A Not-So-Haitian Thanksgiving

Between the Haitian Dean who lived in the USA for 30 years and loves food and the American English teacher who loves arts and crafts, we were able to bring some of America's favorite holiday to Haiti! 

Hand Turkeys!

I swear I got more questions about how to make a hand turkey than about any other homework assignment I have given this year. 

And they were beautiful turkeys! 

At lunch time, the staff dished out the good eats for the students! 

Turkey, macaroni and cheese, salad, and of course rice and beans! 

The students enjoying their festivities! 

AND THEN WE HAD CAKE! 

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This year more than ever, I am grateful for a million different things in my life.  

I am thankful for my wonderful family, who are simultaneously my biggest cheerleaders and the first ones to deflate my ego. And who are also slightly silly folks.  

I am terrifically thankful for this amazing thing called the internet, that allows me to keep in touch with everyone near and far at any given moment! Google Hangout even lets you wear costumes when you chat with your college roommates, making it really seem like you are back in your living room!

The more I teach and explore the school system in Haiti, I am incredibly, incredibly thankful for the amazing teachers, professors, and educators who have led, challenged, and inspired me over the years.

I am thankful for my students, who put up with my imperfect French grammar and new teacher shenanigans, and are respectful and conscientious enough that we can do fun things like watch The Notebook trailer or listen to Katy Perry or make hand turkeys for Thanksgiving and they not only have fun, but get something out of it.  

I am thankful for Haitian food, because it is the best.

I am thankful for Haitian friends  who love to dance and sing and laugh and play as much as I do.

I am thankful for my amazing friends all over the world who are doing truly incredible and remarkable things, from teaching elementary school in inner-city Baltimore to doing hospice care in South Africa. I continue to be inspired by the amazing and challenging things that you do and the love that you put into your work.

I am thankful for the tremendous support I have received from so many people in so many ways during this journey. And thanks for reading my blog!  

I am thankful for the natural beauty of Haiti, for its spectacular beaches, never ending mountains, myriad stars, spectacular sunsets, and forever warm weather. Did you wear shorts and a tank top for your Turkey Trot? Because I did. 

On Presence

 “Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn’t.” Richard Bach

There are many ways that we can think about how to be of service to others. One that I think often gets overlooked is the ministry of presence.

I experienced presence in two remarkable ways this week. First, the missionaries in Haiti were joined by 4 bishops, 2 priest, a slew of spouses, and some of the staff from the Episcopal Church Center during their pilgrimage through Episcopal projects in Haiti.  It was phenomenal to hear about the projects that the Episcopal Church has in the works to rebuild our buildings after the earthquake, including a new cathedral, a new school for the blind and handicapped, a guest house to bring an operating budget into the diocese, and a massive school, just to get started! These people did not come to “do” much, but rather to learn, to be in dialogue, and to be in solidarity. They were constantly ready to learn more, to see more, and to explore more. I, as well as many that they met, came away from this experience invigorated and renewed, knowing how much support we have here and what great plans the church has in the long run to bring sustainability, practicality, and beauty to Haiti.

The second experience was the triennial convention of the Haitian Daughters of the King. Daughters of the King is an association of Episcopal women whose mission can be best summed up by their motto: 

I am but one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

What I can do, I ought to do.

What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.

Lord, what will you have me do?

At this meeting, each parish presented what they do in their community. These groups run on incredibly small budgets, maybe $50 a year. And yet they make enormous impacts: they visit the sick and shut-ins, inmates, and those dealing with loss. They may bring a small gift, but their goal is to go and be present with those who need partners in their journey.

It is very easy to get caught up in the mindset of “we need money to make a difference.” But sometimes, all we need to do is take a few minutes out of our day to call up someone and ask them how their day is going or if their dog is feeling better. My challenge to you for this week is to find a new way to enact this ministry of presence: how can you spread your light to others? Let me know how it goes!

The pilgrims, missionaries, and 815 staff on our last day all together.

The Daughters of the King assembly, being joyful as always!

Have I mentioned that people (not just kids) LOVE to play with my hair?

Things Expats love: Grocery stores. In Petionville (the suburb of Port au Prince where the majority of expats live), there is one grocery store that sells Herbal Essences Shampoo, Diet Coke, granola bars, and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream all in one place. And it is called The Giant… how perfect is that!

We had the chance to do some touristy things in Port au Prince while we were hanging out with the bishops, including lunch at this beautiful old gingerbread-style house with these gardens full of art pieces. As always, I exhibited the solemnity that the occasion called for.

Me, post-filming: Stay tuned for Julie the Musical on a computer near you! Ok so maybe it is a short video about the work that all of the missionaries are doing in Haiti. But Julie the Musical sounds like so much more fun.  

Meet Ashley, the 3^rd YASCer in Haiti, who is living in Cap Haitian with Kyle. She is helping to start a series of music programs in the Episcopal Schools in the north. She is always looking for a slew of band instruments and supplies (reeds, valve oil, etc) if anyone is interested in her work! Learn more about her projects here!

Among the Bishops that visited was my very own Bishop Daniel of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Kyle Evans is a three year missioner in Haiti, also from my diocese (and my church!). Check out her awesome work, including running youth and women’s leadership development camps, starting radio stations, and working with Food for the Poor here!

That which remains of the Episcopal Cathedral in Port au Prince, almost 3 years after the earthquake. 

3 Months

I remember the night before I was leaving for Haiti freaking out. Who did I think I was, leaving everything and everyone I knew for a year? I remember turning to my mother and saying “Gosh, I wish that I was just 2 weeks in and knew what I was doing.”

Yes, two weeks in, things were much, much easier. I knew that I had running potable water and a great cook and supportive coworkers and that if I desperately needed a few minutes of air conditioning, I just needed come up with a computer problem for the IT guy to fix. But know what I was doing? Hah.

This week I hit the three month mark: a quarter of the way through my YASC appointment! I can’t believe it! And finally, I feel like, at least for this week, I kind of know what I am doing! And while sometimes I miss the mystery, it feels good to know the ropes!

On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays I head to Hopital Sainte-Croix where I work with the administrator on whatever she decides will be pleasant that day. One particularly memorable day had me explaining the corrections a foreign group wanted on the budget by headlamp. Other days find me giving tours to visiting groups or helping visiting medical groups get acclimated or translating this that or the other thing. Getting the central stock organized is an upcoming project, as is trying to get the medical records into something that assembles “a record” more than the “stack of papers” that they currently are.  

Wednesdays and Fridays are my days around FSIL, where I teach, plan, edit, translate, meet, etc. I do not have a curriculum, the students do not have English textbooks, and all 47 of my first years (who are all in 1 room!) have very different levels of English, so I have certainly had to be creative!   So far, I have gotten away with using things like Katy Perry music and The Notebook trailer as teaching tools, so it has been thoroughly enjoyable.

Many days, it is hard to see what kind of impact I am making. I certainly make a lot of paper and hope that I am putting some good systems in place at institutions I believe can improve structural issues. What I absolutely cannot deny any day is that I learn more than I could ever imagine. I joke that life in Haiti is a daily adventure: for example, today I was instructed in how to suck cartilage out of fish bones without stabbing yourself (spoiler alert: I was not successful in this task). I love it when a new group of Americans comes through and they start asking questions or sharing experiences: it is in those conversations that I realize just how much these three months have shifted the way I see the world and see my role in it. I cannot wait to see where I am 9 months from now.

One of the recent adventures… learning how to hand wash clothes. They let the blans (the Creole word for foreigner, literally “white people”) use the washing machines but Orpha thought that we needed the experience.

This goat just looked kingly to me. A few minutes later he thought I needed to recreate Running of the Bulls… Goat Style. 

I would be remiss if I also did not give a big THANK YOU to probably just about everyone who is reading this for your love and support over these three months. I cannot tell you how much your e-mails, messages, comments to my parents that they have relayed to me, marathon Google Hangouts, or just straight up thoughts and prayers have fed me on this journey.

AND FINALLY… I never went to a good football school. Except that suddenly I am an alumna of the 8-0 South Hunterdon Eagles and the 10-0 Fordham Rams! So incredibly proud of both of my schools and will certainly be cheering them on in playoffs! Go Eagles! Go Rams!

Education

There are two main problems with education in Haiti, both equally troubling in my mind. Only 30% of children finish the 6^th grade. 47% of the population is illiterate and only 1% of the population has a college degree. Woman are disproportionately unable to access education, as are those who live in rural areas. Many schools are private, so if a family cannot pay, their children cannot be educated, which is a problem generation after generation.   

The other side of this coin is that the schools that people can go to in Haiti are frequently quite awful. All age groups are shoved together into overheated rooms with no books and rows and rows of benches. It is common for teachers to just not show up for class and some schools are run for a profit, with the students education coming as a low priority. The conclusion of this is that parents do so much to try to pay for their children to go to school, but the education that they get is basically a waste of their investment.

Children pouring out of a one-room school house. 

There is a problem with the philosophy behind education in Haiti. In the USA, educators use dynamic and varied lesson plans: think back to elementary school, when your desks were in “pods” and you were doing experiments, critical thinking exercises, and group work. You were challenged to find answers on your own and those lessons often stuck. In Haiti, all education is based on a system of rote memorization (think about how you learned your times tables). So French class means “copy these sentences off of the board,” biology means “Memorize these definitions word for word” and literature class means “memorize these famous quotations.” The first time I put vocabulary words on the board, my students all started repeating them back to me with no prompting: they were very comfortable with this style of learning. They were much less comfortable when I tried to make them do critical thinking questions about a reading passage in groups: repetition and memorization are easy for them, critical thinking is not.

Students lined up in rows during class. Uniforms are incredibly important to people in Haiti: it is a status symbol to be able to see your child walking around town, proving that he or she goes to school. They are so proud to be able to go to school and send their children to school

President Martelly’s top priority is education: the government is making some investments in the area and some private schools are now being nationalized and made public. The US Secretary of Education was in Haiti this week, pledging support from USAID to institute new schools and training programs. And specific schools are working hard to encourage critical thinking, among them the Episcopal schools on the Central Plateau where I went during the Tabasamu trip and the nursing school. As I look at the plethora of problems in Haiti, I increasingly come to the conclusion that nothing can help them but a stronger system of education.

Let’s talk about shoes.

I head home for medical school interviews in about a month and need to get a pair of heels for the occasion. I wanted them to be black, kitten heeled, patent leather, closed back, slightly pointed toe. Every woman reading this post totally understands. Every man is questioning his choices in clicking on this link.

So I head to the market with some friends, all with a complete understanding of what I want. 3 hours of digging through piles of shoes of any size and color mixed together in a second-hand heap, I have shoes, but the heel is too high, they have a sling back strap instead of a closed back, and the point is just too pointy.

So I go on DSW.com. I pick my drop down menus: Heels and Pumps. Heel height: low. Size: 9 Color: Black. And it yields 53 choices, all of which are a closer approximation of my desire than the ones that I wound up with.

Shoes, while fascinating in their own right, do provide a nice analogy for life in Haiti. There are just fewer choices. Clothes and shoes are bought in second hand piles where you are lucky to find your size. There are 10 meals that all Haitian families make and just about all of them are stews. Grocery stores have 3 kinds of cereal, not 300. Because Haitians need a $200 USD visa to so much as go to the DR, most never leave the country. 

Other dearths of choices are much scarier. There is no choice of whether to fight or not fight cancer, unless you live near the one hospital in the country that offers chemotherapy. It is nearly impossible to get a loan for education or a house, so you are restricted by what your family can pay upfront. And as far as career choices go, you are lucky to have any job.

Back in the market, my friends were very happy with the shoes I wound up with: they did not understand how much I wanted more control, more choices. In their minds, I had gotten a nice pair of shoes at a good price. What more could you really ask for?