, but you do.

On P90X vs Modern Dance

One of my new colleagues was a modern dancer in his previous life.  He and his childhood friend both trained at Alvin Ailey before dancing with other companies in New York and Paris and have now returned home to Haiti.  The friend has a dance company here that is the main source of income for the troupe - a rare thing.  They perform once a month.  I went to their pre-Carnaval show last night.

The space consisted of a small stage outside with a corrugated metal roof and some folding chairs for the audience.  When the show opened, the dancers were dressed in some homemade "folkloric" costumes with colorful prints of the map of Haiti and hand painted fruit. Simple stuff.   But from the first, the dancing was arresting, both in terms of how much fun the dancers seemed to be having, but also in terms of the level of energy:  The dancers never stopped.  It was the most unpretentious choreography I have ever seen. Not once did anyone throw themselves on the floor or pretend to run full tilt at someone only to be gently cradled like a baby.  None of that.  There was lots of hip rotating and jumping and even a Ra Ra band at the end.

I'm on week 8 of P90X, a 12 week exercise program that is hard enough that it may take me a few years before what I'm doing vaguely resembles what the people in the DVD are doing.  So, you know, I feel like I'm working pretty hard.  But these dancers never stopped moving.  I kept thinking about how much they must have to eat to keep that up.  I was impressed that they managed to lift their arms for the final bow.  And guess what?  After that two hour show, they were to head immediately to another venue to dance for one of the presidential candidates!

On Friendly Interactions

I've noticed lately that a few of my colleagues are now addressing me in Creole (instead of French or English) as a way of teaching me some basics.  It's not sticking, but I appreciate the friendly effort.  It's not all flowers and sunshine at work: on any given day, I assume at least two people think I'm the spawn of Satan, so I take special note of friendly interactions.

I just went looking for someone in another building and on my way out, I was stopped by three colleagues who tugged at my flowered skirt and black blouse and asked me questions in Creole - I had to guess:  was it "where did you get this outfit?", "why are you dressed up?" or something else?

What I did understand was "do you have kids?" followed by "do you have a boyfriend?" then more tugs at my clothes which I was given to understand meant that they liked my perky yellow heels and the way I was dressed and thought it was a good outfit for getting a boyfriend.  So, of course, I told them that I don't have a boyfriend, but ask me again at the end of the day!

Hilarious!  I am so, so funny!  Their throw-back-your-head laughter followed me all the way out the building.  

On a Little Tremor

The night before last, I woke up in the middle of the night to my bed shaking.  I lay there wondering what would prompt me to get out of bed and crouch in a doorway.  Probably a swinging ceiling fan.

The tremor was in the news but no one else seemed to have felt it, not even my house guest in the room next door.  Not even my earthquake alarm, which must also have been wondering at what point will it stir itself to do something.