On Cholera

I was in a meeting today in which several people around the table were recounting their January 12 stories (the earthquake).  They were terrifying.  I found myself clutching the sides of my chair as I listened to accounts of desperate dashes across town in search of children, of a diabetic friend trapped in the rubble for two days, of the  end of the world.

This came up because we were discussing the cholera outbreak that hit Haiti this week. It's the first anyone can remember and is spreading fast.  USAID and CDC are in a frenzy.  Text messages with URGENT!! requests for emergency response are crowding the airwaves.  Amidst the frenzy is a bit of silliness.  One donor sent us radio spots for cholera that were recorded in the US (uhm, why?) with such useful messages (in bad Kreyol) as "wash your food with water treated with five drops of bleach".  Five drops of water....per cup?  Per jug?  Per tank?  I suppose this kind of sloppy communication is why I am employed.  I was very proud that the ministry of health rejected the spots. Hee.

Today, I heard of two cases of cholera at the outskirts of Port-au-Prince and one death.  I hope they let me get on the plane to Cuba tomorrow...

On Markets

Below are photos I took in traffic on my way our of Port-au-Prince on the way to World Handwshing Day.  I also saw two men up to their shoulders in muddy sewage drains.  Handwashing, eh?

Charcoal market

On World Handwashing Day

As I’m sure everyone is aware, October 15 is World Handwashing Day.  I’m a devout handwasher and so I decided to travel with our team to Jacmel where we are conducting several events to commemorate good hygiene.

The trip from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel consisted of waiting around at the office for two hours, waiting for our driver to show up and then to refuel and then an hour drive.  The actual driving part consisted of gridlock traffic across Port-au-Prince, a flat bit along the coast, and then hairpin turns going up and then down the mountains.  Driving is a nice way to see the country, but so many of the most interesting things I see are in flashes through the dirty windows of our vehicles.

Once in Jacmel, we set up for a screening of our handwashing film (it’s really good!) in a camp run by Save the Children.  The tents are semi-permanent with cinderblock bases and the latrines are plywood, rather than pot-a-potties.  There’s a station for potable water from a giant bladder with an excellent diagram on handwashing.  No soap to be seen, but I was assured that not only is soap distributed to families, but there is a working group to discuss how to get families to buy their own soap instead of relying upon free distribution.  I’m skeptical. 

I’m glad we don’t usually work in camps – it’s best to leave that work to people who know what they’re doing.  Each camp has it’s own leadership structure according to which NGO (or other) is managing it.  The politics can be complicated, as we found out this evening.  We got permission from the president of the camp to do our film screening, but not from the advisor.  Lots of words were expressed about this oversight.  Camps also have all sorts of NGOs coming in to do activities, give things away, and tell people what to do.  This can create a dependency on outsiders and a sense of entitlement, as exemplified by a 10 year old boy who followed me around and asked me to give him my camera.  Emmanuella gave him an earful instead.

Before our film screening, we had a sound truck come through the camp and blare our catchy jingle.  The truck doubled as our AV equipment and as we were setting up for the film, the sound guy played snatches of dancehall type music.  The place erupted into a mass of vibrating children of all sizes.  With the flashes of lightning, the scene looked uncannily like a rave.  Little girls that come up to my waist were gyrating in ways that would make Shakira blush.  I even thought I saw some guys on stilts.  Wait.  I did see some guys on stilts.  In the camp.  What did they put in my water?

On Beeeeeeeeeeeeeer!!

I found it!  I went on a wild goose chase last evening to find a new-to-me restaurant and guess what was on the menu?

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!  I found Belgian beer in Haiti!!!!!!!

On Armored Vehicles

I’m reading The Junior Officers’ Reading Club, a light account of a scholarly guy's path to becoming a soldier in the British army and working in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It’s good to have a reality check and realize that for all that lives of Haitians are difficult, for all that UN mission here is a ubiquitous part of the scenery, things are a far cry from the madness of war. 

As I was contemplating this on the drive home from the Port-au-Prince airport, I passed this on the road:

On Having but also Having Not

I mentioned before that my colleagues here in Haiti are of the elite.  So much so that the recommendation from the Trinidad country rep to dine at the fancy-pants restaurant was accepted by both my Haitian colleagues, Emmanuella and Sherley, without question.  The prices on the menu made me gulp.  They didn't even look.  I've rarely been in a position to socialize freely with local colleagues because of the difference in our incomes (even in Botswana and most certainly in PNG).  


But wealth in Haiti is sometimes qualified, I think.  When we returned to Haiti from Trinidad, my driver and I gave Sherley a lift home.  She lives in one of the neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince that was worst hit by the earthquake.  She's a medical doctor and so is better off than most.  Nevertheless, the roads to get to her house are narrow piles of rutted rubble.  Most houses are flattened.  After the quake, the government surveyed every building and categorized the buildings with stenciled markers in green ("fit for habitation"), yellow ("enter only to retrieve essential items"), and red ("do not enter").  Sherley's neighborhood had yellows and even reds that were clearly occupied.  For example, the top floor was collapsed but the bottom floor had signs of habitation.  I wonder what the neighborhood was like before and what it's like for Sherley to live there now.  I don't ask because I'm afraid of how my question might be interpreted.

On Outreach in English

One of the most astonishing things about the office in Trinidad is that English is not only the language of operation – it’s everyone’s mother tongue.  When one of the educators who conducts our outreach activities dropped by the office, it took effort to get my brain wrapped around the fact that she talks to our beneficiaries in English (which, according to my Haitian colleagues, is debatable).  A lot of what I’m interested in with regards to communication is nuance – not just what we say, but how we say it. The last time I observed an outreach or I spoke to an outreach worker in her/his first language was when I was the one doing the outreach activities a a volunteer on 17^th St in DC. 

We got to see two educators, Fabi and Kimberly, in action yesterday.  They set up a table at a busy square (no camps!) and caught the after-work crowd.  They usually set up a proper stall and do this for hours at a time but this was a mere taste of the action done for us especially, so they were using a little folding table.  As a result, they were mobbed, which gave my Haitian colleagues and I an excuse to be useful.  The laminated cards with flamboyant photos of STIs were very popular, as were requests for female condom demos with the alien-looking model vagina.  It felt really good to be out of the office and doing this kind of work with people. 

I tried to express to my team what a rare treat this was for me and I got the instant predictable: “You should learn Kreyol!”  “Kreyol is easy – easier than French!”  

(sigh) If I had a penny….

On New Adventures in Trinidad

I barely remember Port of Spain from when I was last here 20 years ago, but man, I'm impressed!  This country is solidly middle income.  The streets are nice, there is an amazing mix of tasteful modern buildings and gently crumbing lacy houses/castles that make me yearn for a band saw.

I'm here visiting our Caribbean office.  It's one-room office and they cover 12 countries!  Our Trini colleagues have an enthusiasm for food that is admirable.  The "what-should-we-get-for-lunch" discussions start early and are rather animated.  It makes my two Haitian colleagues and me very happy.

Last night we went to a fancy pants restaurant (entrees start at $50 US) and had a fantastic experience.  For lunch today we went to a Trini food-by-weight place that gave fancy-pants restaurant a run for its money:  fried plaintain, BBQ pork, jerk chicken, macaroni pie, pumpkin, cassava...

As part of our week's "firsts", we took Emmanuella and Sherley to a sushi bar.  I taught them to use chopsticks (the charming sous chef took it upon himself to later give them additional lessons).  We discovered that margaritas are a lot like Haitian lime juice + salt cold remedy.  I teased the girls about their aversion to raw sushi (charming sous chef decided to make them a special roll which they gamely tried and curled their noses at).  

We later went to a bar (sous chef was hoping to see them there later) where the girls saw a dart board for the first time.  Even in the middle of nowhere in PNG, people played darts.  Actually, dart boards where one of the biggest attractions at the market where people bet big on it.  It never occurred to me that someone may never have seen a dart board before.

Today, our trip to see a mobile clinic for sex workers was cancelled because the sex workers were kept busy from 3 to 9 am by a bunch of police officers.  They expect free services.  So instead, we drove around looking for outlets that commit to selling condoms to young people.  In some cases, this turned out to be in name only as the effort it took to get a condom at the pharmacy/bar/shop we visited would have dissuaded even the most determined shopper.

Also, I was reunited with a old friend: chicken roti!!

On Overheard Conversations

Sometimes I sympathize with people who are content to stay home and have no desire to expose themselves to the eccentricities of the outside world.  During my trip this weekend from Haiti to Trinidad, I overheard:

In the airplane:
Flight attendant: Good morning, sir.  How are you?
Missionary passenger: I'm blessed!  I'm blessed!


In airport security:
Security person 1 (Staring at her screen): Can he bring in candles?
Security person 2: Candles are allowed as long as they are not lit.


On the radio from the Trinidad airport:
A spokesperson for the Xxxx Islamic community says he supports the return of public hangings because the death penalty is in the Koran and is the will of Allah.  He says that there can be no argument against the death penalty and those against it need to understand that it is holy and the will of Allah.


On the other hand, travelling can sometimes be quite good for the ego.  The world is clearly full of people who are at least stupider than I am.

On a Field Trip to Gonaive

We have a big team in the field right now, travelling from town to town, walking into little shops and pharmacies, trying to understand where our health products are and are not.  I joined them yesterday in Gonaive, three hours up the coast from Port-au-Prince.  The road was sealed and in good condition but the farms and towns along the way were…messy.  Disorganized-looking, brown, crumbling.  There was one long market along the road with a huge number of charcoal sellers on one end…the reason why there are no trees anywhere to be seen on this island.

I only realized we were passing rice fields when I started seeing grains drying in the sun haphazardly along the side of the road.  There was a shocking absence of right angles in the paddies or in the amoeba-shaped smears of drying rice.  The area looked nothing like the rice paddies of southeast Asia.  I’m sure looking at those fields and the roadside coops makes World Bank agro-economists and development workers itchy all over.  The Haitian rice market got hit very hard by the earthquake: specifically by the bags and bags of free American rice that flooded the market and undercut all the local sellers. 

Gonaive is the dusty capital of Artibonite.  The hills behind it look exactly like the Nevada desert.  The town itself is drab cinderblock and dirt roads.  There is absolutely nothing charming about the place.  We split up into teams and walked from shop front to barbershop to pharmacy, looking for our point-of-sale materials, checking on the visibility of our products, asking barbers if they would be willing to sell our products.  One tiny little shop (covered in dust) was about 6ft x 6ft and in addition to condensed milk, tomato sauce, batteries, and vegetable shortening was a lone bottle of Manischewitz.  You know – only the staples.

The hotel we’re in is good but…basic.  The room I’m in is big, oddly proportioned, with one bare bulb and exposed wiring. The furniture all looks like it was made in a rush by a guy in his garage down the street.  I deliberately don’t look too closely into the dark corners.  The toilet paper resembles the paper marché I made in third grade.  The soap is…Origins!  Origins brand soap!!  Whaaaa?

What else?

•  The 12inch TV in the room has three channels…I turned it on to see Flight of the Conchords singing the Boom!  Boom! song.  Heh. (if you don't know what I'm talking about - YouTube it)
• The restaurant we went to last night has one of those fridges with drinks by the door, but instead of drinks, it was filled with red apples.  Red apples!
• I had my first Guinness in Haiti last night.  I can only find it in, uhm, not-nice places because it’s not considered a beer, remember?  It’s an energy drink.  I can report that while the bottle is a legitimate Guinness, the contents elicited none of the warm, fuzzy feelings (or creamy head) I associate with a pint of Guinness.
• We stopped selling our birth control for a while because people were reselling it in the DR where it is used as fertilizer for marijuana and applied to ladies’ hair to encourage growth.  

Seriously.  I can’t make this stuff up.