People all throughout this city are just waiting for something to change. However, its not the elections they are waiting for. On a small scale, some communities can address their own needs: clear a field of garbage to lay a garden, organize sports camps and schools. But on a fundamental and structural level this place is stagnating, and at this distance (both subjective and temporal) it doesn't seem like the November elections give anyone reason to get excited. Politics leave people pretty apathetic. That's a fairly natural reaction considering the assassinations, shootings, and disappearances that seemed to accompany the political activity of any kind from the 1950's till the early 2000s. Speaking out, organizing, attending a radical church, or even voting in national elections has historically led to massacres (usually at the hands or sanctioned by the Army or the secret militia of Tonton Macoute). So unless there is a reason to get excited, like Wyclef for example, its not really worth getting involved. Safer not to know and not to care.
Another part of the problem is that both sides of the great struggle of the recent era -Duvalierism and Aristide- are rather of washed out. Although you can't run as either as either of those groups officially (the first is in bad taste and the second is illegal), the political players on the scene now have roots in one or the other or both. The language that defined this struggle is still the language of politics today, although now it seems hollow, signifying nothing. Duvalierism is right-wing dictatorship, state control, order, noirism. A lot of people have been looking fondly upon the Duvalier years, which ended in 87, since the earthquake. You see lots of 'Bon Retour Jean Francois Duvalier' graffettied around town. The logic under a dictatorship at least shit would get Ladone. Aristides party, Lavalas, is the party of "the people", purporting to challenge American economic imperialism and make the amelioration of material conditions for the poor a top priority. Aristide made a name for himself as a supporter of liberation theology and daring and outspoke critic of oppression and violence during the junta that followed the Duvaliers. Through his preachings, considered radical by church and state, he gained a massive popular following that only grew the more times they tried to assassinate him. Though not a skilled politician, he was president for seven months in before being removed in a CIA backed coup in 1991. He was reinstated in 1994 with strict conditions, including the enforcement of neo-liberal political measures. He was president until 1996, then reelected again in 2001, but removed in another CIA backed coup (under Bill Clinton, who is now practically the Resident-General of Haiti), and has been in exile ever since. He party Lavalas was banned from elections, but many of the present day politicians cut their teeth in Lavalas (for example, the current president Preval served as Aristides prime minister).
All the major candidates in the current elections made their careers through involvement or accordance with one or another of these 'parties', or both. The fact that Alexis was a former prime minister, or Manigat was a first lady, none of these are actually endorsements. The fact that Manigat's husband worked for Duvalier and came into office in a discredited election and then was promptly duped out of the office and into exile, that's not really a glowing recommendation, is it? The fact that Preval was formerly involved in Lavalas means nothing about his contemporary political agenda. He's certainly not particularly worried about ameliorating the material conditions of the poor. The idea and the network of Lavalas might have meant something once, but it doesn't anymore.
The point is that the ideas that motivated both Duvalierism and Lavalas rouse little enthusiasm today, but another political language has yet to develop to take their place. People are still fighting the same old battles, thinking in the same old diachomy, and yet the realities of the world have moved on. I'm not saying that violent dictatorship is a thing of the past, or that addressing social inequality directly is passe, but rather the Haitian people aren't animated by the same ideas anymore, and politics has yet to catch up. The celebration of Aristides birthday, which has in the past brought out thousands of people, saw a demonstration of three hundred or so this year. Its possible that people too preoccupied with meeting their most basic necessities to get involved, but I don't think that's all of it. There's no lack of political conversation or engagement in Haiti, its just that people don't see themselves or a future they want reflected in anyone running. They just see more of the same old shit. The miserably low voting turn outs don't reflect only a lack of interest. They also reflect the deliberate rejection of a system that most people recognize as a charade. What Duvalierism and Aristides movement have in common is the charismatic leader. At the center of each is a magnetic personality that is able to mobilize thousands. They each came into power bring the promise of something new. The personalities in the up-coming elections are viewed as stale and compromised. That was the appeal of Wyclef: he was an outsider (less compromised), already filthy rich (less inclined to steal), and he mobilized people. Granted, his political platform was a over hashed pile of cliches, but the idea of him got people, especially young people, to want to get involved. The presidential debates this weekend were a joke. But this country doesn't seem to run on political platforms, it runs on political personalities, both of which are absent.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Camp Ground News
I've dropped by the camp a few times now. I turn off the dust filled street and pass through the gate, waving to women who crouch in the shade of the trees. I pass the tables of men and boys playing domino along the path (this is a new development)and onto the dirt soccer field. It's pretty nice now, with the lines drawn with white rubble and netted goals on either end. There's a tournament going on this month, with individuals from the camp putting together teams from the whole neighborhood. Matches every afternoon at 4. A few hundred people show up. The winning team gets a goat.
Beautiful Sabine is pregnant again. She's a few months along, maybe she just found out or just decided to tell me. She wants a son. She has asked me to be the godmother of her baby. I love Sabine. One afternoon a few weeks ago I was crying in the camp in the mist of some disaster, and she took my head in her hands and stroked strands of hair out of my face. She insisted on walking me home, and when we passed by a hot dog vendor she took out a few crumpled bills and bought us sausages with hot sauce. I ate it gratefully, and I have to say that hot dog, given to me with sympathy by a girl living with her two kids in a tarp shack was the best tasting street food I have ever had the pleasure of eating, and I hate hot dogs. I have agreed to be the godmother to her child. I'm sure I'm getting in over my head here, but I wade willingly into the unknown.
There was a warm welcome for me when I first navigated my way to Twenty's tent through the labyrinth of tarps, ditches, and patches of corn. Rosemead was there, along with Twenty's model-esque girlfriend Kitt and some of their friends. They turned up the the music on their new speakers when I arrived, broke out some rum, and we caught up with each other's news. How was America? You've gotten fat! You missed Twenty's show, but that's okay, there'll be another one. Your mom is well? She let you come here again? No new aid distributions have come. Keep in mind that this is all happening in Kreyol, a language I can control liked a three year old. But hey, who says you need language to be friends? I can hardly ever understand Twenty, but then I just look at Rosemead, his sister, and she patiently repeats whatever he says slowly, more simply, and I laugh and nod. Bon bagay. Every afternoon these kids set up a table at the soccer game and sell rum, beer, cigarettes spaghetti and fritay. They definitely know how to make the most of a little. I sit with them at the games, occasionally putting away bottles and passing out plates of food, all the while admiring the players as they kick theatrically above their heads and headbutt the ball back and forth across the field. When I wander off Twenty shouts out after me, wants to know where I am going, wants to make sure I am safe.
I came back to Haiti with a digital camera for Kevins, my twelve year old photographer sidekick (thanks josh!! he loves it!!). Last time I was here I would give him my camera for days at a time. Most of the photos he takes are of him and his friends looking various shades of badass in different locations around the neighborhood, but some of his photos are of life in the camp. I have to say that they are so much more insightful than any photo I could take of this place. People aren't posing for him. They aren't suspicious of him, and so his photos are small windows into the vie privee of camp life. He catches graceful moments of painful boredom : a man lounging on sheets of metal with his head in the lap of a lover; a red-haired and pot-bellied baby causally chewing on cardboard; women carrying water. People all throughout this city are just waiting for something to change.
Beautiful Sabine is pregnant again. She's a few months along, maybe she just found out or just decided to tell me. She wants a son. She has asked me to be the godmother of her baby. I love Sabine. One afternoon a few weeks ago I was crying in the camp in the mist of some disaster, and she took my head in her hands and stroked strands of hair out of my face. She insisted on walking me home, and when we passed by a hot dog vendor she took out a few crumpled bills and bought us sausages with hot sauce. I ate it gratefully, and I have to say that hot dog, given to me with sympathy by a girl living with her two kids in a tarp shack was the best tasting street food I have ever had the pleasure of eating, and I hate hot dogs. I have agreed to be the godmother to her child. I'm sure I'm getting in over my head here, but I wade willingly into the unknown.
There was a warm welcome for me when I first navigated my way to Twenty's tent through the labyrinth of tarps, ditches, and patches of corn. Rosemead was there, along with Twenty's model-esque girlfriend Kitt and some of their friends. They turned up the the music on their new speakers when I arrived, broke out some rum, and we caught up with each other's news. How was America? You've gotten fat! You missed Twenty's show, but that's okay, there'll be another one. Your mom is well? She let you come here again? No new aid distributions have come. Keep in mind that this is all happening in Kreyol, a language I can control liked a three year old. But hey, who says you need language to be friends? I can hardly ever understand Twenty, but then I just look at Rosemead, his sister, and she patiently repeats whatever he says slowly, more simply, and I laugh and nod. Bon bagay. Every afternoon these kids set up a table at the soccer game and sell rum, beer, cigarettes spaghetti and fritay. They definitely know how to make the most of a little. I sit with them at the games, occasionally putting away bottles and passing out plates of food, all the while admiring the players as they kick theatrically above their heads and headbutt the ball back and forth across the field. When I wander off Twenty shouts out after me, wants to know where I am going, wants to make sure I am safe.
I came back to Haiti with a digital camera for Kevins, my twelve year old photographer sidekick (thanks josh!! he loves it!!). Last time I was here I would give him my camera for days at a time. Most of the photos he takes are of him and his friends looking various shades of badass in different locations around the neighborhood, but some of his photos are of life in the camp. I have to say that they are so much more insightful than any photo I could take of this place. People aren't posing for him. They aren't suspicious of him, and so his photos are small windows into the vie privee of camp life. He catches graceful moments of painful boredom : a man lounging on sheets of metal with his head in the lap of a lover; a red-haired and pot-bellied baby causally chewing on cardboard; women carrying water. People all throughout this city are just waiting for something to change.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Smackdown in Cite Soleil
Yesterday afternoon, as I was driving past Cite Soleil with journalist friends, I witnessed something that puts Haitian resentment towards the international presence here into perspective. As our car approached the intersection in front of the Commissariat (police station), a police and UN caravan emerged from the slum and pulled in front of us, with a large group of people running along side them. They looked more agitated and curious than upset. There was a man sprawled out in the bed of the police pick-up truck, obviously they had made an arrest in the slum. Chilean UN soldiers with flak jackets and guns took pictures of the scene with point and shoot cameras. As the trucks rolled into the Commissarat the crowd followed right up to the gates, until the UN soldiers started shouting and pushing them back across the street to let the traffic (us) pass through. We pulled forward slowly, doors locked and windows open, trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently we caught the attention of an intoxicated young man weaving towards us, small plastic cup of clarin in hand. He was shouting something and indicated to us to stop. I eyed the door lock uneasily as he sidled up to the car, but someone in the car said he was shouting that he was glad the press was there documenting this. A second later there was a Chilean UN solider at his elbow, shouting at him (in Spanish, most likely...) to back off from the car. He pulled at the guy, and when he kept pushing towards us the UN officer smacked the young man hard across the face. I gasped, the man doubled over slightly and brought his hand to his face, and the UN officer stalked off. We rolled forward a bit more and then came to a stop. The drunk man came up to the driver's side window, this time animated and angry. We were aghast that the UN soldier smacked him thinking that he was doing us a favor. He was like "you saw that? you saw that!?" and we replied something to the effect of "oh dude we totally saw that, that was so uncalled for i'm sorry that sucks." A crowd gathered around the car, listening to the conversation between the drunk man and the journalists. They wanted to know if we would write a story about this, show the world how Haitians are treated. It's no small surprise that some Haitians feel so degraded by the international presence that is basically running the country right now. They feel like they aren't respected or valued, just treated like poor dark garbage. They're opinions aren't listened to, their right to housing a joke, and in this case even their physical person is abused. I know a slap in the face is rather mild as far as physical violence goes, but it makes me think about what must happen when the threat is worse and there are no witnesses. Also, when violence like that is sanctioned, violence used by one foreigner to protect another group of foreigners from the inconvenience of having to engage with Haitians, it upholds the idea that the current occupation is just one more generation of oppressors in a long line of oppressors that can be traced back through the US occupation to the days of slavery, when blacks could only speak to whites with permission.
The cup of clarin had fallen out of his hand at some point, and in a few minutes the man had calmed down slightly and started to explain to us what had happened. Apparently that morning gang wars in the neighborhood had broken out into open fire, and several people were dead. Presumably, the arrested man was affiliated with one or another of the gangs. Did the police or the UN fire any of the shots, we asked. The crowd talked amongst itself, then decided that no, they had not. But the violence is really the NGO's fault, they explained. While they are not the ones pulling out guns, they aren't distributing the food equally among the different parts of the city, and this is causing group tensions to escalate to the point of violence. I wonder if the violence was an attempt to secure food resources, or if it was a expression of jealously and vengeance. You could argue easily against the logic that blames the NGOs for gang violence, but this is a place where the basic necessities of life are so hard to come by, given only by charity and sometimes taken by violence. I can see how easily those two forces can become interconnected in the eyes of the people who live at the whim of both.
The cup of clarin had fallen out of his hand at some point, and in a few minutes the man had calmed down slightly and started to explain to us what had happened. Apparently that morning gang wars in the neighborhood had broken out into open fire, and several people were dead. Presumably, the arrested man was affiliated with one or another of the gangs. Did the police or the UN fire any of the shots, we asked. The crowd talked amongst itself, then decided that no, they had not. But the violence is really the NGO's fault, they explained. While they are not the ones pulling out guns, they aren't distributing the food equally among the different parts of the city, and this is causing group tensions to escalate to the point of violence. I wonder if the violence was an attempt to secure food resources, or if it was a expression of jealously and vengeance. You could argue easily against the logic that blames the NGOs for gang violence, but this is a place where the basic necessities of life are so hard to come by, given only by charity and sometimes taken by violence. I can see how easily those two forces can become interconnected in the eyes of the people who live at the whim of both.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The Comeback
After a four week hiatus in America, the Haiti Oral History Project is getting up and running again. I was so conflicted about returning. I will admit (as I did, often and loudly) that I dreaded going back. To put it mildly, Haiti is a very challenging place that tested me in ways I wasn't aware of and I sometimes failed. But I had already put the wheels in motion for a return trip and those wheels kept turning regardless of what I thought. My professor pulled some strings, broke some rules, and gave me his confidence to come back and do something awesome. But what kind of poor life choices had I made that this opportunity awaits me in godforsaken Haiti? It'd be so much easier to read books and drink beer with my similarly minded friends in Brooklyn, talking shit about the professors we aspire to become. What had I done?
I imagined simply not going. But within an hour of my arrival, the anger and fear in me melted. Tap-taps had new paint jobs, the smell of fritay my mouth water. Graceful women wove through the cars with baskets of avocados balanced on their heads. I started asking the guy who picked up me what he thought about Wyclef. Oh yeah, I remembered, I'm obsessed with talking with folks about Haiti. What is Haiti? Why is it? It was nice to have a month where I could try to talk about something else, but let's be real, I didn't succeed. If I hadn't come back I would have still be wondering the same things, just from afar, while those who engage with me do so first with interest, and then later with kindness. Here there are people who can feed my curiosity, who are as fascinated as I am, if not more so. This is where I belong. So I rented a room in boarding house and moved back. I've met a few of the folks who live here, asked timid questions about where my room is and how stuff works. I have a bed, a closet, a mosquito net, a pile of books, a few photos. It was a redundant of me to take photos of Haiti to decorate my room in Haiti. There will be no (mental) escape.
Underneath ripples of thunder the soft voices of my housemates drift off their balcony and through my window. The electricity flickers on and off. Whatever this becomes will be entirely my own creation. I know that sounds like hubris yet whether or not it is true it is what I believe.
Wish me luck, my friends.
I imagined simply not going. But within an hour of my arrival, the anger and fear in me melted. Tap-taps had new paint jobs, the smell of fritay my mouth water. Graceful women wove through the cars with baskets of avocados balanced on their heads. I started asking the guy who picked up me what he thought about Wyclef. Oh yeah, I remembered, I'm obsessed with talking with folks about Haiti. What is Haiti? Why is it? It was nice to have a month where I could try to talk about something else, but let's be real, I didn't succeed. If I hadn't come back I would have still be wondering the same things, just from afar, while those who engage with me do so first with interest, and then later with kindness. Here there are people who can feed my curiosity, who are as fascinated as I am, if not more so. This is where I belong. So I rented a room in boarding house and moved back. I've met a few of the folks who live here, asked timid questions about where my room is and how stuff works. I have a bed, a closet, a mosquito net, a pile of books, a few photos. It was a redundant of me to take photos of Haiti to decorate my room in Haiti. There will be no (mental) escape.
Underneath ripples of thunder the soft voices of my housemates drift off their balcony and through my window. The electricity flickers on and off. Whatever this becomes will be entirely my own creation. I know that sounds like hubris yet whether or not it is true it is what I believe.
Wish me luck, my friends.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Wrestler: Haiti Round Two
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.
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.
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)