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Occupy Mirebalais

Occupy Wall Street has taken over the news feeds of facebook, twitter and even bbm. A friend of mine made the front cover of the times because of it and all the people I talk to in NYC don’t understand what is going on. I have NO idea what is going on. The sad part is I don’t really care. When I go home I want to do all the things that make me happy in the short period of time I am there.   The protests I’m aware of are the ones that have been going on in Mirebalais this week. People are taking over the streets, peacefully in regards to the NGOs in the community dominating the market, but not creating employment.  I stood on the roof of my office and watched the protesters stand in front of another NGO’s door protesting. The signs they held read “jobs for all” or “injustice – as I read the signs I thought “I agree with all of you”.

Many NGOs come and serve as glorified soup kitchens. They give and give and give so much. It has created not only a dependency, but also entitlement. People feel that they deserve handouts and more handouts. It’s like giving a child whatever he/she wants all the time. As they get older, they expect the same from everybody.   One the free service or donation ends, people go back to their same sad situation. This cause more poverty on top of the new poverty and leads to more disease.  People need jobs so they can feel empowered, feed, house, clothe and educate their kids.

The French Language in Haiti

A few months ago this girl I met at “Fire Crotch” who works with kids in Haiti, posted this BBC article on French as the main language in Haitian schools. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14534703 The article basically stated that Kreyol should be the main language used in schools.  I enjoyed the article mainly because these kids/young adults were getting exposure about something NOT related to the earthquake and the program which was founded by a Haitian man is succeeding. However, I disagreed with the comment my friend had posted stating that “The entire school system should be in Kreyol instead of French.”  I responded that I didn’t think Kreyol would give children an advantage once they were out of school. It would just allow them to function within certain class levels in Haiti. It also wouldn’t allow them to have one of the most used languages under their belt. She didn’t agree.  After reflecting on my 8-10 months here, I now thing French in Haiti is the biggest waste of time. It doesn’t serve any purpose here but to separate people by class and talk to fancy rich people who speak French. I speak French. I grew up speaking it and I majored in it in college. It helped me a lot when I travelled and studied in West Africa, it’s always nice to put it down on my resume and chicks dig it.  However, in Haiti Se Kreyol nou pale. That’s what people speak.  A lot of it is due to education, some of it is preference and most of it is to separate classes. I’ve meet some brilliant people who don’t speak French. Se Kreyol yo pale.  Ex-pats who speak French come here and try to communicate with people on the ground and get a lot of blank stares. Not a lot of people speak it here. It shows how poor the education system is.  After talking to people about it also just being in rural Haiti I think primary school should be taught in Kreyol and once you get to the 5^th or 6^th grade you start teaching in French. Kreyol vocabulary is limiting. It’s a language with few words so teaching something like chemistry would be impossible. It would be easier to transition from Kreyol to French because there is much French-ish kind of words in it. However, people don’t need French here. They need English. Geographically, it makes sense for Haitians to speak English or Spanish. All of the countries with the exception of Guadeloupe, Martinique (and whatever other island) speak French.  English is the language to know.  For the past 5 weeks I have been teaching English to about 12 of my co-workers. I am using whatever skills I have left from when I used to teach ESL. When I ask them why they want to learn English, all of their answers have to do with work relationships, travel, business and higher learning.

White is right

The only place I have ever been where people of color actively talk about hating white people is in the United States.  Other places, people love them some white people.  Haiti is no different. “Blan” is what we call them here.  “Blan” literally means white in Kreyol.  However, “Blan” means foreigner more than anything. I get called “Blan” all the time. A lot of my colleagues call me Blan Joel to separate me from the other Joel’s.  This one chick that is in charge of Admin stuff has me down as “Blan Joel” in her phone. I don’t mind it; I actually think it’s hilarious.   Anyways, even though I get called “Blan” at times I get treated like the next black dude.  I have come to notice that the white folks who I work with get whatever it is they want when they need it, especially rides.  The ride system at my job is complicated and not very effective. You call the dispatch; tell him where you’re going and where you are. It’s not like a taxi service because that actually works. Here it’s like making dinner reservations. Anyways, sometimes I get a ride and all is good.  The trick is to get cool with as many drivers as you can and cop their numbers. Sometimes cold calling them is the best. Sometimes you just catch rides with people headed in the direction you’re going in.  Other times you just gotta wait and wait…..and wait.  I’ve had times where I’ve waited hours for a ride. I’ve had times where I was told we have no cars and I’ve bummed rides from the ambulance driver. We’re not allowed to take public transportation for safety issues, so that’s out of the question. 

Sometimes the best thing to do is have a white person call for a ride and just let the color barrier work its magic. Sometimes you can say that white person x needs a ride and boom the car falls from the sky and it’s there.   A Haitian-American colleague of mine got shafted, HARD. He called and called for a ride and got nothing.  He waited the entire day and did not have a car pick him up. The next day he spent the morning and early afternoon doing the same thing. He decided to just take a taptap (public car) back to our “base”. When he called to mention his displeasure, he  used the race card after watching his white supervisor get a car in minutes and got the “oh gosh gee wilikers look.” I had a meeting today at 8:30 and called a day in advance to get a ride at 7:30. I did not get a ride until 9:30 an hour after the meeting starting. Meanwhile the white dude who came for the week with his 2 white guests had a car at the door waiting for them when they needed the ride.  It took me all day to calm down let it ride off my back. 

Maybe “Blan Joel” isn’t so blan after all. 

Last night my job had a small get together for one of the staff that was leaving to pursue a PhD. It was a small gathering and everyone went around in a circle saying feel good things. After that we all enjoyed cold Prestige beers and Barbancourt rum. I had a few and was enjoying myself and the cool Cange breeze. While talking to some of my coworkers I noticed a group of people almost carrying a woman who could barely stay on her feet.  One of my coworkers ran to go help and we all followed her. Someone brought a stretcher and we ended up carrying her to the ER and then a doctor came and started taking her blood pressure. It turns out that this woman is in the VERY late stages of breast cancer. She came from St. Marc, which is about a 3 hour drive to Cange to get seen. Anyone who has family that has had any form of cancer knows the importance of catching it early. This woman will probably die because of lack of knowledge and access. Sometimes you see patients here that have illness or injuries that you know aren’t supposed to go unnoticed for long. Here, not the case at all.

At this party I attended, one of the bigger bosses of the org was there with his son. Young kid, in college doing his thing. He had on some shiny new puma kicks that I complimented him on. This guy who is a head honcho at the org is one of like 17 kids and he’s done pretty well for himself. His younger brother works at the house I live in as what we call in Haiti “guardian or gason lakou”. His job is to receive people that come, run errands, lift heavy anything and kind of maintain “order”.  Anyways, this guy is very poor. When you first look at him your first inclination is to head for the hills. His eyes are always red; he is missing his 2 front teeth and has a staring problem.  However, he a really nice dude and loves his wife and 4 kids very much. His kids are around the house sometimes and they are all cute and polite. He loves to talk about them, how smart they are and how he will do anything to make sure they finish school.  For me it was just a shock to realize how differently these 2 brothers live.

Dos Bwa Rouge

Last Saturday I participated in mobile clinic with visiting residents from the US, DRC, Rwanda and Port au Prince in an area called Dos Bwa Rouge. “Dos Bwa Rouge” means the back of red trees or the back of red wood. Either way that shit was far. I was asked to go on Friday to help with translating and anything else I could do. The next morning I came down to breakfast with a button down shirt, khakis, shoes and my glasses. When I got to breakfast a co-worker of mine looks at me and whispers “Um, there’s a short hike to the area we’re going to”. “Short hike” I ask? The head doctor of the org I work for tells me it’s about a 2-3 hour hike both ways. WTF? So I went back and put on shorts, a tee shirt, sneakers and contacts. So there were about 30 of us so we all went in this huge bus that the org owns. Man, just like me this bus was not ready for all of this. Once we got past the paved road in Lascahobas, we were on all types of jacked up back roads. We got to this one stream and try to cross it, uh yeah no.

The driver tells us we have to get off the bus. So I get out and land straight in a stream of water. My feet were soaked and it pretty much set the precedent for the rest of my day.  We all pushed the bus and we kept going. 10 min later this happens:

We all decided it would be best to just hike the rest of the way.

Man oh man. I’ve hiked before, but this was by far the hardest shit I’ve ever done. It’s not so much the distance, but the sun. The sun in Haiti is oppressive. Haiti is not the hottest place I’ve ever been to. The winner to that is Mali. But, let me tell you Haiti is like 1.b. Here it’s all about the sun. It will always find you. You could be chillin’ under the shade, but the sun knows you have to come over eventually.  Someone brought up “You know these people have to make this hike everyday”. I did not see a single Haitian person hiking up that God damn hill when we were hiking it. We decided to start hiking at 10am which is when the sun is doing pushups.  At one point one woman who has comfortably sitting under a tree saw my tall, pale and white coworker struggling up the mountain. She goes “the sun is going to kill that white man.” Finally we get up to Dos Bwa Rouge where the community was waiting for us.  It seems that Haitians will always tell you “Doc, I have pain here” pointing under the center of their chest. Gas. Then you’ll have the occasional 87 year old women saying “My entire body hurts”. I’m 28 and my entire body hurts and you work 5 xs as hard as me.  Then you have the very serious issues – an 8 year old boy with reoccurring malnutrition or a VERY pregnant woman who is about to pop and hasn’t seen a doctor once. Despite the varieties of issues that people in Haiti have, they all have a crazy sense of humor.   Towards the end of the day the visiting residents asked for some water since they’d been working nonstop. Unfortunately, we ran out of water and ad to find an alternative. The doctor that was running the mobile clinic asked a man if the town had a store that sold water. Here’s how that conversation went down:

Doctor: Hey, do you guys sell water here?

Man: We do, but we’re out of bottle water. We only have treated water.

Doctor: (long pause) what about soft drinks?

Man: Yeah, I can get you soft drinks.

Doctor: Alright, bring me the soft drinks. Are they cold?

Man: Yeah, they’re room temperature.

Doctor: Alright great!

10 minutes alter this dude comes back with a case of HOT ASS soft drinks that ranged from strawberry soda to Malt beverages (Malta) all in dusty ass bottles. The doctor and I looked at each other. I had one bottle of water left in my back pack. I put my hand on the bag just feeling it there made the thirst go away.  On the way down I turned to greet some women who carrying plantains on their head and rolled my ankle on a rock.

24

 Since I finished “The Wire” I’ve now moved on to “24”. That’s like from drinking fresh squeezed orange juicy to drinking sunny delight because it’s on sale. I don’t want to say its bad show, but the craziness of it refuses me from calling it good.  The wire was a total cerebral experience, 24 hurts my eyes once I’m done watching it.  The best part about 24 is that my roommate is into it as well. He dubs it in French and actually finished season one last night. His reactions are the absolute best. Watching him spaz out in the corner because Jack’s stupid ass (but fly) daughter does some dumb ass shit that puts the entire family in danger is priceless. I think after season one I am going to take a time out from 24.  Next show up, Boardwalk Empire. 

South of Haiti –

Beautiful, clean, paved streets and beaches for days.  This country is a gold mine and I hope that gets recognized.  Being there made me realize that despite the hectic and stressful life in Haiti, Haitians have easier access to leisure than Americans.  You’re always an hour or more drive away from a pristine beach or picturesque mountain top.  Port Salut was so nice. A hidden gem in the Caribbean, which with a little more love can develop into tourist attraction.

Hurricane Emily is coming towards Haiti. As I write this we are in alert orange. People here are like (shrugs) when you tell them.  When I was interviewing for my gig in Haiti someone asked me “What frustrates you the most about Haitian people?” I answered the complacency. We role with the punches too much.  My first time here after the earthquake was in March 2010. I saw a lot of crazy things. However, the thing that bothered me the most wasn’t anything crazy. I was driving and we get to a curb and there is a house learning over. It hadn’t really feel yet, but it was just there. Looking at it automatically I knew that it was going to stay that way until it fell over. No one would come and demolish it. It made me so mad. It represents what I like the least about Haitians - Rolling with the punches.  Last week I was getting a ride down to PaP by a friend of mine who works on water projects.  He has lived in NYC in past, but came back to Haiti (as most Haitians do). He explained that a lot of people who come to Haiti, specifically the Diaspora are always shocked when they first leave the airport. When you first walk out the PaP airport you get a jolt of, I dunno, DAMN. It’s hot; people are looking at you, maybe asking you for something, it’s dusty and sometimes the smell over takes your nose.  So people who aren’t used to coming here are in a sense shocked.  So my friend was explaining that people always ask “My God, how can you deal with the smell, the tents, the distruction, etc.” He replied with “Picture yourself in a room with a toilet that can’t flush. At some point you’re gonna have to take a dump. When you take it it’s going to smell and that smell will take over the room. You’re going to hate that smell and probably cover your noise. However, after a while you will get used to it. Now when other people come into that room and start complaining, you’ll look at them and wonder ‘what the hell is wrong with these people”. Life goes on. People still have to get up in the morning and do whatever it is they do.

I see so much and I don’t know how to express it at times. It can be people sitting on the road chillin as cars speed by. It can be me dropping someone off so they can take a canoe taxi to a motor taxi to get home. It can the sunset in Cange or the trash in Mirebalais – sometimes I just don’t have words for what I see. I am  a lot more comfortable with the people in my job. I crack jokes on the people I live and work with. I understand it when my roommate’s talks fast as hell and don’t have to ask for him to repeat.    The experience is getting better and I am getting in deep.   I’ve been taking more pictures, but uploading them with this sorry excuse for internet service is tough.  

The Wire is the best show ever

One thing that has been HOLDING ME DOWN has been The Wire. That right there is the best television series I have ever watched.  I can already tell I am going to miss the characters when it’s over.  What is unfortunate is that I have seen the last episode already. I watched it at a friend’s house when we used to study together.  I don’t even want to get to deep into it because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Regardless, that is a dope show. Any suggestions on what other television series I should start watching? Next in line, 24.

R.I.P. to the majority of my clothing

I am very lucky and almost spoiled by how the cooking and cleaning staff treats me at our sites. I get delicious food daily, my room cleaned, my bed made and my clothes washed. With that said my clothes can’t hang with the sweet laundry woman.  My clothes are suffering a slow and painful death. T-shirts are starting to look like night gowns, boxers are expanding in size like whoa and my pants get these red stains that I can’t describe.   I guess it’s the hand washing or the soap that they use. My v-necks can’t hang. My wife beaters are coming to my knees and just look sad. At least they’re clean though.

Everything is Politics

Politically, things are not that great. The parliament has rejected the new presidents 2^nd prime minister candidate. So it’s been over 3 months and nothing positive has happened since Martelly was inaugurated. People are frustrated and just want forward progress.  I read an article on the famine in Somalia that was very sad. It was a reminder to me that there are other dire situations out there, some just as bad as or worse than Haiti.  One line that struck me from the article was from a representative from the American Refugee Committee “If this were Haiti, we would have dozens of people on the ground by now,” Right on the money. There are ton of groups in Haiti doing all kinds of different projects. Many are here for spring break and the loot. However, many are here to help.  Regardless of all the different actors in Haiti, it’s up to the Haitian people who I believe are very capable, to change what is going on. 

First haircut in rural Haiti

I was looking like who shot ya and needed a haircut badly. I went to this barbershop that is made from plywood across the street from the main campus which in the middle of no where. For about 2 us bucks I got a pretty solid haircut. My only complaint was the job they did on mustache and beard. I came out look like someone named Jean Marie Joseph Francoise Leroy.  

Back in Haiti - It’s officially rainy season now, but according to many people here it’s been the driest rainy season ever.  When it rains, it feels like the sky is falling. While I was gone for my mandatory week off, it rarely rained in Haiti.  My last mandatory week off was in the Dominican Republic. This time I took Diaspora self back to NYC.  I needed it so bad. The month of April was very tough.  Work wise it was hectic as always, but the ORG was going through some turmoil.

I got to spend Saturday and Sunday in PaP for mother’s day.  Getting down to PaP from Cange was the hardest thing to do.  I now know that when I am allowed to spend weekends in the capital to ask to leave on Fridays. Saturdays are impossible. When I was in the parking lot begging for a ride, this one girl who speaks English goes to me “You’re not a real blan”. “Blan” in kreyol means white person. A lot of people call me blan here because I am an American. Back in the day it used to upset me, but it doesn’t anymore. I am a blan. I’m a gringo.  However, I don’t think I fall in the same category as the other “blans”.   The reason this girl said that is because she feels that the white Americans who work for the org get whatever they ask for. If they need a ride to the moon, a NASA rocket ship will probably land in the parking lot. I guess she felt that the same rules don’t apply to me.  You know a lot of the places I’ve worked for have had major issues in dealing with race.  It’s always the same thing, not enough people of color on staff.  Besides the Haitians that we work with, I am the only Black person. Not just Haitian American, but the only Black dude. It was brought to my attention lately and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I think the person who brought it to my attention wanted me be just as concerned about this as they were. I am and I noticed it the minute I walked through the door. However, I guess I am just used to it. Everywhere I have been professionally (school, work), I am usually one of the very few black people let alone person of color.   What concerns me the most about this is that right here in Haiti, where my family, my people are from, this doesn’t enrage me. It bothers me. I bring it up to my friends and family all the time. But, I am not raising hell because of it. I wonder why? I personally think it’s because I am the rookie here. Despite my background, the majority of the ex-pat staff I work with has been here for at least 2 yrs.

Mud Cookies for Everyone

So in 2008 the global prices of food went through the roof and many people across the world were hit hard by this. Those from the poorest countries were hit the hardest. The news focuses these hardships primarily through the lens of Haitians.  I wrote an article on this in Jan. 2009 for my last job. I mentioned how these mud cookies were the wave of US news. Anyway, the region I currently work in is where these mud cookies are produced.  You can see them being made when driving down Route Nationale #3.  In 2008 these cookies made front page of everything from the NYTimes to MSNBC.  The common theme was “Haitians eat mud cookies to survive”. Let’s not kid ourselves; Haiti is an extremely poor country. When I visit certain parts of Haiti for work I ask myself, “how do these people survive?” Haitians are used to hardship and suffering. However, Haitians aren’t animals. Haitians don’t eat dirt cookies JUST because there is nothing else to eat.  They way these cookies are sold are the same way anything else in the market place is sold. You can buy $2 worth of cookies the same way you can buy $2 worth of bread. The other day I was translating a document from Kreyol to English and one of the phrase said something like “Such and such makes me crave dirt”.  So I didn’t understand the written word “dirt” in kreyol which is “te” (pronounced teh). So I ask one of the cooks at one of the sites she broke it down for me. So I asked:

Me: “People crave mud cookies?”

Cook: “yeah they do especially pregnant women.

Me: Wait, Wait…So wait you just want to eat dirt sometimes?

Cook: Not anymore, but when I was pregnant I did all the time.

Cook 2: (chiming in) yeah me too.

Me: So people don’t just eat it because they are poor and having nothing else to eat?

<Cooks look at each other; look at me and then response at the same time>

Cooks: I don’t think so

This article that I found in online and remember reading years ago (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22902512/ns/world_news-americas/t/haitis-poor-resort-eating-mud-prices-rise/) mentions how some pregnant women “The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium.” But then the rest is your typical poor ol’ Haitians rhetoric that everyone and their mama buy into.

This is idea of Haiti being nothing more than a poor and unsafe country I feel like is a theme that runs though certain NGOs. It offends the sh*t out of me. There are many NGOs here that go above and beyond in terms of helping. While Haiti is poor and at times not very safe it is not the border of the Israel and the West Bank. I think that certain NGOs view it this way and it runs down through the chain. But, then you have other NGOs that see Haiti as the Cancun of the humanitarian world. It seems as though all they take advantage of the night life in Port-au-Prince and the beaches of Jacmel.  Absolute mess.  The idea would be to strike a happy medium, but where you favor more to the side of good work.

 I am currently writing from my desk in Mirebalais where I am based.  It’s raining like CRAZY and the water is actually seeping into where I live. I think I have fully transitioned from the mountains of Cange to the more hustle and bustle of Mirebalais.  Mirebalais has its own chaos where people are constantly moving from point A to point B.  The block I live on is right next to HUGE Jehovah’s Witness house and down the block from the marketplace.  All day long you hear people on moto taxi’s honking, goats’ baaahing and just people talking all types of shit.  I like it here better than Cange because despite Cange’s beauty, it’s isolated and claustrophobic.  Last night I spent the night in Cange because I had to see a patient.  The patient was this 14 year old kid who broke his femur bone playing soccer in this joint program my org has with another one.  We provide free health care for the kids in the program and day one this kid breaks his femur bone.  I wanted to check in on him and his mom to make sure they were being seen and that they were in good spirits.  I ended up spending the night because 2 of my friends live in Cange and they are leaving in May.  As I have mentioned before they are my 2 ex-pat friends and are mad cool.  It will be sad to see them go, but I think I’ve been preparing for it by not staying in Cange as much and trying to get used to being around Haitians 24/7. This has helped me really get used to working and living in Haiti full time.  I have been here for about 10 weeks, which is already 2 weeks longer than I’ve ever been in Haiti.  As a kid I would spend my summers here once school was out. School would be out June 21 and June 22 I’d be Haiti bound.    I’d spend my 8 weeks with family and when it was time to leave I’d cry my ass off. 

Working and living here is different ball game, but I’m enjoying it.  However, for the last 3 weeks or so I have been on the move a lot.  I was in the Dominican Republic for my week off and when I came back the amount of work to do was intense.   The org works closely with a band Fire Crotch (not real name).  They came for 4 days and while they were cool it was still exhausting to take them around.  Their music is folksy rock? I had never heard of them before and I’m not into that type of music, but they were good.  They were also pretty chill and didn’t act like superstars even though they apparently are popular in the states and Canada (even though I have no clue who they were).  The first day they were here, I got to see them play live at one of the more posh hotels in Port au Prince called the Olofson. This is one of the oldest hotels in Port-Au-Prince and has an old colonial feel to it.  The high up you go the doper the view of PaP gets.  Anyways it was a weird scene because the majority of the people there were expats.  It almost didn’t feel like I was in Haiti at that point, it felt more like Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

Mad Ex-pat hipsters screaming to Fire Crotch’s music.  It was really weird vibe and then after 2 rum punches, I pretty much pretended I was at a show in Williamsburg.

People go around and it’s basically “where you from, what org do you work for and what do they do?” It was really weird going around asking people that question all night long.  It had the feeling of people just being here partying it up.  Every Thursday the Oloffson has this Haitian band called Ram play. The music is dope, but the Oloffson is tailored to rich Haitians and Ex-Pats. They are the ones who can afford the cover and the price of the drinks, me included.  Since I live in the Central Plateau, this type of lifestyle was new to me.  

The next day I was up at 5am to catch a ride back to the Central Plateau. I basically got about 3 hours of sleep and had a ton of work to do and meetings to attend. Working on 3 hours sleep in NYC is not the same as working on 3 hours sleep in Haiti.  I can’t function on 3 hours sleep in Haiti.  I was a zombie.  The rest of the week we took Fire Crotch around to play in random sights.  Let me tell you, people in the US and Canada like folksy rock music. Haiti……yeah not so much.  It was kind of cool to see this popular award winning band play in middle of nowhere Haiti and have people just staring at them.  They were good sports about it found ways to get people like at least clap their hands.  The last night they were in Haiti, they played at the main headquarters in Cange. I think that night has been the best night I’ve had in Haiti so far.  They built a stage for Fire Crotch and Ram.  First Fire Crotch played first and the Ram came on. Fire Crotch was cool, but when Ram came on people lost their minds in an orderly fashion for the most part. Ram plays kind of music called Rah Rah which has ties to Haitian roots music. Kind of like roots reggae but way more hyped up.  The next morning reality hit in and I had to get back on my grind.

After Fire Crotch left, I had to get prepared for my trip to Miami for a Sustainable Haiti conference.  Rural Haiti —-à South Beach, crazy transition.  The convention was really good for 2 of the 3 days.  I met a lot of dope groups that wish to do great work in Haiti.  It’s a good thing and a bad thing.  There are too many groups and people in Haiti who have some great idea they want to implement in Haiti. While many of the ideas are fantastic, Haiti doesn’t need a ton of people forcing their ideas on them.   Many different groups had great ideas on sustainable agriculture that I really want my org to work with. But, to get real shit done you need to hit up the Minister of Agriculture and be like wassup killa? How about we make a plan and stick to it papi (or mami). Foreigners can’t be ones to come in and implement these ideas; the Haitian government needs to step their game up. Speaking of which Haiti has a new president, Michel Joseph Martelly aka “Sweet Micky”. He’s a former musician turned president. He called me on both of my phones today to thank me for voting for him. His campaigning was sick and people bought it. I hope he’s real.

What else was dope about South Beach? My king size bed in my hotel room. I have GOT to get one of those when the time comes. 

I got back from Miami and transitioned back into Rural Haiti again. Last weekend I was in PaP for a funeral. I ended up spending the weekend with family, but also got to go out a bit. While PaP is inundated with NGOs, it’s still a fun place.  Haiti is a wild place man.  Being here has made me realize how small this place actually is.  Tuesday I was in Cange visiting a patient and while I was eating breakfast one of the doctors told me he saw me on Saturday in front of the church. I was like you sure it was me? He was like “oh yeah – you were look sharp and serious in your suit.” Seriously, there is no hiding here. 

Things that I don’t like about the gig that have nothing to do with the actual work

Yo, for the most part the job is pretty solid.  The work is challenging, I am meeting great people and I feel hopeful that positive things are happening in the central plateau of Haiti.  I like the fact that I am working with Haitians who trying VERY HARD to make best of a difficult situation. I think the org I work for is gangster. We aren’t perfect, but lord knows what would happen if the org just decided to get up and bounce.  While my time so far here has been good, there are certain things I wish I could like change that have nothing to do with the actual work.  Being an ex-pat in a country that is considered unstable, my mobility is very limited. I can’t move around without rides.  Getting a ride here is like pulling teeth. There is a hustle to it.  You call the dispatch and then a car will pick you up and take you where you need to go. You become friends with the drivers and get their numbers so they can hook you up.  Some are cool, some a dick heads.  I am not allowed to be on road from Mirebalais to PaP after 8[m and I am on lockdown after 11pm, 7 days a week.  I understand this is all for my safety, because if something were to happen to me it would be ugly. It can just be kind of annoying at times when I want to be somewhere and at times can’t because I am on lock down.  I feel like bubble boy sometimes.  When the weekend comes my Haitian colleagues break out for the weekend.  They either go to where they are from or to PaP. I usually head to Cange to chill with the 2 dudes who are expats that I’ve become tight with.  The problem is that they leave in May.  Honestly, once they are gone I won’t really want to be in the Central Plateau every weekend with my thumb up my ass.  My other coworkers are cool, but I don’t have much in common with all of them like the other 2 dudes.  So an option would be to hit up PaP and chill with family and stuff.  I also plan on taking driving lessons to learn to drive stick.  My pops has a ride in PaP and I would WHIP the hell out of.  But, again it’s not that easy to just be able to go away for the weekends.  It would depend on work load and security all of which is very understandable.

My camera broke so yeah…about those pictures.  I have some on my computer, but laziness works the same way in Haiti as it did in NYC