I found this written in my journal about a year ago, after we had returned to Haiti for the start of the new year:
Bleach water in my hair,
sounds of roosters
hot, sticky.
That feeling of being on the frontier,
but in a cool, ceramic tile oasis
It is morning #1: back in Haiti.
And this, from my journal close to two years ago. Ted had encouraged me to be bold and to try to write down some poetry. I reflected on experiences with a neighborhood boy:
Instead of hope,
money.
Instead of a smile, or kinship
a "solution" offered.
I can't talk; I can't give you more.
Who am I? And what are we?
I guess, we are actually the same.
Tied by a line.
You are my brother; that is all.
We are family.
Kinship, explored.
Expounded.
Brought forth
into it's actual meaning.
So this is who we are, who I am.
Live, therefore.
Offer the smile,
Be brave.
Live in the light - whole,
not afraid.
When I first met Tanis, he asked me for a bike. Then he asked me to buy him a ball, a new phone, pay his school fees. I couldn't meet all of his needs, nor did I feel it was my place to do so. But he came by ever so often - knocked on the gate. And we would chat in the driveway. I know he has it rough. And I often struggled with what to do - what could I offer him? Besides a peanut butter sandwich, and some time? The question didn't always have to be as complicated as I made it to be. I think that simply chatting with him at times was the answer.
So, he came by and we would 'shoot the breeze.' The one neighbor we actually chatted with regularly over our first several months in Haiti.
I feel very full at the moment, thinking how life has woven moments into memorable patterns over my adult life. About eight and a half years ago, I spent two formative months in Nairobi. (I know, “formative” is the label you put on something that you don’t know how to adequately describe; it communicates “it was complicated, but meant something beautiful.”) I spent a lot of this time on my own or in the company of a friend, Lisa's, dear daughter and her nanny. I traveled the city by matatu and walked for much of my daily commute. Lisa connected me with friends and ministries that I explored on my own over a two-month period. It was a time of introspection and processing for me.
View reflected in a mirror from our lodgings in Jacmel, Haiti (photo: Anna Vogt)
Ted and I have now lived in Haiti for two years, working with Mennonite Central Committee. In May, Ted and I spent two days in the beautiful seaside town of Jacmel, in Haiti’s south. We traveled there with two visiting MCC colleagues who wanted to explore more of Haitian geography after a full work week. We stayed at a charming bed and breakfast that we had heard about many times in the past 6 months from a friend in Port-au-Prince.
The bed and breakfast turned out to be more lovely than we could have imagined. Janet, the owner, put so much thought into the design and aesthetic of the space. She is also a wonderful chef, and presented us with a delicious breakfast spread both mornings.
Janet used to work with MCC in present day South Sudan. She also raised her kids in Haiti. Most recently, she worked with Save the Children in Sub-Saharan Africa. When I learned this, several things clicked at once. My good friend Lisa who hosted me in Nairobi also worked with Save the Children. I asked Janet, and it turns out she and Lisa are dear friends. I couldn’t believe it! Standing in Janet’s kitchen in a small town in southern Haiti, we make a connection that weaves together some very significant moments in my life.
With Janet at her beautiful Jacmel home and B&B
Back to today: I got an e-mail this morning from a colleague who heads an international organization here in Port-au-Prince; she is a friend who has collaborated with us on some significant projects since the start of our term with MCC. Apparently, she is in Nairobi at the moment, and she informed me via this e-mail that she “spent the morning walking through a forest in Nairobi” with Kristen and Wawa Chege.
Kristen and Wawa are the couple that held the advocacy position in Haiti before Ted and I started with MCC. They led our orientation in July 2014 when we were preparing to “take over” their roles. Wawa is Kenyan and they have lived in Nairobi with their two children since they left Haiti two years ago. I may be wrong, but if my hunch is right, our colleague would have been walking with them through the very arboretum that I frequented during my time in Nairobi, which is where Ted and I are pictured below:
My and Ted's reunion in Nairobi, after about 6 months apart
(December 2007)
So, through these few recent encounters we have traveled from Haiti to Nairobi and back again. Beautiful connections that wrap these parts of my life and the world together.
Herby and Paul are Haitian migrants, but they have never crossed an international border. Their stories are ones of internal migration, the most common form worldwide. At a loss for opportunities in their hometowns, they left Haiti’s countryside to “cheche lavi” – seek a better life. Here are their stories. (Re-posted from MCC LACA blog.)
Paul Gregroire and Herby Sanon. Ted Oswald.
Herby Sanon is thriving in the Delmas 33 section of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s bustling capital city. Yet it wasn’t always this way.
He was born in Saint-Louis de Sud, a small, seaside town in Haiti’s south. In his youth, his parents fished, farmed, and did domestic work to support Herby and his six siblings. His family’s resourcefulness afforded the opportunity to get a foundational education, but he ran into a ceiling: to fulfill his dreams of advancing to university, he had no choice but to move elsewhere.
Pooling together their meager resources, Herby’s parents wagered on sending their second-to-last son to school three hours away where an aunt agreed to house him. At the age of 19, Herby left for the ever-expanding metropolis of Port-au-Prince.
The beginning of Herby’s story is like millions of others, both in Haiti and around the world. Over the past few decades, decreasing agricultural production, unfavorable trade policies, poor quality education, and extreme poverty have created a rural exodus from the countryside into Haiti’s cities – Port-au-Prince being a chief destination.
In 1970, a mere 20 percent of Haiti’s population lived in cities, rising to 60 percent in 2013. In the period from 1982 to 2010, Port-au-Prince’s metropolitan area swelled from 800,000 people to 2.8 million – over one-quarter of the country’s 10.6 million population.
Rapid urbanization is not unique to Haiti, nor to the Latin American and Caribbean context. As of 2014, 54 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas, up from 30 percent in 1950. North America, Latin America and the Caribbean are among the most urbanized regions in the world, with 82 and 80 percent living in cities, respectively.(source: UN World Urbanization Prospects Report)
An aerial view of Port-au-Prince. Over half of the city’s population has migrated from elsewhere in the country. U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Spike Call [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Port-au-Prince, like many large cities in the Global South, is ill-prepared for this kind of growth. Municipal infrastructure is non-existent in some neighborhoods. Port-au-Prince also lacks space. It is bound by the ocean and a mountain chain limiting the land available for expansion. Newcomers inevitably stay with family or seek low-rent houses built in areas prone natural disasters. This type of unregulated growth contributed to the destruction witnessed on January 12, 2010 when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Port-au-Prince and killed more than 220,000 people, leveled 300,000 homes, and sent 1.5 million people into makeshift displaced-persons camps.
This is when Herby’s life changed radically.
“When I came to Port-au-Prince, it was not a good life for me,” Herby says. In the three years before the earthquake, Herby settled into a grinding daily routine: walk two hours to reach school by 8am; return home by 7pm; study late into the night; then crash from the fatigue. His aunt was just as busy, working long days at a factory.
When his house was damaged by the quake, Herby settled in Izmery Park, a nearby soccer field-turned tent encampment. He began to volunteer, managing a composting-waste sanitation program introduced by an international organization called SOIL. His volunteering eventually led to a job.
Educating communities on sanitation tapped into Herby’s passion to serve others and contribute to Haiti’s development. Over five years later, he manages SOIL’s composting-toilet social business and is able to send his family members weekly support, including enough to help his mother build a new home. He is a source of pride for both his communities – Delmas 33 and Saint-Louis de Sud – and the type of success story that works like a magnet to pull others to the capital.
But Herby’s success is not the norm. Most migrants in Port-au-Prince work hard for meager and sporadic earnings. Indeed, 70 percent of the national population earns less than the daily minimum wage of US$5.11.
Take Paul, for instance. Like Herby, Paul comes from a coastal town in southern Haiti. At the age of 11, he was sent to live with a cousin in Port-au-Prince and soon after began work as a mason.
Thirteen years later, he is still just getting by. “The only thing I like about Port-au-Prince is the work,’’ Paul says. In some seasons, Paul can work consistently for a few months at a time, but right now, he has gone two months without any leads. He relies on friends to call him when they learn of jobs, and his other four siblings who have also come to the city to make ends meet. Paul hasn’t re-created ‘’home’’ or established close community connections. He lives alone, and admits to keeping to himself most of the time, staying “off the streets’’ so as to not fall in with the wrong crowd.
Teenagers walk to school in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s second largest city in the north. Alex Proimos [CC License]
Despite the challenges faced in big cities, leaving is unrealistic. Paul admits he would return to Belle-Anse in an instant if there was stable work, but the fact city-dwellers find opportunities more often and earn 20 percent more than their rural counterparts for the same jobs anchors him in Port-au-Prince.
For Herby, it is much the same. Though he loves his job with SOIL and his new community in Delmas 33, he hopes to return home, but only as a place to retire and start a community enterprise once he has earned enough money, gotten married, and raised a family in the capital.
Haiti’s countryside remains at the heart of Haitian culture, tradition, and imagination. Society will continue to struggle with the cultural and familial disruptions that rural-to-urban migration creates as new waves of people like Herby and Paul leave their homes, hoping to make the elusive opportunities they seek a reality.
MCC Haiti Port-au-Prince staff: (from left) Joseph, Eclane, Fania (center), Muriel, Katharine, Rebecca with MCC consultant Josue (in back) hold our prayer for Haiti derived from a portion of the Lord's prayer.
In honor of Wednesday being Haitian Flag Day, our Tuesday morning staff devotional time was dedicated to praying for Haiti.
In following with the Lord’s Prayer, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, we explored together what that would look like in our own Haitian context.
I had been encouraged lately to look at the Lord’s Prayer and put it into my own words. In addition to repeating the interpreted words of Jesus that we find in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, why don’t we use Jesus' words as a guide, to help us explore what each phrase, each petition means for us this very today?
When we pray Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, what do we mean? What would it look like for the Kingdom to come here in Haiti?
Doubtless our list could have been much longer, but we started our Prayer for Haiti at the close of our devotional time, as each staff member shared prayer for the Kingdom to come here in Haiti.
Our prayer (English below):
Chè Papa Dye,
Ede moun k ap fè sa ki byen nan peyi a pou yo pa dekouraje, Fè tout moun ki ap fè peyi a mal vini a la repantans, Mete lanmou nan kè tout moun ki trouve nan plas kote y ap pran desizyon pou peyi a, Mete tout moun ansanm pou elimine tout divizyon ant moun, pou yon sèl ak lòt, Padonen pep Ayisyen e ede nou fè tout sa ki bon, kòm piti Bondye sou la tè, Kenbe moun an peyi a ki plis frajile e ba yo esperans, Pou rekonsiliyasyon ant moun ak Bondye, moun ak moun, moun ak anvironman Mete SHALOM W an Ayiti
Dear God,
Help those who are doing good in Haiti to not become discouraged, Bring to repentance those who are doing Haiti ill, Place love in the hearts of those who are in a position to make decisions for the country, Bring people together, eliminating divisions in society, to make Haitians one, Forgive the Haitian people and help us do that which is good as Your children, Sustain those who are most vulnerable and give them hope, Bring reconciliation between yourself and people, among people, and between people and their environment, Bring your SHALOM to Haiti.
Images of Renette Viergélan (far right) and other cholera victims were put on display across from U.N. headquarters in New York during General Assembly meetings in October 2015. Photo credit: New Media Advocacy Project.
Haiti is home to the world’s worst cholera epidemic today. The outbreak was instigated in 2010, unknowingly, by United Nations (U.N.) peacekeepers. Five years later, Haitians are still waiting for an adequate response to this disaster.
I sat beneath an almond tree in Poirée, a rice-planting village on the outskirts of St. Marc, in northwestern Haiti. Though 40 townspeople formed a tight circle around my makeshift interview station, my attention was focused on the slight woman seated across from me.
“Did you contract cholera?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Did anyone else in your family contract it?”
A pause. Her eyes darted from my own to the ground beneath us. Then Renette launched into her story: “My name is Renette Viergélan. I am 31 years old. In 2010, I was struck by cholera. While I was in the hospital, my baby also became sick with cholera. Before I regained consciousness, he had died.”
Renette has two surviving children, but she admitted her thoughts are ‘’consumed by the memory of [her] baby.’’ With her town’s continued reliance on river water and poor access to medical care, she is afraid she or her children will contract the disease again.
It was September 2015, and I was interviewing cholera victims and their families as part of the Face | Justice campaign, which commemorated the five-year anniversary of cholera’s infamous introduction to Haiti. The campaign showcased images and testimonies of those affected by cholera at the U.N. in New York, Port-au-Prince and Geneva.
The pain wrought by cholera in Haiti is evident in individual stories like Renette’s. Yet the scale of the devastation is not grasped until one confronts the numbers – cholera has killed 8,987 Haitians and infected over 762,000. Joseph, a young man in a neighboring village, shared bluntly, “Every family in my community has lost something…because of cholera.’’
Cholera was unknown in Haiti before 2010. It travelled here through the unlikeliest of sources. Nepalese troops with MINUSTAH, the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission in Haiti, were stationed at a base near Haiti’s main river, the Artibonite. Sewage from the base, contaminated with a particular strand of cholera endemic to Nepal, leaked into the river when it was negligently disposed of by a U.N. contractor.
The disease quickly spread to all corners of the country. After a gradual reduction in infection rates over the past three years, new cases are now on the rise. It appears that cholera is in Haiti to stay.
The U.N.’s role in creating this humanitarian disaster is now undeniable, yet it still has not accepted responsibility for its actions. Instead it has developed a sweeping Cholera Elimination Plan–which is only 18 percent funded after five years of fundraising efforts. As a key decision-maker within the U.N. system, the U.S. government should use its unique position to help fund the Plan and encourage the U.N. to publicly acknowledge its negligence.
With such a poor international response, and the Haitian government reticent to make demands of the U.N., victims’ hope for remedies have waned. However, the people we spoke with are clear: they want their pain to be acknowledged; they want better lives for their communities; they want international donors to live up to their humanitarian principles; and they want the U.N. to finally face justice.
To read more stories collected by the Face | Justice campaign, visit www.facejustice.com.
Have we not shared with you this incredible song about all the lovely things contained in Haiti?
It's called ''Ayiti Se'' (Haiti Is), and we have posted the English lyrics below. It's by the Haitian artist Mikaben. It's a great chance to hear some Kreyòl too. Enjoy!
Haiti is a pretty sea, a stunning mountain with beautiful rivers
It's pretty beaches with coconut trees, lovely landscapes with bright colors
Haiti is the smell of coffee that climbs up my nostrils at dawn
It's the scent of dew drops that's set for the budding of 10 o'clock flowers in the morning
Haiti is Bassin Bleu, the Pichon waterfalls along with Saut D'eau
It's the Arcadins isles, the Citadelle fort, it's Labadie and Marigot
Haiti is La Valée, Macaya's Peak, Marmelade and Pilboreau mountains
Haiti is dous makòs, it's a handful of grilled peanuts
It's a creamy smoothie that gives energy, it's an enticing bottle of ice cola
Haiti is some appetizing fried pork, it's a delicious fritter, some tasty fried goat
It's a delicious vegetable stew laden with crabs, it's flavorful rice with country greens
Haiti is a scrumptious broth, a pumpkin soup well-seasoned with bell peppers
It's mouthwatering cassava with peanut butter
That you dip in a corn shake
Haiti is a a dumpling that you marinate in bean sauce
It's pig woods, some good liquor
Haiti is the divine coffee that you drink at night
Chorus:
Precious Haiti, as much as I love you
I've come to put my heart in your hands
Haiti dear, as much as I adore you
Nothing will let me let go of you (x2)
Haiti is beautiful music, a street music band parade, a troubadour
It's a ceremony, a calabash dish, and a drum
Haiti is Ogou's land, the land our ancestors left for us
It's where slavery was abolished, it's the land of the free and the land of voudou
Haiti is festivals, it's night parties, it's ritual dances of Chanpetre
It's dancing and fun at Carnaval, it's a little island that never sleeps
Haiti is a game of dominoes, it's a winning hand of dice and cards
It's a Christmas Eve party with some good broth that keeps you awake
Haiti is a collective of farmers who get together to work the land
It's the women street vendors descending into the city
To go fight the hard life head to head
Haiti is a little kid that's dreaming of a bright future
It's the dirty water from sewer streams that doesn't quite know where it's going
Haiti is being under the tent since January 12th
It's mud on the levees that gives off a foul smell every time it rains
Haiti is the ground that knows true realities
It's a sad one, but by God's grace, it's not the only one that we can sing.
Chorus
Haiti is a mother that knows the meaning of pain
Who stands strong and tall, who's brave - even though she's aware that she's far from perfect
Haiti is a beautiful woman who's been through a lot
But who cleans up nicely so that her kids can walk with their heads up - proud
Haiti, it's all these things that make us love you
Even if the road is long, I know that we'll always be here to hold your hand
Haiti dear, believe me
Nothing will ever make me leave you
Let this song right here serenade you
Translation compliments of kreyolicious (with some minor changes)
You can take a quick action to promote justice and peace on the island of Hispaniola, and to support our work.
Head here to sign an MCC petition to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking for the US Government to support diplomacy and protection for the vulnerable in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The easy link, to share this petition with others, is: bit.ly/JusticeHaitiDR, if you are into that sort of thing :)
Ted has put a lot of time into fine-tuning the visual aspects of the prayer guide for this week's upcoming Days of Prayer. The guide is now available to download here. You can also sign-up to receive each day's prayer to your inbox for the week.
Here is some intro text for the campaign, and a little background information we wrote to help orient you to this ongoing, controversial crisis.
''In the Dominican Republic, thousands of Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent stripped of their citizenship are living in fear of deportation because of recent, harsh changes to immigration laws. An estimated 66,000 people have already fled the Dominican Republic and entered Haiti, and many are struggling to rebuild their lives in drought-stricken communities with few means to aid their reintegration.
''We invite you to join us for a week of prayer and advocacy for our brothers and sisters facing an uncertain future. From August 31 to September 6, we'll share resources to help guide you and your church as we ask the Lord to provide for the suffering, protect those living in fear, and bring about reconciliation between these two divided countries.
In the prayer materials, you will read brief stories and see photos that capture the lives of some of the victims of the recent deportations and threats of violence taking place in the D.R. against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent. Here is a ''sneak peak'' of some of the photos you'll find there.
Andre Joseph, his wife, and son
Darlene and her son
Ketlen, and her 6-month-old baby
We are glad that MCC has been able to begin responding to the crisis. Learn about all of this and more through the Days of Prayer campaign starting this Monday. God bless.
A voting center at a school in Fond-Parisien. This is a commune near the border with the D.R., where MCC is now providing relief to families living in tent camps (read a little further.)
Election results have been posted.
Though the results did not come on the same evening I wrote
our previous post, they did come the following day. And miraculously, the
streets of Port-au-Prince saw no major disruptions, none of the usual
post-election protests and road blockades.
The runners-up for senators and deputies were announced, and,
partly because there are 100+ political parties represented in these
legislative elections, it seems there weren’t any "losers" with enough pull
and influence to cause the oft-anticipated mayhem.
Another positive aspect of the results: the electoral
council announced that the first-round elections will have to be redone in 25 constituencies
due to enough recorded instances of fraud and violence. That's right; this means that the electoral council responded to the vast accounts of irregularities seen with elections, instead of writing them off as the international community did by saying elections went "well enough.'' (The majority of Haitians disagreed.) Since voting day, a slew of candidates have also been disqualified for being involved in the election-day violence. Several more have been ''sanctioned,'' but not disqualified.
The same concerns about the irregularities with elections
remain. The electoral council continues to release its plans for how to improve the next round. On October 25, not only will second-round legislative seats be voted on,
but local elections for mayors, kaseks and aseks will take place, in addition
to first-round presidential elections!
Thank you for your concerns, interest,
and prayers for Haiti.
And speaking of prayer. Another issue that is just as relevant and pressing in Haiti today is the unfolding migration crises within and between Haiti and its neighboring country, the Dominican Republic. In other posts, we have discussed some of the recent policies in the D.R. that have stripped hundreds of thousands of people of their Dominican citizenship, an act that is illegal by international standards. In addition, migrant workers in the D.R. are facing uncertainty and deportations are becoming more frequent due to shifting immigration policies. Because of a major outflow of people from the D.R. to Haiti over the past two months - 66,000 people at least - tent camps are sprouting up along the Haitian side of the Haiti and D.R. border.
MCC is responding with material aid for vulnerable families. For the past few weeks, Ted and I have put a lot of time into planning for the Days of Prayer for the Displaced campaign. Through this campaign, we hope to encourage individuals and churches in the U.S. and Canada to spend time each day, for one week, lifting up a different aspect of this crisis in prayer.
It starts this Monday, August 31. If you are interested, please sign up through the links above, or look for our posts on social media starting on Monday. We are confident that prayer makes a difference, and we are excited to be sharing these materials with you guys.
Look for future posts on our recent trip to the border to visit a tent camp, or find photos and stories from our trip in the prayer guide.
Tonight would be a good time to send out a prayer request
for Haiti. This evening, we expect the election results – the first election
results in over four years - to be announced for all eagerly awaiting parties.
These are the first-round legislative election results, tallied from voters’
choices two Sundays ago, August 9.
On that day, Ted and I participated in elections monitoring with
a longtime MCC partner and a top Haitian human rights organization, RNDDH. RNDDH
trains and mobilizes hundreds of elections monitors to disperse throughout
Haiti’s ten departments, keeping a close eye out for irregularities in voting procedures.
With RNDDH team leaders and drivers, we each traveled throughout the
Port-au-Prince region, checking in with fixed elections observers at dozens of
voting centers and reporting information back to
RNDDH headquarters.
Our 15-hour day, roving
around localities as diverse as Fond-Parisien, to Leogane, to Cite Soleil, felt
like a major initiatory experience into the political process in Haiti.
Our fearless team leader, Minerve (on the right) with our driver/experienced observer/co-boss of MCC Haiti, Kurt (left)
(Not pictured: our third team leader, Nixon Boumba.)
The feedback from Haitian elections
monitoring teams after the fact was unequivocal: the elections proceedings were
rife with irregularities and instances of corruption. Of 1,500 voting centers
in the country, 54 had to be closed on elections day due to violent
disturbances. (We visited one such site after it had closed. Ballot boxes were
toppled and torn ballots spread everywhere.) And just because a voting center
was not closed does not mean there weren’t clear problems with how voting
proceeded. Lack of voter confidentiality, intimidation, and general disorder
within voting centers was documented at centers all over the country. An
estimated 6 individuals lost their lives. Some groups felt that the results
from this first round of elections should be disregarded, but that option has
since been thrown out the window by Haiti’s electoral council.
The explosion of political
parties since Haiti’s last election is one factor that led to so much chaos on
election day. Candidates represented over 100 parties, and each party
technically had the right to have an elections mandataires in place, to prevent fraud at voting stations. Instead, what we saw, is that squabbles among
party mandataires kept many voting centers from opening up on time, and party
representatives were very active in campaigning for their candidates within
voting center boundaries. From several accounts we heard, the elderly were
especially targeted in this way. (At one center in far, southwest Haiti, young
men working for political parties offered to drive elderly folks to the voting
center if they would vote a certain way.)
Entering a voting center - see all the campaign posters on the gate that aren't supposed to be there.
I don’t share all this detail
to discourage people – though I will say the experience was profoundly
discouraging, mostly so for our Haitian co-workers and colleagues at RNDDH –
but to paint a picture of what this means for further elections planned for
this year, and even for how it implicates international donors.
These first-round legislative
elections were funded by international donor countries, and the next two rounds
planned for this year (October 25 and December 27) will also largely be funded
by foreign bodies. It’s a large investment by outsiders, but it cannot be
forgotten that this is Haitian business and should be determined primarily by
Haitians. When international donors and monitoring groups like Organization of American States - who sent a
couple dozen representatives to observe elections - said that things went “well
enough,’’ or “as best as could be expected,” it felt like an insult to Haitians, who have seen something better. The general feeling was "why set the standards so low?" when, clearly, these irregularities would cause much more concern and consideration if they occurred in richer countries.
Of course no one wants the elections to have to be re-held. It would jeopardize the plan to hold second-round elections, first-round mayoral, and Presidential elections later this year. But Haitians also want to see a process that makes sense, that doesn't just pass as "good enough."
No results announced this evening could please everyone. Obviously, with 100+ political parties, quite a few people are going to be disappointed either way. Some amount of protests and roadblocks are expected in the streets – it’s just a matter of how many.
Please pray tonight:
--For safety in the streets as results are announced; for no violence or targeting of parties.
--For peace, for minimal disruption of people's lives.
--For results that are somehowbeneficialand truly helpful for the country moving forward.
--For good governance, international partnerships, and the participation of the population in further election activities.
--That people would trust the potential good in the process enough to continue voting and working for the good of their country.
A finger being marked to indicate a completed vote.
I personally admit that prayer in light of big, complex processes can feel simple or inadequate at times. But it's a major way to deepen our engagement, to demonstrate love, and affirm Hope, isn't it?
When setting foot into the Palais de Justice in Les Cayes, Haiti, I am greeted by bold words Nicholas Nickleby might have copied from the walls of Dotheboys Hall: Dura Lex, Sed Lex, the law is harsh but it is the law. On its own, not the most surprising maxim to find in a courtroom. What makes me stare is that beneath it is a crucifix.
I nudge the Haitian lawyer next to me. “Is this display common in Haitian courtrooms?” He assures me it is.
The room bustles. Lawyers don their long black robes and law students natter and clerks huff and passersby with wide-open afternoons settle into back benches to be entertained. As I take my seat I puzzle over Christ and the Harsh Law and their meaning, intended and otherwise. Bells ring. We rise. We sit. I take out my pen, my notepad. I observe.
The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) is a Haitian human rights organization representing a trio of victim’s interests in a civil lawsuit against five men accused of violent crimes, including murder. BAI invited trial observers to help encourage fair proceedings and protect victims from reprisal. As the lawyers’ verbal sparring picks up, the language is either in French or a barrage of Kreyòl too speedy for my mind to match. The temperature increases and I pull at my necktie. I find my observing eye stray, taking in details around the courtroom.
Met Mario Joseph of BAI with the victims and supporting witnesses
First, there are the victims. Back in 2007, they were attacked by Jean Morose Viliena, the local magistrate, and a group of his supporters in the town of Les Irois. One victim lost his eye. One lost his leg. Another lost his brother. For bizarre procedural reasons—the court secretary didn’t take notes or they were lost, so the high court set aside the original guilty verdict and ordered a re-trial—all of the victims were there in court, repeating their testimony, hoping for justice. I am impressed by their composure.
Second, there are the accused. The five men sit on a bench, looking tired, sad, or plain absent. Their ages vary from their late twenties to one man in his sixties. They’ve already been incarcerated for over seven years in Haitian prison while proceedings have stretched on. One of their cohort died during this time, and Jean Morose Viliena, their leader, reportedly absconded to the U.S. to avoid trial. I am struck by how very ordinary these men charged with so much harm appear.
Third, there are the lawyers. The prosecutor—calm, imperious—does most of the questioning. The opposing sides have deep benches of lawyers and they approach the lectern in turn like tag-team wrestlers.
There is a theatricality to the defense’s questioning that irks me. Imagine recreating a trial eight years after the initial crime, with no court transcripts, police reports, or physical evidence, just the testimony of the victims and their bodies, the accused, and a collection of witnesses. Though I don’t doubt the guilt of these accused, I wonder about the imperfect justice this system is known to churn out. I compare what I’m seeing to trials I’ve watched in U.S. criminal court and I sit in a place of judgment. But then I scold myself. Racially-disparate outcomes; money meaning the difference between guilt and innocence; wrongful convictions; pressuring innocent defendants to accept harsh plea bargains. The American brand of justice just hides its seams better.
The afternoon wears on. Another bead of sweat slips down my face. My eyes wander.
They return to Christ on his cross. Why is the crucifix even here? If I understand correctly, the maxim and the crucifix lack a shared, cumulative meaning. But I can’t escape them in this space together.
Jesus’ face happens to be inclined toward the accused. Jesus, the all-seeing, all-knowing. Jesus, wounded for the sins of the world. It brings to mind Calvary itself, when Jesus invited the repentant thief to enter into Paradise. I wonder if these men, likely to be condemned, are repentant.
Ah, the law is harsh, and it is the law, and I am for justice, but I am for grace. Not impunity, but a grace big enough to meet and cover the villainous wrongdoing of those men on that bench who very likely maimed and murdered. A grace able to temper that harsh law.
This past year was the year of the Instagram for me. Before May 2014, I did not have an Instagram account, and I didn't really get "what the big deal was." After my friend Katie encouraged me to use it to document our days in Haiti, I really took to it, and I'm so very grateful now for the over 120+ images that capture moments from our first 12 months in Haiti. Now, I wonder if our documenting styles might shift a little bit. Maybe this blog will be put to more use! I'd like to start today with a "Postcards"series: one picture, with a brief explanation. Fin. Short and sweet. Our "postcards" will give you a snapshot of our world with a little more detail than an Instagram allows. And with this first "postcard," if I had actually put postage on it and sent it via snail mail at the time it was taken, it may just now be reaching you in the U.S. :) Enjoy!
{Port-au-Prince, Haiti} Taken 12.19.14
Celebration. That is what this picture brings to mind. It was our MCC staff Christmas party, and the smells from the kitchen were wafting up to our second floor office all day. A co-worker had her four kids in town from Canada, the remnant of an MCC evaluation team was in tow, and all national staff brought a special someone or two for the gala. Balloons, Paper Snowflakes, Action! I remember the anticipation of the upcoming Christmas vacation, the more imminent secret Santa gift exchange, and the sincere yet stilted conversations in Kreyòl with co-workers' family and friends (which, by the way, became progressively harder as the wait-time for the meal was perpetually extended!) For me, the crowd in this picture represents the far-flung nature yet close ties of family, the bright colors the celebratory air of the season, and the table the delight that comes with those first, mouth-watering bites!
Over the past week, an explosion of news stories, photos, and interviews have hit the internet - stories covering the mounting crisis facing hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. I for one am very happy for the coverage.
Maybe it has cropped up in your own scouring of regional news. Maybe you have no clue to what I am referring. Here, I hope, is a helpful recap of the brewing situation.
Haitians with the Dominican flag painted on their cheeks demonstrate in front of the Central Electoral Board to demand their Dominican citizenship in Santo Domingo on March 12, 2013. AFP PHOTO / Erika SANTELICES | Getty
The D.R. is Haiti's neighbor to the east, occupying roughly two-thirds of the land mass that is Hispaniola (the historic name for the island that Haiti and the D.R. share). Despite their proximity (or perhaps because of it), the two nations have faced centuries of tense relations.
The economic relationship between the two countries can be compared to that of the U.S. and Mexico. The D.R. has a high demand for low-wage workers in the agriculture sector, housekeeping, as well as in a growing construction industry. Haitians desperate for work regularly cross the border, and it's worth noting that this migration has been encouraged by both governments at various points.
Economic ties aside, Haitians living and working in the D.R. make up a sort of economically marginalized underclass. Skin color, names, and occupations often set them apart.
This past week, a 2013 D.R. court ruling is coming into play, which may lead to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrant workers and perhaps Dominicans of Haitian descent. There is growing international outrage at the 2013 D.R. policy, which has essentially stripped citizenship from Dominicans with foreign-born parents going back to 1929. This means that Dominicans of Haitian descent, who may not even speak Kreyòl or have current ties to Haiti, could be rounded up with Haitian migrant workers and dropped into a country not their own.
The deadline for Haitian migrants to register in a regularization program was last Wednesday, and deportations have commenced for all who are found without the required paperwork.
The D.R. authorities claim they will carry out deportations with due process. Yet, at the same time, anti-Haitian sentiment and racial profiling have already led to Dominicans being deported to Haiti whose citizenship rights were taken away based on the 2013 ruling.
Many groups, due to the proximity in time between this crisis and the killings in Charleston, are linking the discrimination faced by Haitians in the D.R. with the #BlackLivesMatter campaign by using the hashtag #HaitianLivesMatter. Demonstrations and petitions are surfacing from communities in the U.S. and the D.R. The New York City mayor has also spoken out on the issue.
As you search media for more coverage on this topic, I hope you will take a moment to pray, share a news story with a friend, and sign a petition directed towards the D.R. government urging them to put a stop to a hasty, misguided immigration policy that upends the lives of so many. These are all key ways to show our solidarity, to act.
If you have 45-minutes, check out this documentary by Henry Louis Gates Jr that explores Haitian and Dominican relations through the lens of their histories.
June 5 is World Environment Day, and every year the MCC program in Dezam, Haiti mobilizes hundreds of people in the community to celebrate in the most fitting way I can imagine...
We traveled to Dezam for the event, along with three of our Port-au-Prince co-workers, and we hope this short narrative, along with the music and photos attached with paint a picture of our day!
At 6am, a crowd met at the MCC Haiti Dezam office for a sip of water, energizing music, and words of instruction for the full morning ahead. Shortly afterwards, we set off, all 300 of us! The whole crowd, in two single file lines, marching up the dirt road that leads to the base of a chain of mountains. And what do we do next? We CLIMB. High, high up, steep paths, we made our way to the top of a bleak mountain, one that - like most mountains in Haiti - has been stripped bare over the centuries, leading to so much erosion and environmental degradation that plagues Haitians' livelihoods.
What was our mission, once we reached the top of this mountain? Why, to plant trees of course! Together, we planted 5,000 little saplings. It was a blast; I was so thoroughly exhausted and sweaty, but the event was fantastic.
As we climbed the mountain, we could see the seedlings of years' past, growing into strong young trees. After the long morning hike, we enjoyed a 3-hour program at another small village outside of Dezam, where participants shared an amazing meal and learned more about caring for the environment in skits, dance and song. We wrote before about the meaning of konbit. This was our first true konbit experience!
We'll let the pictures speak for themselves now. Enjoy the show! And press PLAY here first, to get a taste of the sounds of the day, as you browse through Ted's beautiful pictures.
(This music represents a traditional style of Haitian music called troubadou, and the lyrics speak of planting trees together: Hey, it's time to plant trees for the environment; Let's go! Let's go! )
This tap-tap carried the speakers that kept people energized as we
marched towards the foot of the mountain
I can't tell you how good this water felt after our descent from the mountain!
A pause on top of the mountain, as the planting finishes up
One of thousands
Our MCC shirts have this Kreyòl proverb on back: Many hands makes the load light.
This was definitely shown to be true today!
The program afterwards: a little girl looks on
Other sounds from the day: during our descent from the mountain, the sounds of the village and our co-worker Eclan singing sweetly along the path.
Some information about Haiti's environment:
Haiti, before its soil was touched by Europeans, used to be almost entirely forested. Today, for a variety of factors from colonialism to peasants'continued practice of chopping down trees for charcoal, is now less than 3 percent forested.
MCC Haiti's reforestation work, which is centered near Dezam in Haiti's Artibonite Valley, has been working for over 30 years to find creative, sustainable solutions to Haiti's continued environmental degradation.
MCC Haiti has twelve national staff in Dezam who run a variety of reforestation programs. An activity like the one we participated in last Friday is just one of many projects, which includes 22 community-run tree nurseries that produce over 500,000 trees per year.
Though our work is based in Port-au-Prince, it's always a pleasure to check out MCC's work in the Artibonite Valley. To read a story that gives you a sample of MCC Haiti's reforestation work, go here.
I haven't yet had a chance to share about our most recent trip to Washington D.C.
In a previous post, I shared how two of the most challenging, yet rewarding experiences since we started with MCC Haiti have been during week-long work assignments in the U.S. capitol.
During both trips, I found myself thinking both this is so hard and this is so cool at nearly the same time.
In mid April, Ted and I took a somewhat unexpected opportunity to travel to MCC's Washington D.C. office to collaborate with partner organization Church World Service on a conference presentation on Haiti's justice system, share at First Mennonite Church Richmond about MCC Haiti's programs, and to participate in several advocacy visits with USAID, the World Bank, and the US State Department.
There were a lot of firsts during this trip!
I will share about our time in the form of several highlights.
1) Time to be back in the States
The hot water, the grandly decorated airbnb room we booked, and the yogurt, cream cheese and berries that awaited us for breakfast each morning - each of these things held a major 'WOW' factor for us that is probably hard to understand if you haven't gone without these things for a certain stretch of time.
The neighborhood where we stayed reminded us of Mt. Airy in Philadelphia, the last neighborhood we lived in before moving to Haiti. The low stone walls demarcating people's beautiful gardens, the sporadic cherry blossoms, and the large, early 20th century mansions were an appealing treat for our eyes.
2) Chance to be a tourist
During a few small pockets of time, we got to appreciate some new sites in D.C. For the first time, I got to go inside the Library of Congress. We also sought out some delicious eats such as the homemade pop tarts at Ted's Bulletin and a Cuban restaurant in our neighborhood. We also got a lot more savvy with the D.C. metro system, enjoyed some of the familiar monuments with friends on our final day, and discovered new hip spots such as the Eastern Market district.
3) Learning from the older and much wiser
The first part of our work trip was spent with participants at the annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days event. The main sessions and smaller breakout groups were filled with seasoned advocates - who are also ordinary citizens - from all across the U.S. The topic chosen by EAD coordinators for this year was Mass Incarceration in the U.S. They chose this topic several months before the blow ups in Ferguson and in other cities across the U.S. I will just say that the coordinators and participants put on such a display of faith, commitment, and severe passion for justice that were super encouraging and amazing to us. There were over 1,000 participants in total.
On Day 2 of the conference, Ted shared alongside a Church World Service colleague about the woes of Haiti's criminal justice system. He relayed in detail how the redundancies and corruption within the criminal justice system leaves 70% of inmates without even a proper trial. They sit in overcrowded prisons, often without food provisions, until fate, a bribe, or special circumstances allow them to see a judge and receive proper sentencing. Even though EAD has a primary focus on domestic issues, they create space every year for participants to attend a variety of workshops that expose them to difficult realities around the world.
4) Getting our 'advocacy' on
It's still a new experience for us to prepare strategic talking points, research the opinions of powerful decision makers, and enter into a private meeting with them, ready to share a very specific, clear message on behalf of others. This is the thrust behind an advocacy meeting in our role with MCC.
Our great colleague Charissa set up multiple meetings for us in the days after the conference. We sat with the Haiti Special Coordinator at the U.S. State Department, two members of the Haiti team at the World Bank, and the housing specialists at USAID. It was very interesting for us to gauge each organizations' level of interest in what we had to share, and also to learn about their current approaches towards development in Haiti.
Advocacy towards government bodies is a really fascinating thing. Being in D.C. - and Port-au-Prince for that matter - it's easy to sense the hugeness of government structures, and their immobility. Yet at the same time, as we did our own advocacy visits concerning Haiti issues, we could see the dozens of other EAD participants walking to their representatives' offices to share their views on certain legislation that could help stem excessive sentencing and the swelling prison population in the U.S. There is a history of citizen engagement with government in the U.S., and it was very eye-opening and impressive to see this.
This was especially noteworthy to me after being in a context like Haiti's for the past 11 months, where government bodies are notorious for being deaf to the majority of peoples' voices.
5) A little time to pause
This time was short. Yet who can deny the great opportunity we had to take a little bit of a breather each evening, enjoy some creature comforts, and - top of the list - see some great friends. Two friends from Maryland drove in for a Monday night dinner, where we had a couple hours to unload our news on them and share a delicious meal. A good Philly friend was attending the same EAD conference as us, and two special Philly friends bused down for our final day, to enjoy the sites together (in the cold rain no less!)
In addition, a long Sunday drive to Richmond, VA gave Ted and I a chance to take in the greenery, worship with a sweet congregation, and order that unnecessary egg sandwich and chai latte from Starbucks while on the road. It was just one year ago that we started our road trip adventure from Philadelphia out to San Diego, packing up all our earthly belongings on the long trek that eventually landed us in Haiti.
