Julie goes Bonkers

Reason #1 why I love Haiti: I think I’ve found the new LA diet.  Move to Haiti.  Your body spends its whole day being an air conditioner and snacking isn’t a common activity practiced by the Haitians.  Chocolate costs more than cars (and good wine) and the energy and creativity involved to cook a meal is far beyond me by the end of the day.  To purchase a pastry from the bakery you have to first know what said bakery item is called sans labels, purchase it at a totally different counter and then wait in a hectic line to pick up the pastry.  Most of the complications come from not being assured a cold fridge 24/7 which means for green meat after day two in the fridge (yes, we juveniles ate it the first week but never again) and powdered milk.  But where there’s a will, there’s a way and I’m sure I’ll be able to crack the code and put on weight.  I’ve never failed me before.  

Reason #2 why I love Haiti: Women don’t shave.  They find their body hair (chest, chin, legs, armpits…and yes they have it ALL) a sign of strength.  In fact women DO shave if they want to appear unattractive.  I think I was born in the wrong culture.  

Reason #3 why I love Haiti:  I asked a co-worker the other day what is a good conversation starter here in Haiti because questions of “what do you do for a living” and “what are your hobbies” can be a lost cause and even insulting.  He replied “Haitians really love to talk about food”.  During a dinner time conversation one briefly notes the weather and then dives right into talk about the food they are eating, had been eating, are going to eat, etc.  This is SO my country.  

Well the past week has been full of activities.  Over the weekend “orientation” was extended out to the countryside to a place called Desarmes where MCC’s other office is located.  The best way to describe life in the countryside in Haiti is a very poorly prepared backpacking trip, I think.  You are up against so many elements to which all you are unprepared for so you simply stick to caveman basics and don’t even attempt anything crazy.  We headed out Saturday through the mountains for a few hours and landed in Desarmes starved.  We stopped at a restaurant (aka shak with four big pots of food) for lunch before heading out to meet Josh and Mary-Lynn; some of the most hard-core Canadians I think I will EVER meet.  They have two children.  Haydon is 2 and was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (the city).  A birth in the major city of the poorest country in the western hemisphere was a little too easy for Mary-Lynn so she decided to plop her second child out in Desarmes.  I can’t decide if you have to be a little crazy to do that or just plan stupid.  Either way she got my vote of admiration.  

We lazed around Saturday evening with these two until later in evening.  One of the other MCC workers and I decided we’d sleep out on the front patio since it was cooler.  We snuggled into our frumpy floppy spring gouging mattress that we’d drug outside and settled down for a peaceful sleep.  Ten minutes later I had to go to the bathroom.  Remember the unprepared backpacking analogy?  So no flush toilettes of course.  Better yet the latrine (hole in the ground with some type of wood or masonry shelter) was waaaaay ‘round the back of the house.  Earlier we’d seen a neighbor dog wandering around.  I didn’t think I’d ever say it but I abhor dogs in Haiti.  So scarrry!  So if one wants to urinate, one must walk with rock in hand (to throw at the dog to scare it away) to the back and sit in a latrine that has tarantula spottings every hour or so, relax enough to do ones’ business, and then start the process all over again to get back to bed.  Little did I know that as I was on said journey #1, a tarantula was cheerfully crawling towards the other MCC worker’s bed.  When I returned from my trip I found her out of her bed peering intensely at a spot in the patio chucking the dog-throwing rocks at her new found friend Mr. Tarantula.  At this point all sanity is lost and we giggled away furiously as we tried to kill the spider with our rock storage that we’d collected for the dog.  Upon several attempts we lost interest of killing the spider and convinced ourselves the balmy indoors sounded much more comfortable.  The following night for potty trips #2-#6 I did no more than hang my rump out the door (dog-rock in hand, mind you).  Haiti has confirmed that I am the biggest outdoor wimp EVER.  

Sunday was a fantastic day which included a fantastic hike in the backcountry of Haiti.  We hiked up a river for 2 hours to a gorgeous little waterfall.  I’ve decided hiking with legs knee deep in water is pretty much the only way to hike in a tropical place.  So refreshing.  The other great thing about this hike; NO TRASH.  If Haiti didn’t suffer from poverty and political issues I think it’d be the most popular vacation spot on the planet.  Who gets hiking up a river in 95+ weather with mountains looming all around?  Haiti does.  As a local passed us on our way back carrying a machete and pistol we started to wonder if maybe we didn’t go quite as prepared as we needed to.  Hard-core Mary-Lynn carried her 3 month old infant along through the rushing river for the whole 4 hrs AND a backpack.  Take-two of Julie feels wimpy.  

This week has been a whirl-wind of events and I can’t believe the weekend is almost here.  I have spent most of my days out with Haitian…..um…foremen?……engineers?......financial planners?...yeaaah….I don’t really know who anyone is.  All I know if I show up with my “machin” (car) and Haitian after Haitian piles in (typically two to a single seat) and off we go.  Doniel, a Haitian foremen who I spent most of Tuesday driving around with is teaching me most of my Creole.  He knows just enough English and I know just even Creole so that we both don’t really understand each other but think we do.  I would have to admit that the past few days have been incredibly discouraging and frustrating.  James, the Calpoly professor I am filling in for, has spent over a year working with this one particular group of masons and engineers almost every day he was here and they STILL are constructing poorly.  After talking to a local NGO that is doing roughly the same type of work I am doing I am beginning to wonder how much good our educating is doing.  Another engineer from Build Change (NGO) says that they have found the masons and engineers change their ways for about a month or two and then go right back to the way they have build for the past umpteen years.  I’m starting to feel more like a babysitter and chauffer than an engineer.  This is a poverty infested city where everyone and anyone local will do whatever they can to eat or have shelter.  That includes lying, cheating the system, etc.  It’s really quite maddening and yet I completely understand.  Heck, I’d do the same thing if I was that desperate.  So families that we are helping will find a beneficiary (has to be disabled in some way) who’s really not (in my opinion) just to get on the list of first-priority families to aid.  The Haitian engineer that I am working with took me to several 2-story houses in need of rehabilitation today even after MCC has previously told him that we are ONLY working on 1-story houses (a fact which I learned AFTER my full day of work). Typically the 2-story house bottom level is owned by a different family than the upper story.  Consequently, repairing the upper story is rather stupid if the story below is nearly ready to buckle but can’t be done because it is owned by someone else.  The masons who have taken James education workshop look at me baffled as I point out gaps with no mortar between bricks and exposed rebar just waiting to rust from the next cyclone.  I would have pulled out my hair already had I not needed it to protect my scalp from the unrelenting sun during our sight visits.  

I’m starting to ask myself the same question I think everyone does after being here for a while.  Are we really doing any good being here or are we making things worse?  My view at the moment is the latter.  If a mason can’t build correctly after 1-year of working every week with a USA structural engineer are we really instigating any sort of sustainability?  Any time any Haitian becomes educated to any usable level they immigrate elsewhere for a better life.  My supervisor and I have concocted a plan.  We’ve decided we should load the Haitian population on boats and send them off to a “holding-country” for a while, sink the island, and start fresh over on another island.  Really, you can fix a house but the five surrounding house may never be fixed and can tumble on the fixed house in an earthquake.  Bonkers….I’m gonna go bonkers.  

Enough complaining and on to more fun stories.  So AS we were driving (half chauffer half babysitter, remember) around today I came across some rather peculiar experiences.  We were driving down a “road” which I’d like to say resembles more of a sidewalk.  I come to this conclusion because I believe when your side mirrors are kissing the buildings on both sides as you drive that just plain ain’t a road in anyone’s book!  Haitians don’t have the same book.  As if the “road” wasn’t narrow enough, it continued to lesson in girth tell I found myself driving over peoples building materials, grocery stores (produce laid out on a blanket on the ground), and chickens (they duck as you drive over them..don’t worry peeps, I’m keeping this G-rated) to get to our destinations.  Haitians mentality is “why walk if you can at all ‘drive’” so I was encouraged by my faithful gang in the car to keep driving as I sent apologetic smiles and waves to passerby’s.  The climax of this story will be when it came time to park.  Yep, park enough for OTHERS to get by.  After a 20 point Austin Power’s turn around at an intersection I proceeded to park on top of some ones “grocery store” as hands of folks from all angles of my vehicle (grocery store lady included) guided me furiously backwards.  Since I know you are all on the edge of your chair in anticipation to know what became of the “grocery store”, it was swiftly relocated (much to the surprise of its owner) to the other side of the street to allocate space for my mammoth United States-ness “machin”.  And if that didn’t draw enough attention, getting out of the car with my fluorescent skin took the cake.  Children everywhere started screaming “Blah, blah!” (Haitian creole word for “white person”).  Sigh….sometimes you just can’t win. 

I decided I need a good break so it’s off to the beach this Saturday with some more blah’s for a day of laying on the beach. My fav.  Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.  Too be continued.  

Hugs!

Latrine in Desarmes

The spider Patio (from left to right: Wawa, Kristen, Ann, Moi)

Showers in Desarmes.  Not a bad view from the inside looking up as you shower!

Poorly build house.  Ok geek friends see if you can find the errors!

River Hike

Notice Mary-Lynn (umbrella) with her infant daughter