Haiti's countryside and its capitol city feel like two worlds apart. In Dezam, the countryside lokalite (somewhat like a village) where we just completed our three week home-stay, the surroundings are lush and green. Homes sit perched atop a steep hillside leading down to a clear flowing stream. Accommodations are sparse. We lived in a simple grey cinder-block home surrounded by a garden of fruit trees and hibiscus. A latrine and bathing area sat nestled in a corner where chickens can walk by as you do your morning or evening "business." There was no running water or electricity. Our host family fetched water from the neighbors spigot for cooking and for bathing.

Now, back in Port-au-Prince, the differences in this city and country life come into sharp relief. In the MCC guest house, where we are currently staying, there is electricity all the time. I can bathe using an overhead shower nozzle. I can look in a mirror that reflects my whole face at once. This morning, we went to a Supermarket where we saw a gallon of Kirkland extra virgin olive oil (which had a price tag of $60!), soy sauce, and the Thai Bistro brand of coconut milk that I'm used to seeing at stores in the U.S. I can wear earrings here and not feel ostentatious.

But this is part of the dynamic and structure that is Haiti. Resources are centralized in the bustling, overcrowded capitol. People still live precarious existences here. Slum-like communities abound. There is a greater level of suspicion (like in any city.) In Dezam, neighbors wander into your yard at nighttime after you've gone to bed. They call out your name, wanting to chat, and will carry on a conversation with you as you lay in bed, laughing and talking until they feel like walking back home. There are always people around, but all the people are family (literally, they were all related to our host dad somehow.)

You would think that these two places exist worlds apart. Instead, they are two and a half hours apart by car. The two exist in the same country, and both are fully Haiti. This seeming contrast and divide will come up again and again as we do our work. It is a huge country, and yet a small country all at the same time.

Dezam. A flower in our lakou, or garden

Me digging into my favorite (though kind of gross looking) fruit - kashima
(or 'apple custard' in English.)

Our wonderful host parents - Sengadyen and Madame Filomen.

A busy market corner in Port-au-Prince

The "Single Story"

At MCC staff orientation we reviewed the power of Story to paint and depict people's lives, and even entire groups of people. Specifically, our speakers Ewuare Osayande and Harley Eagle invited us to think about the danger of the Single Story which can be used to dehumanize and convince those with power that they are set-apart and more than "the other," whoever that "other" might be. (See Chimamanda Adichie's video below.) These ideas feel a bit abstract, but I hope to ground them with some examples here.

In Haiti, we can see how popular media and personal accounts from more affluent nations -- those with more "power" -- have perpetuated a Single Story of Haiti as a poor, deprived nation. As a result, Haiti's story is somehow simplified and Haitians may be seen by the majority of non-Haitians as people who are weak, needy. The fullness of Haitian's individual stories are left out in the retelling.

“Show a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Reading communication pieces from NGOs and many charitable groups intending to do good work in Haiti, a reader may come away with the perception that the subjects in these stories are defined by the awful circumstances they encounter.

Therefore, after reading an account about a struggling single mother who has contracted HIV and is searching for employment to feed her family, we may be tempted to see her primarily as a poor, struggling widow, instead of a human being whose story did not start with her current struggles, nor is it defined by them.

“The closer you get to the lives of people, the more you recognize the most obvious things. Firstly, they are not defined by the circumstances of their suffering.” - Voices of Haiti: A Post-Quake Odyssey (Lisa Armstrong & Kwame Dawes)

We all are affected by the power of Story. Stories shape our understandings and perceptions of the world.

I am aware that those with more power in the world can also be viewed via a Single Story. The NGO worker or missionary in Haiti could be seen positively or negatively - as either arrogant, wealthy, or saints.

So what is the antidote to the dangers of the Single Story? One would be to tell many stories, and to tell fuller stories. I hope that we can do that as part of our Advocacy work with Mennonite Central Committee.

The danger of a single story - Chimamanda Adichie, as viewed at our MCC Orientation