After weeks of broken communication and lots of light-hearted misunderstandings it was refreshing to speak with someone that could speak English so precisely and have such insight. I know I was enjoying the bubble of being abroad and living without the constant stream of language, but there comes a time when we long to have some explanation of the way of life here. Some reasoning of the unique behaviour here; a reasoning of the patters and shortcomings of Haiti. Father Desca's friend, and remarkable man and a priest, with a great insight about Haiti, its personalty and problems. He sat with us for about half an hour and I really hope we get chance to talk again.
Meanwhile, Father Desca took us around in his comfy pick-up truck with its formidable traction and air conditioning. We visited Delmas - a great expanse of districts stretching to the airport. Dusty roads, undulating with numerous obstructions and bends in the road. Then onto to Cité Soleil which was our main destination. Father agreed to take us to a school in this extremely impoverished district - an area well-know not least because Mary's Meals do some of their great work here.
Saturday, 1 February 2014
fracture and splendour
The media drives home a particular message. I can see how tempting it is to endorse the views of the press, to repeat them, reiterate and perpetuate ideas that are widely accepted. Like rumours that have a long shelf life, ideas that are often quite pertinent and salient. But these headlines don't always reflect the real character of a place or event. Many died as a result of the earthquake, yes! Though many more - millions, in fact, survived the earthquake!
They get stronger each day.
And although I read everywhere that Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere . . and true it may be quite the poorest . . but there is so much more to the place. The headlines are shorthand but unless you can witness the longhand, the backstory and the detail, then one can miss the true meaning of the Haitian character. Haiti is phenomenally rich in culture. It has a complex history of turmoil, feuds and revolution.
The place has a deep and striking complexion.
I realised a few days ago how much we view Haiti through the devastation of the earthquake. It's understandable but rather superficial. I do it too; afterall, my first visit was itself a (crude and naive) response to that natural disaster and it was all I knew of Haiti. The effects of the earthquake were the beginnings of my empathy for the place and its people - not sympathy, but a simple and human compassion . I became personally 'drawn here' because of that event and subsequently 'captivated' once I'd experienced the place and spent some time here. But to think of it now only in terms how the character of Haiti was altered after that awful event is only a fraction of Haiti's great story. Its recovery since that January four years ago has been itself a remarkable episode but I am fascinated by the failings here and the endemic attitudes towards wealth, the white man, justice and corruption that is, at best, held in abeyance. Reprisals are common towards the police and so they act with great caution, if at all. The government operates in a way I'm only beginning to understand. One story in particular, a shocking demise for a high ranking judge that questioned and tried to change the endemic nepotism or financial corruption here. This despite the relatively positive reports one hears about the new leader.
Many people have followed the fortunes and failings of this 'lawless' place. They have labelled it as a failed state: suspicious of the voodoo and the mystique of black Haiti with its slave origins, ignoring the cultural and historical foundations of these. There is a western ambivalence about a black country that seizes (or steals) its independence from France or Britain or a civilised state.
Last Saturday Piere Desca talked to us across the breakfast table. There were two Haitian priests joining the sisters for early morning breakfast - one was a priest that had said Mass earlier at the convent and Father Desca. Fr Desca was warm and cheerful and we quickly got chatting about our visit and our interest for Haiti. He quickly invited us to join him one day, out and about. He is the parish priest at St Teresa's in Petionville and the Justice and Peace director for the diocese.
They get stronger each day.
And although I read everywhere that Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere . . and true it may be quite the poorest . . but there is so much more to the place. The headlines are shorthand but unless you can witness the longhand, the backstory and the detail, then one can miss the true meaning of the Haitian character. Haiti is phenomenally rich in culture. It has a complex history of turmoil, feuds and revolution.
The place has a deep and striking complexion.
I realised a few days ago how much we view Haiti through the devastation of the earthquake. It's understandable but rather superficial. I do it too; afterall, my first visit was itself a (crude and naive) response to that natural disaster and it was all I knew of Haiti. The effects of the earthquake were the beginnings of my empathy for the place and its people - not sympathy, but a simple and human compassion . I became personally 'drawn here' because of that event and subsequently 'captivated' once I'd experienced the place and spent some time here. But to think of it now only in terms how the character of Haiti was altered after that awful event is only a fraction of Haiti's great story. Its recovery since that January four years ago has been itself a remarkable episode but I am fascinated by the failings here and the endemic attitudes towards wealth, the white man, justice and corruption that is, at best, held in abeyance. Reprisals are common towards the police and so they act with great caution, if at all. The government operates in a way I'm only beginning to understand. One story in particular, a shocking demise for a high ranking judge that questioned and tried to change the endemic nepotism or financial corruption here. This despite the relatively positive reports one hears about the new leader.
Many people have followed the fortunes and failings of this 'lawless' place. They have labelled it as a failed state: suspicious of the voodoo and the mystique of black Haiti with its slave origins, ignoring the cultural and historical foundations of these. There is a western ambivalence about a black country that seizes (or steals) its independence from France or Britain or a civilised state.
Last Saturday Piere Desca talked to us across the breakfast table. There were two Haitian priests joining the sisters for early morning breakfast - one was a priest that had said Mass earlier at the convent and Father Desca. Fr Desca was warm and cheerful and we quickly got chatting about our visit and our interest for Haiti. He quickly invited us to join him one day, out and about. He is the parish priest at St Teresa's in Petionville and the Justice and Peace director for the diocese.
Friday, 31 January 2014
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
painting rocks . .
Haiti is in the dry season at the moment. So it's typically hot and arid, and hasn't rained for months. There have been a few brief showers - one or two at night, that have reverberated on the tent walls - which have only lasted for a minute or two but that's all. No real rainfall so the ground is hard and parched. I was here in the rainy season once and it's common for dramatic bursts of rainfall several times a day - even during this time of year the ground can't cope with the sudden and torrential downpours and the streets turn to rivers of mud, rippling currents, carrying rubbish and anything else in its path.
The mosquitoes are out in abundance then too. Breeding and biting.
January is the best month to be here to avoid the extreme heat of Summer and the biting mosquitoes. The temperatures now are between 25°C - 32°C, dropping to about 20°C at night.
Earlier today the thick cloud seemed to promise heavy rain. It was cooler. And when a smattering of rain did come it didn't last long.
I realised today how nice it is to have a break from the constant flow of noise; my own mother tongue and the relentless sea of words and sound bites - which are normally a constant, so pervasive, and is hardly noticed until it has suddenly be silenced. It has now been replaced with French that I hardly understand and yet the sounds and vowels aren't so alien to me after all. I had French lessons from the age of about six yet it didn't stick. I have French words in my vocabulary that I didn't know I had, like sacre coeur, notre dame, gauche and chauffeur. I'm shrouded here in a kind of muffled, partial deafness. Even at meal times as the constant, albeit pleasant, chatter bounces around the taverna walls I can opt out and wallow under the surface of the strings of vowels and semi-vowels that flow and undulate just above the crowded table top of soups and powders, crockery and elbows . . . punctuated with the international noises of approval. Most of the sounds can't be decoded anyway so I let them pass me by dissolving and fading. Firing from mouths and rolling off tongues, if I do listen I'm left interpreting gist and mood from volume and cadence. Often getting it wrong - someone sounds angry but then a final smirk and laughter from another betrays the playful bickering and the friendly jousting.
I'm left listening to the patterns of song, nasal interjections and throaty banter. Processing the sing-song melodies of communication without the code to make sense of it all. I feel so comfortable here, so relaxed at that table that it's heavenly to feel so accepted without needing to keep up and speak up. I'm a mute member of the family - enjoying my food and accepting the extra helpings that the sisters take in turns to dish out. Washing up and placing back on the table in complex configurations is fun too.
The singing in the church, too, is similarly emollient at 5am or 5pm. The French is foreign yet the hymns they sing are immediately recognized but unknown. Mass is understood and followed fairly precisely because of my own indelible mental map of the precise order I hear every day at home. Each word or phrase can't be registered with the English words I know so well but there is an approximate registration that tells me where we are in my cognitive sequence and map of the Mass. Precisely the same moments of extreme reverence, sorrow, hope and gratefulnesses that the Mass inspires are repeated now as I witness this great Sacrament translated in French. It might easily be Creole or Swahili but French as it happens is beautiful and intrinsic.
There are few barriers where you might expect them. And words of wisdom and gestures of kindness are in abundance: just when I least expected an easy time; prepared myself for a terrible ordeal of discomforts and hostility, as a reasonable cost of carrying and delivering to a hard place: this instead. Still prepared for challenges and adversity; I wonder if this is some good fortune before bad . . or will we simply get things done and sail homewards, swiftly. I hope so.
The mosquitoes are out in abundance then too. Breeding and biting.
January is the best month to be here to avoid the extreme heat of Summer and the biting mosquitoes. The temperatures now are between 25°C - 32°C, dropping to about 20°C at night.
Earlier today the thick cloud seemed to promise heavy rain. It was cooler. And when a smattering of rain did come it didn't last long.
I realised today how nice it is to have a break from the constant flow of noise; my own mother tongue and the relentless sea of words and sound bites - which are normally a constant, so pervasive, and is hardly noticed until it has suddenly be silenced. It has now been replaced with French that I hardly understand and yet the sounds and vowels aren't so alien to me after all. I had French lessons from the age of about six yet it didn't stick. I have French words in my vocabulary that I didn't know I had, like sacre coeur, notre dame, gauche and chauffeur. I'm shrouded here in a kind of muffled, partial deafness. Even at meal times as the constant, albeit pleasant, chatter bounces around the taverna walls I can opt out and wallow under the surface of the strings of vowels and semi-vowels that flow and undulate just above the crowded table top of soups and powders, crockery and elbows . . . punctuated with the international noises of approval. Most of the sounds can't be decoded anyway so I let them pass me by dissolving and fading. Firing from mouths and rolling off tongues, if I do listen I'm left interpreting gist and mood from volume and cadence. Often getting it wrong - someone sounds angry but then a final smirk and laughter from another betrays the playful bickering and the friendly jousting.
I'm left listening to the patterns of song, nasal interjections and throaty banter. Processing the sing-song melodies of communication without the code to make sense of it all. I feel so comfortable here, so relaxed at that table that it's heavenly to feel so accepted without needing to keep up and speak up. I'm a mute member of the family - enjoying my food and accepting the extra helpings that the sisters take in turns to dish out. Washing up and placing back on the table in complex configurations is fun too.
The singing in the church, too, is similarly emollient at 5am or 5pm. The French is foreign yet the hymns they sing are immediately recognized but unknown. Mass is understood and followed fairly precisely because of my own indelible mental map of the precise order I hear every day at home. Each word or phrase can't be registered with the English words I know so well but there is an approximate registration that tells me where we are in my cognitive sequence and map of the Mass. Precisely the same moments of extreme reverence, sorrow, hope and gratefulnesses that the Mass inspires are repeated now as I witness this great Sacrament translated in French. It might easily be Creole or Swahili but French as it happens is beautiful and intrinsic.
There are few barriers where you might expect them. And words of wisdom and gestures of kindness are in abundance: just when I least expected an easy time; prepared myself for a terrible ordeal of discomforts and hostility, as a reasonable cost of carrying and delivering to a hard place: this instead. Still prepared for challenges and adversity; I wonder if this is some good fortune before bad . . or will we simply get things done and sail homewards, swiftly. I hope so.
Monday, 27 January 2014
after the earthquake, wind, and fire
For a moment the sun pauses on its arc across the sky; the heat is still searing but there's an imaginary pause all the same. The leaves, like palms outstretched in the light, listen too. Clouds, continents in oceans of enamel blue - grand and morphing inventively, shifting shapes of symmetry - slows to still. All these speak of His greatness. There is Spirit. Not one entity but a Spirit complicit in all. The tiniest to the greatest. A greatness pervading the least likely, the least expected, the least deserving. A tiny germ vital to the greatest construct. A still, small voice of calm . .
We must be at the mid-way point now, half way through the trip - at least in terms of days. Though productivity is not a constant; and we will achieve more as our departure nears. The milestones of time I have plotted out are the 1st of the month (this coming Saturday - pretty random but feels significant), the tenth (around the time the container arrives at PAP from Miami), then, say, the 20th that gives time for potential haggling at the port to get the thing through with as little aggravation, and with the lowest costs, as possible. Then on the 24th we take a bus to the Dominican Republic with, hopefully, every loose end tied and every challenge resolved as fairly as possible. I have to say, I am looking forward to reaching this point: when we've resolved all, or most, of the objectives and can leave with a small bag of essentials and make our way home.
Right now I feel uneasy about the length of time we are grazing here - almost three weeks so far, and although it still feels like paradise, there's a kind of conditional joy attached to these comforts, that linger amidst the well-being and contentment, but they are my own imagined issues, I'm sure . . taking so much from the sisters causes me some guilt, its a kind of repressed state of being that lingers in the background - I want to give to them (and although we have determined between us to make a significant contribution to some of their projects) - their giving, and in abundance, is quite magnificent . . . and we're 'taking' it all: their privacy, their food and sharing in their community whilst they give it all freely I feel somehow in the way. Of course, I realise that these concerns are self-made and we are helping the children in their care. But I don't see that as any justification, but they give as freely as we are giving, admittedly, and this makes it an acceptable collaboration, I suppose. There's an unhurried pace to life in the convent and the nuns are so kind and welcoming. We are with them for three meals a day - unless we are out on the road - which from the start I have been trying to ease back from because I was worried it might be too much for them. And yet I can see it must be my awkwardness in receiving so much kindness from relative strangers. I have spoke to some of the nuns, and Gisele, in particular, and she is adamant that we are no trouble and that in fact the sisters feel we are the ones giving. One couldn't buy this experience and we have got to know all the nuns that live in the guest house, about a dozen sisters. And much to my shame, and to make matters worse in a way, we haven't been all that specific about when we are leaving. The head sister has been unbelievably generous insisting we stay as long as we like. And granted, she knows that the container has suffered from delays in getting here - and that originally our departure date was the 29th of January. So there we are!
We retire early at night and we make as little disruption as possible and try to relax and enjoy the gift that the sisters are giving us so freely. Darren and I were painting rocks today with one of the sisters . . honestly, it feels more like convalescence than any form of work. But we accept it when things are slow and we try to be patient while we wait for things to arrive or take shape. Sister Gisele is a delight - she painted a beautiful palm tree on the face of a smooth pebble. We had something else planned for the first half of the day but things changed at the last moment.
At night - particularly those close to the weekend - there's loud music coming from the main road. A loud DJ, music and bottles clashing. It's hard sometimes to sleep with the sweltering heat, the hard ground, the competing animals barking and calling together with the mesmeric chorus of grasshoppers . . but one does block-out that nocturnal cacophony in-time as fatigue envelops the din and one soon wallows asleep.
We must be at the mid-way point now, half way through the trip - at least in terms of days. Though productivity is not a constant; and we will achieve more as our departure nears. The milestones of time I have plotted out are the 1st of the month (this coming Saturday - pretty random but feels significant), the tenth (around the time the container arrives at PAP from Miami), then, say, the 20th that gives time for potential haggling at the port to get the thing through with as little aggravation, and with the lowest costs, as possible. Then on the 24th we take a bus to the Dominican Republic with, hopefully, every loose end tied and every challenge resolved as fairly as possible. I have to say, I am looking forward to reaching this point: when we've resolved all, or most, of the objectives and can leave with a small bag of essentials and make our way home.
Right now I feel uneasy about the length of time we are grazing here - almost three weeks so far, and although it still feels like paradise, there's a kind of conditional joy attached to these comforts, that linger amidst the well-being and contentment, but they are my own imagined issues, I'm sure . . taking so much from the sisters causes me some guilt, its a kind of repressed state of being that lingers in the background - I want to give to them (and although we have determined between us to make a significant contribution to some of their projects) - their giving, and in abundance, is quite magnificent . . . and we're 'taking' it all: their privacy, their food and sharing in their community whilst they give it all freely I feel somehow in the way. Of course, I realise that these concerns are self-made and we are helping the children in their care. But I don't see that as any justification, but they give as freely as we are giving, admittedly, and this makes it an acceptable collaboration, I suppose. There's an unhurried pace to life in the convent and the nuns are so kind and welcoming. We are with them for three meals a day - unless we are out on the road - which from the start I have been trying to ease back from because I was worried it might be too much for them. And yet I can see it must be my awkwardness in receiving so much kindness from relative strangers. I have spoke to some of the nuns, and Gisele, in particular, and she is adamant that we are no trouble and that in fact the sisters feel we are the ones giving. One couldn't buy this experience and we have got to know all the nuns that live in the guest house, about a dozen sisters. And much to my shame, and to make matters worse in a way, we haven't been all that specific about when we are leaving. The head sister has been unbelievably generous insisting we stay as long as we like. And granted, she knows that the container has suffered from delays in getting here - and that originally our departure date was the 29th of January. So there we are!
We retire early at night and we make as little disruption as possible and try to relax and enjoy the gift that the sisters are giving us so freely. Darren and I were painting rocks today with one of the sisters . . honestly, it feels more like convalescence than any form of work. But we accept it when things are slow and we try to be patient while we wait for things to arrive or take shape. Sister Gisele is a delight - she painted a beautiful palm tree on the face of a smooth pebble. We had something else planned for the first half of the day but things changed at the last moment.
At night - particularly those close to the weekend - there's loud music coming from the main road. A loud DJ, music and bottles clashing. It's hard sometimes to sleep with the sweltering heat, the hard ground, the competing animals barking and calling together with the mesmeric chorus of grasshoppers . . but one does block-out that nocturnal cacophony in-time as fatigue envelops the din and one soon wallows asleep.
Sunday, 26 January 2014
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)