A Thousand Little Tragedies

I was looking out over the gorgeous mountains on a pleasant day, surrounded by the singing of my coworkers and suddenly these words popped into my mind. A thousand little tragedies. Babies were dying because mom couldn’t make the eight hour trek to the nearest hospital. Women were being abused and had no recourse to do anything about it. Hundreds of thousands of children with no money for school would never know the joy of getting lost in a book or the satisfaction of putting pen to paper.

And yet, there is dancing and singing and laughing and praying. There is love and marriage and parents cooing over first steps. There are games of soccer, girls doing their hair to impress that boy they like, women who will cook for days to prepare for guests. There are mountains that approach the sea, sunsets that will take your breath away, and more stars than I have ever seen in my life.

Yes, there are a thousand little tragedies in Haiti and they are easy to identify and focus on. But there are people who endure them with joy and hope because there are also the thousand little miracles of life. Haitians certainly know how to celebrate life… stay tuned to hear about Carnival!

Sunrise on the beach during the nursing school staff retreat this weekend in Port Salut. Three days full of strategic planning, brainstorming, and great team building! It is truly a pleasure to work for FSIL because of the ownership that the staff and students feel for the school. All but a handful of the staff are FSIL graduates and they are willing to work very hard to make sure that the next generation succeeds.

We had dinner on the beach the last night and drank from coconuts to the music of a traditional band. The Dean made sure everyone was up and dancing by the end! 

How does that work?

How does your Cell Phone Work?

Almost no one in Haiti has a credit card, but almost everyone has a cell phone. So how do you create this system?

There are two rival cell phone companies in Haiti, Digicell and Natcom (think AT&T and Verizon). It is incredibly inexpensive to text/call within your own network, but the prices are much higher to call someone on a different network. Therefore, you will often see people with two cell phones, one Natcom and one Digicell.

Picture of a PapadapI took from the Internet :) 

When you want to add money to your cell phone, you walk out on street and look for a person with a red vest that say “Papadap” on it. Here in Leogane, you can’t throw a stone without hitting one of these guys. You hand him however much money you want to put on your phone + 10% and he sends you minutes from his phone. It has not caught on as much here in Haiti yet, but in other developing countries, cell phone credit is increasingly being used as an almost credit card: you buy a goat by sending minutes to the vendor.

Cell phone coverage is incredibly inexpensive and on a pay-per-use basis. I probably pay about $8 a month for hours of air time and nearly unlimited texting.

How does electricity work?

The Haitian power company cannot make enough electricity for its customers, and that is before you take into account the plentiful illegal wire splitting. The result is frequent, many hour long power outages. This changes life significantly. I remember explaining the idea of “Leftovers Night” to someone. They were very confused because you certainly wouldn't trust a fridge to keep food here for multiple days!

We are spoiled at the school with a generator that we can run a couple of hours a day and an inverter, which is basically a large battery pack, that we can use to keep a limited number of devices operating when the power goes out.

How does food shopping work?

The market, again taken from Google Images 

 Again, I am spoiled that most of my meals are made for me in the cafeteria and the extent of my shopping is for snacks. There are no grocery stores outside of the well-to-do portions of major cities. Instead, you do all of your shopping in the market, meaning you are hauling your chickens and skinned goats around a hot, buggy area without the wheelie carts (or space to wheel anything) that I would take to a farmers market back home. When you buy things like oil or flour, they will be poured from a large container into a smaller plastic bottle (usually a recycled water of Coke bottle) or a pink-striped plastic bag. Markets are largely dominated by women, who do both the buying and the selling. While the big market days in Leogane are Wednesday and Saturday, you can buy stuff there any day. 

I Interrupt Your Normal Sunday Programming...

...to bring you two great pictures.

Yes, those are chickens. 

How many Haitians does it take to braid all of this hair? 3. 

A Day in the Life

In Celebration of my student's homework assignment this week (they are practicing present tense vs. present progressive [I sing vs. I am singing]) and as a reason for me to take more pictures, I present to you a Day in the Life of Julie Burd from Tuesday, February 4!  

 I awaken to see the sun just peeking through my mosquito net, listening to the cows mooing and birds squawking.  You have to get up pretty early to fit a run in before the sun gets too hot! 

The sunrise is without fail cool every morning. See those mountains? Aren't they gorgeous? 

Tuesday breakfast is peanut butter and banana sandwiches and fresh juice. Today's extra special treat was clementines! 

I head to my desk at FSIL at 8:00 and have about 45 minutes to kill before heading off to teach my first class, so I usually use this time to get caught up on grading. Love me some red pen! 

On Tuesday mornings, I teach my once a week high school English class at the Episcopal High School in town. You can see how thrilled the students were here... probably should not have taken pictures during a quiz! 

The school, like almost all high schools in Haiti, does not have a copier, so everything has to be written on the board and copied. This causes exactly as many disciplinary problems during a quiz as you imagine. 

The high school is on the same campus as my church and when I first got here, I could not understand why there were plastic water bottles EVERYWHERE. The explanation comes during one of my favorite parts of my days at Sainte Croix, which is the 10 minute break between 2 classes. The elementary school boys come out and play a version of soccer with empty bottles all over the field. I forgot to snap a picture of this, but here are the remnants! So much fun to watch all of their energy! 

The view leaving the school. As you can see, the classrooms (on right) are all temporary structures. It is definitely a challenge teaching (and I would imagine learning) with no dividers/noise barriers between rooms and I imagine it is going to be pretty toasty come spring. But they have a school and are able to get an education, so it is all good. 

Oops... the small car went to Port-au-Prince for the day so I got a bus to myself for the 5 minute ride back to FSIL for lunch! 

It is off to the hospital in the afternoon, where I am trying to get the stock into something that resembles an order. Need a face mask? I think I have one for every resident of the greater Leogane area. 

I BUILT THIS. And by build this, I mean I constructed it IKEA style from pre-assembled parts and with clear photo instructions. But it was still cool. We were sent 12 of these "Personal Energy Transporters" and no one had any idea what they were. I discovered it is a device with substantial wheels that you power with your hands. Quality control needed to test it up and down an abandoned hall... a shame no one walked in on me doing this since I build the child's size and looked pretty silly, but I had a good time! 

I did not think that we would make the best use of them in Leogane so we made contact with the team at Saint Vincent's, the Episcopal School and Orphanage for the Blind and Handicapped in Port-au-Prince (the only school for the blind in the country!). Their kids will love flying around on these! 

At the end of the work day, waiting for the bus home with the nursing students returning from clinicals. 

In the evening, it was time for a little tutoring...

Plus some time on the internet and a little bit of table tennis! 

As the day wrapped up, it was time for shower number 2. Shower number 1 is your traditional morning shower, shower number 2 is the Haitian specialty to remove the grime of the day and the bug spray, and to cool you down before bed! 

I realized circa November that I was not being a faithful journaler. So I took on the Happiness Project, which was started by someone to make people happy or something like that. For me, it means write down 3 good things that happen every day before I get into bed.   

Bedtime reading! Thank goodness for Kindles! I have read through my book collection and am happily taking suggestions for new ones... here is Katie Webb's choice! 

And there you have it, a day in my life! Thanks for reading! 

The New Normal

Over the weekend, I told my parents a story over Skype and my mom goes “I really hope that you are writing all of this stuff down, it is crazy!” But to me, it has stopped seeming so crazy. Let’s see a few examples:

1. Punctuality. I went to a wedding over the weekend that was supposed to start at 9:30 am. It started at 11:10. If people mean for you to actually be on time, they are known to say “6:30 American,” or my favorite “6:30 Obama.” Sometimes, this whole time thing is still a struggle for me, especially because it is inconsistent: when I start counting on something being late, it starts on time!

Oh yeah, I was a bridesmaid :) 

2. I almost never eat raw vegetables. Whether this is a cultural thing or a “kill all of the germs” thing, I am not sure, but this queen of the baby carrots has yet to see them here.

3. We walk slowly. After four years in New York/thinking I could make it to my class across campus in 6 minutes every day, this also took some adjustment. But when the sun is high, it is just much cooler to stroll along.

4. That being said, it is very rare to go out in the sun. You leave all errands to the non-sunny hours and Haitians will do things like cross the street or huddle in the corner to get in a little bit of shade. People were shocked by how pale I was when I came back for med school interviews… that’s why!

5. Wild things. Once I woke up to a cow mooing right outside of my window. Usually, however, it is to the sounds of chickens or turkeys. Lizards roam the ceiling and if I am a slob who leaves food/wrappers out, my mouse friend comes and reminds me not to do that.

My collection of turkeys. 

6. Being blan. I was in Haiti for three weeks before I saw another white person. If I walk down the street, children yell out “blan” (creole for “white”) or, their favorite English “Hey you.” It is slightly disconcerting at times because all eyes are always on me, but for those of us that love attention, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One of the most disconcerting parts about it is that it is sort of an all-access pass. I can enter offices, buildings, airports without a problem while my Haitian friends will be stopped and questions. It is a difficult mark of privilege.

7. We don’t so much have rainy season and wet season here, so much as “it pours in the afternoon” season or “oh crap it is dusty” season. We are definitively in the dust season, which means, though I sweep regularly, (I promise, Mom!) don’t even think about walking barefoot around my room!

8. Being wrong. I am a teacher whose French gets corrected by her students. Shop keepers lecture me on problems with my Creole… in Creole of course. It took me an embarrassingly long time for me to figure out how to flush a toilet with a bucket when visiting people’s houses. Or, my personal favorite, the time I was so excited that I had seen a shooting star that I told some friends about it. They informed me that this is actually an omen of death. Oops.

9. If I call you in America, if I am calling you for a specific reason, the call usually goes “Hey it’s me could you…” Here, this does not fly. We need to go through hello, how are you, how is your family, how was your weekend, it is a beautiful day. Ok now why did you call. And we all know how much I love talking on the phone, especially in a foreign language J

10. People touch a lot. It is not unusual for someone of either sex to grab your hand while you are talking or walking or to have someone’s arm around your shoulder. That being said, a woman’s handshake in Haiti tends to be half a shake… you kind of clutch the other person’s fingers.  

11. It is incredibly loud, all of the time. There are no noise restrictions, so it isn't unusual to hear music blasting from clubs, houses, and churches at any hour of the day or night. Now, with RaRa bands starting to practice for Carnival, it is getting more interesting!

Hmmm I am going 2 for 2 on top X lists as blog posts this year… how long can I keep this up???

Four Years Later

Four years ago today, 80% of the town I live in was broken, destroyed, damaged in 35 seconds. Between 100,000 and 150,000 people died and countless others were injured or debilitated. Cell phones did not work and people did not know what had happened to their loved ones for days or weeks. Four years later, and the effects are still obvious. I have many friends who live in tin roof houses because their families are afraid of concrete roofs. Many more still live in temporary structures, in ruins of their old homes, or under tarps because they do not have the money to rebuild. Many schools are still plywood and tin-roof squares open to the elements with no sound barriers between classrooms. Cholera, which came to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake, still affects hundreds per year. Most people in this region live without a mother or a father or a sister or a best friend. As someone coming in from the outside, it is impossible for me to understand just how much life has changed.

And yet the Haitians I have spoken to see hope. There were silver linings to the earthquake, though they are sometimes hard to see. When thousands suddenly became cripples, a society that had formerly seen those with physical deformities as the work of the devil was forced to start accepting them. Greater international attention and millions of dollars were brought to a country already desperately in need. There is a palpable stress in the air today and a real feeling of loss. But in church, we heard remember the fallen but realize that you are still here. You still have a life to live and you are here for a reason.  

Today we pray for Haiti, for the hundreds of thousands lost and those whose lives were forever changed. We pray that she may be rebuilt, better and stronger than ever. We pray for wisdom for her leaders and the strength of her people. And we pray for the indefatigable and faith-filled spirit of the Haitian people, that they may heal and work towards a greater future. 

10 Things I have Learned in 2014

1) I do not pretend to understand Haitian tax code, but rumor has it, you don’t have to pay property taxes if you don’t paint your house. As a result, most houses in Haiti are pretty boring to look at.

2) I teach English at the Episcopal High School in Léogâne one day a week and am the only female teacher that the school has had since 1987. Apparently, not that many women make it through the teaching certification program.

3) Haiti has a tradition of homeopathic medicine that uses natural plants, herbs, and ingredients. It could be interesting to explore!

4) At some point in trying to not fail high school gym class, I actually learned how to play volleyball well enough to not embarrass myself on the beach.

 5) Before the slave revolt, slavers forbade slaves from eating certain foods, including pumpkins. To this day, Haitians eat pumpkin soup on January 1^st in celebration of their Independence Day. Unfortunately, no one that I was with on New Years Day knew how to make pumpkin soup, so we contented our selves by making the delicious fried Haitian treat of Paté, a fried dough with spicy peppers, fish, hot dogs, onions, garlic, and green peppers. Sounds weird but it is delicious!

6) My name and pictures I took at the FSIL Christmas events made it into the Haitian newspaper! #famous!

7) TSA will throw away sunscreen in your carry-on but will allow Gingerbread House frosting to pass through! Former YASCer Cameron came to visit while I was in Cap and brought us this fun treat to celebrate our late Christmas.

The first gingerbread house ever for Fritz, Ashley's interpreter/assistant/friend

8) When you visit the home/office of the Music Program Coordinator for the Northern Region of Haiti, you can get a private concert!

9) On a 15 person prop plane between Léogâne and Cap Haitian, they open the windows when you are taxiing. And you can see the pilots through the entire flight.

The Plane

The pilots (and the back of some guys head with a full head of hair.)

10) The East Coast is experiencing a Polar Vortex. I am feeling really sorry for y’all. The beach was lovely here on January 2nd.