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.