feeling blan

a little girl of about 4 years old said, astonishingly, of me the other day, "That blan (white foreigner) speaks like a PERSON!", in reference to my ability to speak creole.  and she, in all her innocence, right then confirmed me of my sentiments as of late.  that i am NOT a person in haiti...  and no matter how much i may speak like one, i will always be just a blan.

yeah, yeah... i've done my time in haiti and am so used the the blan business by now.  and it normally doesn't bother me.  i even enjoy playing off of it most of times.  however, that day (and i'll add that it was just a few days before my period), it was driving me CRAZY.

first of all, it's not just "blan" that they're yelling.  it's more like "BLAN!"  all caps, in your face, and on repeat.  sometimes, especially when they don't get an initial response, they'll mix it up w/ a BLANCO! and throw in some spanish-seeming jibberish, like "amingo! chinga bodinga camaro!"  and of course, they almost never fail to top it off w/ the one english phrase that every haitian knows -- "Geev me one dollar!"

come on, man.  give me a break.

and it's not just little kids that follow me down the street shouting "blan!" in my face, but haitians of all ages.  what fun!  and what dignity, they have, eh?  being a celebrity must really suck sometimes and i'm wondering how it compares to being a blan in haiti.  i would guess that some, or maybe even a majority, of celebrities' fans are probably a bit more sophisticated than the average haitian.  but i wouldn't really know, as there are a lot of wacky people across the globe, that's for sure.

i mean, i came here to reconnect and to offer up whatever i can in terms of time, skill, labor, experience, etc, but "blan" to a haitian means money and handouts and those are, frankly, things that little old me just doesn't have much of.  we've all gotta do what we can to get by in this world the best we can, including me.  boo hoo.
so, sorry for the pout of negative energy i'm putting out, but i've just gotta let off some steam.  it's been a weird week and i'm feeling, overall, frustrated and discouraged with my position in haiti and ready for a nice, tranquil and smiley change of pace.

i just wanna be a PERSON again.   i'm feeling better already.  :)

haiti's newest prez

after many months of campaigning and several postponements of the election, the presidential race between a 70 year old woman (mirlande manigat)

and a popular musician (michel martelly, aka "sweet micky", who has an album titled "100% shit")

is finally over. 

as of 9pm on april 4th, the results are final.  sweet micky is haiti's newest prez!

and why not?others in the past who appeared to really know what they were doing, regarding politics, only  seem to have fudged things up even worse.  so let's have a big concert, celebrate, and then, hopefully, get some roads built, enable children to go to school for free, implement some appropriate waste management and boost local agriculture and tourism.  are you up for it mr. martelly?

so long, cap haitien

wahoo beach

well, i wrapped up my work w/ Nouvelle Vie at the end of march and, although there are things/people to be missed, i was all too ready to leave cap haitien for a change of scenery.

i bought a bus ticket for the hell-ride to port au prince but ended up getting off after only 5 hours (just over half way) in st. marc to meet up w/ my dear friend, anasthase at his father's house by the sea.  after letting the old man drink me under the table, we set off the following day for p-au-p, stopping off at wahoo beach, one of haiti's best.  it was there that i decided to break my vegarian stint of almost 10 years by ordering a big fillet of grilled fresh wahoo.  there's really something about haiti that makes me as thin as a rail and my body was just screaming for some proper nourishment, so.... i went for it.  and it was quite good, too.  def the right thing to do. 

after an uneventful night in p-au-p (and just missing the RAM show featuring Arcade Fire-- doh!), i made my way to paillant for a night and then finally to petite riviere de nippes.  i pitched my tent in my friend's yard and started scoping out  my options for land in the area for my permaculture farm idea.  however, it has been 8 years since i've lived in the village and something felt off.  i'm not so sure anymore if ti riviere is my place.  boo.  but i've gotta follow my heart.

for now, i guess i need to find a job.  maybe i should go home to my sister's for a while to figure things out.  grow a garden, help out w/ her business, etc (??).  i just need something NEW.  give me a project, some activity --physically & mentally stimulating.  maybe it's just the aquarian in me, but i am a bit addicted to change, newness.  new starts, new adventures, new ideas & projects, new loves, new scenes, etc, etc.

here we go again.  something new is calling.   wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

Carnaval Craziness

carnaval in cap haitien, for me, started out at an innocent little girl's birthday party w/ a jumble of friends and strangers. as the day turned into night and as the rum bottle became empty, we decided to head out into the center of town to have a peek at the action. but not without some improvised costumes made of birthday balloons and banners. haha. (these photos document the dress-up process, which was half the fun) :)

still in o'kap

so, just as my gig w/ nouvelle vie in cap haitien was up, and just as i was about to jet and start a new job w/ an org in port-au-prince, i was asked to replace the country director & stick around through march and maybe beyond.  hmmmmm.  i figured, why not?  i already have a feel for the program and i love the youth corps, so what the heck.  and now, here i am.

i'm not sure what my job title or description is, exactly, but i help out w/ a number of things.  i do the budgeting (blah), translate when needed, teach various classes here and there and i help w/ logistical planning.  however, the bulk of my work (and the main attraction for me) is helping to launch a commercial composting project (funded by US AID) in the local marketplace.  we're setting up a composting site right in the market & we're gonna take all the organic waste from the market and the surrounding households, run it through the thermal composting process for 2 weeks, then put it through a second round of worm compost (if we can get the worms).  the final product will be the best fertilizer you can get, so we're gonna bag it up and sell it.  we're also doing a lot of urban/container gardening, so we're going to do a veggie nursery on the market site as well, to exhibit how to grow healthy new veggies in the city using old food waste.  composting is a relatively new phenomenon here in haiti, so we'll be doing a lot of sensitization in the community.  the plan, for now, is for me to be here (in cap haitien) through march and with nouvelle vie possibly through may.  whether i'm getting paid or not is still unknown, though, and is one determining factor.

anyhow, i'm keeping myself happy and healthy.  check out this link to the nouvelle vie blog .  they gave me a nice shout out.  ;)    

yoga training

my second gig in haiti was to translate for a yoga teacher training for the same group of youths in cap haitien. 

the visiting yogi was a bright, shiny spirit named Andrei Ram Om, hailing from colombia and new york city.  i feel like i really lucked out on this one because, although i was working as andrei's translator, i pretty much received the training for free (actually, i got paid to do it!).  i learned a lot that week about yoga in all aspects:  origin, asanas (postures), meditation, etc.  i feel quite fortunate to have shared such an intimate space and experience w/ one such as andrei.  om.

http://innerparadise.org/  (andrei's website)

permaculture training

greetings from haiti!

i'm still in cap haitien (the north) and, as i mentioned in the last post, i got a gig translating and assisting for a permaculture training for a group of 19 impressive youths from different regions.

the training, which wrapped up on january 25th, was a success and a lot of fun, too. it was a nice opportunity to work w/ friends, hunter and sabina, glean some of their know-how and escape at night for a drink or two.

we made sure to get the class out of the classroom as much as possible (site visits & field trips are the best). we toured a diversified organic garden, a rice farm, and a cassava cooperative. then we had a couple days of fun (mixed w/ learning, of course) hiking up to the citadelle (a historic mountaintop fortress) and spending our last day at the beach.

these guys love permaculture [!] and at the house where we're all staying, they have set up a sweet container garden; read: old tires, cans, rice sacks and gallon jugs ... all chock full 'o veggies.  love this stuff.  :)

[photos to come]