Chasing Waterfalls

Last year, when I was deciding where in the world I wanted to work, my thoughts initially drifted back to Africa where I had spent 4 months before and had the time of my life. After some time, though, I decided that was a little further away from the States than I wanted to be for a year. Haiti was naturally a good compromise for me. Closer to home, yet similar in many ways to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The added perk for Haiti, in my mind, was the lure of Caribbean beaches, palm trees, and the beautiful blue ocean. This weekend proved my reasoning right.

Finally able to escape the hustle and bustle of Port-au-Prince, I headed down to the seaside town of Jakmel on Haiti’s southern coast for 2 days. Along with two of my roommates and Godson, we headed out to search for a tap-tap to take us on the 2.5 hour ride through the mountains. Luckily, we found an old school bus that was headed to the city so we didn’t have to try to cram into a truck or van. Those types of tap-taps are horribly uncomfortable with people literally sitting, standing, and squeezing into every available ounce of space. (For example, two weeks ago we had roughly 40 people in the back of a big truck for an hour ride to a town called Kenskof. I literally sat on one hip, leaned forward, fell off my seat at nearly every turn, and had someone standing on my feet—all while a woman crouched over me with her armpit in my face. Needless to say, they’re not the most luxurious or safe rides). But I digress…

So we boarded a school bus that seats three per seat (or seven children in case of the seat next to us) and pulled into Jakmel around noon. Flanked by motorbikes hawking their taxi services, we climbed off the bus into the town of a few thousand. Although Jakmel would turn out to be MUCH more laidback and peaceful than P-au-P, the bus station was certainly not! We spent about 30 minutes trying to get away from the motorbikes who, despite our appeals, kept following us and surrounding us—they weren’t going to take no for an answer. Luckily, we stumbled upon Fonkoze’s Jakmel branch office so we ducked inside and met an employee who took us to a restaurant for lunch and finally convinced the taxi drivers to go away.

After scarfing down some chicken and rice, we headed out to look for a hotel. With the town easily maneuverable on foot, we took the advice of some locals and found a hotel a few blocks from the beach. We paid about 3000 goud (or $75 US dollars for 4 of us). That’s expensive here in Haiti, but Jakmel is their main tourist city so the prices are inflated. Ironically, despite seeing almost NO other tourists while we were there, we were not able to negotiate down to a lower price…and most of the other hotels were still more expensive. In the end, we were happy because our place had hot water and air conditioning which is nearly unheard of in this country.

We quickly changed clothes and headed down to the public beach. Even though we knew nicer beaches existed at expensive private hotels on the outskirts of town, we decided that the one in town would be fine and the water was great. Other than 2 or 3 children, we were the only ones in the ocean enjoying the warm water and waves for at least the first hour. We ended the day by walking around the beach and town before settling in to watch the USA/Haiti soccer game back at our hotel. With every eye in the country undoubtedly tuned in on TV sets across the country, Haiti almost pulled off a massive upset leading 2-1 with less than 5  minutes to go in the game. We were sure we were never going to hear the end of it if the US got upset by this tiny Caribbean nation. They were going crazy! Luckily, the US tied it up at 2-2 providing a much more peaceful conclusion to the match and allowing us to escape without the humiliation of football defeat.

The next day, we set out to search for the legendary Bassins Bleu waterfalls where the water was rumored to be a beautiful shade of blue. Not really knowing how to get there, some local man (who had been following us all weekend) took us out to this large riverbed area at the base of the mountains. It had a few moderate streams running through it, but it looked as if it probably fills up much more during big storms. The area was filled people bathing in the river, washing clothes, and searching through piles of trash. Many of these people had no clothes and appeared to be the poorest of the poor in Jakmel. It truly was a picture you see on those TV programs asking for donations. Our guide instructed us that we need to fjord the river on foot and hike up over the next two mountains. Knowing other people who had visited Bassins Bleu without wading through a rather sketchy body of water and hiking all day, we left our guide and ended up finding motorcycles to take us. In the end, it turns out we did have to drive thru the riverbed area before reaching a road on the other side. As the motorbikes had to be pushed through the water, we had to get off and wade through the water anyways.

After a nice ride 5 km through the mountains, we arrived at the tourist site, paid our drivers about $2 and started the short hike to the waterfalls. It was a pretty amazing sight. Lush green forests with sky blue waters careening over rocks. After repelling down a short rope a one point, we reached the main waterfall and swimming area. We spent the next hour jumping off rocks and floating around the waterfall, before hiking back to the starting point. Knowing that we didn’t have very much leverage, a crowd of drivers wanted to drive us back to town at much higher prices than we paid to get there. Luckily, my buddy James convinced a group of UN soldiers stationed in Haiti, who were visiting the falls as well, to take us in their big UN vehicles. They told us they’d do it as long as we climbed out before reaching the town limits as they weren’t allowed to drive non-UN personnel around. So thus we avoided a long motorcycle ride and a walk back through the dirty river because of a free ride with a Macedonian/New Zealander UN employee!

After a little lunch at our hotel, we headed out to the town center, hopped a free ride to the bus station, and finally caught a bumpy van back to Port-au-Prince. Although it’s never completely comfortable or relaxing to travel and live in this country, it was certainly a good weekend. Beautiful landscapes, great friends, and new experiences… Always an adventure here in Haiti!

 

A day in the life…

I’m back, and my apologies for the lag in blog postings… I guess I got sucked into actually living my life rather than writing it all down!

Life in Haiti carries on. The excitement from the first few weeks (manifestations, crazy weather, sickness, etc.) has all calmed down and I’ve settled into a bit of a regular pattern which is both good and bad. I awake most weekdays around 5:30 am thanks to the early Haitian sunrise and then quickly roll over and fall back asleep, reawakening about 6 more times before actually rolling out of bed around 7:30. A quick bucket bath and then it’s off to work at Fonkoze around 8:30. It’s a nice 10 minute stroll down the street from my house and I enjoy seeing the bustling street in the morning. It’s filled with everything from women selling freshly cut mango and pineapple to men shining shoes and hundreds of high school and college students heading to class. It seems like I must live in an education district because about every fifth building identifies itself as a school although I’ve yet to quite get a grasp on the Haitian education system. I usually get a few calls of “blan” (white person) as I walk by and a friendly head nod seems to satisfy most of them.

Work at Fonkoze has been both challenging and rewarding. Rewarding in the fact that I get to see the inner-working of one of the most impactful NGO’s in Haiti. Fonkoze currently has about 55,000 women microloan clients and 150,000 people use their savings services. Beyond that, there’s a plethora of other programs they offer from cheap money transfers (U.S. remittances from family members practically sustain Haiti) to literacy, business, and sexual health education. Fonkoze promises their clients that after being a responsible member for 5 years, the organization will guarantee they never go hungry, they never are homeless, their children receive an education, they will know how to read and write, they will have accumulating assets, and they will be able to face any obstacle that arises! WOW, THAT’S AS POWERFUL MISSION STATEMENT AS I’VE EVER SEEN! Fonkoze truly does so much and is so innovative in their operations. It’s exciting to see it happening all around me. It’s also challenging, however, as I’m working more with the microinsurance side of the organization. Right now, we are partnering with a local insurance company to develop catastrophic insurance coverage (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.) for the loan clients. We also have a life insurance policy, of sorts, for each loan client. I spend a majority of my time working with this company and many of the tasks they’ve given me are slightly beyond my level of expertise. While I do have an undergrad degree in Actuarial Science, I’ve never spent any time working in the field (which is heavily learned through job experience). Thus, when I’m told to calculate the probability of a hurricane hitting a certain region of Haiti in 2010, I’m sure my boss can see the glazed-over stare that says “WHERE DO I BEGIN?”. It’s a cross between frustration of not knowing the insurance business well enough and of fearfully producing a product that is insufficient to protect Fonkoze in the future. Luckily, though, I intersperse this work with other tasks that deal with improving Fonkoze’s operations from redesigning reporting systems to auditing some past Hurricane relief programs which I’ve really enjoyed. In the future, I hope to get to interact more with the clients around the country, as well as to work in diverse divisions of the organization that perform tasks from planning to implementation to evaluation.

Around 4:30 I usually head home, make a quick change of clothes, and then head to the market to grab some food. I’ve begun buying more from the street vendors as my Kreyol has improved, but I still get a lot of the basics at the little supermarket near my house. I’ve never been a very fruitful cook, so sustenance requires a lot of PB&J, Macaroni and Cheese, Spaghetti, and Scrambled Eggs. Thank God that Fonkoze feeds me a huge Haitian lunch at work. That way I get my nutrients and cultural food experience at least once a day before I can settle in for Americanized, easy cooking. We do have our friend Yves cook for us a few times a week to get some more Haitian tastes in. Though there are only 2-4 of us that live here, Yves always seems to cook for approximately 10—resulting in heaping plates and uncomfortable shoving of starchy vegetables and rice and beans down our throats. Last night's meal consisted of each person receiving one whole banana, one whole plantain, a yam, a potato, a sweet potato, some cooked melon-looking thing, and chicken. Cover it with sauce and supposedly you have a meal. I made it through about 1/3 before I gave up feeling like I had just hit the Chinese buffet line one too many times.

Nights are usually pretty low key. After it gets dark around 6:30pm, we can’t get around as easily. Streets tend to be without lights, so we generally stay inside or head to the local restaurant/bar across the street. They serve some mean fast food there which always reminds me of home. Top it off with a few Haitian beers—Prestige—and it makes for a great night with friends. Thanks to a friend, I’ve found the Haitian equivalent of Facebook online so at night I’ve been chatting with people on there. People seem to like to talk to an American and it gives me a no-pressure opportunity to practice my Kreyol and slang. We also watch a little Haitian TV, which has quite hilariously been usurped by Michael Jackson concerts in the last few days. Good lord, I think I’ve heard enough Billie Jean to last at least 10 years. It was pretty exciting getting to watch the live soccer matches last week when USA beat Spain and then unfortunately lost to Brazil in the finals. Soccer is a big sport here and I’m anticipating the upcoming Haiti-USA match on July 11 even though it’s in Massachusetts. I’m also taking drum lessons from a friend so he comes over a few times a week to hangout and play the drums (more about my new drum band in a future post!!!)Other than that, we occasionally go to concerts, drum circles, and small parties. The Haitian rap is pretty sweet, seemingly pulling a lot of style from American hip-hop, although who knows, it may be the other way around. I’ve also really enjoyed just hanging out with my roommates and Haitian friends here at home and around town. It’s nice to be living with people again after a year of a one-bedroom apartment in NJ.

The day wraps up between 10pm-midnight as I snuggle up with my computer under my mosquito-netted bed. The bloody little creatures are quite possibly the biggest annoyance of Haiti. They manage to buzz 24/7, and despite bug spray, you can’t avoid the bites. Thankfully, my net keeps most of them out at night. As I’m on my computer, I usually get to talk to a few friends from home on Skype or Facebook while I’m online. These conversations thankfully keep me going as I’m reminded of all the great people I get to come back to in a year. The day ends as I close my eyes, reflect on the time I’m spending here, and drift asleep to the buzz of the electric generators, the swaying of the palm trees, and the surprising calm of Port-au-Prince nights.

I’ll take Potpourri for $500, Alex

Rather than pick some theme or big event that happened lately, I thought I’d just relay a couple of short stories in today’s blog post…

When I’m working at Fonkoze, I have a cubicle that I share with two other older guys and there are about 20 or so people that work in my general open area. Usually there’s a radio playing music in the room with a wide variety of songs from Latin beats to soft rock straight from Delilah. I’ve found over the days that either these radio stations use a set playlist that repeats daily or they just happen to play Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” every single day! Anyways, yesterday as Shania Twain’s “From this moment” was playing in the office, I thought I noticed a different feel to the room. Perhaps a buzz. By verse two it was clear this song was a favorite as the 60 year old (approximately) man next to me was distinctly humming along. And then it gets to the climax of the song. The next thing I realize, the whole office is singing like they’re in the shower or something. “FROOOOOM. THIISSSSSSSSSS. MOOOOOMENT.” Not a care in the world. I was laughing hysterically (in my head of course) at the irony of country music popularity in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They may not all speak English, but they sure know their 90’s hits.

I passed my first American restaurant today on the road today—Domino’s Pizza. I was out at a meeting up in the mountains where there are more wealthy foreigners living when the blue and red sign commanded my sight. Now I’m not a fan of Domino’s in the states thanks to its pizza’s precarious similarity to cardboard, but after rice and beans everyday, I might just have to splurge and have a slice down here in Haiti. We’ll see how long I can hold out.

On a similar note, the reason the meeting was up in the wealthy section of town is because all USAID and UN contractors are not allowed to come into Central Port-au-Prince (where I live and work) because it’s too “unsafe”. Meh, if you can’t handle a few protests and tear gas, then I’m not sure you’re meant to work in development.

And finally, last Friday I found myself getting rather sick as the day progressed. I mean I felt like crap. By 2pm my body ached, my stomach hurt, and after leaving work, I discovered I had a fever that was approaching 102 degrees. I don’t get fevers everyday. In fact, I can’t even think of the last time I had a fever. This coupled with the fact that I’m a serious hypochondriac meant in my head that I obviously had malaria :). It had been over 10 days since I got here which is the incubation period. I have tons of mosquito bites which is how you get malaria. And the high fever…I was convinced. Anyways, after making a few calls, I found a semi-English speaking doctor who told me to go to a hospital to get tested. I had no idea where this hospital was, how I was going to ask for a malaria test in Kreyol, or how much it would cost. I set off by myself thinking I could do it, and after one wrong turn, I found the hospital. It was miraculously nice (clean and new) and very close to my house. I walked in, laid out my situation in my best Kreyol, paid $12 USD, got a needle in my arm, and got my test results in 30 minutes. It was the easiest hospital experience of my life!! No insurance bills! No long lines! No doctor’s referral! Clean and courteous! And I didn’t have malaria! Within an hour, I was home and already starting to feel better—mainly I think because I managed to do it all by myself in a foreign language. Not gonna lie… I felt pretty accomplished and the sickness was gone in a day. Now the biggest problem is going to be resisting my hypochondriac temptation to get fast, cheap medical tests done all the time while I’m here :)

That’s all I got for today folks! Got any good ideas to write about in the future? Any questions you want answered? Send ‘em my way (via the comment link below) and be on the look out for my reply! 

P.S. As I was writing this post, I got asked to go to a pizza place right around the corner from my house. I gave in. It was way better than Domino’s!

Raging Rues and Clean Kids

The old adage “When It Rains, It Pours” certainly is true in Haiti. I could be talking metaphorically about how when something bad happens (like world food prices spiking), it is much worse in Haiti (people starve to death). But, in this case, I’m talking literally. Lately when Mother Nature has decided to open her skies, she doesn’t just pull the drain plug—she dumps the whole bathtub on us. The last few days have seen some amazing downpours which have been both welcome and interesting.

They are welcome mainly due to the fact that it cools the 95 degree heat down for a little while—plus I just like to watch and play in the rain (yes, I know I’m 23 years old). Sunday night I was with some friends across town at a Haitian rap concert (Barikad Crew, in case you want to check the band out) when the deluge decided to unleash itself. I learned two things from that night: 1) Haitians avoid rain like the plague—hiding in houses, under overhangs, and cramming into restaurants and stores. 2) The only thing more interesting than a white guy walking down the street is two white guys running across town in a torrential downpour. With more than enough stares to last the rest of my time here, we finally arrived home about 20 minutes after the rain started—soaked, yet sufficiently satisfied to get in some good puddle-jumping.

But the rain is also interesting because it’s such a contrasting force of good and evil here in Haiti. Today, I was lucky enough when the rain started to be at the Insurance Company’s office on the other side of Port-au-Prince from Fonkoze and my house. I was waiting for my driver to pick me up when I saw the black clouds billowing over the mountains to the southeast, a sure sign that we were about to get slammed. After about thirty minutes of heavy rain, Roland finally arrived with the car and we set off for the usual short drive back to Fonkoze. I’d never gotten to drive through the streets during the storms and I was amazed at what I saw.

First, the massive amounts of water were incredible. To give you some background, most of Port-au-Prince lies at the base of the interior mountain ranges. On the other side of the city is the ocean. With that in mind, you might be able to grasp how all the water flows downhill engulfing many of the streets of the city. As I’ve mentioned in past posts, the stree ts are already filled with natural hazards like potholes and, well, super potholes. Add rushing water to this and you simply have craziness. While not all streets were completely flooded, many of the smaller roads we crawled up were gushing with torrents of trash-filled water often times covering the sidewalks and seeping into houses and stores. More than a few times our car was up to the bottom of the doors in water and we slowly eased our way between wading pedestrians still carrying merchandise on their heads and unknown asphalt drop offs below the muddy streams. All of this after about half an hour of downpours.

Now imagine last year when four major hurricanes hit Haiti—UNBELIEVEABLE! I can’t even comprehend how crazy things were in Port-au-Prince. And from many of the accounts I’ve heard, it is the rural areas which experience much greater devastation during storms as their mountainside foliage is all but completely deforested, causing mudslides and inundating entire villages with floodwater. Many parts of Haiti are essentially comparable to parts of New Orleans post-Katrina—minus the large number of recovery workers and aid dollars.

That is the evil side of rain.

On the other side, rain highlights the vibrancy and uniqueness of Haitian life. Although I mentioned above that many Haitians avoid the rain by finding the nearest shelter, today I saw just how important rain is to the people. As quick as the buckets of water started pouring from the sky, buckets were literally being placed under water runoff pipes—collecting as much of the precious liquid as possible. I even saw one girl who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old with her bucket balancing on her head while standing under the gushing overflow of a rooftop gutter. This water is then used to drink, to cook, to wash, to bathe, to flush toilets—to survive, basically.

Besides allowing Haitians to harness as much free water as possible, a rain storm means shower time! From children to teenagers, people were crowding under gutter pipes getting all soaped up and clean for the next day of classes. Trust me, water pressure is a luxury here. I get sick of having to scoop Tupperware containers of water from a bucket over my head each day to get clean, but at least I have a semi-bathtub in which to do it. If it weren’t for rain—and the subsequent rooftop runoff—showers are probably a pain in the neck for many Haitians. With a rainstorm, it’s like the cumbersome task of bathing meets the excitement of a waterpark. I almost wanted to get out there and slather on some Zest Body Wash.

So, alas, you can see how rain is both precious and dangerous at the same time—not to mention somewhat frustrating when you get home and your second floor room is filled with water from a leaky balcony door (but that’s another story that you don’t need to hear). Hopefully the pictures I posted above illustrate a little of my tale, but I think they’re largely insufficient. I guess pictures usually are. Nevertheless, it should be both exciting and interesting as we move further into storm season. Hurricanes and tropical storms are surely on the not-too-distant horizon (as I’m sure my meteorology friends from Valpo can attest). While I’m kind of eagerly anticipating experiencing my first Caribbean storm, I just hope that this year the weather spares the destruction of years past and that the the Haitian people can continue their colorful culture uninterrupted.

Zanmi Ayisyen

When I first arrived in Haiti a few weeks ago, I had settled in my house for just a few hours before it overwhelmingly seemed that the rest of Haiti was settling into my house as well. I was tired from my flights that began at 6am and had just experienced the initial shock of driving through the streets of Port-au-Prince. All I wanted to do was unpack and relax for the night. As I shifted my stuff from suitcase to closet, however, I heard the beating of a drum and the chatter of unrecognizable conversation downstairs. Before I knew it there were about 5 or 6 Haitians hanging out in the living room with my roommate. To give some background, my roommate Ben had already been here for a month before I arrived, and having spent a year living in “Little Haiti” in Miami, he speaks fluent Kreyol. Not surprisingly this has given him the ability to get to know a lot of people down here and foster a lot of friendships with Haitians around our age. I was excited to meet new people and we spent the night trying to parse out sentences of mixed languages. It was the cultural interaction I had been yearning for since my months in Namibia—and it was so fun!

The thrill of fresh faces, however, wore off rather quickly after a few days or so as I failed to understand about 95% of the words coming out of their mouths. “I don’t speak Kreyol!”, I was thinking as they continued to talk to me despite my obvious blank stares in response, “Doesn’t anyone here speak English?”.  It was all too much. These Haitians (or at least 1 or 2 at a time) were over at our house every night. By some sixth sense, they magically appeared about 10 minutes after we got home from work—whether we arrived at 3:30 or 6:00pm. Could I just get some privacy in my own house? Could I just have a conversation completely in English without having to stutter over words and sentences lost in translation?  Could I at least understand the jokes that everyone else in the room was laughing at?

Many of you probably got an earful (or an email-ful) describing the overwhelming nature of my first few days here. I was frustrated with a lot of things, almost all of which had nothing to do with my new Haitian friends. It was the Kreyol…the heat…the safety…the job. But I also think I placed some blame on the visitors to my house. I wish I had seen in the first few days, like I do now, just how important these people would become! These locals have become my lifeline to survival in Haiti, my means of learning a new language, my understanding of a culture,  and what looks to be my great friends for the coming year.

These new Haitian friends, despite the conversational barrier, quickly took me under their wing. They showed me around the markets and helped me barter for food. They spent the time to speak slowly so that I could begin to learn the language. They explained the history and people of Haiti, growing a vital background knowledge required for my success here.  One of them, a musician named Godson, even calmed down would-be muggers, forming a human shield between me and two teens trying to get the cell phone out of my pocket. Yves, another friend, cooks us dinner every-so-often with his delicious Haitian recipes. The craziest part for me, though, is just how much I think we understand each other despite my shaky Kreyol and their piecemeal English.

All of this goes to show just how important relationships are in forming a better, more true understanding of the world around us. It’s easy to travel or live somewhere while separating ourselves from other people. We get comfortable in our bubble. But it’s amazing what you stand to gain (and to give) when we branch out and form relationships. Whether it be making friends in a foreign country or simply bonding with other cultures and races in the United States, it’s always a little awkward at first. Neither party quite grasps the intentions of the other. But with some time (or maybe more quickly than we think), we always find we have more in common than we thought. We destroy stereotypes. And more than anything, we simply enjoy each other’s company.

I look forward to the next year with my new Haitian friends. We’ve already begun to debate politics and religion and music and so many other topics that I similarly discuss with my American friends. Excitingly, Godson is teaching me drum lessons throughout the year, with the hope that I’ll eventually play in his band for a few shows. My Kreyol is improving quickly. And now when I walk downstairs in the afternoon to hear the chatter of the living room, I smile knowing that my struggling through the words is synonymous with progress and a greater connection with the country where I’m living.