"We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking."
~ Albert Camus
Monday, April 30, 2007
the making or breaking of a city-slicker
The following is dedicated to my older brother, urbanite and faithful author of sometimes political, sometimes personal blog, SPACETROPIC.
A Sunday stroll: A mare munched lazily on grass near her sleeping new born. Kids (the baby goat not the baby human) literally bounced gaily two and fro – as one might imagine they would do on a fair springtime day. One older female goat attempted to climb a tree and got stuck on the first knot near the bottom. She looked left, right and baffled – then, vexed, she bleated at her predicament. I rounded a corner and saw two piglets, covered in mystery slime, happily nosing the ground, looking for grub. They looked perturbed by my presence and would have inched closer for inspection if I hadn’t scooted away. In the not too far distance, a cow mooed – alerting me to her presence and her present activity, which… smelled. I plodded on to my destination, a natural well, overgrown with bird-filled bamboo groves and thick vegetation, perfect for snacks.
The wild kingdom doesn’t really acknowledge the imaginary boundary created by some brick, mortar, and few screens. My apartment, in the second story of a community-style house, allows me to be very close with nature on a 24-7 basis.
There is a small army of piss-ants in my clothes bureau. A little parade of the same march down the clay-brick wall next to my bed – a straggler or two ending up on my bathrobe and pillow. While in town yesterday afternoon, a stow-away crawled out from my shirt and explored my neck before I noticed it tickling... and squished it.
On Saturday, a devilish looking spider – not the large scary kind that hang out on ceilings, eat lots of mosquitoes and look as though they could be caged for pets but the small, fat, short-legged kind that look as though one tinsy bite might kill you – sat amicably on the lip of my bed spread where it jumped from its roosting perch on the window sill. Sadly, the grey thing died a swift death under the sole of my leather flip-flop.
At night – every night, dumb brown beetles careen from out of nowhere into my big head of hair, as I sit reading under a light. Their sticky legs cause them to catch in the curls. Only later, when rearranging the ‘do or throwing a massive tangle into a ponytail, do I feel something creep between my fingers. I have learned that a calm and gentle grasp is required to extract them without damage (and in order to not further gross myself out).
Several other members of the beetle family crowd the corners of my room. During daylight hours, they fight for attention with loud and lazy bumble bees and sharp, evil looking hornets that somehow appear and get lost chez-Portia only to foolishly attempt to exit through barricaded windows.
Really, I must not forget the physiological genius of the insect family: The cockroach. Word on the street is that the kinds in Madagascar and Micronesia are the size of my foot and can hiss… but I think I will settle for that boring old Haitian three-incher. Living up to their reputation for survival, the suckers survive full minutes after a blast of lethal insecticide and spastically flop around into faces, laps and lunches.
Creepy crawly fun doesn’t end there.
During a weekend farewell dinner for one of our departing volunteers, Templeton the Rat’s cute, white-bellied cousin decided to scamper over and join the festivities. He slithered out of the restaurant’s thatched roofing and onto the rafters of the metal overhang. After a brief but noted appearance, he was gone – sadly depriving us of his prolonged presence at the impromptu party.
I share these happy thoughts with you for several reasons. One: witness the metamorphosis. Before my move to Haiti, I would holler at a house-mate to come kill an intruding silver fish (which we have lots of here too) let alone to attack a terrifying, cob-web-making arachnid. Two: a retaliation. My older brother recently blogged about his undeniable inner-urban core and his distaste for ticks and hybrid wolf-dogs etc. I had promised to rebutt with some of realities of my life here, showing how my undeniable inner-urban core is slowly being tortured to death.
Pass me the corncob pipe, grandpa!
(Faint sounds of banjos playing)
Fresh rabbit stew for dinner!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
a visual taste of Vache
The private beaches of the private resort. We were the only ones around to enjoy the Harry Belafonte blasting from my iPod speakers and see this beautiful sunset.
A water spout formed over Les Cayes -- on our return voyage we were doused by a good tropical rain storm. The spout died when it hit land.
island of the COW
The island is Ile-a-Vache, several miles south of the Les Cayes coast. The resort mentioned is Abaka Bay, which faces west toward the mountains near Port Salut. Nick, Alex (an Ethiopian MINUSTAH guy) and I were the only guests at the water front hotel on Saturday night. The weather was perfect Caribbean Spring.
The GOOGLE IMAGES map shows the island, just to the south of Les Cayes (the patchy sign of life on the Haitian coast). Abaka Bay is the first cove on the western side of the island.
I think that the photographs rather speak for themselves so I'll let them.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Lovince
Thursday, April 12, 2007
twisted palms
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
an online interview
Where were you born?
Washington, D.C., USAIn which country and city are you living now?
Les Cayes, Haiti is the closest place you’ll find on a map but I am actually living several miles northwest in a place called Madame Combes/Castel-Pere. It’s farm country.......Do you miss home and family sometimes?
I do miss my family – because they are the best in the world and I am very close to them. But then, we are close, so we keep in touch. I miss my girlfriends dreadfully because I live with a bunch of guys, the orphanage is mostly boys and my co-workers are mostly male. I miss getting a good glass of red wine with my best buddies on a Friday night. I also miss warm showers.Every Friday night, Pwoje Espwa personnel get together for a “fête.” I think it’s modeled on the Peace Corps weekly tradition of getting together with your fellow Corps buddies to have a drink. It also helps solidify our family-ness...
...Do you have other plans for the future?
Right now, I am leaving the future a bit open-ended. I committed to 6 months to a year with Pwoje Espwa but have told them that I am flexible as well. Grad school is a possibility but then, so is finding work with an NGO. I continue to reach out and research while remaining committed to my current work here.
If you are interested in reading the full interview, first one for an expat in Haiti, check out expatinterviews.com. It's also cool to see what other "expats" are doing all over the world.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
a family in misery
Her neighbors are the family St. Jean. They do not own their land. They do not own their home. They rent one room in a thatched roof hut (the room with the pink curtain on the far left side). Their current rent is $700 Haitian/year, which is about $95 US/year. They haven't paid in a while so they were served notice in January and will have to vacate in the next two weeks. They do not yet know where they will go.
Seven people were living in the "home." Since we took Mackenson (7) and Claudia (5), there are now five sharing the room. One of those is a child of 2 years whose bright orange head of hair testifies to the degree of her malnourishment. The remaining four are "able bodied" adults, one of whom is working. The latter, the father of the children, works as a shoe shiner and often does not find work. The mother, her younger sister and the younger brother of the father all live in the home but do not work. When asked why no one else works they shrug and say they cannot find it.
“La misère,” my friend Bertony whispers to me as we sit deciphering Madame St. Jean’s hushed responses. Yes, it certainly is misery. The woman who bore the three children cannot be older than 22. She giggles in the back of her hand and says she cannot speak for the family when her husband is not at home.“If we could help you, how can we help you?” Blank stares.
“We need everything,” she finally answers.
“Madame, I cannot write on your behalf for ‘everything!’ So, please, give me an idea!”
“A home.”
The baby shrieks happily and splashes water onto the mud.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Easter in my homes
My father told me of the ephemeral April snow melting on cherry blossoms and of the beautiful Easter vigil service he attended with my mother at my childhood parish. Another friend told me that she accompanied her Christian friend to the National Cathedral (my alma mater) on Sunday and could not believe the grandeur of the Easter-Sunday Mass. Everyone celebrates this feast day a little differently all over the Christian world -- but I do love to attend the great churches in big cities on these days.
We celebrated here. The effort was touching but the results somewhat lacking in reverence. While our service was not particularly reverential, leaving me slightly homesick for the dark, candle-lit cathedral services in the States, Easter brought me two new godsons: Chupy and Lovinse. Haiti and I will forever be connected...
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
the once and future...
Granted, Arthur is supposed to come again – or perhaps he already has come, as they say, in the form of Churchill. But to read his great tale of hope (even if it is largely fictitious) and to know that he, like so many other would-be saviors in history, failed in his efforts to settle and bring prosper to a people leaves a bittersweet feeling. And perhaps living in a country like Haiti only makes that feeling stronger.One must strive to make a difference – to change the status quo or improve it. To do nothing would be a crime, as acknowledged by White in the last pages of his oeuvre. The record of failure, however, is daunting.