Cheap Scotch and Cheap Stories

So I am guilty and embarrassed. So embarrassed in fact that I considered taking down what I have written and just starting over. But sitting on my porch over a mug of cheap scotch and a PB&J, I realized I couldn’t do it. You can’t just erase your mistakes and start over. The fun comes in calling your own bluff and working through the mess you’ve made.

Every morning I wake up around 6 to the diabolical rap of a rooster who apparently doesn’t share my affinity for daylight savings. With squinty eyes and a face full of sun I heat a cup of coffee and cook up a pan of jumbo Haitian eggs. As I eat the eggs my mood lightens. This is my revenge. I smile as I chew, wondering if I am eating one of the rooster’s nephews.

I usually snag a ride down the hill to Fonkoze’s Central Office with the CFO who lives nearby. I walk around the first floor and say bon jour to everyone. Then I head out onto the street to buy my morning Tampico from Tisant, an older gentleman who sells coke and juice out of a cooler on a corner. I hand him a 20, as he looks for my 3 goud in change he tells me that my Kreyol is improving, still one of the only phrases I understand which makes me think he is just being nice.

When I sit down at my computer I check BBC, CNN and the International Herald. Today I read that the Somali Pirates are at it again, a woman is on trial for bullying a 13 year old MySpace user to suicide and Al-Queda is proudly exercising its first amendment rights. I hate the news.

Looking back over my previous posts I am ashamed. I hate reading my own blog for the same reasons I hate reading the news. It is negative, overly sensational and only tells half the story. Just like MySpace, Somalia (maybe Al-Queda is a bad example) there are two sides to every story.

Haiti is a country so beautiful it can give you Goosebumps at 95 degrees, and yet Haiti has a terrible trash problem. The people of Haiti are some of the kindest I have ever met, and yet Haiti has one of the worst human rights records in history. The International community has reached out to help Haiti’s poor, and yet the health budget for the 9,000 UN MINUSTAH soldiers is still greater than the national health budget for a country of 10 million. Some of the world’s best doctors come to Haiti free of charge, yet millions still die from preventable disease.

Haiti is a country ripe with diversity and full of disparity. From this point forward, I am diametrically opposed to showing just one side. Haitians hate the international news, and for good reason. When people come to write stories and take photos in Haiti they only look for sickness, sadness and suffering. Recently a Haitian man asked me, "Why does everyone hate us...why does everyone want to make us look so bad?"

From now on, I want my friends to frown. Not because they are supposed to, but because they are angry. I want my friends to smile. Not because they have to, but because they are proud. Most importantly, I want my friends to cry. Not because they are sad, but because they know change.

I am done with the cheap stories. But for now, I am sticking with the scotch.

A Complicated 8 Letter Problem

I too sing Haiti.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody will dare say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen," then.

Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed -

I too am Haiti.

-Langston Hughes

Slavery. A word I grew up believing was forever resigned to the past tense.

No, this isn't about Gloabilzation, Neo Liberalism or Imperialism. Nor is it about the World Bank, the CIA or any Structural Adjustment Program or corporate scheme.

It is about slavery. In its most livid, most monstrous form.

It is about the children who can not look you in the eyes.

Restaveks are the child slaves of Haiti. They are stolen from the countryside and sold to families in Port-au-Prince. In addition to manual and domestic labor, children as young as 6 are often beaten, abused, raped and sexually molested.

Modern day slavery was something that I was unaware of before coming to Haiti. Now, there is rarely a day I walk to work without passing a Restavek. It has been a striking awakening for me to realize that for some, the world really is as bad as it is often made out to be.

The subject just seems to freeze my conscience.

I recommend A Crime so Monstrous, by E. Benjamin Skinner. It is a life changing book.

A Simple 3 Letter Solution

The city of Gonaives was hit hardest by the recent hurricanes that passed through Haiti just months ago. The disaster made news around the world when Aid Organizations were unable to reach the city. As a result many people died due to starvation and lack of medical attention.

Walking around town one can't help but be shaken by the ubiquitous pandemic of frustration, exhaustion and sadness that has swept throughout the city. People are living in makeshift tarp tents atop collapsed homes and standing in mile long lines to receive food from the UN dispensary program. The people of Gonaives truly lost everything, which sadly wasn't even much to begin with.

One evening I sat on the roof of where I was staying. As I watched a family dig a mattress out of the mud, I began thinking to myself:

What would I do if I lived here? In a lapse of pragmatism, I came to the conclusion that I would try to make something out of nothing. But the more I thought, the more I realized just how hard it is to do that, especially given the current degree of nothingness. Where would I start?

Cook the aid food and sell it on the street? That wouldn't work. No kitchen. No spices. No pots. Besides, I am too hungry. Rob the food dispensary? No, thats horrible. Forgive me Lord. Besides, its guarded by a dozen UN soldiers with really big guns. Sell something? No, I don't have anything to sell. No one has any money to spend. Learn to breakdance and perform in the street? No, I can't breakdance.

I paused for a moment, In between dreams of headspins and backflips I suddenly realized the obvious solution. It was right there all along.

Start Digging.

Resilience

The remains of the LaTombe bridge in Mirebalais which collapsed on September 7 as a result of Hurricane Ike.

Now, just over a month since the hurricane, the water level has dropped enough to make it possible for people to cross the river by foot. The LaTombe bridge is the main connection between Port-au-Prince and the Central Plateau.

Today, US space tourists blasted off for a 10 day trip to the International Space Station. In a world where even the most obscure of conveniences can be commonplace, it amazes me how people with so little are constantly forced to deal with so much. I hope for their sake that someone is keeping score.

Hope Keeps Alive

Avan Tiraj, tout lotri bel. Before the drawing, the lottery is always nice.

Here he stands, the final link in a long chain of good intentions.

East of the fundraisers and website donations, south of the Washington meetings and black tie events and beyond the calls of tap-taps and the tire tracks of UN troop transport vehicles, stands a boy, leaning against a wall.

Because of the mud we had to abandon our dirtbike a few hours outside of town. After the second day of walking through the countryside visiting families with Mystal, a Case Manager for Chemen Lavi Miyo (CLM, Fonkoze's program for the ultra-poor), I began to wonder what we were even doing. We weren't waving any magic wand and changing lives. We weren't building houses, bringing food or delivering new clothing. We were just sitting, talking, and moving on.

The final day in the province outside Boukan Kare, I was taking photos of the boy above when Mystal yelled my name. I turned to see him sitting with a woman and her children. She was speaking in a slur of creole. He translated for me, "She say she lost all her business to disease. Fonkoze gave her 2 goats, and now she has none. She also lost her crops in the storm. She has 6 kids. But she says that Fonkoze brings her hope. She says, 'Hope keeps alive.'"

The woman wasn't crying, she didn't even look sad. Sitting against a tree, a lifetime away from a hospital, a phone, a police station or a paved road, she looked directly at me with an unshaken stare of dignified sincerity.

Fonkoze Santa Barbara

The Fonkoze group in Santa Barbara, headed by Maureen Earls, is doing an amazing job of raising funds for women in Haiti. I first learned about Fonkoze by reading an article written in the Santa Barbara Indpendent. The article is a great resource for learning more about the organization. The people of Fonkoze SB are some of the kindest I have met, and their hard work is truly making a difference.

Marty Jenkins is a part of Fonkoze SB and he is one of the most knowledgeable people I have met with regards to Microlending. He has spent the summer abroad visiting and working with Microfinance Institutions. His blog is also a great resource for learning more about MFIs.

For information on Fonkoze SB, or to get involved, contact:

Maureen Earls
mcearls@cox.net

For information on fonkoze visit their website:

www.fonkoze.org

Komanze > Begin

A spirited echo of laughter subtly navigates the MIA terminal, a rare pairing amidst the usual savor of Cuban pastries and Guatemalan coffee grinds. The Miami morning air already on the rise, alive with an eager humidity that seems to have silently escaped from the half empty bags of Antiguan coffee beans.

One wakes up to the lowering of landing gear as its shudder spreads throughout the plane like the splinters of a cracked windshield. Stepping out of the 747, the swirl of greetings, the rush of hot air and the vibrant urban landscape offer a firm embrace laced with a raw emotion that is seemingly inappropriate for a first encounter.

Minutes later, while walking through Port-au-Prince trying to chase the breeze as it navigates through the colorful chaos, I notice a leaf dancing around its branch in a whimsical struggle. Suddenly the leaf sits still, suspended in victory, before falling in freedom.

Haiti.