Countdown?

I haven’t written in quite a while. I’ve been busy, and didn’t have anything special to report. Or so I thought….. Since I have a ticket home in a little over than two months, I’m already in ‘summary mode’. Thinking of the things I will miss and the things that I will not. Yesterday evening during dinner, we were chatting about another ordinary day and suddenly realized that our ordinary may be a little… extraordinary.

So – here’s a short description of one day in Haiti.

We drove to the village. Traffic was reasonable (summer vacation).

First, we went to talk to a man living in the village who is also a TV cameraman. We wanted him to volunteer to come in and talk to the kids in the summer club that we’re planning. We want one of the weeks for the older kids to be about Journalism. We will give each 4 kids a task to find and write a news story. He really wanted to help, but wanted to find us a real reporter as opposed to “just a cameraman”. We tried to keep it reasonable, but may end up hosting one of the famous reporters in Haiti in our little unofficial camp. When we got out of his house (with the details of his two daughters to enroll to the camp), there was a cellular phone engineer waiting for us in order to arrange connection of the community center to electricity (the phone company is a partner and they are donating the power). We are in the last construction phases of a community center that will hold a cyber area, health clinic, library and various meeting / class rooms for the community to use. We put him in touch with the construction engineer – and spent a few minutes discussing how we can use the community center (which is still under construction) as a VIP area for a presidential visit next week (President Clinton of the US and Haiti’s Martelly will be coming). By the time that was arranged we were just in time for our next meeting: starting to plan the community center content. We asked one of the ladies of the village committee and a young man that we like and have worked with before to drop by so that we can talk about how we can run the center, what kind of activities it will hold, how to keep it financially viable etc. We’ll be meeting again next week to continue the process.

 

The school year is over, but there are still activities that take place. Yesterday:

-         Kindergarten parents came to get report cards.

-         First day of registration for the kids summer club (and we’re nearly fully booked).

-         Second lesson of our new computer program (yeepee).

-         Connecting the school vegetable garden to a drip irrigation system (the vegetable garden and the irrigation system is something we’ve been trying to get to work for a couple of months now. Still working on it).

-         Summer cleaning of the classes.

-         Installing of a new gate for the school (2 weeks of back and forth and buying more cement just for the installation!. We ended up with a huge bumper at the entrance to the school which we didn’t plan).

 

Kaleta came to register for camp with her little brother



Preparing curriculum and trainers for the summer club and computer program has been very time consuming and we’ve been working hard on finding and training the local youth to make our special activities work well. Being basically pessimistic, I had a great time seeing the first couple of computer classes being delivered and accepted with joy J

Summer computer class



On our way out we quickly stopped in the house of one of the school cooks to arrange with her selling of extra flour from the school feeding program so that it doesn’t rot during the vacation. We’ll keep the money to use in the kitchen next year.

Got home before 8 PM and made a nice dinner. We were using google to find a good way to cook a malanga root and came to the conclusion that there is no….

Not really related to this post. Sue me.

Working with People

One of the biggest challenges in Haiti remains working with people. We have a lot of frustration around this area. On the one hand – we like most of the people that work with us in the village. On the other hand - it’s very difficult for us to trust them to do their job and if we do trust someone – we’re often disappointed.

Some of the things we require seem very natural to us: watch your surroundings. If something is wrong – fix it. Think of ways to improve. We were hoping that the school teachers and directors would somehow adopt this state of mind but so far without success.

We currently have about 30 people working in the school and this number grows as we add buildings and programs. For most of them - this is the only employment opportunity. For each of the jobs, you can find dozens of other willing candidates. In my ‘western’ state of mind this fact would cause people to be very interested in doing good work in order to keep their job. In reality – we often have to remind people their promises and commitments. When we do approach people who are failing to do a good job, they usually prefer describing why other people are doing a bad job, and not talking about themselves. I think that my problem is with the expectation that people that are living under such harsh conditions would act different than people world wide.

Christine just started working as a cleaning lady in the new kindergarten. She has 6 kids, but they don’t all live with her. She cannot sign her name, but the two kids she sends to our school are both doing very well and getting good grades. Her other kids are going to other schools. She’s one of our favorite people in the village and watching her happily come to work in the afternoon makes me happy.

Two months later…

Since this blog is read only by people that know me – you probably know that I’m still in Haiti. I didn’t write for a while for several reasons: I was busy, I was on vacation in Israel and…. the 3 legged purple alien stopped seeming strange.

Meanwhile: Haiti selected a president. The second round of votes and the result announcement were peaceful and everyone is expecting a peaceful entrance to office next week. We’re not sure if it’s us being optimistic or a real change but it seems that somebody has been cleaning the garbage off the streets since the election results were published. Cleaner streets are not only nicer and more hygienic. In my mind they are connected to giving dignity to the people walking and living there.

We are still living in the city and spend too much time in traffic on the way to the village every day. Every day in the street we still see:

-         someone fighting

-         people asking us for food

-         someone dancing

People are still trying to improve their situation over the other millions of miserable people, but not letting that stop them from being happy for the smallest excuse.

Couldn't find related pictures. Attaching unrelated ones (the school blog can be found on: http://zoranjeschool.blogspot.com/ )

Kids playing in the new school playground



We had a science fair



School Life

There were a few special events in the school in the last few weeks. Except for that, the school is running and dealing with problems similar to other schools around the world: discipline, maintenance etc.

Our special events include:

A valentine party (can’t find photos)

Preparing carnival:

School decorated - the day before

And celebrating it:

Kindergarten (4 years old)

School yard

Games

Dances (skirts made of torn rice bags)



Parade



And the first computer literacy lessons to the teachers. We’re hoping to get more computers and be able to give lessons to students as well.

If anyone is wondering, the lesson was delivered in bad creole.

Besides that, we’ve finally got electricity and internet in the school, and are building an arts workshop so more organized art lessons will start next week.

What power? Power of Voodoo

On our first night in Jacmel, we were invited to a voodoo ceremony in a near by village. The Haitians are almost all Christians, but almost everyone believes in voodoo at some level and there is a large precentage of people that practice it regularly and a lot of people will go to consult the voodoo priest on health and other issues. There are people that practice ‘good’ voodoo that can help cure illness and stuff, and people that practice ‘bad’ voodoo in which curses are put on people making them ill, dead or zombie. A lot of people that become ill believe that it’s a curse that somebody put on them. Almost everybody we talked to about the subject (university students, business men, etc) has a story in which they saw a voodoo curse in action.

The way to the ceremony increased the effect of it. It was located in a village, and after crossing a river (needless to say – without a bridge), a motorcycle waited to take us to the venue of the ceremony.

There was a lot of dancing and a priest that encouraged people to continue.

The ‘church’ had some strange symbols.

The highlight of the ceremony was a painting made with sand on the floor (while everyone dancing in the background), that was then totally erased by a group of dancers that danced on it.

Many of the pictures are fuzzy. Probably a curse.

Carnival

Carnival is considered by some Haitians as the biggest holiday of the year. In the past few decades it has changed from a costume and parade event into a huge-party-in-the-streets event. It seems to me that this allientated some of the previous participants and carnival is no longer for everybody. But – it’s still a huge attraction. The official carnival in Port-au-Prince is 3 days. This year, due to unsolved housing problems, the organizers were not able to build stands for spectators (as the usual place is occupied by tents) and only a few exist. Some artists preferred to skip the celebrations, and the route was cut short. On the first day we bought a ticket to one of the few stands that did exist and celebrated carnival from close, but from a safe distance. An unbelievably strong carribean rain just went the party was starting to pick up sent most if not all the celebrators back home early. No pictures as we took nothing with us when we went out to avoid pick pocketers.

Last week we went to Jacmel. The Jacmel carnival is a week before the big one, and is considered to be a friendlier ‘old-style’ event. We drove to Jacmel a couple of days before carnival day (in Jacmel it’s just one day) and spent most of the time in a beach house that belongs to a friend of a friend.

The carnival itself was as promised. Friendly, safe with a parade, people of all ages participating and happy dancing in the streets. Jacmel in general is clean, calm and friendly and I liked it a lot.

The NGO (aka: the art of networking, asking and begging)

Haiti ‘foreign aid’ is flooded with money. The BIG guys have billions of dollars allocated by governments and large global organizations to spend here. The problem is that the BIG guys are sometimes slow to respond, beaucratic and inefficient. We, on the other hand are tiny. There are at least a few hundred (but I suspect thousands) of small organizations / projects etc in Haiti. Buildling a single school somewhere doesn’t take much more than good will and some friends that want to help. Many of the schools are simply a tent in someone’s yard. Many are in a hut near a church etc. There are numerous organizations that are worrying about clean water, health, kids, micro financing, small businesses, infrastructure. There are even organizations that are focusing on animal rights in Haiti. Some organizations have a financial back. Some (like ours) rely on finding large donors, applying for grants and making partnerships with other initiatives that have resources and are looking for places to invest. For example:

Some NGO rep, any occasion, PaP: “I have an empowerment program for young women by teaching them karate”.

Any Prodev person happening to stand nearby: “We have a community center in a village. Did you ever think of the huge benefits of teaching village women karate?”

Of course most of the relationships are more serious than that. Both the UN and the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative), and probably others spend a lot of efforts on connecting people with joint interests and creating opportunities for people to meet. If you’re a small organization, and invited to the right places, and have the ability to understand how to make a puzzle from pieces that don’t really fit and how to convince people that you’re serious, you have a chance to get quite a lot of things done just from bringing in the right contacts.

For example, last week the following came to visit our school:

-         financed project for teaching young people life skills through construction (possible partnership: set up a construction training program in our vocational school)

-         financed project to run teen-aged girls social groups (possible: use our school / community center for this activity)

-         Farming Training initiative (early stage. Community activity, school activity, job creation opportunity, feeding opportunity all an option).

-         Financed initiative for short term infrastructure activities (possible: help us with the flooded school yard)

-         Community empowerment initiative (possible: join in running the community center / creating activities there)

-         Water filteration organization (will probably not happen as it is also not financed)

There may have been others. It’s sometimes hard to follow. But you get the point – our tiny NGO is busy getting as much help as possible from anyone that can give it with plans constantly adjusting to whatever is available. Somewhat unorganized – but gets things done.

This is going to be a kindergarten

Middle / Vocational School building

A basketball court

Driving (GTA* Port-au-Prince)

After the Christmas vacation we decided it was time for another step towards independence and started driving ourselves. We did drive in Haiti before, but not inside the city. The roads are very steep. Usually unpaved. With many holes. They are two way, but often not wide enough for two cars. The cars are huge (including ours), usually some kind of 4x4. There are people on the side of the roads. Walking, selling, buying, working. The side of the roads is often ON the road. Children try to cross, but there are no organized places for that. People are crossing with heavy loads of merchandize on their heads, or women with large buckets of water on their way back from the well (both inside the city and outside). At night there are no lights, and the dark skin color of the population only makes it harder. In addition there are tap-taps which are small pickup trucks that act as mini buses. They usually are packed full of people that are many times expected to jump in and out without the pickup coming to a full stop. Every little disturbance becomes a huge traffic jam in the streets that are already very jammed 80% of the time. And there are many accidents both due to the conditions and the fact that road rules are somewhat vague and the way to aquire a driver’s license is to pay someone to print it for you.

So, we drive. Carefully. Already scratched the car a few times, but all during parking - probably due to a combination of the size of the car and too much worrying about the many other elements of the street. We like being able to control our schedule, and not having someone always waiting for us, but after many years behind the wheel and being a confident driver – in Haiti I’m a ‘new driver’ all over again.

* GTA- Grand Theft Auto is a popular video game. I’ve never played it, but the stories I’ve heard remind me of what’s happening when I drive here.

Disappointment

I’ve heard Haitians describe themselves as tired. Not the regular: “I want to sleep”, but

the more enduring: “I’ve been walking up this hill for the past 10 years and every time I find a place to rest something happens” kind.

The inability to trust long term plans is also part of the reason foreign investors don’t like to invest in Haiti.

As for us – we were asked to return our loaned houses last Monday. We spent Monday packing our house, office, storage, school kitchen and putting all in temporary storage. It was a long and draining day that ended by us moving with most of our personal material to the city getaway house and settling there. On Tuesday other people took out our fence, and our plants, and some of our shelves. Now the house looks almost like the rest of the empty houses in the neighborhood, which is sad to look at because we put a lot of heart and muscle to make it a pleasant place to live. Now we’re waiting for the ball to drop. Will we be able to come back? Will we move to another house in or near the village? What else will change?

Something positive has already come out of this change. The school is operating very nicely without us. It might be operating even better. The directors and teachers are taking responsibility and solving their own problems. On Friday, we came by to do some things and found a teacher vs. student soccer game in recess with the entire school cheering by. Our little corner of hope in Haiti is making me extremely proud.

Guess who won...

January 12, 2011

Today is January 12. At 4:52 PM it will be a year to the earthquake. Most of the people will spend today in the church.

A church in the city. One year after.

For a few days now we’ve been preparing for Jan 12 along side our day-to-day activities.

We were trying to find out what is being planned for this day (which is an official government day-off). The first response from the village committee was surprising. They said all everyone wants it to forget. They don’t want anything to remind them. Some of the teachers at the school thought this should be a day of celebrating life and not remembering the dead. Everyone that survived should be happy. Many people thought that having a ceremony or other activities on this day will be good for everyone. We tried very hard (maybe too hard) not to impose our opinions. We were directed a few times to talk to the pastors of the various churches as they were organizing prayers for this day. We ended up not preparing anything special and letting the pastors decide what to do. They decided to do a day long prayer. Some of the churches worked together and others did their own thing.



Village praying on the 12th

We had a teachers meeting to prepare for school activities on the last day of school before the 12^th. There was praying in the opening ceremony, teachers talked with the kids about their memories from the day and Inbal led an art activity. A picture is worth a thousand words. A movie?

Inbal is editing a movie of Jan 12 in the village. I will post it when ready.



Returning to the village – aka round II

We were very tired at the time before the vacation. It’s an accumulation of a few months of work in non-standard conditions and of knowing that a vacation is coming. Inbal said we are finishing ‘round I’ and will be coming back for round II. We have an open debate on who won the first round.

I was very excited to be returning to the village. I missed the people and came back with a long list of things that need to be done and should be improved.

The first days were a little strange. Due to the long Christmas/New Year vacation it seemed to us like the village was full of new people. Instead of hugs/kisses/missed you that I expected, we got the “hey, white people!” response that we get from people that don’t know us. Many of the kids didn’t return from the vacation. We had a 60% attendance at the school instead of our usual nearly-full capacity. Some of our ‘regulars’ disappeared and we’re still trying to understand if they will return or not. We haven’t heard from our village orphan in a few days. We know the woman that took him in kicked him out, and we need to track him down. Yesterday at school, a woman came to return the books for one of the 5^th graders. We sat with the girl at recess and found out that this woman took her in to help her with house chores and now she doesn’t want her anymore. The girl still wants to go to school (getting to 5^th grade is not trivial in Haiti), but is now staying with a cousin very far away.

It also seems like the committee wants to be less involved, and some other people are looking for more involvement in community life. Since this is one of our major tasks for round II, it will be interesting to find out who the ‘new team’ is going to include.

Update: in the 2 days between writing and publishing this – some of our regulars returned and the orphan showed up again. Things are starting to feel more familiar.

Kaleta and me playing with a flashlight



Ban - making us laugh



A month later

Close followers may have noticed that I haven’t blogged in a while.

Things stopped feeling new, which is probably a good thing.

A very short personal/school/Haiti summary:

- Election fiasco is not over yet. The international committee in charge of the recount finished its job, but the president didn’t get it yet because he’s refusing a meeting. Rumors are their recount puts the president backed candidate 3^rd which excludes him from the second round of election. When the government announces it will accept or when it rejects the conclusions we will probably have a few more days of unrest in the country.

- The person in charge of the pedagogic aspects of the school was replaced with one that will hopefully be much more involved in giving guidance to the teachers and directors. We already had a 2 day seminar as a first very positive step for this change.

- I spent 10 days in Israel meeting loved ones. Had a wonderful visit, recharged my batteries and got a new appreciation of things that I used to take for granted like: proper roads, electricity, water systems and in general having a functional state. Got a new appreciation for family and friends, but that I never took for granted…

The Xmas party at the school was a little strange. Mostly composed of dancing that would be considered totally inappropriate for a school environment in most places of the world. But – People seemed to enjoy themselves and the contribution for extra food we got for this day.

Kindergarten tent ready for party

Dancing

Kindergarten kids performing