On a Weekend at the Beach

This weekend, I went away to the beach with my friends, Maite and Marcie.  It takes some time to get out of the dusty, gray, city through twisting back roads to avoid traffic.  It's a good way to get a look at the city.

Once at the beach, we didn't talk about work and exerted ourselves only to take our beers from the shore into the water.

This is a camp outside the city with transitional shelters made of plastic sheeting and wooden beams.  Every time I've passed it, it's gotten bigger.  It is now home to 40,000 - 60,000 people.

On the Return of Baby Doc

In a bizarre new chapter to Haiti's political drama, a former president (tyrannical dictator "Baby Doc") returned to Haiti in a surprise visit after 25 years in exile.  Baby Doc inherited the title of Tyrant in Charge from his dad and under their rule, thousands of Haitians were intimidated, tortured, and killed by their armed gangs.

A Washington Post article interviews several people who seem unphased by the return of the dictator.  They are either too young to remember the dark days or are so desperate for someone to come in and fix everything, that they are willing to overlook the transgressions of the past.  Why someone with only "dictator/tyrant/embezzler" on his CV would be the solution to Haiti's problems is a mystery to me.

What is Baby Doc's reason for his return?  No idea.  Apparently, he's here to come to the aid of the Haitian people.  More on that at a press conference he has scheduled for today.  The timing - bang in the middle of a disputed presidential election - is flabbergasting.

I'm at home right now, waiting to find out whether we will close the office today or not.  All looks calm outside my house, though last night I was awakened several times by loud bangs.

On One Year On

It's a sunny, clear, breezy, cool day in Port-au-Prince on this anniversary of the 2010 earthquake.  Memorial services started days ago and are scheduled into the end of the month.  So many people died.

I've been listening to and reading the international media's reflections on the past year since the earthquake.  Is there a code of politeness, even among journalists that prevents them from saying, as I would, "little progress has been made in the past year and the are no signs that any improvement in Haitians' quality of life is likely in the next year"?  Why sugar coat things, as an NPR reporter did, saying Haitians have hope that things will change for the better, but want to know when.

Is it cognitive dissonance for me to both believe that the lot of Haitians is unlikely to improve in the next 5 - 10 years and believe in my work?

Pictures from just after the 2010 earthquake and a year later
 (www.news.nationalgeographic.com)

On Being Home

I'm back in Haiti!  I made it through the figurative birth canal of the immigration/baggage claim hangar and was happy to pop out into the warm sunshine into a (gasp!) waiting vehicle.

Some of my camp neighbors have moved!  There are open spaces on the square they used to inhabit where I saw boys kicking a football.  I have never seen any open space in Port-au-Prince before .  I wonder where they were relocated to.  Living on the square between the police station and the electoral commission office must not have been fun during the elections.

Speaking of which, the official results of the first round of elections might be announced today!  Or on Tuesday.  Or by the end of the month.  February, tops.  In commemoration, I heard several loud bangs at 4:50 this morning.  When I ventured a peek through the window, I saw a flaming barricade blocking the main road behind my house.  It was pretty impressive.  Eventually, the police arrived and wandered around.  While they figured out what to do, I closed all my windows to keep out the billowing black smoke.  I was curious about what they were going to do about the barricade, but they took too long figuring it out so I went back to bed and eventually heard the sounds of morning traffic making its way down the road.

Happy Friday!!

On Starting the Year Off with a Little Reflection

It's January 1.  It's been almost seven months since I first arrived in Haiti and almost 12 months since the January 12th earthquake.  After seven months, I still don't know how I feel about my life in Haiti, which is unsettling.  Every time I try to think about it, my mind shies away before I can reach a conclusion.

I did a little compare and contrast table (Papua New Guinea vs. Haiti) this afternoon. The categories were culture, job satisfaction, social life, security, and food.  I made it to "security" and then I lost interest.  So here's the short version:

• Culture: Haiti is not as in-your-face as Papua New Guinea, but like PNG, a mix of supernatural and religious beliefs influence Haitians' world view, including how they think about disease transmission.  It makes my job more interesting to try to understand these ideas.
• Job Satisfaction: On paper, this is a dream job for me.  In reality, my colleagues' prickliness, unresponsiveness, and.... over-workedness make for maddeningly slow progress, catty e-mails, and lots of miscommunication.  We're always in a state of crisis, which is exhausting.
• Social Life: Just like PNG, there's no walking around outside for security reasons.  Every expat I know has a curfew, lives in group housing, and must use a vehicle pool.  Dinner and drinks are the most common form of socialization.  I have a handful of expat friends, but only a couple who I spend one-on-one time with.  Having internet at home is absolutely wonderful.  I can even stream NPR on the weekend while I make French toast.  My apartment is very comfortable with a huge terrace.  I work on my jigsaw puzzle, read, run up and down the stairs for exercise, and watch TV in French.  I'm hoping to start having more people over this year.  It will be easier once my shipping container with all my stuff is in my possession.  Last seen:  May 23.
• Security:  Sketchy, but I'm surprised it's not sketchier, given that over a million people have been living under tarps for a year with little evidence that their situation will soon change.  Those who can afford a gun, seem to have one, and kidnapping of rich Haitians is a problem.  The presidential elections have made the situation volatile.
• Food: It's expensive in the supermarket and even more so in the several high end restaurants in my part of town.  But eating is a quality of life issue, so I've stopped looking at prices.  The restaurants and the new supermarket near my house cater mostly to expats and well-off Haitians. 

When I got stuck in Miami earlier this month when Haiti was experiencing post-election violence, I was itching to get back as soon as possible.  After several days of cancelled flights, and escalating violence in Haiti, I realized that my primary reason for wanting to get back was so that I wouldn't miss the pre-Christmas dinner party I was supposed to host on the 9th.  My friends and I have been looking forward to it for weeks.  It made me realize how important something like a dinner party can be when there are so few opportunities to have fun.

Here's to hoping that 2011 is a better year for Haiti.  Better year for us all, really.

On Visiting a Nevada Vineyard

The other night, we drove an hour outside of Las Vegas to the Pahrump Winery.  Guess everyone makes wines now-a-days.

Light on the hills

Pre-dinner tastings

Post-dinner Argus-ing

On Eau de Dog

Argus-the-Dog enjoying last year's rare Vegas snow

Yesterday was a fun-work day.  We hauled in the Christmas tree, got out the boxes decorations from the garage, and set about getting into the Christmas spirit.  My dad and I then decided to go take Argus-the-Dog to the park and get ingredients for lasagne while we were out.  I didn't bother showering beforehand since the dog park in the drizzle was likely to be messy.

Argus-the-Dog and I have been spending a lot of time together.  He's silky, and warm, and recently received a delux bath at the vet's, so he smells pretty good.  I can occasionally convince him to lie on my feet while I work.

As I was standing in the check out line at the supermarket, the woman in line in behind said to me, "Mmm...you smell good.  What is that?"  I racked my brain to think of what good thing I could possibly smell like, and then it hit me:

Argus-the-Dog's shampoo.

On Capturing Stories

I'm in Ahmerikah, the birthplace of Whole Foods and the land of reliable and fast internet.  One of the luxuries of being here is streaming NPR all day long.  Ahhhhh........

I just caught up on Story Corps, a project that allows people to interview each other for a minute or two and tell stories that then get archived in the Library of Congress.  The stories that emerge are amazing.  Some are hilarious, most are touching, and a surprising number have moved me to tears: all pretty remarkable for two minutes of air time.

http://storycorps.org/listen/

I'd guess that a lot of the stories that get recorded are stories that have been told around the dinner table, at family gatherings, at the pub countless times.  But there's something about going with someone into a little recording booth that seems to allow some people to dig deep and talk about things they've never talked about before.

I tried to get my father to write down some of his stories but for all the nagging and assignments and deadlines and threats, I only got a few submissions.  It's a trying to squeeze juice out of a really promising-looking orange and only getting three drops.

Well, the other night, apropos of nothing, out came a story I had never heard from my father's days of working in Ngongoro Crater.  He worked in the Crater over the summers, tracking wildebeast migrations and a lot of my favourite stories are from those days.  So here is the story (prompted, I think, by a discussion of cultural stereotypes of foreigners in East Africa) to the best of my recollection:

Well, you know, we rescued the French, tolerated the British, and got on rather well with the Germans.  There was one American guy - a real pain - we got him to ride a wildebeast!  On my last day in the Crater, he came over, wanting us to show him how to dart [animals].  So we said, fine, ok, we'll show you how to dart.  I showed him how to use the rifle and what to do and then he asked if we could go out and actually dart a few wildebeast.

So we said alright and darted a couple...and then he said he wanted a go.  Well none of us really liked this fellow so we decided to play a trick on him.  You see, when you dart a wildebeast and it goes down, you have to sit on its back and pull back its head or it will drown in its own saliva.  Because it loses muscle function.  You sit on its back and pull back on its horns like so [cradling in crook of arm] and throw a cloth over the animal's face.  And when the thing starts waking up, you feel the muscles under your legs relax, then twitch so you know it's time to get off and then take off the cloth.

When this fellow got on the back of the animal, the other guy [on our team] gave me a look...and we took the cloth off the animal's face before the American guy knew it was time to get off.  The animal got up and off he went!  [laughing] 

Mean.  Mean, but funny.

Wait until you hear my mother's story of making one of her preschool students cry just so she could comfort the little girl and watch the kohl stream down her face!  With parents like these, I look pretty nice in comparison, huh?

On Angry Haiti

I'm on my way back from Honduras to Haiti.  Was supposed to have a layover in Miami, but now I'm stuck here because the airport in Haiti is closed and flights are cancelled.  People are angry because the preliminary election results indicated a run-off between one of the two popular candidates and the current [unpopular] president's favourite.

Things are looking bad.

On Antigua

I spent the day wandering through the Guatemalan town of Antigua today where I met the cake/church that I fell in love with in Alex's photos.  

Also, there were many charming cafes and restaurants.  I had a chocolate shot in one.

Emmanuella and Sherley on their way to spending muchos quetzales.