Patrick's Musings #9

1-31-09

1) Throughout Port-au-Price one can hear the little hand held bells of shoe shiners calling out to customers whose shoes are desperately in need of having the dust and mud of Port-au-Prince removed. I imagine these guys can keep as busy as they would like maintaining the filthy shoes of Haitian men across the city. Before my arrival in Haiti, I had had my shoes cleaned and polished approximately zero times. This probably gives you an idea of my wardrobe back in America. However, I have agreed to a job where the dress code requires “dress shoes” most days. So recently I asked our friend and interpreter, Freno, what the Creole word is for these men? His answer was a microcosm of our experience in Haiti thus far. He said, “They are called ‘chany’, but if you call them ‘George’ they will come.” Of course they will.

2) Living in Haiti I work and live amongst some of the poorest people in the world. But I am not poor. However inaccurate the Haitians’ understanding of my financial situation may be, they are correct in the general assertion that I have access to things they do not. I have enough money to buy food whenever I am hungry. If I get sick I can go to the doctor, get medicine, and get better relatively quickly. They know this. I know they know this. And they know I know they know this. I guess this could be called “the psychology of privilege and oppression”…or something. This reality is something I carry with me in the forefront of my mind. If I forget it for a moment there is usually someone close by to remind me. For example, Kim and I are approached daily and asked for money by street children, beggars, and those we meet randomly on the street. More specifically, people we have gotten to know here have asked us for the following; to send them to English school for 2 or 3 months, for rent money, a laptop, a camera, medicine, shoes, money for their wedding, and a job. They see us for what we are: people of privilege. While I certainly believe in recognizing our common humanity and paying some sort of homage to that mysterious connection that binds us all together, we should not do so at the expense of downplaying or ignoring the colossal injustices that create such radically different socioeconomic realities. To honor both our connectedness, as well as the gulf between us, is a dual task that must be worked out together. It is a challenge Kim and I struggle with daily.

3) This week I have been visiting orphanages in the Port-au-Prince area for a project that I am working on. Stepping into an orphanage is an intense experience, especially if you adore children like I do. The first orphanage I visited had 129 children. There were tiny babies crying, snotty-nosed toddlers chasing balls, and older children helping with the daily chores and with the care of the younger children. I spent a couple of hours in the nursery holding and playing with the babies. Every time I picked one of the children up the women working there would say to me, “Ou papa li” (You are his/her father). Then they would tell me background information about the child, one child whose mother died and whose father wasn’t interested in raising the child. There was another who was abandoned at the orphanage and one who was found in a trash can during Carnival last year. The most common story however, was simply that the parents of these children could not afford to take care of them. They didn’t have the resources to feed them, nevertheless provide medical care or an education. I sat briefly with the mother of a one-month-old little girl while she breast-fed her daughter. She asked me if I was interested in adopting her daughter. She had brought her to the orphanage because she had no place to live and no money to care for her child. This is what poverty does; it dehumanizes people to such a degree that they are forced to give up one of the most beautiful gifts of life, their children. While I think adoption is a beautiful thing and something that Kim and I may look into while we are in Haiti, let us not forgot while so many children are available for adoption in the first place.

4) Learning a foreign language messes with your head. Kim and I are currently living in a guesthouse where we hear English, Spanish, Creole, and French everyday. We are obviously focusing on Creole, but sometimes we have to take a moment just to determine what language someone is speaking to us. This can be discombobulating. For example, the other day Kim and I came upon one of the numerous traffic stops run by the Haitian police. I rolled down my window and handed the man our insurance and registration papers, as we had been through this routine numerous times before. I thought he said something to me in Creole about “konduit,” which means ‘to drive.’ As I was attempting to understand what this man was asking me suddenly my wife yells out to the officer from the passenger seat, “Favorite country? Our favorite country is Haiti!” Apparently Kim thought the officer was speaking English and that he was asking me what our favorite country was. The officer looked at me to try to determine what my wife could possibly be yelling at him in English with such enthusiasm, and I, no longer certain that he was speaking Creole, was looking at him to see if he was indeed inquiring into our favorite country. He was not. After a few awkward moments we were allowed to pass.

5) The quote of the day is not a quote at all, but instead a Haitian proverb. It reads, “Woch nan dlo pa konnen mize woch nan soley.” It literally translates, “The rock in the water doesn’t know the misery of the rock in the sun.” This proverb speaks to the economic disparity that exists between the rich and poor in Haiti and throughout the world. I think the first step in coming to know the plight of the poor is simply to educate oneself on what is going on. For example, did you know that more than 50% of the Haitian population lives on less than $1 a day? Did you also know that Haiti has the most millionaires per capita than any other country in Latin America or the Caribbean? While I’m not sure any of us in the States can ever really know what it’s like to live in abject poverty, we can educate ourselves on what is going on and make a decision to be in solidarity with the disenfranchised of the world.