Letter

Le 25 novanm 2009


Bonjou Elen.  Konman ou ye. Mwen voye di ou nan sitiyatyon mwen ye.  Mwen pa ka okipe ti moun yo la fen ap touye touye timoun yo le tan tout bet mwen yo mouri. Kochon, kabrit, bourik, poul tout mouri. Mwen voye di ou ede mwen nan sa ou kapab. Si ou pa kapab m'ap ba ou timoun yo paske yo pa gen papa pou ba yo manje. Oke mesi. Mwen salye nan non jezi ki gen tout pouvwa. - C

Hello Ellen.  How are you?  I am sending this letter to tell you my situation.  I'm not able to care for my children, hunger is killing the children since all my animals died. Pig, goat, donkey, chickens have all died.  I am sending to ask you to help me with what you can.  If you are not able I will give you my children because they don't have a father to give them food.  Okay, thank you.  I greet you in the name of Jesus who has all power.  - C
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I receive letters and requests like this occasionally.  Even though they are heartbreaking, there's usually more to the story than what you see above.  One of the challenges of being here is knowing when you should help and how much.  It hasn't gotten any easier.

Granmoun Yo

I didn't write about it earlier this fall because I didn't know how to.  Over the course of a couple of months we had three deaths at Kay Granmoun (the elderly home) where I am the administrator.

The first was Iranise, a woman between 70-80 years of age. (Many of the older people here don't know how old they are as in times past everyone in the countryside was born at home and most didn't get birth certificates).  She came to the hospital and died there with pneumonia.  The next was Jacques, who had been bedridden for several years and had some kind of dementia, though he had a smile that would make your day and he loved to have you dance with him while he was in his wheelchair.  Jacques' wife, Therese became ill a little while after he died and was in the hospital for almost a month before she passed away. Therese was a quiet, regal woman and she is missed by all that remain at Kay Granmoun.

We had small funerals for each of these people when they passed away.  It was a tough Fall for the other granmoun and for the staff.

After Iranise passed away we took in another woman named Carmen, who had no family at all.  She is blind and cannot stand or walk.  She has done really well because she is now receiving three meals a day, being bathed well, and she has the company of her roommate and the others.

When Jacques and Therese passed away we were left with one empty room.  We could choose to take two men or two women.  Our community health nurses had already identified a couple of elderly men who had families, but their families were not able to care for them.  We visited one man, and his adult son would not give permission for his father to go.  He is a delightful old man who is unable to walk and spends all day every day lying in a dark hut.  Our community health nurses will continue to visit him, but it is very sad that he is so neglected.

To be continued...

scaredy cat

I've been here for over a year and a half.  I have only seen live tarantulas when I've been walking in the countryside after dark, and then only saw the rough shapes of them against rocks.

I've seen plenty of dead ones in daylight. People don't let them live for long.

I'm not afraid of most creepy crawlies.  I like bugs and lizards, and don't mind snakes too much.  I thought I had prepared myself for seeing a Big'un up close, even though I know I don't like spiders.

We recently moved all the food for the akamil program from one of the main depots to a smaller depot under one of the residences.  It's more like a basement and smells like one too.  The akamil food is kept in a smaller room at the back. Today I decided that I would go out and see how much corn we have left and arrange to buy more if needed.

I was walking hunched over toward the back room (I walk this way in my mom's basement too - I'm afraid that spiders are hanging from the ceiling).  I was looking around to see how clean the depot was being kept when my eyes swept across a pile of boxes at the back.  There on the flap of one of the boxes was a live one.  It was actually small, only about the size of my palm, but enough to give me thorough heebie jeebies.

I couldn't go any further.  I can't explain the feeling it gave me, and I'm mad that I couldn't talk myself out of it.  There was no way I could walk past those boxes to enter the small back room.

Looks like the new food depot master will need someone to do an advance spider check each time she wants to see the akamil food. The guys are going to love me.

Seasons

I have a difficult time remembering what time of year it is.  It is still fairly warm but has been cooling down at night quite nicely.  I usually end up with a polar fleece blanket on me when I wake up in the morning now.  It's kind of difficult to anticipate that Christmas is coming when you don't have the drastic change in seasons. I've noticed lately that sometimes in the late afternoon it feels almost fall-like but that's the closest it has gotten to a seasonal change.

One thing I don't miss about home is the decreased length of daylight.  Winter at home means going to work in the dark in the morning, and leaving to go home after the sun has set in the late afternoon.  There, the difference between winter and summer hours of daylight is quite extreme.  There's a difference here too, but not nearly as drastic.  It seems to have shortened about an hour on each end, with the sun coming up around 6 am, and going down around 5:30 pm.

I'm sure if I was motivated I could check out the explanation for the differences online. It's probably something I should remember from grade school science class.

New York Times: No Shortage of Blame as Haiti Struggles to Feed Itself

GRANMONT, Haiti -- With its rich delta soil and a year-round growing season, Haiti's famous agricultural region seems capable of feeding the entire Caribbean.

But Haiti is a net importer of food, spending about $400 million last year on purchases from abroad. The World Food Programme runs child nutrition and "food for work" operations. And fields in the nation's breadbasket, Artibonite Department, have been periodically swamped by flash floods and mud washed by tropical downpours off barren hillsides.

Farmers in the Granmont agricultural area, just outside Gonaïves, the department capital, say their plight is being ignored by the government and relief agencies focusing on defending urban infrastructure from flooding and strong storms.

"Granmont is the only place now in Gonaïves where you can produce all the food for the town," said Wilson Adeclair, a leader of a local community organization. "This place needs to be protected."

Continue reading here

Holidays can really screw things up

There are a lot of holidays in Haiti and everything shuts down for them.  The hard part is that sometimes you don't find out it's a holiday untl the day before or the day of.

I NEED to go to Port au Prince to renew my passport, and decided last week I couldn't go, so it meant that I have to go this week.  The best day turned out to be Wednesday, so I arranged several days ago to get a drive in and stay overnight and come back on Thursday.  The Bos either forgot or thought that it wasn't important to tell me that Wednesday (tomorrow) is a holiday and nothing, including the Canadian embassy, will be open.  So, I'll be in Port au Prince early tomorrow with nothing to do until Thursday morning when I can visit the consulate. Ugh.  I'm also unsure if I will be able to get a drive back to Fond des Blancs on Thursday, so it may mean more time with nothing to do in Port au Prince.

This post can also serve to show how difficult it is to arrange to do things here.  We need to juggle vehicles to travel back and forth to best capacity.  Gas is expensive and we don't always have enough trucks to do everything we need to do, so a lot of planning is necessary.  Also, it is not easy to go anywhere once you are in Port au Prince.  You can't just hop in a taxi and go see the sights...unless you are adventurous.  It's a huge city with heavy traffic and it takes a long time to get anywhere.

Okay, so here's the optimistic thought to end my complaining:  Maybe I'll get a chance to go the Caribbean Market and buy something different to spice up the menu...and a box of wine or two :)

Differences

One of the differences between cultures I've noticed is an obvious one, even when you come for a short visit to Haiti - the difference in the need for personal space.

When you live in a place where beds, homes, churches, schools and cities are crowded, you get used to being close to other people's bodies.

As a foreigner, it takes some time to be comfortable with it.  People will come very close to speak to you, and even when there is ample space, you will have people sit so close that your arms and legs touch.

This morning I went to the daily community health meeting and arrived as everyone else was coming in and sitting down.  The room has many benches in it, and I watched six of the nurses and facilitators come in and sit on the same bench, and then a seventh try to squeeze in on the end.  I started laughing and pointed out the five empty benches in front of them.

I joked that if they were American (or Canadian), they would be sitting one to a bench as far away as possible from each other.

Renaud's good-natured response was “pa konn viv” meaning “they don’t know how to live”.

I'm tending to agree.

.

Ha!

NEW ELEMENT DISCOVERED
 
A new element was discovered:  Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has
discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.
 
The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 100 assistant
neutrons, 435 deputy neutrons, and 10000 assistant deputy neutrons, giving
it an atomic mass of 10536.
 
These 10536 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are
surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
 
Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be
detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into
contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would
normally take less than a second, to take from four days to four years to
complete.
 
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but
instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant
neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
 
In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each
reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
 
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe
that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical
concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical
morass.
 
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element
that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as
many peons but twice as many morons.

Conflict

Irish volunteers come together to build a new community in Haiti



260 Irish volunteers are pouring their sweat and money into building homes for hundreds of impoverished Haitian families.

 
Stories like this always cause conflicting emotions for me.  On the face of it, it looks like a tremendous charitable work.  200 families will have a new, sturdy home.  That is wonderful, but these kinds of good works always raise questions for me.

In a country where unemployment is extremely high, would there not be a bigger impact if the money was spent hiring local people to not just lay the groundwork but completely build the houses?  Much of the work is unskilled labour being done by educated foreigners.  If local people were hired, not only would people get new houses, but families would have members with an income to put food on the table, pay school fees, and have money to go to the hospital - with all kinds of  economic spin offs from there.

I am not saying that volunteers should not come to Haiti.  Not at all - I am one that just happened to stay a little longer than most. But why not pay the Haitians to do the work they are capable of doing, and let skilled volunteers use those skills to train Haitians, or to do work that is in need, like medical care?  Or supporting (long-term!) schools for the children who are going to be living in the homes? Or setting up scholarships to go to university  for those who demonstrate ability?

Again, I'm not saying that volunteers should not come to Haiti.  Every person who comes here and sees the reality of life here - how tough it is, how beautiful, intelligent and resourceful the people are - leaves with the potential of doing more to help out. Their visits are important - the fact that they want to come offers incredible moral support.  Most of the Haitians I talk to here understand that our visitors tell their story to the outside world and appreciate all the support that brings, but they don't understand why a doctor or teacher or accountant would come to paint walls when they themselves or their neighbour down the road could do it.

Sometimes I also wonder how much of this kind of work in developing countries is about making ourselves feel good, instead of doing what is really needed and sustainable for the people we are "helping"?