One week in the States and I have decompressed enough that I am starting to be able to think clearly about Haiti and the Haiti Oral History Project. I have 48 interviews, ranging in length from twenty minutes to two hours. The interviews touch variously on politics, Christianity, trauma, health conditions, the camps, crime, Vodou, almost all in the context of the earthquake or it's shadow. Most are in Kreyol or French, a handful of them are in English. The first third or so aren't so great, in my opinion, just because I wasn't very comfortable yet in the position of the interviewer and I had a pretty boring questionnaire. Or I should say, I had a questionnaire at all. By the end I already had in my head the most interesting questions and I was much more flexible, trying to search out whatever the subject's concerns or angle was, and prompting them to talk about that. I think I have 40 hours of conversations.
Of course none of this matters unless of course I find something incredible to do with it. My plan to make a donation to an archive seems pretty puny now, honestly. Its not enough now amazing conversations with refugees and others only to stick them in an archive and hope maybe someone else someone else decides to dust them off and decide to give them a listen. My heart is inside of them, and pieces of other people's hearts are inside them too. Amara suggested that I write a play based on them. I could also start thinking of them as field work for a yet to be determined dissertation. Give up the slavery question altogether and start reading about the 20th century. I had no idea this side project was going to become so big. But really, in retrospect, what did I expect? How did I think I could spend two months ducking into refugee tents, climbing over piles of rubble, hearing stories about the worst day in the history of Haiti without it being a big fucking deal? But what can I do that will do justice to myself and my material? Publish? When I set out I was only a collector of stories and opinions, and now that's just not good enough. But it's a lot easier to do research than analyze it. So what next?
I've decided to go back. I talked to my department, and they dig my research, and they agree that the best crash course in all things Haitian is actually living in Haiti. So I'll stay in the States until September, pack up my apartment, and fly back to Port-au-Prince. But instead of taking the semester off I will design three independent studies, so technically I will still be in school and receiving my stipend even though I'll be living in Port-au-Prince and spend my days continuing my interviews. There are a lot of methodological points I should work out for Haiti Round Two. I'm aiming for 200 interviews. Whatever I end up doing will be a lot stronger if I have more documentation, more perspectives. I'll work more outside of Port-au-Prince, go into more camps. Talk with more people who aren't refugees, who still live in their houses and maybe believe they aren't that affected. Find Sean Penn and ask him what exactly what he thinks he's doing. If you are reading this and thinking "wow yeah claire really needs to figure out what she's doing" please email me and let's talk because I agree. All input welcome.
I feel like a wrestler who has had the crap kicked out of him and then climbs to get back in the ring with his teeth covered in blood. Let's just hope I'm not like Micky Rourke.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
I Wish My Skin Would Just Shut Up
Haiti is far beneath me. Like ten thousand feet beneath me. I imagine her undulating mountains waving goodbye to me, or maybe good riddance. After two months, my ego and my heart are bruised. I have collided over and over again with the limits of my assumptions, and the limits of the assumptions of others. I opened up Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in the airport. The first paragraph reads: "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me... When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me." What perfect timing. Ellison is writing about being black in America, and the story he weaves is very specific to that experience. But the essence of the problem, the reduction of people into the complex of ideas we have about the color of their skin, I think can help me reflect about this small epoch of my life that is rapidly ceding into the distance. Of course, the difference between racial ideas about white people in Haiti and black people on America is that the ideas about white people are somewhat based in reality. I think for me the more fitting metaphor is language and speech. Being white in Haiti speaks certain things much louder than my voice. It makes my voice mute (or my person invisible). It speaks of disposable income, a life without hunger, the possibility of leaving that place. Of course this is not true for all people with white skin, it happens to be true for me, but those subtleties don't matter. They hear my skin speak of recent history of dependence of foreign aid, a longer (but related) history of slavery, colonization, and imperialism. It talks to them about a history of racism and resentment. My skin says all those things while I waiting for a tap-tap bus or buying an avocado. When I open my mouth to speak, I might say other things, like "I like salad" or "Tell me about the earthquake" but really what I am saying is: "I have the money to travel to another country and if you fuck with me my functioning government will come and get you so play nice." It is also saying things like "I am here to give you money and rice and tarps" which is particularly frustrating because before I came to Haiti I deliberately shed the presumption that I could 'help'. Many Haitians get confused, sometimes even upset, when what my skin says and what I say contradict. I can say whatever I want and most of the time it won't matter, people won't hear me because they are deafened by the noise of "my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination."
I am not upset if people don't want to be my friend. It would be one thing to be ignored and if people didn't care about me. Why should they? They have much bigger things to worry about that the random American chick who wanders around asking questions about things most would rather forget. But the thing is, they do care. They care a great deal. Just not about me. Strangers ask for my phone number, and if I give it to them, they will call me. Frequently. To ask for money, sex, a visa. Maybe just to say nothing, to remind me that they are out there. Often they call me to listen to what my skin says, the sweet promises they hear it whisper. Maybe if they befriend me I'll give them money, or my Ipod? Maybe I'll call up Obama on his cell phone and tell him to intervene on their behalf to try to arrange a scholarship for their son. But what I say with my voice doesn't resonate nearly so much, if at all.
Part of this is the consequence of poverty, and its overlap with race. Money matters so much in Haiti. Money is more important than blood. The reality is that money matters that much everywhere, but in places where most people have at least some of it, like America, we don't have to talk about it quite as much.
For example, in Haiti, many girls are looking for a man to spend money on her. "Does he have a job?" is more important than "Is he hot?". When I went out with K and her friends, they would not want us to talk to guys if they were too cheap to buy us drinks. At first I thought this was crass. But then I realized I have the luxury of being able to buy my own drinks, so I can look for other qualities in the guys I want to talk to. The guys being able to spend the bucks on me is not going to make or break the deal, since I can cover my own bases. But if I couldn't, I'm sure I would be looking for the same thing. K has no income and comes from a poor family. What she is looking for on a Friday night is a way out. Someone said to me here that it's next to impossible to fall in love when you have no idea how you are going to feed your family tomorrow. I believe that. As long as people's most basic material needs are not being met, why would they take the time to develop and intellectual or emotional connection, particularly to someone who doesn't share the same situation?. These two elements aren't even mutually exclusive, and they can both characterize an interaction or a relationship from one moment to the next. I'm not saying it's impossible, and I have had the honor of some serious connections with people who live in refugee camps (and outside the camps) with people who never asked me for anything. But it's rare. For the most part, everyone is trying to move along in the world, make it to the next day, and to many people I met in Haiti, I am the suggestion or promise of a means to an end.
I am flying towards America at hundreds of miles an hour. Haiti is far behind me, and for now it is the ocean and the clouds. I am flying towards building codes, towards laws against corruption, towards English. Most importantly, I am flying towards a cultural language I know more or less how to control. Obviously America too is an incredibly complicated and often fucked up place, and I still make social gaffs and get people pissed at me. There are plenty of places where I speak volumes without words, plenty of places I don't understand. Nevertheless, I will breath a deep sigh of relief when I get off the plane and feel the ratio between things said and things heard even out, at least a little bit.
I am not upset if people don't want to be my friend. It would be one thing to be ignored and if people didn't care about me. Why should they? They have much bigger things to worry about that the random American chick who wanders around asking questions about things most would rather forget. But the thing is, they do care. They care a great deal. Just not about me. Strangers ask for my phone number, and if I give it to them, they will call me. Frequently. To ask for money, sex, a visa. Maybe just to say nothing, to remind me that they are out there. Often they call me to listen to what my skin says, the sweet promises they hear it whisper. Maybe if they befriend me I'll give them money, or my Ipod? Maybe I'll call up Obama on his cell phone and tell him to intervene on their behalf to try to arrange a scholarship for their son. But what I say with my voice doesn't resonate nearly so much, if at all.
Part of this is the consequence of poverty, and its overlap with race. Money matters so much in Haiti. Money is more important than blood. The reality is that money matters that much everywhere, but in places where most people have at least some of it, like America, we don't have to talk about it quite as much.
For example, in Haiti, many girls are looking for a man to spend money on her. "Does he have a job?" is more important than "Is he hot?". When I went out with K and her friends, they would not want us to talk to guys if they were too cheap to buy us drinks. At first I thought this was crass. But then I realized I have the luxury of being able to buy my own drinks, so I can look for other qualities in the guys I want to talk to. The guys being able to spend the bucks on me is not going to make or break the deal, since I can cover my own bases. But if I couldn't, I'm sure I would be looking for the same thing. K has no income and comes from a poor family. What she is looking for on a Friday night is a way out. Someone said to me here that it's next to impossible to fall in love when you have no idea how you are going to feed your family tomorrow. I believe that. As long as people's most basic material needs are not being met, why would they take the time to develop and intellectual or emotional connection, particularly to someone who doesn't share the same situation?. These two elements aren't even mutually exclusive, and they can both characterize an interaction or a relationship from one moment to the next. I'm not saying it's impossible, and I have had the honor of some serious connections with people who live in refugee camps (and outside the camps) with people who never asked me for anything. But it's rare. For the most part, everyone is trying to move along in the world, make it to the next day, and to many people I met in Haiti, I am the suggestion or promise of a means to an end.
I am flying towards America at hundreds of miles an hour. Haiti is far behind me, and for now it is the ocean and the clouds. I am flying towards building codes, towards laws against corruption, towards English. Most importantly, I am flying towards a cultural language I know more or less how to control. Obviously America too is an incredibly complicated and often fucked up place, and I still make social gaffs and get people pissed at me. There are plenty of places where I speak volumes without words, plenty of places I don't understand. Nevertheless, I will breath a deep sigh of relief when I get off the plane and feel the ratio between things said and things heard even out, at least a little bit.
Everything Falls Apart
The last few days have been taken up with a ridiculous drama involving the closest friend I had here, a woman named K. Summary: unbeknownst to me, a taxi driver that I interviewed made a menacing comment to K on the basis that he held her responsible for me not paying him double the price of a moto ride. Rather than letting it go, K freaked out and wanted to go the police. While I consoled her, I did not offer up contact information for the guy. I told myself that since it was given to me for the purposes for my research, it was not up for available to be used against the dude. That and because the Haitian police are really scary people. Of course, research ethics doesn't make a ton of sense outside of academic circles.
Flash to K storming into Camp Trezalie with a police officer friend in a rage, intent on poisoning my friendships there by breaking all my confidences in her and adding some straight up lies to sweeten the pot. Not really sure why, either to punish me or to bully me into giving her what she wanted. I don't know exactly what happened since I wasn't there. Flash to me on the back of motorcycle speeding to Ft. Dimanche, the notorious police station where under Duvalier people went and never returned, in order to get information about a camp friend who I had been informed was arrested in the course of K's madness. Then to me riding to Trezalie in the back of a police pickup to investigate said arrest, only to find out it was elaborate lie constructed by my friends there to observe my reaction, to judge if I was really the awful person K had portrayed me to be. Finally, flash to me thanking Haitian police officers and awkwardly telling them their services weren't necessary after all. Yet the damage had been done, and some of the friendships I was building there were seriously wounded. The rest of my days (for better or for worse there were only a few) have been spent making peace offerings and avoiding certain people and situations.
This situation breaks my heart, especially since my friendship with K is definitively closed. I always knew she was a little nuts, but I didn't know she was capable of being so irrational. But really, what is the most revealing is that the motivations that animated this drama make perfect sense to everyone involved except me. There was so much going on in this situation that I didn't see. My unintentional betrayal of loyalty, the hot-headed vengeance, the manipulation of those who felt betrayed by me. Maybe it was the first time K realized that her friendship with a the white girl could have negative consequences, and then the white girl didn't even back her up. In my circles, people tend to opt for discussion over vengeance, people don't make up elaborate lies just to see what happens. Of course there was a whole cultural language going on that I just don't understand. Kreyol is more than a spoken language, and I don't speak it very well. The guy who threatened K was a D.P. and a rasta, both of which make him a particularly threatening character to Haitians. Maybe she was right to be terrified by his passing comment. But if that is the case, do you want to piss him off further by getting the cops involved? Cops can make people disappear. To her, the fact that I didn't furnish the information she needed was a betrayal of loyalty. By protecting him I was taking his side. But then, if he did something more serious to K, or if me, would I hesitate? Part of it is stubbornness, I guess, the refusal to allow myself to be bullied.
When I talked about this story with other Haitian friends, everyone advised me to have been more careful with my choice of friends. It seems that many Haitians think advice is telling you what you should have done differently in the first place. Not helpful. When I first arrived in Haiti, Sandra told me she didn't like having friends. Get involved with people and trouble will follow. I think I understand what she means. Is the lesson to be drawn here really to just to trust people less? Maybe it's to not become the constant companion of crazy drama queens. But to reduce our friendship to that would also be false, since we spend many hilarious and adventurous weeks in Port-au-Prince. I owe her a lot. Besides, mistrust is contrary to my nature. Particularly in Haiti, where I have such a strong desire to give common humanity every chance to seep through the boundaries of race and class that divide. What I am learning is that maybe those boundaries are not as porous as I would like to think. When everyone is happy, anything seems possible, but as soon as someone is angry I am called out as an outsider to the 'race', I'm a white person who came into their lives and they accepted despite the color of my skin. With the folks in the camp, I think things are going better, we talked about the situation enough that they understand what happened from my perspective. I think they were impressed that I went to Ft. Dimanche to look for my friend and then came to the camp with police officers to figure out what happened. I haven't talked to K since. I saw her twice, out and about, but we didn't talk. I could have tried to reach out to her more and repair things, but first of all I honestly don't think she would understand or would want to understand my perspective; second of all I don't have room in my life for someone who could do something that cruel. But the real lesson, perhaps the most important, is to how every action and interaction is informed by a whole slew of cultural meanings, both in the intention and in how it is perceived. Makes me wonder how often I am sending messages I have no control over because I don't know how to read the meanings I create.
Flash to K storming into Camp Trezalie with a police officer friend in a rage, intent on poisoning my friendships there by breaking all my confidences in her and adding some straight up lies to sweeten the pot. Not really sure why, either to punish me or to bully me into giving her what she wanted. I don't know exactly what happened since I wasn't there. Flash to me on the back of motorcycle speeding to Ft. Dimanche, the notorious police station where under Duvalier people went and never returned, in order to get information about a camp friend who I had been informed was arrested in the course of K's madness. Then to me riding to Trezalie in the back of a police pickup to investigate said arrest, only to find out it was elaborate lie constructed by my friends there to observe my reaction, to judge if I was really the awful person K had portrayed me to be. Finally, flash to me thanking Haitian police officers and awkwardly telling them their services weren't necessary after all. Yet the damage had been done, and some of the friendships I was building there were seriously wounded. The rest of my days (for better or for worse there were only a few) have been spent making peace offerings and avoiding certain people and situations.
This situation breaks my heart, especially since my friendship with K is definitively closed. I always knew she was a little nuts, but I didn't know she was capable of being so irrational. But really, what is the most revealing is that the motivations that animated this drama make perfect sense to everyone involved except me. There was so much going on in this situation that I didn't see. My unintentional betrayal of loyalty, the hot-headed vengeance, the manipulation of those who felt betrayed by me. Maybe it was the first time K realized that her friendship with a the white girl could have negative consequences, and then the white girl didn't even back her up. In my circles, people tend to opt for discussion over vengeance, people don't make up elaborate lies just to see what happens. Of course there was a whole cultural language going on that I just don't understand. Kreyol is more than a spoken language, and I don't speak it very well. The guy who threatened K was a D.P. and a rasta, both of which make him a particularly threatening character to Haitians. Maybe she was right to be terrified by his passing comment. But if that is the case, do you want to piss him off further by getting the cops involved? Cops can make people disappear. To her, the fact that I didn't furnish the information she needed was a betrayal of loyalty. By protecting him I was taking his side. But then, if he did something more serious to K, or if me, would I hesitate? Part of it is stubbornness, I guess, the refusal to allow myself to be bullied.
When I talked about this story with other Haitian friends, everyone advised me to have been more careful with my choice of friends. It seems that many Haitians think advice is telling you what you should have done differently in the first place. Not helpful. When I first arrived in Haiti, Sandra told me she didn't like having friends. Get involved with people and trouble will follow. I think I understand what she means. Is the lesson to be drawn here really to just to trust people less? Maybe it's to not become the constant companion of crazy drama queens. But to reduce our friendship to that would also be false, since we spend many hilarious and adventurous weeks in Port-au-Prince. I owe her a lot. Besides, mistrust is contrary to my nature. Particularly in Haiti, where I have such a strong desire to give common humanity every chance to seep through the boundaries of race and class that divide. What I am learning is that maybe those boundaries are not as porous as I would like to think. When everyone is happy, anything seems possible, but as soon as someone is angry I am called out as an outsider to the 'race', I'm a white person who came into their lives and they accepted despite the color of my skin. With the folks in the camp, I think things are going better, we talked about the situation enough that they understand what happened from my perspective. I think they were impressed that I went to Ft. Dimanche to look for my friend and then came to the camp with police officers to figure out what happened. I haven't talked to K since. I saw her twice, out and about, but we didn't talk. I could have tried to reach out to her more and repair things, but first of all I honestly don't think she would understand or would want to understand my perspective; second of all I don't have room in my life for someone who could do something that cruel. But the real lesson, perhaps the most important, is to how every action and interaction is informed by a whole slew of cultural meanings, both in the intention and in how it is perceived. Makes me wonder how often I am sending messages I have no control over because I don't know how to read the meanings I create.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)