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.