Home Again, Home Again, Riggety-jig......
Hmmmmm - Do any of you ever have the desire to pick up your computer and hurl it through the window? Of course you are all way more mature than that -but, I am not and readily admit I could have done that numerous times during the last half of my recent trip to Haiti. I was really trying to blog daily to keep everyone informed as to what was taking place and it became a test of patience that I failed miserably. The Internet service became almost non-existant and I'm not sure if there actually is such a thing as a service tech in Haiti. If there is, myself and the rest of the guests, who were also lined up like lap-top hurling Olympians, did not see one. Funny how just a few years ago we all survived in Haiti without cell phones, lap tops or even a pigeon to carry a letter out to civilization. Ahhhh the good old days.................
Anyhow, I am back home in Canada now and am determined to bring you the highlights of the remainder of the trip. Since I am still a little computer phobic about getting almost to the finish of a transmission and having it be sent and lost forever in cyber space I am going to try my best to stay away from my usual rabbit trail digressions and elaborate renditions of what blows me away daily in that infectious place I am so infatuated with. Probably not going to happen and we all know that, but I will try.
First of all you have to indulge me to relate one of the stories I was going to share in the blog entitled "Oh No You Haven't" that got deleted so mercilessly one late night when I was working on it. I was sure I'd seen everything in Haiti over the years of travelling there, but his day, I was proven wrong again. I was in the PWP jeep going to a meeting and a motorcycle pulled up alongside us (in Haiti alongside means about 2 inches away from you) and I did a double take. I was doing the head flip thing -looking out my window at the motorcycle driver and back to Toto who was driving -back and forth like this for a few moments trying to make sure I was really seeing what I was seeing. Being the true Haitian he is, Toto was not filling in my speechlessness with any explanation -enjoying the bewilderment that had mercifully given him a few moments of silence from me.
Beside me was a guy who had taken copius amounts of bubble wrap and wound them up into a huge cone shaped mass around his helmet -seriously it was a few feet across and equally as high. A mountain. He also had taken little amounts and encased his side mirrors and fendors. He shot me over a look with a straight face and sneer like I was the loon for having the audacity to stare at him. When I was sure I wasn't finally having a mental breakdown or heat stroke or something, I got my camera out and in the Ninja-like fashion requried to take photos in Haiti, was trying to get it up high enough to click without him seeing me. No such luck. As soon as he caught on, he hurled a choice French explative (really, even swear words sound beautiful in French-don't they?) my way and sped off into the swollen mass of mish-mashed vehicles already out on their daily parade on Rue #7. Toto maintained typical, silent dispassion while he did his best to get me close enough to get a photo even if it was going to be the back view. Now I really did look like the loon hanging out my window in all my "whiteness" determined to get that photo. No, I was not hurling English explatives, but I'm sure Toto was thinking a few of his own while enduring the embarassment of chauffering the nutbar a.k.a. his Canadian business partner. My target was incredibly adept at avoiding my lens while he bobbed and weaved among the traffic at breakneck speed like a giant, defiant snow cone refusing to melt in the hot Haitian sun.
I have no photo and feel like this is going to have to be shelved with all those other "fish that got away stories" (and Wayne's alligator story) that no one ever believes. I will never again say I have seen everything. When the whole fiasco was over and I was back inside the vehicle, window rolled up, camera off, hair returned to pony tail and breathig normally, I turned to Toto -ever patient - ever indulgent with the cultural indignities I expose him to, Toto -and said "why the heck would that guy put all that stuff on his helmet?" His answer, complete with the little shoulder shrug of exasperation as to why I would give this a moment of thought in the first place was - "He had some plastic so he made it." Simple -the illogical Haitian logic.
Haitian humor is sometimes as resplendently gossamer as Haitian logic. One day I was riding, 3 on a motorcycle, Haitian style with my interpretor, Jean Andre who is a Haitian American. We spotted a a big garbage truck -well, it was about 6 Haitian men shovelling garbage into the back of a decrepit, old dump truck that looked not much better than the garbage it was being filled with. One simple question from me generated a whole flamboyant disintegration into a comedy routine that kept us cracking up for the 10 minutes or so as we sped down the street. I had asked "are there any garbage dumps in Cap-Haitien? Where will they take that garbage?" By the time we had reached our destination, we had decided that it is just a make work project that Bill Clinton came up with so he could add it to the list of things he is doing to "save" Haiti. We figured that the workers chose a different corner each week, picked up the garbage and put it in the truck and stored it for a week. Then, the next week they put it back where they got it and went to another corner and picked up that garbage for that week. That way lots of people had a job and everyone got a garbage free week on their street periodically. I guess you had to be there -it seemed hillarious at the time.
Haiti overflows with topsy-turvy ironies that keep the foreigner engaged mentally from moment to moment trying to figure things out. You can go from being blindsided by beauty in the form of a bourgeois, manicured Mulatto lady stepping out of her Lexus 4 wheel drive on the same garbage strewn street as a church going, peasant lady wearing an old hand-me-down satin prom dress like parchment wears poetry. You can be bombarded with the wacky wisdom of a Haitian friend answering your question as to how he could tell his chicken was sick with "because when I kissed her she didn't kiss me back" to the beyond their years worldly wisdom of a restavek child (slave) 4 yrs. old, knowing how to light a fire, gut a fish and cook the family dinner. Haiti is a complex place that tries the senses of those of us who claim citizenship in the developed, civilized nations. Ironically, I fear that we, the educated, the powerful, the technologically evolved, the leaders, the movers, the shakers do not have the capacity to even dip our toes into the pool of resourcefulness, staggering sagicity and imperishable ingenuity that buoys the Haitian people century after century. Haiti is humbling if you are open to the truths it has to offer.
Okay, off my rabbit trails and elaborations and onto some nitty -gritty details of what was hammered out at our staff meetings. It has been decided that we will keep our 10 literacy classes and continuing education course running out of the PWP office operating as usual. Everyone seemed to be adament that this program has gained considerable respect in the past 5 years it has been operating and needs to continue. It was explained to me that most literacy programs have been run by the Haitian government and usually last about 3 months before students quit going. It is rare that one would ever last a year and the students never come away literate. It is just something the government does to keep people illiterate by having them so discouraged with the classes that they tell others not to go etc. This, then breeds contempt for even the word literacy.
The PWP literacy program is the longest running of it's kind in Northern Haiti. Our graduates are functionally literate after the first year and our teachers tenderly work with them through the second year to enhance their skills. Then they have the opportunity to attend the continuing education class that takes place daily in our Cap-Haitien office. This program works with willing students as long as it takes to get them prepared to take a Government exam equivelant to High School diploma. We do not have a time frame as to how long this takes as it is a very individual thing. Once we have the first few ready to take the exam we will shout it from the rooftops to all of you. This will be an accomplishment never dared to be dreamed of by the adult students involved. I can hardly wait until that day.
We also have decided to have an independent evaluation of our whole program as soon as we can enlist the group to do this. The group we want to hire for this has suffered immense losses in the Port au Prince earthquake so we don't know how soon this will take place, but we are hoping for this summer. It is to give us all some feed back on how far we've come and guidance on how we want to expand in 2010. We have intention to start a micro-credit program to be offered to graduates of our literacy program. Much of this year will be spent in development knowing that we need a solid foundation complete with curriculum, administrative protocol and trained staff before we ever start handing out loans with the expectation of them being paid back. We have started the ball rolling to find the right Haitian people to help us develop this and make it culturally sensitive and doable. We understand it may be a considerable financial investment for a small group like PWP in the initial phase of developing this program. However, we also agreed that it will be money well spent and the return of having a solid system in place for a micro-credit initiative will be incalcuable.
We also discussed the alternative of working in the cooperative model instead of individual micro-loans. It was agreed that after we have an independent evaluation, we may find the way to incorporate both programs -working with micro-loans in a cooperative model with small groups of women investing in one income generating project for their group. For now, we must investigate and keep pressing forward with the development phase and not jump the gun and get started too quickly and thus shoot ourselves in foot and have to hobble back to square one.
We also have had other groups contact us inquiring if PWP could put a literacy class in their area. I talked with our staff and it was agreed that we are perfectly capable of training other teachers. This meets with our passion to spread a reliable, provable program that brings literacy to the population in the North. We have selected a small group to work on developing a program with a time line and financial breakdown to facilitate this. Not only could it supply teachers to regions void of such programs, it could also generate some finances for PWP's ongoing programs as well.
So, you can see we have a lot on our plate in the upcoming year. While Haiti is still in mourning for the great losses it suffered only 1 month ago, we are harnessing the indelable Haitian spirit of "we must go on" to embrace the healing and be a vibrant part of the real rebuilding of Haiti. Our staff is passionate about education and employment. They are firm in their belief that the rebuilding their nation will not happen with investment in cement and rebar but with knowledge shared and investment in job creation. It will not be easy or quick. We are not going to be Pollyannish in our shouting from the rooftops that "we will go on." We will be respectfully tenacious as we move forward one step at a time much like that proverbial tortise determined to cross the finish line.
Peace,
Julie
Posted on Friday, February 12 2010, at 9:37 AM.