Travay, Manje

 I arrived in Port-au-Prince yesterday afternoon. Sandra and Darly met me at the airport and took me to Sandra's house in Delmas 33. Delmas is a pretty authenic slice of Port-au-Prince, it seems. Electricity is spotty, water comes from a well in the front. There are people sleeping in tents outside of Sandra's house.  It's sweltering hot, and even hotter after the rain that turns the streets to muck. Definetely wishing I had brought those boots after all. Going to the supermarket is like navigating Times Square, except instead of sunglasses people are grilling chicken and selling bars of soap.

This morning I went to the camp Trezeile with Darly, which is also in Delmas, not far from Sandra's house. He works there and is on the governing committee, but he lives in a house nearby.  There are over two thousand people living in Trezeile in these tents made out of tarps. Some of the tents are better constructed than others, but it takes a bit of money to build something more stable. Even the sticks of wood you need to construct a frame have doubled in price since the earthquake. But none of them are really sufficient to deal with the storms that sweep through daily. "What do people do when it rains?" "They get wet." Mud washes through the floors of their homes. Food is scarce, since few people have any money and there is no regular delivery of aid to the camp. Some people had planted gardens and were growing corn outside of their homes, and some women had set up cooking pots and were selling to the others. I spent the morning wandering around, making conversation with people. Mostly French, some English, even less Kreyol. People seemed pretty open to talking with me, showing me around and answering my questions. They want to know what I'm doing there, how I plan to help. People are really frustrated and don't have much hope that things will improve any time soon. They anticipate living in the camps for a year or two. One guy, Blan, was angrey with the Americans for not doing enough. If only they would come in, take charge of things, lay down the law, then the situation would really turn around. I pointed out that to do that would mean occupying Haiti another time; he was very enthusiastic about this. Things are much more complicated then they seem. No one has any faith in the Haitian elite to do anything for them, and President Preval is little more than a spineless sap. I met a Haitian, Pierre, who had lived in the United States for many year, served as a Captain in Iraq, and now works in Haiti as a missionary for Samartian Purse, a group that had come with a mobile clinic for the day.  According to him, it is a problem of vision. No one has any idea what do to next, and no one is in agreement as to what direction Haiti should go. How can you envision a future when you can't envision tomorrow? Also, he believes real change in Haiti has to come through a change in the Haitian heart. Vodou is the service of the devil, and as long as it remains in Haiti and influences people, Haiti won't be able to progress. Although he was concerned with the devil-worship part, he emphasized more strongly that vodou is a mentality of suspicion which isn't condusive to cooperation between people.  This is intersting to me since many of the Haitians I have met profess a devotion to Christianity (which isn't incompatible voudou, though) Also, there is a mentality that it's okay for men to have a dozen kids with a half dozen women even if they can't support them all. He was very upset about that. This guy was intense in his army fatigues and sunglasses telling me that God had a reason for me coming to Haiti and it was not the one I thought. While our conversation did not leave me particularly convinced, I respect him because he at least he has a vision and a method for helping this country, even if it takes the route of religious suppression.

"Travay, manje."  Work, food. These are the needs that came up over and over again. In the States we are critical of a plan for economic reform that depends on opening up menial labor factories that produce tee-shirts or baseballs for a dollar a day because we see how little that ultimately will offer the country. But the people I spoke with today don't care at all about that. They need a job, whatever job, that will give them what they need to eat and will help them find shelter that keeps out the rain. Bill Clinton, I was told, is the president of this country now, and they don't seem uncomfortable with his vision. While not ideal, it is better than the nothing they have now. Is Haiti hell, I asked, like some people in the United States think? No, there is fire in hell. And in hell you don't have friends.