In which they escape!

Sunday. I am brought quesillo which makes me cheerful. The guys bring puro to work. A and I sit around playing angry birds but nothing else of note happens (besides work of course).

Monday. It has been decided that I will finish work fast and go into town (about an hour away) to make copies, buy gas, and call my parents. I know that I won’t actually call my parents because they will ask if I am having fun and I will ramble on about how my days alternate between being hungry, being stuffed, walking uphill, sliding downhill, measuring stuff, and sitting around. I may even mention our drunk guide, admit to having a bit of a crush on A (although I’m fairly certain it’s Stockholm syndrome-esque), and start to cry.

Anyhoo, we all finish early enough so that Don B and Don S can bring A and I into town. I know that I have truly turned Bolivian when instead of checking my email or finding a quiet place to read I go visit Dona V and Don J, the host parents of a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. We sit and chat and sip mate and eat cheese and no one gets drunk and it is perfectly delightful. We talk at length about the insects that could kill me in the campo, Che Guevarra (this is where his last stand was), Erika (the PCV) and her fiancée, and how I am ridiculously single. At one point V and J’s son gets very close to me, tells me that I have perfect eyebrows, and asks if I tweeze. His mother tells me that he has suffered a blow to the head and isn’t quite right but I agree….my eyebrows are indeed perfect.

On the walk back I call the ex-BBT because I promised I would provide proof of life. He also asks if I’ve called my parents but I explain how it could be a long conversation because everything has happened to which he responds, “You got married?” This cracks me up for some reason.

We set out in the dark and stormy night (I am not exaggerating. It was raining.) stopping only to buy gas, fix the headlights, borrow a sweatshirt from a cousin, and buy some booze. We arrive back at the ranch and A falls asleep right away so I take the opportunity to dance around the room while listening to my ipod and finishing up my work.

In which Lenni cuts herself with a machete and her first thought is not tetanus but “oh crap! That’s my favorite finger!”

Friday. You’ve seen those photos with a whole family riding a motorcycle while also carrying three chickens and thirty kilos of rice? This is our research team. Three people per moto carrying machetes, metric tape, and at least three liters of chicha. Today we pile onto the moto because it a 3km walk to our plot and I am a notoriously slow uphill walker. (I am a notoriously slower downhill walker.) The day is long, the bugs are abundant, the weather is hot, and we don’t finish measuring the plot because there are soooo many trees.

That night everyone and their mother come to dinner (actually no women). The community is on the Rio Grande and as such hosts sportfishermen from the city. I can’t help but think that they are a bad influence, offering cigarettes and booze to their guides. Post pressing plants and weighing dirt, A and I also head down to the river. It is cloudy and moonless and no stars are in sight but it is super nice just to be wet. I am not sure of the proper protocol on river bathing in six inches of water. Is it ok to strip to my undies? Is my headlamp waterproof? How do I get all the shampoo out of my hair? I strip. It is. I don’t really. Unfortunately the walk back is through a foot of sand and I drop my wet clothes so all things considered we are just as dirty as before but more content. In fact, it is the first night that I don’t dream in Spanish or about measuring trees.

Saturday. I have survived almost a week. As a reward I get to stay at home base and make numbered placards which, although somewhat awkward because Dona E talks less than I do, is a nice break. So I hang out cutting metal, hammering numbers, chatting with five year old Vero, eating mandarins, and watching birds fornicate. I can’t say that I’ve always wondered how birds do it but I never really knew how it operated. Call me enlightened. Also on the bird topic, the ducks here don’t quack. They sound like someone whispering. Is this normal? Is quacking a myth?

At one point I ask Vero where she goes when she has to go to the bathroom. This is a touchy subject that I never know how to broach. The day before I asked Dona E where the bathroom was and she and her husband just looked at each other and he answered “Anywhere is ok. We don’t have a bathroom.” That doesn’t really surprise me but I suppose I was wondering if they had an appropriate spot, away from the house. Anyone with experience in this, know how to ask this question? Anyway Vero said “go past the jichituriki tree and just a little further down the hill.” (This is exactly how foresters give directions!)

The only low point of the day was when Don B comes back drunk (he has skipped out measuring trees for the day too) and interrogates me again. I notice that as he gets progressively more intoxicated he unbuttons another button on his shirt. This is a pretty good gauge of how long I will have to endure questions about why I wear glasses and my relationship with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a three button day so I also get the speech about how air has no borders. Also I get several hundred mariwui bites. They are the Bolivian equivalent of black flies only with less bleeding and more swelling. Vero helpfully points out each one.

I find out that later that while I was gone Don R was plotting how to get me to stay in the community forever. He says that he will catch fish for me every day but A explains that I am somewhat more high maintenance and require chocolate and cookies. (I would prefer fresh fruit and cheese but you get the idea.) He must have gotten discouraged because he stops coming to work after this.

Fall down/bug bite count: I’ve given up counting

In which they bring chicha to work or in which Lenni starts to break just a little

Wednesday. V leaves at about five in the morning for the city and I am left alone (ah peace) to prepare for the field. I am so proud that I remember everything but this feeling is quickly squashed as I run into Don V and Don Br on the road. They have brought my breakfast (eggs and yucca and an entire liter of chamomile with an entire cup of sugar. I know it was this much sugar because it was in the same cup I drank out of.) As it turns out, I am running late. By the time we have walked to the plot, set up our gear, and fertilized a few trees, A has arrived…bearing Oreos! I could have kissed him. (For those unaware, Oreos were my Peace Corps crack. By the end of my service I had a two pack a day habit.) We finish up the plot pretty quickly and head across the road to set up another.

At this point we have settled on an experimental design of two .25ha plots every 2.5km at a distance of 300m from the road. This results in having to climb straight up a 300m incline. The guys are impressed that I make it, joking that I should bring a flag to leave at the summit, but are less impressed when I can’t get down. A and I return to the school to work (weighing soil and plants and stuff) in complete silence. Not a word. I am not sure if this is good or not.

Thursday. I woke up to find my eyes all swollen. I don’t have a mirror but A confirms that I’m looking a little Asian. As I’m packing A hands me not only oreos but an apple! And a packet of api! This makes me feel inexplicably sad and I start to cry. A doesn’t notice and if he does he attributes it to my puffy face. It’s been interesting what I think about when left to my own devices. On day 2 it was “Oh my god. I am going to dies childless and alone!” On day 3: “Boy I’d love to just sit around and watch a few episodes of Bones.” Day 4: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”

Anyway that day we decide to give our legs a rest and do a flat plot closer to home. Unfortunately there are very few large trees so it is very difficult to find a place to pee without blinding everyone with my bright white ass. This has become my every day concern. Pack stuff, choke down wild pig breakfast, set up plot, find place to pee. My low point of each day happens around lunch time when it’s hottest, I am faced with yet another plate of squooshy noodles and the little tiny bees are flocking around my head. They don’t bite or sting they just bother.

That night I wet wipe bathe and wash my hair because it no longer moves on its own. I also eat my apple and it’s the best one I have ever had.

Bug bite count: elevated due to unfortunately too-short pants.

In which we get a taste of what can go wrong

Monday. Fish for breakfast! Yummy! We pretty much measure trees all day. Evidently Bolivians don’t believe in fancy tools to measure height so everything is guesstimated. I don’t doubt their accuracy to the half meter but I wonder how those other missing decimals will skew our results. Mid-day A has to leave for another job to come back on Wednesday so V and I continue. That evening we return to the schoolhouse to find that it is locked. We spend some time scavenging around, looking for where keys might be left but we have to head back to Dona E’s house. Not ten meters down the road we run into her husband coming home from dropping off A and it is fairly obvious that he is drunk. We try to explain the situation but are unavoidably detained and subjected to his repetition of certain facts: Air does not have borders, why should we? We are like brother and sister and he cares for me. He and his wife have 5 or 6 or 7 children, etc etc. V is of little help getting him back on track but Don B finally leaves to return with the keys at which point we are once more regaled with speeches. Development workers take note! His community is upset about the lack of continuity in project supervisors. They feel dumped! Of course they won’t cut down the trees because 1) it’s against the law (?) and 2) you can’t farm on the mountains so why would they clear them. At about 10pm (on a moonless night) Don G glides into the schoolyard in the darkness to try and rescue us. I’m not sure where he has come from or how he did it without a flashlight but he finally wrangles Don B back to his house and we are left to go to bed only to be woken up at 2am by someone else, also drunk, who wants to work with us. Ah conservation. Ah the campo.

Tuesday. On Tuesday we begin to work with Don R who is slightly deaf and perhaps not too bright and the type who instead of asking us to repeat ourselves just does what he thinks we might be saying. The other workers from the community delight in torturing him and their first act is to show him how we mark the trees, by spray painting him at breast height. The day passes remarkably unremarkably until dinner when Don V spills an entire 5 liter jug on Don R.  In the middle of the night I spend a bit more time than average in the outhouse and return to find that V is putting on his boots on the point of coming to look for me. How chivalrous!

Fall down count: 3

Bug bite count: bugs really like antibacterial gel!

In which they are delayed

My primary preparation for 12 days in the super campo was to search high and low for Nutella and/or peanut butter. This, I know from previous experience, is of prime importance so I braved the rain and mud to head to the supermarket. Nutella was unlocatable and the clerks at IC Norte (of which there are many) were surprised by my incredulity. I mean, the building has an Apple store, a Radio Shack and at least two fro-yo places. It is obviously the height of westernization. Why wouldn’t they have Nutella? My other preparations include purchasing a tent and practicing setting up said tent. Anyhoo, once packed, I try to convince a taxista to take me to the office but he refuses citing the fact there is too much traffic. This is in fact true: as it happens the entire stretch of road between my apartment and the office is under construction and by “under construction” I mean that it is closed because they have dug up the road and it is one giant mud pit for 20 blocks or so.

I finally arrive to find that we have postponed departure and that I will be going to the field with Aquilino (A) instead of Ivan (V). I am not sure I’d rather spend 12 days in the woods with: V has worked with me from the beginning and he is somewhat older and more experienced. However, he is somewhat bossy and has that uniquely Latin need for music at all times- even when I’m trying to sleep. A is much calmer and quieter and more precise. He also appears to be able to read my mind which is good because when he does talk it is way too fast for me to understand. He is also cute in a kind of big-headed Bolivian sort of way which worries me because I don’t want to spend two unshowered weeks with someone I find even remotely cute, even if it is only in a big-headed Bolivian sort of way.

Saturday. I am supposed to meet the guys to buy supplies but it seems that they have taken my advice that they will be gringo-priced if I come with and they don’t call until later to tell me to meet them at the office at 2 to head to the bus terminal from there. I have a full backpack with a tent and a thermarest strapped to it and A shows up with one of those carry-on roller suitcases. I feel like a complete douchebag of the consumerist American variety (not for the last time on this adventure I assure you). But I was a Girl Scout, I am a woman, and as my wise sister said “One man’s tent is another man’s sheet strung over a rope” so I think it best to be prepared. (Pro tip: bring mouthwash and floss instead of a toothbrush and toothpaste; it doesn’t require clean water and if things get really bad you can theoretically get drunk on the mouthwash.) Also, everyone has told me that it will be really frikkin’ cold where we are going. I doubt it but I respect the whims of Bolivian weather and pack plenty of sweaters. Anyhoo we pile six people into a station wagon and head off to Gutierrez. I make the guys buy a full case of water because they have only bought 8 liters for 12 days. V tries to convince me that I can drink river water….but no. We arrive in Yumao, set up our camping gear in the school house, and I rediscover that spiders’ eyes glow in the dark and that my pee stream arcs way to the right. The last two, as you may have guessed, happen in our luxurious outhouse which is packed with spiders, packed I tell you! (In fact, one night I refuse to pee because there is a huge spider way too close to my backside, huge I tell you!)

Sunday. That morning we go to eat breakfast at the mburumbicha’s house (Dona E). She is basically the equivalent of the mayor in this community of twenty families…but with less paperwork probably. It is fairly obvious that she has never cooked for a gringa before so I avoid all vegetables and drinking water. I think she might be offended but I’m pretty sure I can’t explain parasites and stomach flora so I choose gastrointestinal security over cultural sensitivity. Walking from breakfast to the river and then back to the school A asks me if I’ve ever eaten wild boar (no) and if I think it will make me sick (no). He then reveals that that was the mystery meat in this morning’s breakfast.

We sit through a ridiculously long meeting on sportfishing, are introduced, and try to explain why the heck we’ll be wandering around the community measuring trees (and dirt, and logs, and stuff). No one wants to volunteer to help. We offer money. Still little interest. The mburumbicha’s husband offers to be our guide and we’ll have to beg more to help later. We spend the rest of the morning hammering numbered plaques to hang on the trees. I take the opportunity to introduce the guys to peanut butter. They quickly realize its curative power but it is unlikely that we will be hungry again on this trip. That afternoon we walk to our first study plot. Our experimental design is pretty flawed (ie we don’t have one) so we just walk down a trail until we find intact forest and start to measure and mark transects. Since I have never done this before and I am very bad at following directions in Spanish, I have some problems. Perhaps it’s not Spanish but Bolivian Spanish. I do not find statements like “more up” and “more down” helpful in guiding me in a flat area.

We have survived a full day!

Fall down count: 1

Bug bite count: 7

On the way to rainbows and butterflies

Day five: As a group we have decided to stay in town to interview some people. Unfortunately nobody told the group measuring trees that we weren’t going with them so there is some confusion and, I think, hurt feelings. First we investigate what has happened to last year’s group mango dryers. A severe problem in Haiti is malnutrition. Wouldn’t it be sweet if they had fruit and veggies year round? The dryers are around but not in use, not even the one in the HTRIP manager’s backyard. We talk with the American mechanic at the hospital who has decided to hire half of his recently-fired staff to build mango dryers and sell the product in the market. If they don’t turn a profit in a week, they are fired. This plan has several flaws: it is mango season so why in heck would someone buy a dried one; men do not sell things in the market; the dried mangos aren’t quite dry enough and therefore don’t store well.  Anyhoo, this guy is a character. A veritable genius (Carnegie Mellon robotics anyone?) who refuses to learn Kreyol he nevertheless imparts several insights on the culture:

“Haitians spend the most money on death, school, charcoal, and cooking oil in that order.”

“To figure out the culture here is like trying to psychoanalyze a teenager.”

“The strong survive. The weak die.”

Later that day we interview one of the technicians and realize that we have failed to explain ourselves when he finally asks us who they heck are we.  Oops. The interviews are enlightening. Most of the technicians believe that HTRIP is doing great work and has the interest of the Haitian people in mind. They are generally optimistic and constructive suggestions for future success. On the whole, problems cited are logistical. I hope that as we have provided a forum bring these ideas to the surface…where they will stay and be used.

Day 6: One day we head up to a community whose name I forget but we refer to it as “beyond Barbe,” Barbe being the furthest community that HTRIP is working in. My knees hurt so while the others hike the last few kilometers I endure the bumpiest ride to man. At one point I actually jump out of the jeep because it seems preferable to hobble than jolt. I have a strange crisis at one point. There is a teeny tiny market (ie four women selling tiny sandwich bags of noodles) along the road. Ross stops to buy a bag which prompts me to wonder if in his well-intentioned way of spending money he has just bought someone else’s very needed noodles. I mean these women probably don’t get new supplies very often. I don’t say anything. In “Beyond Barbe” we meet with the community to explain what HTRIP is and how it works. (Or rather we watch the meeting take place.) The way that the program works is that 30 people have to commit to participate the first year and that each year a new 30 will be trained in tree planting techniques. Coming from Bolivia, the least densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere, to Haiti, the most densely populated country, I keep finding myself thinking, “But where will they find 30 people all the way out here?” But there are people everywhere, even where it appears that only goats go. Additionally this land is steep and rocky and completely unsuitable for agriculture…but people plant on the stark hills. We are told that people arrive at the hospital with injuries caused by “falling out of their fields” and I can see how this happens. On the way back down I opt for the jeep once again and share a bench with the boniest man ever. He is so sharp that I wouldn’t be surprised if I have lasting damage.

Day 7: We sit in on a staff meeting. The staff good naturedly correct the American manager’s Kreyol. He handles it gracefully. I know that this week has been stressful. Suddenly 20 nosy graduate students have descended on his town to question the project as a whole and perhaps even his management. I can see how as a young buck faced by Yalies who appear to have more experience he could feel intimidated. We try our darndest to encourage him to apply at FES and remind him that our work has not been on the same large scale as his. Anyhoo at the staff meeting the technicians are encouraged to try chaya, a spinach-like plant that is grown as an ornamental in Haiti but which is superduper nutritious (and yummy!) They also pass around a bag of dried mangoes, completely independent of our nagging about the mango dryer sitting around in the tree nursery!

Day 8: Not only does it rain but also there is a blockade between out hotel and the hospital and HTRIP offices so we just hang out in the hotel. The next day (9!) we are encouraged to escape and so we plan a trip to a local waterfall. This is the only day that my knees and/or ankles do not hurt and I am assured that the hike is only 20 minutes. It turns out to be about an hour and a half so we swim for about a half an hour and head back. It was not the most phenomenally planned outing ever. We had been threatening a talent show for days so that night it was brought to fruition. Somehow we contracted a brass band to play for a bit and then acts included juggling, expanding stomachs, acapella (your very own Loggerythms), and other feats of daring and strength. The dancing begins soon after but as a swollen party pooper I go to bed early.

being talented

the waterfall!

we are easily amused

Day 9: The next morning we leave pretty darn early for the airport where the passport control tells me that I am too pretty to have a damaged passport. You spill one bottle of water and you’re nagged about it for ten years. We are told that all flights out are delayed but we are industrious graduate students. We watch a Bollywood film, pass around an old People magazine, play “guess which Asian persuasion,” and host a finger puppet dance video (after which we are chastised for being too loud). ..and then we fly home.

Postscript: At home I am lamenting the lack of food in my refrigerator when Nara stops by with beer and ice cream.

Postscripter: I find out I have Lyme disease. Hence all of the ridiculous swelling and soreness.

Postscriptest: And Haiti becomes rainbows and butterflies in my memories.

Of oranges, and walking, and sand.

Day three: Since it is the weekend we have two sort of holiday jaunts planned (it is spring break after all). I think both trips are designed to inspire us and/or show us the true realities of development. On Saturday we first head to the local market to interview people about charcoal and timber prices. The women who sell charcoal all tell us that they have walked three days from the mountains to get to the market. Given that the market is twice weekly I am incredulous. It seems that the woman just want to show how hard they work so we will pay higher prices. Two interesting linguistic things happen. First one of my companions and I lose the group. We try to ask where the other white people are to no response. I can only imagine that the Haitians were thinking “You’re right in front of me you idiot!” Later we try to buy an orange just to practice our Kreyol and haggling. My buddy speaks French so between the two of us we were doing ok but are stymied by explaining the exchange rate. At this point the fruit seller’s son comes up. He has worked in the Dominican Republic and speaks a little Spanish so we (eventually. in front of a gathering crowd of onlookers) negotiate the purchase of a few oranges at a fair price…..which turn out to be the super sour kind that you only use for making juice. No matter, we are still proud of ourselves.

From the market we head to TiFa’s sustainable farm/hotel/conference center. TiFa is a Haitian agronomist who pretends not to speak English and specializes in easily adoptable technologies.  We go on a 15 minute hike across the river (which we are later told likely hosts cholera) to see his fish farm, poultry and exotic birds operation and banana plantation. The fish are carp and tilapia. Carp grow large before reproducing but tilapia must be separated before they procreate in great number. As such, we learn how to sex fish, a skill I will be sure to put on my resume. The birds, ranging from chickens, geese, ducks and Guinea hens to peacocks and parrots, also reproduce continuously as TiFa puts their eggs under criollo hens to be incubated.  The peacocks cost thousands!

 We have a delicious lunch of okra, pickle, eggplant, roast goat, and a salad that looks to me like it can only bring death in that it is tomato and lettuce swimming in a puddle of water. I have been conditioned by Peace Corps to avoid such threats but I am reassured by the fact that TiFa actually has his own water purification plant. Reverse osmosis in the house! Once we are all stuffed and barely waddling we are brought on a “one hour” hike to see some original HTRIP plots designed to see the effects of species compositions and some of TiFa’s own trees. TiFa’s trees have actually been recently burned. Luckily the paths threading through the land have acted as a fire break. Throughout the long and sunny uphill walk we see women walking up with huge baskets on their head. I find it interesting that all of them step off the road to avoid walking between us even though we have left room. For the second time that day a small crowd gathers to see what the heck the “blonds” are up to. Even though we were at least a half an hour late and we could see the bus TiFa makes us walk even further. We later learn that he wonders why we always seem to be in such a hurry.

On one of the paths is a gourd filled with a few coins. One of the interns bends down to pick them up and is fairly tackled by the HTRIP program manager.  Evidently it serves as an offering to the gods and this poor intern came very close to being cursed. Throughout the week he recounts all the bad things that have been happening to him; he blames the gourd.

That evening we head to the hospital director’s house for drinks and casual conversation like real live grownups. The entryway is an old aquaduct that a Haitian tells us is from Columbus’s time although it is actually much more recent. The house is big and beautiful and designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s protégé’s to be hurricane and earthquake proof: the roof is on rollers, the windows are slatted and the supports are concrete. We are treated to a small speech on the artistic stylings of Wright and also his personal proclivities before retiring to bed.

Day four: On Sunday two of us try to go to church. However it is the first time ever that Haiti has instituted daylight savings time so we find ourselves standing in the dark waiting for our escort in vain. We go back to bed before heading to the beach with looks like the entire international aid population of Haiti. The parking lot is packed with Red Crescent, UNICEF, UNDP, and USAID jeeps and the beach is crawling with Uruguayan and Brazilian peacekeepers. I am shocked by the steep entry fee of $20, the food prices on par with NY, and the lack of Haitian staff (most are actually Dominican). We swim out to an inflatable trampoline and I would have floated all day if Papa Gordon wasn’t more worried than I was about me getting a sunburn. On the bus ride home we drive through two parades and one wake….and we are theoretically refreshed for a week of work.

The black boogers of a dusty nation

Day one: orientation. Post breakfast we were regaled with presentations from hospital staff including a particularly long one from the director of the hospital and a not long enough one from the program manager of the Haiti Tree Reintroduction Project (HTRIP). We were then given a tour of the hospital, the prosthetics lab and the community services building including the tree nursery. I am not a too huge fan of hospitals and it felt particularly awkward to be tromping around one that only caters to the seriously ill. The prosthetics lab was fascinating. It was explained to us that after the earthquake resources could not be distributed well in Port au Prince so the clinic and lab was set up in Deschappelles by the Hangar company. Not only can the prosthetics be made in a few hours but they also funded and designed the “Haiti knee” built especially for the hilly terrain of the country.

Wall art in the hospital

The cashier

tree nursery!

Day two: much walking. I woke up on day two with both ankles swollen and a sore knee. Despite this, we hiked up to a community called Sous Dupon to see one of the original HTRIP plots and basically interrogate the technicians and property owners. We were told that it was about an hour walk but it quickly became clear that Haitian time doesn’t nearly approximate Greenwich mean time. (In fact, the true calculation is: HT = 2GMT + 7 minutes.) The soil of Haiti has been severely degraded and in many places all that remains is the limestone base so this means that the dirt roads are a blinding white.

The demonstration plot was terraced and protected by live fencing and the trees were in good condition. However, other plots had noticeably lower tree survival with no move towards replanting. It seemed like the farmers were discouraged because without fencing the goats ate all the trees. What can you do?

I was particularly impressed by Ruth the intern. She had a real rapport with all the technicians and was able to translate and phrase our question in a culturally appropriate way. There were certain concepts that we struggled to convey in Kreyol, particularly money and time. In trying to quantify the money lost in exchanging food plots for tree plots, we asked, “If you planted one field full of pigeon peas, for how much could you sell the pigeon peas?” and the answer was generally “Who the heck would only plant one crop?” We also tried to ask more basic questions like what was their income and what did they sell to earn money and were they earning more or less now. We were generally met with “I don’t know” until Ruth asked “How you pay school fees?” So our brief attempt at a socioeconomic study of reforestation projects met with a bit of a roadblock. It would be very important to have someone very familiar with the language and culture design the questions if you wanted to get real answers.

Later that afternoon heading back into town we saw two huge trees. The technicians explained to us that these marked boundaries between landowners but now hold voodoo spirits that prevent the tree from being cut down. In fact, if you tried to cut them down, your hatchet would be swallowed and you might be killed. It was possible to communicate with the spirits through the trees, leaving offerings and such. One technician then said he didn’t believe this because he was Catholic. Haiti, like Bolivia actually, is a fascinating example of syncretism, where Catholicism (or whatever dominant religion) is adapted to feature aspects of the native religion and people who go to church and call themselves catholics might also make offerings to voodoo spirits.

That evening we went to the pool and played sharks and sardines (although what self-respecting shark eats sardines). The notes I took in my journal include the phrase “the black boogers of a dusty nation.” I shan’t expand but I will leave you with that image.

Haiti: of swollen ankles and border crossings

On Thursday March 7 I woke from a vivid malaria-meds-induced dream at 4:45am to find that I had somehow hurt my ankle and also forgotten to pack undies or socks. I hobbled around throwing things in my duffel and set out to meet the rest of the class. Our flight was at 10 but Papa Gordon, as we dubbed our professor for his good natured and fatherly concern, was worried that we would encounter traffic or other unseen barriers like flooding, tornadoes and/or aliens between New Haven and NYC. We didn’t. We arrived bright and shiny to have about 4 hours to kill in the airport. I spent it well, having a Skype interview with a Bolivian NGO for whom I am now working. The flight was normal (I was squooshed in the middle) although there was a palpable excitement among the Haitians to be returning to their beloved country. I’ve never encountered anything quite like it.

We were warned that the airport would be complete chaos and indeed it was. Upon landing we were shepherded to a bus packed to the gills and driven to the terminal where we were greeted by a brass band. Despite having memorized the Kreyol answers to “Vacation or business? How many days? Where are you staying” I forgot them and the customs officer just waved me through. I then set out to find my luggage and was somewhat nervous when I couldn’t. However, before leaving New Haven we had tied pink ribbons to all our luggage and some enterprising young Haitian had gathered it…including some suitcases that although adorned with ribbons were not actually from our group. In a country with such few opportunities and high unemployment, people work however they can; I’m sure we each could have had three men carry our baggage out to our waiting bus. On the bus I was super excited to see our fellow students who had arrived earlier or traveled through the Dominican Republic especially Narita, my partner in crime, who had one of those border crossing stories that become cocktail party favorites. If we grad students had cocktail parties she could spin a yarn involving a stolen cement truck, a blockade, three people and luggage on a motorcycle, and arguing and bribing her way into Haiti.

The bus reminded me a bit of Harry Potter’s Knight Bus. Careening around the streets of Port au Prince, passing slower moving vehicles (or attempting to), with 23 backseat drivers the bus headed north to Deschappelles’s Kay Haiti  where we dined upon the spiciest rice and beans known to man and free beer. Wafting through the air were the familiar smells of burning garbage and dust. (Dust by the way is classified by many Peace Corps volunteers as the fifth food group and I think it has a very distinctive smell that I associate with dry often-developing countries but I wonder if Arizona smells similar.)

By this point both my ankles are swollen which I attribute to serious water retention issues.

Haiti

On coming back from Haiti, my response to everyone's query of "How was it?"was "Intense." It wasn't just me though; other classmates on the same trip also used "intense" to describe their experience. In my case, I think this reflects the fact that I still haven't quite processed the country and our work there even after two and a half months.

As part of a class on sustainable development, forestry and public health, we went to Haiti to work on short-term discrete projects in coordination with Hopital Albert Schweitzer in the community of Deschappelles. According to their very own website, "Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti (HAS) serves as a referral hospital for more than 345,000 impoverished people in the Artibonite Valley of central Haiti. In addition, HAS provides community-based primary medical care and development programs. An integrated rural health system, HAS is a model for health care facilities in developing countries around the world." Interestingly it was also founded by the Mellon family (yes those Mellons). In 1956, Larry Mellon and his family opened the doors to the hospital in an abandoned Standard Fruit banana plantation.  They named it after Albert Schweitzer who "considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men" but also as a small recompense for the historic guilt of European colonizers" (or so Wikipedia says). During the whole trip I struggled with these ideas of development theory and neocolonialism and the very specific and painful history of Haiti in regards to these issues so the funding, location, and naming of the hospital just added a whole new layer of irony to this discomfort.

I hesitate to discuss this too too much because this is a public forum, as a white Yalie visiting Haiti I most definitely fell into this paradigm of voluntourism, and we were invited guests of the hospital. Despite any personal philosophical conflict that I may have, the hospital does wonderful work in the community. They have a prosthetics clinic that designed a knee specifically for the hilly Haitian terrain, they support community health workers and staff rural clinics, build wells and most importantly (to me) plant trees!

My small part in this work was to observe the reforestation program, interview stakeholders (technicians, staff, community members) and help the administration evaluate their program, its goals and their progress towards those goals.  So here comes ten days of walking, talking, sweating, eating, waiting, and wondering why the hell my ankles are swollen...

Things I still love, hate, and am amused by in Bolivia.

Once upon a time I wrote a list about all the things I loved and hated and was amused by in Bolivia. Upon my recent return I was struck by things I had forgotten about, never wrote about, or was glad to see still exasperated me. I wrote the list on the back of a receipt but the waiter took it.

So #1 is receipts. I had forgotten that everything requires a receipt. Bolivians put their name and tax id so that later they can pay sales tax. I can only imagine the accounting required for such a system. Do you have to save your receipts for an entire year? I already forgot to save my boarding passes for research funding! Or are the restaurants responsible for collating all this data? They can't even serve me an overpriced Huari in under a half an hour!
2. Tight pants. For some reason, despite living in NYC where Latinos abound, I forgot about the importance of tight pants and hair gel. I'm staying in a hostel for now so I went out to dinner with a Brasileno staying there. After I noted that I was underdressed, he mentioned that women can't even enter a club in Sao Paulo without significant surgery. (He was commiserating so I'm pretty sure I'm not offended.)
3. During the same outing I commented wistfully, "There's never any pepper in this country."
4. Mokochinchi! OMG I am super excited about dehydrated peaches soaked in water with at least a kilo of sugar! All street foods really! And soup!
5. But I forgot how gross the rice is. And that there is nothing vegetarian.
6. The constant need for spare change. Boy do I miss metro cards....and  public transportation in general because
7. I forgot how confusing the micros are, and how personal space and courtesy do not exist on them. Yesterday I was basically told to push my way through to the door (by people I was pushing through).
8. And although it rains almost every day everyone seems surprised and no one has an umbrella.

So anyway I'm back in the Oblivs, working with an organization to measure carbon stocks in a Guarani community that is struggling to make money off of sportfishing and which may eventually be flooded by dam construction rendering all my work moot. I've already lost one of my favorite earrings, my Spanish is back at a level of "suck," and my heels aren't high enough but I still find myself smiling broadly to back in this weird and wonderful country.