Pheelin' eerie in Haiti

Source-a-Philippe Community Library Project

2008-06-10T13:33:00.019-05:00

My name is Amy and I went to Source-a-Philippe in March 2008 to facilitate communication between Joe & Shirley Edgerton, two GBGM long-term volunteers, and the community. I taught English and French classes to adults and schoolchildren for a period of two and a half months. In Haiti, everybody speaks Creole, but only the educated speak French, which is the language of the school system. In Source-a-Philippe, only a handful of people speak French, and the students are struggling. It is difficult to learn material taught in a foreign language you can barely understand, let alone speak. While getting to know my students, I came to the conclusion that a major obstacle to their progress in French was this: in Source-a-Philippe, there are practically no books. Unless you count the occasional textbook, a collection of which are safely stashed away out of the hands of children, who associate the word livre (book) with the word étudier (to study), and not lire (to read).

Everyone deserves to have access to books. The people on la Gonave don't. It was from this frustration that the idea for a library was born. I left all the books I had taken with me to Haiti behind, even though almost none of them were appropriate (mosly English grammar/teaching books and dictionaries, just a few fiction books in English and only one in French). Here they are:

It's not much, but it's a start. Since I got back from Haiti in May, I've been looking for ways to find a way to get some books to the island. There are a few obstacles. First of all, I don't believe that any books are better than no books. Books in English wouldn't be appropriate. Few people speak English well enough to read, and reading in a foreign language takes a high skill level to be enjoyable (trust me on this one). We need books in French and Creole.

Second of all, shipping is complicated: there is no mail service on the island. Fortunately, teams from the US travel there once every few months and can take shipments of books with them.

How can we get appropriate, educational, interesting books that inspire people who have never picked up a book to read for pleasure before? I have started a wish list at Amazon:

Amazon.com Wish List
The wish list is sorted by "date added" by default. Select "priority" on the drop-down menu to have the highest priority items shown first.

You can pick the book you want to send to the library project. Used books are acceptable! It will be mailed to me, and I will prepare it to be sent to Source-a-Philippe, where it will be added to the collection that is being born.

You can also donate directly through paypal. Direct donations will be used for library materials as well as books in Creole purchased through other websites. I'll send you the receipt for the purchase.

You can browse the library catalog here.

Thanks for your support.

Caught in riots

2008-04-13T10:28:00.009-05:00

To clear up some confusion: This entry is about the week Antoine and I spent on the mainland of Haiti. We are still in Haiti, but we have returned to the island of la Gonave.

The full set of pictures and videos is available here.
Antoine's version of the events is available here (French).

Hello everyone,
I don't know if you've been following the international press over the last week or so. If you have, you might have some idea of what 30 of the world's countries (and, by extension, me) have been going through. Essentially, food prices have skyrocketed in recent months, and people can't afford to eat. The people are reaching their desperation point, and their frustration and hunger are culminating in protests and riots.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it just happened to be the weekend that Antoine and I decided to take a few days off on the mainland. We took a three-hour boat ride on Thursday morning, accompanied by people, goats, chickens, charcoal, and dolphins. We took a tap-tap (Haitian public transportation: trucks where you tap on the side with a coin to be let off) to from Miragoane (port town) to Petit Goave. We ate at Wesner's (whose birthday I wrote about in my last entry) family's house that night. It was nice but somewhat awkward when we realized he had thought we would be staying with him all weekend.

We went back to Dale's house (50-something expat who has been living in Haiti off and on for years, doing humanitarian work/business).The ocean in the front yard was slightly less beautiful when I woke up _covered_ in mosquito bites. Wesner picked us up on his motorcycle and we went to attend one of his English classes, where he invited me to improvise the end of his lesson on the passive voice. We went downtown to have some spaghetti for breakfast (not unusual) at a small restaurant/shop called Entre Nous in downtown Petit Goave. Midway through the meal, the restaurant owner started bringing in signs and things from outside because of une manifestation that was supposed to be going on that day. Sweet, I thought, this could be interesting. After a while we started hearing drums and chanting coming down the street. We were strongly encouraged to come outside and watch by the restaurant owner, who assured us that it was a peaceful protest. We observed somewhat nervously, but didn't sense any animosity. Suddenly, the direction of the crowd changed, and everyone started running down the street. We made a beeline to go back inside, but a big friend of the restaurant urged us to come back out, saying he wanted us to see this and promising that it was 100% safe. We went back outside, halfway reassured, making ourselves as small as possible, ready to lunge for the door if necessary. I could not resist the urge to take a picture, just one, of what was happening in front of me.

We started to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into.

Wesner came and picked us up from the restaurant and we went to school with him. He arrived to find only seven of his students there; the rest of the class hadn't come because of the manifestations. We improvised an oral comprehension/expression class and enjoyed talking with the students, as shy as they were. Wesner took us to his cousin's minuscule radio station on the way home, where I learned that when someone asks me if I am Christian, I should just say yes.

Afterwards, we went back to Dale's and had an aperitif, and Antoine made dinner between two power outages. In the city of Les Cayes that day, the manifestations had caused two deaths and 20 injuries.

Saturday the 5th
We wake up feeling lazy about making breakfast, so we head back to the restaurant from the day before. The atmosphere is icy, and we sit and wait for 20 minutes without being addressed, while other people come in and are served. We slink out, mystified, taking a roll of rope that Dale was hoping to sell. We are rejected at three different hardware stores, without the owners even asking about the price. We are more and more baffled, and we begin to notice that people in the street are not acting as friendly as usual. Antoine and I decided to go home, and the motorcycle taxi cost us almost twice as much as usual. By this time Antoine and I had exchanged so many wide-eyed looks of "what is going on?" that we decided to hide out around Dale's until things were back to normal. We decided to eat at the hotel next to Dale's house, where we had gotten some change the day before.

The hotel is like a palace. Everything is pristine, from the delicately paved entry path to the beautiful columns to the pool to the peacocks strutting around. There was just one thing: the place was deserted, not a guest in sight. We found a group of uniformed people sitting around near the (empty) bar area, and asked if the restaurant was open. A girl got up and mumbled the menu as we walked over to the tables: goat, fish, something or something. We ordered goat. We were still marveling over the events of the day and the bizarre, ghost-like atmosphere of the hotel half an hour later when she brought us coffee and bread and butter. Another half hour later, she brought us our food: good, but nothing extraordinary. We ate, while three cats meowed underfoot. The bill arrived, and we had a hard time believing our eyes, but that's what vacation is for, right? ... and after all, it only came out to about $24.

As we were walking out, a white 4x4 marked "Medecins du monde" was driving in. We stopped to talk to the driver, who Dale knew (no surprise). That's how we met Nicolas, a Swiss nurse who has been working for an NGO in Haiti for a month. We invited him over for a drink, and he showed up later. We spent the evening enjoying a rare cold beer and fresh mangoes gathered from the yard, talking and contemplating the shore.

Nicolas invites us to go to the beach and eat at a restaurant owned by a Corsican the next day.

Sunday the 6th
In the morning we visit the Cuban doctors, who give me antibiotics and anti inflammatory drugs for the second mysterious horribly painful ear infection I've had since I've been in Haiti (hey, at least it's not malaria).

We leave for Taina Beach with Nicolas around 10:30am, crossing paths with a UN convoy on the way (Antoine's photo). The beach is exquisite and entirely deserted. It is eerie to see such a beautiful place so empty. Antoine and Nicolas go snorkeling while I lay in the sun feeling sorry for myself. Afterwards, we eat at Villa Taina, the restaurant run by the Corsican. It was an amazing meal and a fabulous time, and I even got in 20 minutes of internet, where I saw that the food demonstrations were in the international news.

Monday the 7th
We wake up and wander over to the Fort Royal hotel for a coffee. Having learned our lesson from the last meal we ate there, we asked the price of the coffee first. 110 gourdes, or about $3.25, seemed far too high to Dale, and he told us we shouldn't order it at all. We ordered anyway. As we were finishing our coffee, we hear raised voices, and look over to see the owner ordering angrily ordering Dale out of the hotel and telling him never to come back. We quickly followed, and Dale informed us that the owner hadn't appreciated his commentary on the price of the coffee.
We went back to Dale's while he went to see the Cuban doctors about something. While he was gone, three men came to the house and informed us that Dale was being evicted and he had 3 hours to permanently vacate the premises. Important detail: the hotel owner was also Dale's landlord. We were beginning to think that Dale's appearance on the Haitian market was not appreciated by the gangsters who run things, and that they were out for him.
I was officially scared, and started making phone calls to find a place to go to immediately. I called Shirley, who told me to call the Methodist guest house in Petit Goave. It took some convincing but in half an hour we were in the Methodist "compound" without Dale, who hadn't come back to the house before we left. We were worried about him. We could hear the protest beginning downtown. Other cities were beginning to join the movement, several people had been killed and many injured. The roads were entirely blocked, yet we were supposed to go back to Miragoane to take a boat home the next day.

Tuesday the 8th
In the morning, we learned that the situation was getting worse. The roads were still totally blocked and there was no hope of getting back to la Gonave anytime soon. Around 3 o'clock, we noticed a pillar of thick black smoke about fifty yards away, near the UN stabilization force (MINUSTAH) and the police station. We listen as the protest comes closer and closer, we could hear voices, shouting, singing, chanting, drums... We were staying away from windows, but we could see the crowd moving toward the UN post. We listened for a while, then the gunfire started. We locked the doors and windows in a hurry and hid out in the stairway with Pastor Maude, her two nephews, the cook, and our friends from Source a Philippe Wesland and Enickson.The shots continued for about 20 minutes, then things calmed down.
The electricity was off, our phones were running out of battery, and we had no idea how we were going to get back to la Gonave. Shirley was trying to find a flyboat to come pick us up, to no avail. We were acutely aware that the color of our skin probably wouldn't play in our favor if we went outside, that we represented the rich countries keeping places like Haiti in poverty.
Nicolas called us with the number of the MINUSTAH who is responsible for emergency evacuations, a comforting contact to have. Antoine called the French embassy and was told that Haiti was used to this type of thing and that no evacuations were being planned (except for officials that is. hmph). We had fallen into a comfortable rhythm with Maude and her family.

Wednesday the 9th
We spend the morning trying to find a way home. Plan after plan falls through, fishing boats and boats of friends of friends. Finally Shirley comes through: a flyboat borrowed from Point-a-Raquette with a motor borrowed from Port de Bonheur would come pick us up from the beach by Dale's house, only a few hundred yards away, the next morning at sunrise. Sweet.
We still had to make it through the day, though. The kids filled us in on the word in the street: the protesters were planning on attacking the MINUSTAH, next to where we were staying. Around 3:30, the pillars of smoke appeared, and we could hear the protest coming towards us. It wasn't long before the gunfire started again, so loud, so close, seemingly from all sides. People had jumped over the walls of the compound and we could hear voices around the house; we worried that they would want to break in to have a better shot from the second floor balcony, and I started wishing we had something to defend ourselves with. I tried not to seem too scared for the kids' sake, and we actually played dominoes for a while on the stairs, but Antoine blew our not-scared cover by getting up to run around in a panic every three minutes. The gunfire lasted for half an hour, and things started calming down.

The total lack of electricity made communication virtually impossible, but thankfully Wesland, Wesner and Enickson were there to help us and let us use their phones. We confirmed the plan: Joe would come in the morning with Wilsener and Lulu driving the boat and they would pick us up at 5am at Dale's beach. Wesner would come over at 4:30am to drive Antoine and I there on his motorcycle, and Dale would wait at his next door neighbor's house to flag down the boat with a flashlight, we'd jump in the boat and speed to safety. Our confidence in the plan melted away when Shirley told us the boat captain had asked for money to eat breakfast in Petit Goave (!!!) but there was no choice but to go forward.

We go to bed in our separate rooms, hoping everything would happen as we hoped the next morning... we felt afraid for our lives outside the compound.

Thursday the 10th
I wake up before my alarm to the sound of pouring rain. Shirley calls to tell us there is too much wind and the boat won't be leaving la Gonave until 5am instead of 3am as they originally planned, which meant we would have to get to the beach in broad daylight. We hadn't had electricity at all that night, the phones were out of batteries, Enickson and Wesland went down to the beach to wait for the boat, Wesner waited with us at the house. We figured the boat would show up around 6am. At 6:30 it still wasn't there and the captain wasn't answering his phone. 7 o'clock came and went and finally the captain called. 20 minutes later the boat was on the beach, we said our goodbyes to Pastor Maude, the little boys and Vinite, and got on Wesner's motorcycle. The drive to the beach was only a few minutes, but we were afraid someone would stop us, wanting to know where we were going, or worse. We got to the beach, and were slightly nervous to see people standing around watching. Antoine leaped into the boat like the devil was on his tail. I followed, and the captains almost left without Dale, who was dragging his suitcase down the path. He hopped in like the ex military man that he is, cast and all. The captain started the motor, and we waved at our friends on the shore, feeling horrible that they could not come with us (the captain had said six people maximum, and as much as we wanted to bring them home, we knew Dale was in much greater danger than they were). They waved back, and so did the other people on the beach - something we weren't expecting. We had reached the point where all Haitians posed a threat to us, where they all represented the angry protesters throwing rocks and firing guns at the UN soldiers. I felt silly for being afraid of those fishermen.

Pulling away from the shore with that powerful motor in the gray morning light, the mountains rising out of the sea seemed so peaceful. I watched as they faded into the overcast sky, and tried to control my emotions. We didn't talk on the way home, the motor drowning out all efforts. We were back to Source a Philippe in about 2 hours, there were a bunch of people waiting for us on the dock, Shirley had tears in her eyes, and it was all around just a hallmark moment.

It's now Sunday the 13th, it has taken me three days to write all of this down, and Enickson and Wesland are still on the mainland. They are supposed to try to make it to Miragoane today (Sundays are generally calmer than other days during protests) and they will take a boat to la Gonave tomorrow.

PS. If you've read this far, I expect comments for my hours of effort writing this stupid post. Thanks ^_^

Birthday Present

2008-03-23T20:27:00.002-05:00

Right now I can hear music; this must be the last night of the rara. I was going to take a shower, but it’s dark and there will be cockroaches. My mom was worried about people peeking while I showered, but that would be the least of my problems, between the giant cockroaches, leaping lizards, and the tiny little wormy things in the shower water.... yeah, and you think that's bad, how about anonymous rodents leaving their leftovers in our bedroom? Oddly enough it's really not that bad, at least not as bad as it might sound.

Today Shirley was preaching in Dieulese. Antoine and I rode along, as well as Joe (Shirley’s husband), Vilien (driver) and Fequiere (interpreter). An hour of rocky road led us into the mountains, where the air is cooler and everything is greener. We parked in the road in front of the preacher’s house, because even if there were a place to park, there is no traffic to speak of. We were led into a beautiful sanctuary-like place, so clean, so peaceful, with flowers and plants and no free-range livestock wandering around pooping everywhere and making their barnyard racket. We had coffee and then went to church. Antoine and I sat in the back and observed. People get up and sing, and at one point a group of 7 or 8 young men got up and sang a cappella, it was awesome. Afterwards, we had lunch at the pastor’s house (whole fried fish, sweet potato, plaintain, beets, and the usual rice and beans). I usually take forever to eat fried fish, getting the bones out and everything, but Faquiere (Fakeer) showed us how to do it – no messing around with bones, just bite and chew, head and all. Then on the way home we got into a veritable race with some donkeys, who sprinted ahead of the truck for ages, refusing to get out of the freaking way.

Tonight a guy named Wesler (he's about 30) is leaving, he was in my English class but only for a few weeks, because he's a teacher and vacation is almost over. He’s actually an English teacher on the mainland, and he was probably the most advanced student I had. I was flipping through his English notebook on Friday, just reading the notes he had taken in class and on his own, and in it, he had written about his birthday. He wrote that he had never had a birthday party, and that one day he would like to have one. He was going to have one one year, but his grandfather died a few weeks before and his father died a week before, so he didn't get to. The last line was "I hope I’ll have a birthday party someday and that it will be wonderful." It really got to me, especially because his birthday is tomorrow. So I wrapped up one of my books (a book of American idioms) in disposable toilet seat covers that the team left, and decorated it with some kid stickers, left by the team in Anse a Galets. When he came to say goodbye, we talked for a while, and I went to get it. When I came back out, I said, "it's your birthday tomorrow, right?" and then he saw the gift and his lips started shaking, and I had to ask him again before he answered. He quickly composed himself, but to see him react that way, especially someone who is normally extremely calm, I know that he was so touched, and then I felt just wonderful and wanted to cry, but I made him promise not to open it until tomorrow and shook his hand goodbye and Antoine and I promised to come visit in April. I hope he likes it.

First taste of Rara

2008-03-22T11:11:00.004-05:00

This week is "la periode sainte" in Haiti. Holy week is full of religious celebrations which are polarized into the Church side and the Rara side. Raras are (voodoo) celebrations with drums/music, singing and dancing which can last well into the night, and the church tolerates them but does not appreciate them. Several people explained to me that the rara tradition began when Jesus was crucified, and people danced and sang in the streets to celebrate his death. Dancers can be "mounted" by the loa, voodoo spirits, who possess them, communicate through them, and make them do things. This said, I haven't felt anything sinister about the rara, just people dancing and singing and playing drums, moving from place to place in the village. I think I've only seen the tip of the iceberg though.

Anyway, Sunday night, there was a rara going on, and my curiosity must have been sensed, because four girls who were hanging around the guest house led me down to it. I was nervous about going, because I wasn't sure if I was really truly invited. I would hesitate and they would giggle and tug my arms until I started walking again. People swarmed around me, trying to get me to dance, shouting.... I wish I understood Creole better, if for no other reason than to be reassured that they weren't pissed that I was even there. I'm pretty sure they weren't, but I didn't stay long anyway before retreating back to my place, followed by a small crowd of kids. Sitting on the porch, Sonell, a 13 year old boy, was explaining to me that the rara is evil and that dancing in the rara is a sin. Love, who's about 15, shot back that rara is not a sin and that the only sins are tue moun, tue zanimo, koupe bwa (killing people, killing animals, and cutting down trees).

Arrival

2008-02-29T19:55:00.000-06:00

Left for the airport at 5am. Joe & Shirley had to buy return tickets to able to board the plane. They bought theirs for May 16, which means Antoine and I have some free time before we leave on May 22. We left Fort Lauderdale at 8am, landed in Port au Prince at11:30am. I didn't get a window seat . :( Our luggage took forever, but some relatively official looking guy showed up to us. We got to skip customs entirely, and as we were making our way out of the airport, Antoine appeared. Our month and a half long separation was ended with a brief, discreet hug amid teeming masses of people. We are now the minority. We made our way to the van waiting in the parking lot, where someone (I think it was actually the guy who ended up being our driver, Johnny) kept asking us all for “one dollar, one dollar” and I heard him tell Shirley how beautiful she was (and she is, especially for being 68, but she didn't seem moved).

We were driven around in circles for a while until we reached a place where we picked up a generator. There don't seem to be any rules regarding Haitian roads, and Johnny was honking at least half the time, randomly. We were then driven to the Methodist guest house in Petionville, where we stayed for the night.

Leaving

2008-02-28T19:50:00.000-06:00

3:05 left Kansas City International Airport, layover in Charlotte, landed in Fort Lauderdale at midnight. Stayed the night with Joe & Shirley in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Last real shower, real bed, real road for two and a half months.