The Revolution and The Earthquake

I am, ostensibly, an aspiring historian of the Haitian Revolution. So what does the Revolution have to do with the earthquake? Depending on who you ask, God killed those people, or the government killed those people, but often both potential C.O.D.s are located in a larger narrative of Haiti. For many Protestants, God punished Haiti for a whole slew of sins which are rooted in the (mythical?) origins of the Haitian Revolution, the Bois Cayman ceremony. It's not just Pat Robertson that says this kind of stuff, but at least Haitians get the facts right. Weeks before the uprising of August 1791, a group of slave leaders met at Bois Cayman, sacrificed a pig and drank its blood, and basically pledged themselves to the devil (or Vodou gods) if he would help them leave slavery and expel the white people. For many, this is Haitian original sin: of course a country that was founded with Satan's help would only end up badly! In my interviews this is brought up fairly often as a reason for the earthquake, but I must stress that it's usually in conversations with particularly religious Protestants. So was it a cleansing? Getting rid of those who are particularly stained by evil? Or was it violent message to those who lived to repent repent repent? Either way, God finally got around to punishing Haiti about 220 year later for achieving freedom from slavery through violence. (The follow up question to this is: Do you think the slaves of Saint-Domingue should have consented to stay in slavery? Often the answer is yes. I mean, look at Guadeloupe! they say. Sure they got reenslaved, but they're a French department and we're dirt poor. Would forty more years of slavery really hurt that much? Aime Cesaire came to a similar conclusion near the end of his career: Sure the Haitian fought a glorious revolution against a system of profound oppression, but what did they do with their freedom? Not much.)


The Haitian Revolution is also invoked to explain the sorry state of Haitian politics. And in light of the earthquake, the criminal neglect of the Haitian state is cast in the limelight. Sometimes their neglect held up as a reason so many people died in the quake and the days after. One of Haiti's greatest problems is a state that is either predatory or absent. Power is more interested in maintaining itself than doing anything with the power (I guess that's not that particular to Haiti, but its consequences are more devastating here) and this goes way way back. During the course of the Revolution and in its immediate consolidation, rather than allying, the leaders successively stabbed each other in the back until there was only one man left standing. Dessaline himself had a hand in the fall of Toussaint Louverture, then Dessaline was murdered by Petion and Christophe, who then split the country in two, until they were both dead (natural death and suicide) and the country was finally unified by Boyer in 1820. The founding fathers of Haiti pioneered the dog-eat-dog Haitian political tradition and blatant profiteering that has defined the Haitian state since. I try to ask about how this mentality has been perpetuated across the generations, but I have yet to find an answer. But many people know that their current disillusionment has deep deep roots, and use history to explain the rubble and the death. So much for the Tree of Liberty?

Part of me revolts against these mentalities, the part of me that believes the Haitian Revolution was something spectacular for all of humanity, in the Laurent Dubois-Susan Buck Morss sense. But it's true that the Haitian Revolution is only spectacular if you disconnect it from everything that came after. The enslaved overthrowing racial oppression is and establishing their own state is a magnificent moment, but it takes a certain fetishization of 'equality' and 'democracy' and 'racial equality' to let the story end there. I mean, racism never left Haiti. Democracy has never truely been implemented here (I'm not saying that I think it exists elsewhere...). Equality? Maybe in Haiti everyone is 'black' but there is no economic equality, social equality, political equality. On an intellectual or humanitarian level the Haitian Revolution is covered in glory, but as soon as you try to tie it to material success, it stops shining so much.

The Mountains of Haiti

In one of my interviews yesterday, somebody commented on how this land used to be the "Pearl of the Antilles" and now it is the "Capital of Garbage". I have to admit, this last slogan is rather apt. At least for Port-au-Prince. There are parts of Port-au-Prince, particularly in Centre Ville, which have mountain ranges of garbage cutting through the streets. Some of this mountains are smoldering or on fire, since burning trash seems to be the only way to reduce its mass. I was walking down a road yesterday that was tiled several layers thick with flattened plastic bottles grayed with mud. I hopped an archipelago of trash to keep my flip-flops out of the fetid water. Bottles, plastic bags, styrofoam cartons, food scraps, rubble, plastic water sacks, wrappers are several feet thick in the canals, several feet high in the major intersections of the markets. This shit adds up. Some people (mostly foreigners I have talked to but some Haitians too) take the filth of the city to reflect the nature of the people. What kind of people would accept to live like this? Why do they have so little respect for themselves and their land that they denigrate their city like this? The problem of perception here is multifold, but my brief opinion would be that the people who share this opinion don't spend much time in Haitian homes, or in the camps, or simply aren't very observant. Individual Haitians have no control over the streets: those are public spaces that in many societies are claimed by the state. Also, at least in the States and in France, the state or the municipality concerns it self with the regular collection and disposal of garbage, in order to avoid exactly the situation we witness in Port-au-Prince. Individual Haitians have very little control or influence over large public spaces, since there are no channels for them to express a collective voice. But over the spaces that Haitians do have control (the body, the home) most exercise a great deal of concern with beauty, cleanliness, and order. The streets may be full of rotting garbage, but you will not find a spec of trash in most households. Even in the refugee camps, where people live under tarps on fields of mud, most tents are swept out, (even if the floor is rocks), garbage removed, things placed in order. For the most part, Haitians keep themselves remarkably groomed, an many dress much much better than me or my friends in the States. They might not have a roof, but shirts are spotless, children uniforms pressed, women's nails and hair are perfect. That's the thing: everyone is aware of the degrading state of the city, but they don't accept it (even if their waste-disposal practices help create it). No one thinks living like this is okay. People carry handkerchiefs in their sacks to wipe mud off their shoes. Even if they are obliged to live in mountain ranges of garbage because their is no force that cares for the healthy of people as a whole, many Haitians choose to define themselves in contrast to their surroundings by their personal comportment and their domestic spaces. While they can't control much, what little they can control reflects a great deal of personal dignity. You need dignity to live in a place like this (although as I have written about before, dignity on a national level is another thing). Obviously, I am not speaking for every single Haitian, like the man naked and covered in dirt that was walking through the electronics market the other day,but I am talking about most. Often when people on the outside think about Haiti, they speak and write as if you would have to be not fully human to tolerate these dehumanizing circumstances. But in the camp there are people who have planted rows of flowers and put up picket fences outside their tarp tents because if they have to live there, at least its going to be beautiful.

Addendum: After spending an afternoon in the Champs de Mars camp doing interviews, I think most of what I wrote here needs to be qualified. There is a certain level economic class associated with the nice hair and the clean shirts, even if it's not a very elevated class. There are many people who don't have the means to reach this level, and they aren't able to or aren't concerned with defining themselves against the poverty of the city.

Cake and Eat It.

On the possibility of expanding the HOHP.....

Dear H.
Thanks so much for your straight-forward feedback.  This is exactly the information I was looking for.  I haven't made any decisions yet (obviously), I'm just trying to feel out what my options are.   If I intend to be a scholar of Haiti, I feel deeply that working to understand of this moment, post-earthquake reconstruction, is one of the most valuable things I can do for myself, since everything in the future will be defined by the possibilities that are stewing right now. And I'm on to something. I have learned more about Haiti and its history by living here for six weeks than I have learned in two and a half years of study. Through my interviews I have participated in some amazing situations and conversations, and I am looking for the opportunity to continue to collect interviews if possible. I think that what I'm doing here has the potential to very useful resource for future scholars of Haiti.  I've recorded fascinating and diverse perspectives, memories, stories, religious and political rants. Right now I have about 40, and if I stayed longer in Haiti I'd aim to collect 200. I know the intentional creation of historical documents is not the normal work of a historian, but I see it intimately related to my training.  As to my dissertation, this summer in Haiti might also have recalibrated my focus. Slavery seems so far away when there are equally dehumanizing and possibly more insidious forms of oppression that are shaping lives all over Haiti today.  Of course, it all goes back to slavery in the end.

   As far as the job,  I have been offered a position with The Natural Builders, an alternative construction consulting organization (think buildings made of glass, rubble, tires), which would give me the necessary to stay for a period of time and continue my own work on the side. The job itself is not the reason to stay, but would give me an meager income while I continue traveling around Port-au-Prince with a audio recorder. The ease with which I was offered the job makes me wonder if I could shop around for something a little more substantial, but before I do that I need to know whether staying is a viable option.

   So, that's what I'm thinking. I will confess what you no doubt already suspect, that I'm not entirely sure where this is going to take me. But I have the profound sense that staying here and devoting more effort to trying to wrap my head around this place will be invaluable for the rest of my scholarly life, particularly since Haiti right now is in such a vulnerable place, so full of possibility. But I don't want to risk my fellowship or cause any irresolvable problems with my academic career, so if it doesn't work out that I can stay, that would be okay. In the case that I return to NYU in the fall, I would like to discuss creating an independent study where I can write a seminar paper based on my summer of research. 
---cp

H., my thesis adviser, wrote me back, and miraculously he is supportive of these developments, but he has to speak to the Dean on my behalf to request a leave of absence when he returns to the country from his academic voyaging. He also said a semester sounds more reasonable than a year. So for now, we camp out and we wait. For a while I thought I might drop out of grad school and move to Haiti, but maybe, just maybe, I can have my cake....

Worthwhile Feedback on Fight. Racism.

CT: ‎"I thought I was making the distinction between a whore, someone who doesn't mind being talked to like that, and a woman who has the right not to be aggressively sexualized." Are there women who don't have the right not to be aggressively sexualized in everyday conversation? Do women who sell sex give up their rights?

UT:Sounds like a pretty awful conversation all around. Can't help but get sticky when dealing with a society where race and class are so incredibly intertwined, and feminist ideology is so foreign, that making a perfectly reasonable feminist declaration of boundaries would be seen as a class/race distinction that highlights your outsider role, and makes you look elitist, as though you consider yourself above 'normal' male-female relations by virtue of your whiteness as well as your wealth, because that is the context they have for someone refusing to accept being treated as a sex object, even though they are undoubtedly by and large inured to rejection of advances from the women in their own community. In this case, rather than shooting them down from within their existing context for male-female relationships, it looks more like you've made an attack on their cultural identity, creating a degree of cognitive dissonance that's almost bound to result in social exclusion, angry men not listening to your point of view at all and all that.

I hate to say it, but in terms of maintaining trust and respect with the locals, you'd probably be better off making claims as to your own chastity, calling them on going too far, but avoiding taking it to a place of principle, even if that principle can be taken as a given here in the US, unless of course you're interested in having these sorts of conversations again. Without the cultural context and background, I'd bet feminism is a tough sell, to men anyway, and very likely to lead to these sorts of misunderstandings. Even among the poor here in the US, it's by and large a different world for women. Not defending their sexism, just pointing out the weakness of your position regarding actually changing or even opening their minds on the subject. If that's really important to you, maybe there are ways to go about it, but I don't know. Maybe I'm going on inadequate information: I'm not really sure what sort of culture you're involved with in terms of feminist progress, but it seems likely to be the case, from what you've written.

In that vein, how is the spread of feminist ideology accomplished in other nations? How can common ground be found with the men of more patriarchal societies so that meaningful dialogue can be built? Is it possible if there isn't much pressure being exerted by an already active women's movement, or does cultural resistance to an existing movement impede open discussion? Might be worth some study. And in regards to your project, what space does feminism occupy in Haiti? Is there any meaningful cultural understanding of the principles? What's normal for sexual relationships in that culture?

Anyway, sorry you had a rough one. Love the updates, though, really interesting stuff.

CP: @CT: you are absolutely right, and this was brought to my attention by someone else already. Every woman has the right to sexual respect, but there are some women (regardless of profession, I wasn't thinking literally when I used the word whore, although if I am assuming a feminist standpoint I really should be more careful) who chose not to assert it or don't feel like they are in a position to assert it.

@UM: first of all, thank you for taking the time to be interested in my ramblings, and for your serious and thoughtful feedback. There were so many assumptions on my part that in the moment I didn't recognize as such. I love your comment about men being inured to rejection from women in their own community, that is pretty spot on. I really didn't have to go on principles, I think that was certainly one of the first wires I tripped over. For the reasons you clearly articulate, I didn't have to make such a big deal about being heard. Ultimately it didn't matter, and the ideologies I was speaking from mean nothing here. I should have dropped it, or gone about it a totally different way. From what I can tell, feminism is a bit of a bad word, with associations to homosexuality (very bad here) and efforts to widen the abyss between Haitian men and women I have seen few signs of a self-conscious women's movement here, although I did meet with an group that organizes emotional and legal support for female victims of sexual violence. I asked the spokeswoman if she considered it a feminist group, and she recoiled from the word. But there is also a government ministry for the condition of women (not clear what that means) that supposedly addresses issues of sexual discrimination. Relations between men and women don't seem particularly 'progressive' (more than one person has used terms like "archaic" or "middle-ages" when describing sexual dynamics, but many people say stuff like that to describe Haitian society in general). Some of the younger generation I have talked to though say that they have very different expectations from their elders, so maybe in the next twenty years or so that will pan out into cultural change. But in the mean time, lots of accepted male polygamy and girls aspiring to be mothers when they grow up.

Fight. Racism.

I am so frustrated but I know that in a certain way they are right. Well, maybe not that they are right but that I should apologize. What started as me just trying to make a observation about how these guys behave between themselves developed in a full blown argument with accusations of racism and sexism and me crying in a corner. Of course rum was involved too, which didn't help anything. We were sitting around in the yard, drinking and talking. I was noticing that every time I tried to say something, someone interrupted me and argued with me before I had even said what I was trying to say. When I tried to point out that this was frustrating, unsurprisingly someone interrupted me and disagreed with me. Each time I tried to speak was point was made by the manner that they received me. I got so annoyed! It was like they didn't have to listen to other people, they could assume that they knew already what would be said, that no one but them had anything to offer, that they kept pushing for an opportunity to hear their own voice. This is how you debate, they said. Integrate! I've probably been spoiled by too much academia, too much hand raising. But this aggressive way of expressing oneself is a behavior that I believe often occurs among groups of men. And when women are present, nothing changes. It's assumed that they don't have a reason to listen to women, that women have nothing to offer, and I said this too. This what not what this group of supposedly enlightened male artists and freethinkers wanted to hear. But they were not so freethinking as to consider my observations, they just denied them out right. The whole manner that they conducted a debate was a case in point. I ended up basically demanding loudly the right to have just a few minutes to explain myself without anyone talking over me, which I was hardly granted. I was rude, but I made my point, then MK said, okay we gave you what you wanted and you didn't have anything to say! You had no point. Again, no one wanted to listen to me. But I was so naive. I thought I was talking about gender dynamics and the different ways men and women express themselves, how sexism is a behavior even more than a discourse, but for them it was all about race. I was a white person demanding that black people listen to me, take me seriously for a few minutes. I was a white person asserting the superiority of my ideas, criticizing how black people are between themselves. How stupid could I be that that never occurred to me? I took seriously my assumption that we were beyond race and racism, that these new friends were people I could except to see me as a human being and not the white skin of the colonizer. But it's impossible to escape that, and rather egotistical too. I'm not a human being, none of us are. We are primarily the overlap of a variety of social,cultural and economic categories. The way I was essentializing them for being men, they were essenitalizing me for being white. It's all there. I'm not beyond it and neither are they, whether I recognize it or not. I like to think that race doesn't matter, but it was foolish of me to assume that others are of the same mind. They accused me of being racist, I accused them of introducing the race question, by simplifying the argument into race when there are so many other ways to interpret the situation. Everyone was unhappy.

Earlier that afternoon one of these guys, under the pretense of teaching me kreyol, started to say offensive sexual comments to me. I reacted by saying that made me uncomfortable and that it was disrespectful to talk to women like that, that he had no right to discuss my sex life or use such vulgar terms with me. The expression I used was "une femme comme moi", a woman like me. This unfortunate phrase was brought up several times in the course of the argument that night in the yard. In their eyes, the distinction I was trying to make with it was "a white woman like me". I thought I was making the distinction between a whore, someone who doesn't mind being talked to like that, and a woman who has the right not to be aggressively sexualized. Are we both right? Was I unintentionally making a racist comment when I was trying to assert my right to be taken seriously as a woman? Probably. It's all there. But it is naive of me not to recognize for most of the people here, the fact that I have white skin trumps all. It is with that knowledge that people seek to understand me, that is who I am first and foremost. And why should they do otherwise? Money matters, and white skin often means more money than these folks will see in a long time. It's probably unjust to assume most Haitians are like these closed minded and self-important men I had the pleasure of spending the evening with, but obviously believing sincerely that race doesn't matter is foolish. Race matters, and it is through that lens that my presence here is viewed. It doesn't go away if I choose not to see it. But where is the line between recognition and participation? It doesn't matter that I am a feminist, my assertion of the right to be respected will be interpreted with race. How can we fight racism if we are not all on the same page? What's the point of putting down that category if other people don't do it too? Maybe it's not a question of putting down the category of race. To concern oneself with race, maybe it means in a certain way to cherish moments like this one, when you are forced to confront how your ideas differ greatly from those of others, and to try to comprehend why that is, to try to talk through the assumptions we arm ourselves with. Is the goal to annihilate racial distinctions (that's what I thought before) or is it to recognize and try to understand them?

Pride or Lack Thereof

One thing that I was not anticipating finding in Haiti was a serious lack of self-respect on the national level. It makes sense, I guess, if you think about it. I had just never thought about it. When was the last time you heard anything good about Haiti from anyone but an ethnologist? From many of the interviews I have done, I get the impression that Haitians hate Haitians. They have nothing good to say about themselves as a nation. Obviously, that doesn't go for everyone, and there are many notable exceptions of people who think differently. But the normative discourse is one of mistrust and faithlessness. Haitians are incapable of leading the country, the say. Haitians are stupid and mean, and the only thing that matters to them is money. Haitians are untrustworthy. Haitians have not lifted a finger to help other Haitians, its only through the blans that anything gets done in this country. Haitians need a mentality change. It's staggering, really, the lack of pride many Haitians have. Of course, when people say these kinds of things, they are rarely talking about themselves or their friends. Well, maybe sometimes they are. These kinds of thoughts are in direct contrast with other stories that I hear, stories of mobilization, of community, of solidarity. But it is clear by the way people talk that those moments are viewed as the exception to the rule. On the largest level, this self-hating discourse reflects the utter disillusionment with the Haitian governing classes. Everyone knows that entering politics is one the few avenues to fast wealth in this country, and there is little expectation that a Haitian politician will do anything else with his power except find opportunities to profit. More than one person has told me that if they were given a position of power they would certainly use it to distance themselves and their friends from poverty. Distancing oneself from poverty seems like a completely reasonable thing to do (Haitian elites are bit on the extravagant side, I might say) but the economy isn't developed enough to offer opportunities to access wealth besides corrupt politics. But the result is a political system corrupt that citizens refuse to sully their names by participating in an election. That's one of my big concerns with the upcoming elections. Many many people don't believe in voting, hence the pitifully low turn out levels. But it's not because they are not politically educated, but rather, they are all to aware of what elections bring about.

People often say in conversation that Haitians hate to watch other Haitians succeed, and would rather destroy you than be happy for your successes. This anti-cooperative mentality is responsible for the lack of solidarity and impairs the ability of 'the people' to unify and make demands on its government. Rather ironic in a country whose motto is "L'union fait la force." When questioned, people often trace this back to the colonial era or the Revolution. Slave mentality, they'll say; jealously of those who were able to find freedom or status. Hatred along racial lines. Or they will recite how the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, after independence, successively betrayed and murdered each other until there was only one left standing. But how is a slave mentality reproduced over two hundred years? Is this the slave mentality that organized and united thousands of people on a single night to begin a thirteen year fight against slavery? How does the behavior of the political elite infiltrate a society and rot its core (to be clear, I do not share these opinions, I am just reiterating what I hear)? This are the stories Haitians tell themselves, but I doubt they reflect 'reality'. Why do these people have so little to be proud of? Of course, you can say they had a rather sexy and glorious slave revolution, but how long can you ride of the tails of a single national mythology? It's like nothing else ever happened. Independence in 1804, then Duvalier in the 1950s. I have a friend here, a Haitian doctoral student, whose project is to construct national pride through education that highlights the some of the spectacular things the Haitian nation has done: first country to recognize Greece. Homeland to the Venezuelan flag. Supporter of the Latin American independence movements. Site of immense cultural richness and diversity. But I have to ask myself, how much is any of that going to mean until people can find jobs, and homes? What does it matter that Haiti supported anti-colonial movements if it can't find ways to shelter and employee its citizens? What good will a self-image makeover do if there is not serious material change to substantiate it? I'm sure my friend has a response to this. I can imagine a few things: for example, if Haitians had more respect for their countrymen than maybe there would be more reluctance to exploit and demean? Maybe Haitians would feel more outrage when they hear stories of corruption and abuse? A positive sense of people-hood could lead to a much needed sense of solidarity. It is only with solidarity that communities are going to be able to demand honesty and respect from the government. It is a must if a social or political revolution is ever going to take place (my idealistic but preferred solution) . Maybe people accept their condition because they have little faith in anyone else to help them organize out of it. In that sense, even though I feel like my friend's work is cosmetic, maybe it has revolutionary implications all the same.

4AM: Another thing I was not expecting to find in Haiti: the Adhan morning call to prayer. It's 4 AM, and there is someone in this city alerting Muslims that there is only one God and Mohamed is his prophet.

Local Politics and International Economies

It is becoming clear that, like anywhere where a few people lead a larger group of people, that there are power struggles going on in Camp Traizele. There is not just one camp committee, there are two, based on separate sides of the terrain. I didn't know this until I watched a soccer game with the folks at the far end of the camp. When I mentioned this to Darly, he practically spat. Those miscreants?! Don't go over there, Claire, those are bad people. Two days ago, an NGO (I wasn't there, I'm not sure which) came to the camp and began some kind of census taking. They distributed identification cards with names and numbers, and told people they were working to relocate the camp to a different territory, off of private land, where everyone would have a permanent shelter. They marked the tents with triangles and circles (the meanings of which they did not bother to explain to the inhabitants of the camp, apparently). However, when Darly and his police officer friend found out about this, they came and shut down the whole operation. The NGO's efforts to help weren't legitimate because they had arranged their project with the other committee, and they were asked to leave. Or at least that what it looked like to most the people in the camp. There was so much anger that afternoon as I wandered around. So much frustration that rivalries over control of this small community were preventing aid from reaching the people who actually need it. Haitians are so stupid! So petty! I was told. Trust no one. Everyone's just out for themselves. Don't expect anyone to ever help you. If you want something done...

The next day, the committee that had invited to NGO organized a rally in front of the camp, in Darly's territory, more or less. They set up a table and a loud speaker, the men (they were all men) wore button up shirts and freshly pressed pants. They made speeches to a crowd of probably 150 that they, and not Darly and co., had the best interests of the camp in mind. About half the people in the crowd cheered at the appropriate times, the rest remained with their hands at their sides. I couldn't understand too much of what they were saying. Who do you listen to, I asked my friends. Most people responded that they don't listen to anybody, that neither group is really there to help them. Others said they thought Darly was wrong for shutting down the aid distribution effort. As I was leaving, I spotted Darly sitting outside a tent with some of his friends on the margins of the crowd, literally shaking with rage. I asked him what was going on, which I regret now, since he walked me home, and everyone at the rally saw Darly walking away with the blan. I'm his blan. I feel like he might have been using me somehow, using his affiliation with me as a sign of status (not the first time I have felt that way). But nevertheless it was good to hear his perspective. According to him, they weren't shutting down the operation because they were against it, its just that the group came in the middle of the morning, when many many people were at school, work, or in the streets. Any census done at that time would be woefully incomplete. He spoke with the group and they agreed to come back another day, in the evening, to do a more complete census. Unfortunately Darly and co. did not explain their rational to the inhabitants, and he lost a lot of trust that way. Today I learned that after his rivals rally, Darly and co. did a march around the camp with a megaphone, proclaiming the legitimacy of their actions.

One of the major hurdles to the aid effort, I think, is that every camp is a different microcosm. These are not the undifferentiated black masses reaching out desperately for bags of rice, like Anderson Cooper would like us to think. Each community has a particular history and set of dynamics that should be acknowledged and assessed in order to figure out the most effective ways of helping the camp inhabitants with their situation. Had the NGO known about this internal rivalry, they might have tried to work with both groups, or not be scared off when they were told to leave. Of course, that's a little utopian: humanitarianism is a business, reconstruction is business. I'm not blaming them, they respected what seemed like the wishes of the camp, and they have a lot of work to do, a lot of ground to cover. Not every camp has a wayward grad student wandering around, asking questions, taking notes.

A small, but important tangent: humanitarianism is a racket. Especially American federal aid. If I understand correctly, any humanitarian organization that receives aid from the American government is obligated to purchase good and supplies from American companies, from American farmers, and shipping them on American ships. The law specifically prohibits aiding local economies by buying produce from local farmers or supplies from local merchants. Its a way to make sure that American money stays in American hands. Thus, the American aid efforts manage to keep people alive while not investing in a economic system that can support people on its own. Same with the reconstruction effort. American contractors, using imported American supplies to rebuild Haiti. A major disaster becomes a occasion for serious profiteering. Maybe that's why America acted to fast to get its foot in the door here? The only thing that can actually help Haiti, in my humble opinion, is meaningful investment in the local economy. Creation of jobs, support of local farmers, of an internal economy that can grow to feed itself. The kind of economy Haiti had before the 90's when Bill Clinton pushed Haiti to its knees and force-fed it subsidized American rice. (Of course, policies of that nature had been going on since the 70's). When faced with Haiti's staggering devastation and inability to feed itself, Bill Clinton himself admitted that he was overzealous in his efforts to help his Alabama farmers. The consequences were too great. Nevertheless, none of the reconstruction bills involve repealing these agreements or raising the tariffs on imported American goods in order to support Haitian producers. None of the reconstruction bills involve job creation either. Also, there is no effort to educate Haitians on the real nature of American policy towards Haiti. So many people are hopeful that Bill Clinton will become president of Haiti. Clinton has never had Haiti's interests in mind, not as when he was president and not now. And yet, he is effectively the president of Haiti. They should be afraid, but there is no other figure they feel they can put faith in.

D.P.

Hence is a "DP". That's what his friends call him when they are sitting under the tarps, sipping beers and watching soccer. The term is cool and a bit affectionate, I think. "DP" means deported. Hence lived in the United States for eighteen years. He is short, with a small bread and a gold grill across his front teeth. Last year, he had a run in with the law and they packed him up and shipped him off. We figured out that his apartment in New York was a few blocks from where I live now, Prospect Park South. Hence tells a story about a white woman he was dating who was jealous that he wasn't spending enough money on her and destroyed him by telling lies to the cops. It seems to me a very Haitian drama, people seeking to destroy other people. Either way, he found himself chased by the cops, they told him to get on the ground, and then they kicked him when he was down. His shoes were brand new. Three days old. Really nice shoes. When they took him to jail, they took away his brand new shoes and he never saw them again. He was seething with indignation as he remember this. Then came the chains around his wrists and around his ankles. You can't even use the bathroom without someone helping you when you, he said. They put him on a plane to Haiti without letting him settle things up in New York: his car, his apartment, his job. Hence had money in the bank, where is all my money now?! They are stole my money, won't even let me get it to live here. When the drop you off in Haiti, he said, they give you nothing. You got nothing. They don't even give you clothes. He had to spend eight days in prison in Haiti before they let him out. Claire, he said, they don't feed you in prison here. You ain't got no food. What you suppose to do then, huh? I don't know, Hence, I said. I have no idea. No one in either government makes any effort to reintegrate DPs into the society or help them tie up loose ends from America, or even access the resources they had earned there. They just unchain them and push them off the plane in their prison clothes and prison sneakers. The only think keeping Hence from going crazy, he said, is that he still had family here, family that came and looked from him in the prison and got him out. Most DPs, they don't got family here. They don't have a life here, they ain't coming back to anything. That's why they go crazy, start beating people, killing people. Soon as they get dropped in the airport, some of them just start punching and kicking. Maybe they just want to be killed. (I have heard from other people that much of the violence in Haiti is from criminals deported from America, especially the kidnappings) Now Hence is just one more Haitian refugee. I used to drive a Lexus, he said. I had nice shoes, nice job, I could go to a bar in any part of the city and I had friends there. Claire, man, I don't have money to do nothing now!! I got no home, I can't buy clothes, sometimes I can't even find money to eat. Look at this: he took off his sandals to show me the holes that had worn through the heel and that were starting to show under the balls of the feet. I just gotta keep wearing them cause I don't got no money for more. The indignity of poverty is even greater for those who know something different.

Le mal n'est jamais total

One of the questions that I have started asking recently is something to the effect of: "Have there any positive aspects to the earthquake?" The answers have been surprising. Obviously no one is enthusiastic about January 12th, but some people feel that despite all that has been lost, there were things gained. One young man, standing inside the ruins of home, told me that after the earthquake his brother was able to find a job working with a NGO, and that it is a serious blessing for the family. Finding a job here is a like winning a small lottery. An evangelist living in the camp told me that thanks to the earthquake many more Haitians are opening themselves to Jesus and repenting their sins. God made himself known, and now many more are coming to the light. Churches (those that remain) have been overflowing on Sundays. I spoke with a small group of young first-aid workers yesterday who had started their training program two months before January 12th. This kids have seen so much. They worked shifts in a hospital for several weeks after the earthquakes. According to one, the occasion to help so many people, and to be able to express love to strangers was a rare and beautiful occasion. Also, thanks to the presence of the NGOs, they were able to take classes in health care that would not have been offered otherwise. Another said that before the earthquake there were many people in her neighborhood she wasn't connected with and didn't know, but January 12th leveled everyone. Everyone in Port-au-Prince was in the same situation, either crying or praying. Strangers were helping each other in the street, bending together over rumble to lift people out. The community coalesced like it never had before. Another said that many embassies opened their doors after the quake and helped Haitian students get out of the country to continue their studies elsewhere. Of course, the 'positive aspects' conversation only composes a small part of the interviews I've been leading. I feel like its important to write this though, since the New York times recently ran a very very sad article on the front page about a woman from Champ de Mars camp that was kidnapped, gang raped, and ransomed. I in no way mean to underplay the devastation of the earthquake, but I believe that the image of Haiti that is being projected into the minds of outsiders is not sufficiently complex to reflect the reality of living nearly six months after. I feel like much of the news is meant to provoke fear, of Haiti and of Haitians. Sexual violence is news, but so are less frightening things, like the number of futures in Haiti that are being retarded by the lack of access of education. It's also news that the earthquake offered destruction but also opportunities. Please don't read this and think "oh, haitian students are community building and going abroad! haiti's doing great!" but understand that not everyone is getting gang raped. The dominant emotion is not fear. Many lives here are much more difficult since the earthquake, often tragically so. But this is a multifaceted destruction. "Le mal n'est jamais total", as one of my young first-aid-loving friends said.

Remember the Mud Cookie Story?

I was hanging out with JK the other night, talking Haiti shop, and he mentions the riots of 2008. Oh, the mud-eating riots? I ask. Turns out JK is the journalist who wrote the mud-cookie story of January 2008 and was held responsible for the world-wide outcry it provoked. Mud-cookie story (look up mud cookies, Haiti and it'll pop up pretty fast) was written in January, riots about food costs break out in April. But since visceral mud cookies image was still lingering in everyone's imagination, in the popular consciousness which I share, people in Haiti were rioting because they were eating mud. Unsurprisingly, the truth is much more complicated than that. People have been consuming mud cookies made from the dirt from the central plateau in small amounts for a long time. The minerals in the soil function like an antacid. It's like Tums. You 'take' it, you don't 'eat' it. But when you are hungry they are helpful because they offer a feeling of fullness while neutralizing the acid that causes hunger pains. But in 2008, food prices in Haiti had risen to the point where people couldn't afford rice and were eating the cookies instead. Like several handfuls of Tums for dinner because you can't afford a fast food. Ironically so many people were relying on the cookies that even the price of mud had gone up. But the article spiraled a bit out of control: it was translated into many languages and papers all across the globe published it, many on the front page. Apparently the image of the Haitian mother eating mud poetically resonated with world-wide anxieties about rising food prices at the time. Of course, many Haitians were upset about what they viewed to be the insulting publicity about their country, and JK received quite a bit of flak. The only thing that anyone remembered from the story was "uncivilized Haitians so hungry they eat mud," not any of the information about its traditional usage or the paraphrase from an American immunologist commenting on the health benefits of eating certain soil. Of course, the story was not a piece of anthropology. It was spun in order to provoke concern about a serious economic crisis. And it did. A few months later, when Port-au-Prince (and other impoverished cities around the world) broke out in food riots, everyone already sensed that the problem was grave. And now, two years later, people can ask silly questions like "oh the mud eating riots?" because that is the image that lingers.