On Governments and Donors

After another silly and large set-back related to donor bureaucracy, I have finally realized that representatives of government donors will always be overly cautious and slow in granting permission for us to do our work.  This is because they will be taken to task if we spend too much money on the wrong thing or create a splash that offends the wrong person, but the consequences of overly conservative, slow, and unimaginative work will fall on our shoulders.

Beer! Beer! Beer!

I've been wanting to brew beer for a long time.  I love beer, but hot weather countries tend to specialize in unremarkable, highly carbonated lagers that are best enjoyed very cold as a way of replacing electrolytes lost to heavy perspiration.  Or in the ocean.  That's always nice.

Despite having had all the equipment and ingredients for making beer for many months, and despite having finally collected enough empty beer bottles, I hesitated to do it.  It's intimidating.  There are many steps.  Sanitation is emphasized again and again.  Haiti is not known for sanitation.  I had organic chemistry flashbacks and that was not a class I excelled in.

I took advantage of The Santas' visit to enlist free labor for the brewing process.  This was not as glamorous as you might think.  In fact, Stacey, [who despite working on some of the most important research in HIV prevention, still giggles at the word "vagina"] kept making references to diarrhea.   She's not very mature.

There were lots of different steps and timing and temperature needs and I was grateful to have The Santas there to help out.

The beer smelled best during the addition of the malts but the hops were pungent and less appealing.  They could double as smelling salts.  We made wort, cooled it fast-like, added yeast, and put the beer aside to ferment for a couple of weeks.

The Santas left and I lured another group of willing assistants for the bottling phase.  I had already invested a lot of elbow grease to scrub all the old Prestige bottles, take of the labels and glue, and sanitize them (I underestimated how laborious and messy this step is).  

 

The bottling process was a lot of fun!  We didn't finish until about 11 pm, but by the end, we had 38 bottles of beer neatly stacked to bottle condition for 2 weeks.

The nest morning, I sat bolt upright with the realization that I had forgotten to add the sugar solution to the beer, without which the yeast can't carbonate the beer.  Skype call to my dad, frantic combing on internet home brewing sites later, I was uncapping all my bottles and adding sugar to each individual bottle.  Which, with a freshly sanitized spoon and home-made funnel, resulted in a lot of clumpy, suggary messiness.  Had this been an organic chemistry lab exercise, I would have gotten an F.

Two weeks later, I opened the beer: Haitian Vacation Petite Saison.

Aside from variable carbonation from bottle to bottle, the beer is good!  It's floral on the nose, but dry and refreshing.  Very drinkable, not too hoppy, and decidedly better than Prestige.

Thanks, Santas and other helpers!

Early Life Crisis Part II

Remember your mid-20s?  When you sat around wondering:  what am I doing with my life vs what should I be doing with my life?  What’s the next step at work?  Stick it out or find a new job?  Should I go to grad school and if so, for what? 

I rather naively assumed that after overcoming that crisis, I was home free until my mid-life crisis – and I’m not even sure on when that’s scheduled and what it involves.

Not so, it seems.  The visit from The Santas made me realize that many of us are going through something similar once again.  Late night conversations over several glasses of wine didn’t really help answer the nagging question of: what’s next?  The discussions continued after The Santas went back to the US.  It is a relief to know that that many of us are mulling over this question regardless of job satisfaction, marital status, number of children, location, mortgages, or ambition.  

The Santas

"Come visit me in Haiti" is kind of like saying "I want a pony for my birthday".

So imagine my surprise when two of my [++heart++] friends informed me that they were coming.  To visit me.  In Haiti!  Yaaaaaay!  I was so excited, I couldn't sleep the two nights before they arrived.  I haven't been that excited since Christmas Eve circa 1991.

Stacey and Laura arrived with an air of good humor and enthusiasm for loafing and it was so so strange to see them in my house, sitting on my sofa, getting a drink from the fridge as if it were totally normal to be in Haiti.  To visit me. 

Katharine indoctrinating Laura to the good life in Haiti.

Stacey accepts Haitian seafood into her heart.

They hung out by the pool and drove around town with a six-fingered man while I counted down the minutes to my work day.  We went on a HASH and listened to RAM at the Oloffson and brewed beer.  It was AwESomE.

Happy Haitian Anniversary!

Today is my first anniversary in Haiti.  Happy Haiti to me!

Last week I was in Guatemala where our big boss asked me point-blank if I planned on extending my contract past my June 16, 2012 end date.  I'd been trying not to think about that, so I dissembled.

In truth, there are some wonderful things about living and working here, but they have been overshadowed by two things:

1) The few good friends I have here are all (ALL) on their way out.  Yes, I know this happens everywhere to everyone and we all bounce back.  But my life in Haiti moves in very tight circles and it's really hard to meet new friend candidates.  I'm doggedly pursuing any and every friend possibility.  I can't afford not to.

2) My work is plagued by one combative, aggressive, defensive, difficult co-worker.  Walking on eggshells around her, triple editing e-mails to ensure they are sanitized of any words that could [even when read in reverse and in Ancient Greek] give offense, and mimicking the reasonable and calm tones of TV hostage negotiators for the past year is exhausting.  Exhausting.


But then, on the eve of my first year in Haiti, guess what happened?  She resigned!  She resiiiiiiiiiiiigned!!  I wish I could say it had something to do with me, but she has been widely advertising her displeasure with PSI since 2009.  I am so, so relieved.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Haiti Year Two starts today!

On Possessed Fruit

This morning I walked into the kitchen and heard an unusual sound.

Like the sound of gas escaping from something wet.

I looked in the direction of the sound and all that was there was.....a watermelon.

The watermelon was making noise.

I am not ok with fruit making noises.

Not ok.

On the Pleasures of the San Juan Ritz-Carlton

I'm not sure why people think it's a great idea to have work conferences in lovely destinations.  It doesn't really encourage a strong work ethic, nor does it make long days of presentations in freezing cold, windowless conference rooms more pleasant.

Am I complaining about spending a week at in lovely San Juan at the Ritz?  Never.  In fact, I would like to take time to note the four things I most appreciate about the San Juan Ritz-Carlton:

Thing 1: The artwork is fantastic.  What was the last time you loved the art on the walls of a hotel?

Thing 2: Today I left the hotel in gym shorts and a tank top, prominently carrying a wallet, and walked by myself down the block to a Walgreens pharmacy [where I spent $104 on fun nice-to-haves].  The Ritz may not be directly responsible for my safety, re-invigorated sense of liberty, or the convenient location of the Walgreens but I'm feeling generous.

Thing 3: Hot water.  Hot water comes out of the taps with 0 wait time! Amazing.  And a good way to save water.  But maybe not energy?  Whatever.  I love it.

Thing 4: There are short toilet seats in the bathrooms by the conference room!  My knees are at right angles when I sit down on the seat!  Thanks, Ritz-Carlton!

On Wedding Awesomeness!

stay tuned to photos of fun

On Strange Hotel Guests

The staff of the hotel in which Beta (American mother, Brazilian father, multi-lingual friends) and Cris (Brazilian parents, multi-lingual friends) had their wedding were used to having Brazilian guests.  Or sometimes foreign guests who didn't speak Portuguese.  But all these guests for the wedding were switching between languages, sometimes while talking to the same person!  They looked at us in wonder, like a looking at a mouse with leopard spots.

My mother came in to see me while I was getting my nails done and after she left, the manicurist said, "I was listening to you and your mother making all those strange sounds and I wondered to myself, 'can they really understand each other?'"

On Waves upon Waves upon Waves....

Poetry is not for me.  I find it tiresome and unnecessarily convoluted. But every time I step out onto the beaches of Ilheus, the scene inspires nothing short of love.  The beaches are unlike any others I know:

The sand is a modest brown, but so fine that it packs down hard and flat - you can easily ride a bike on it or even bounce a basketball.  The beach is so flat that at low tide the water recedes dramatically.  The waves break in simultaneous rows of five or six: thunderous ones that only the surfers brave farther out to sea and subsequently smaller ones that break over each other until they are barely ankle high.

I love how the waves come in in sweeping arcs with lacy edges - sometimes like the borders of an egg fried in butter and sometimes more delicate, like a crepe.  The water is too turbulent to be blue but occasionally a shy wave will venture out to kiss my feet, as crystalline as a layer of clear nail polish.

For every meek wave, there are those assertive ones that may only come up to mid-shin but rush in with such force that unless you stand your ground, you risk water shooting up your legs and soaking you thoroughly.  You have to walk a far way out to actually get half way submerged.  Those of us who know the sneaky way of these waves, like this weekend's bride and my childhood friend, Roberta, can master wave jumping while still keeping our possession of our bathing suits.

I didn't expect to spend any time with Beta during her wedding weekend, so I was thrilled to slip away with her to the beach not once, but twice.  The first time, we went for a walk, like countless walks we have taken on these beaches, usually with some combination of mothers and sister.  The hard sand leaves your feet baby soft afterwards!  The second time, we went out to wave jump like the pros that we are.

Simple pleasures...