Day 1
I can't begin to summarize so I won't. I'm also keeping a journal so I can give you all a more full bodied experience later but here goes.
Stepped off the plane to the sound of an island emanating from a group of young men wearing bright cherry red shirts and white pants.
Pants why is everyone wearing pants? I'm struck by the sweltering heat.
It's 8 am and I'm in a steel shed waiting at immagrayson, immigration, immagracion. The multitudes mutter a mix of Creyole, French, and English.
Shouting, French military conveys, the Haitian men fight over who will help us with our luggage. There are guns everywhere, AK's were at the airport, while shotgun armed guards patrol the grocery store and the gas station.
Outside Avis I meet Jackson. He's in his 40's sports one arm and tells me "Boss, you do anything you like." "Boss, Ms. Emily I won't forget your face." He learned English in school, he didn't finish because he had to go to work for his family. They are poor and live in the country where they have a wonderful "jardin" where they grow potatoes, corn, beans, mangoes, and a few things I didn't recognize. He tells me he loves me too much to see me again. It makes me laugh to flirt with this guy, but at the same time his comfort with deference to Americans is painful. He tells me how honest American's are and I squirm.
He and Watson give me my first lesson in Creyole. Watson was a handsome guy in his 20's, he wasn't self-depreciating like his older friend. His English was wonderful. He finished school but had no money for University. He has worked at the airport for 1 year. He watches a great deal of American TV. I tell him that's how all of my friends had such good English. felt more like a peer until he asked me to take him home where he can teach me Creyole. I declined. He told me he'd remember my face and we would meet again.
I sit and banter with these guys on the stairs waiting for our truck to arrive as the children laugh at my butchered pronunciation. One boy Flori who tried to sell me bracelets even ran home to get me a book with French, English, and Creyole.
"Muy rele Emily" My name is Emily.
"E say i" I'll try.
I gave the young boy my phone number and email. Maybe I shouldn't have but I did.
Race relations here are strange. So far no one has mistaken me for a Mexican, but I seem to be the only Asian person I've seen so far in Haiti. A few "blancs" but only at places we had on our itinerary. Never on the streets. My companions don't seem to interact with the locals. Instead they hang in a circle talking amongst themselves.
One of my companions brought candy for the children. I don't know how that makes me feel. On one hand it gives the kid some joy. On the other hand I feel like the candy is more to assuage our guilt than it is to bring happiness to another. I feel like it brands us, like nobles tossing pennies to the poor. I don't like the social distance it creates. You don't hand out candy to equals. You might share it some or give it as gift, but something handing out candy to the street kids makes me uneasy. Nonetheless, I too gave a piece of gum to a street boy because I had nothing else to give him.
That's a lie. I'm carrying 200 US dollars with me. The average Haitian lived on one dollar a day before the quake.
I just bought a timbuk2 bag to suit my hipster lifestyle. Yeah it's pretty amazing, it converts from a one shouldered backpack to a professional briefcase, it's waterproof, it has a corduroy lined compartment for my awesome new laptop, and it distributes the weight nicely while I cruise on my coaster bike. The bag itself cost 100, not terrible considering it's actually functional and not just an accessory.
$100=10 tents (Home for 10 families, possibly 70 people by Haitian standards)
$100=Food for 2 Haitian Students for a year
$100=Immunizations for 50 children in Burma
$100=School tuitions for 10 girls in Afghanistan
I've eaten meals that cost that much, I've spent that on booze for a party, and a sewing machine. I've always had an overdeveloped sense of guilt. Maybe it comes from being a recovering Catholic or being the daughter of Chinese immigrants. The more and more I know about the world, the more and more I have a problem with being an American.
Were they worth it?
Yes.
An evening at a schizophrenically eclectic Mediterranean diner meets sports bar enjoying an elegantly prepared taste extravaganza during a summer romance. Priceless.
New Year's Speakeasy I'll never forget and many of my friends will never remember. Priceless.
Seeing my friends face light up when he saw the "Project Runway" edition sewing machine as he got ready to apply to Columbia for fashion design. Priceless.
No.
How do excuse myself for squandering money on niceties that could have saved lives?
This is what I'll be struggling with as I lay my head to sleep in my private bedroom in a gated house surrounded by barbed wire.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Great post, Emily. It was very honest and left me with a lot to respond to.
ReplyDeleteTo begin, how are you getting along with your trip-mates? Are there many of them? It is a shame that they are not more open to the people around them, they may just need a chance to warm up to their surroundings. I know it isn't fair for them to shut out the people while acclimating to the scene; they may not realize the implications of them doing so.
I understand your uneasiness with giving candy to kids, but then again, how is that really different from giving the $100 you wish you could? On the one had physically and figuratively handing *down* candy from a privileged position supplies only fleeting enjoyment, but joy is not altogether worthless. On the other, giving your cash to nameless/faceless *causes* has the same effect in comforting you for being American and having expendable resources though it may actually better someone else's opportunities.
Either way the overlaying structure creating the problems remains the same and that takes a lot more to change. Assisting during a time that requires immediate relief is respectable, but assessing prevention to similar suffering long after a recognizable disaster is the much more noble cause.
You may not agree with how your peers are reacting to and acting in Haiti, but negotiating how one should is part of understanding the chronic existing condition of both Haitians and Americans and learning how to more appropriately form relations between the two. Realize that the people working with you on this trip may or may not have their heart in exactly the right place, but then again your hesitance and guilt in accepting your own position suggests that you realize you don't have all these answers either.
What you do have, however, is an amazing ability to meet and interact with people. You can't deny it, I've seen you in action! In that case, bear in mind there are social barriers you may not consider. Yes, your peers may be scared and harbor varying levels of some deep-seated racism they are denying, don't recognize or are possibly trying to defy. More likely they may be hesitant to impose themselves on people and so they withdraw. Consider the fact that you are phenotypically Asian and so your social position in Haiti is not as clearly written on your face (although your class and American up-bringing certainly do). Your white peers however may feel especially hesitant given the known racial climate in Haiti. Perhaps they feel a daunting pressure to make up for that sad fact and feel a need to try to be a positive spokesperson for the race. But once again it would be easier to withdraw and hope people assume they are too busy with new friends so they can maintain a neutral face. For anyone except French-speakers there is the added language barrier which you seem to have already overcome. Perhaps in an effort to draw them out of their shells you can teach them what you have already learned. Knowing they will be able to successfully introduce themselves may be the first step to encourage them to interact with Haitian on a more equal level.
I hope you don't hesitate to work with your peers through these issues that are sorting through on your own; they may have similar things to teach or help you as well.
-Megan B
I don't agree about the candy part.
ReplyDeleteHaving been in situations where candy and especially american candy is a luxury carefully rationed by parents and received only on occasion, I believe that candy is a nice gift.
I understand your point, but you are over thinking it. Candy is something that the children do not have. It's not a political statement, it's something that is easy to brig with, will not be confiscated at the border and will put a smile on many children's faces even if it is a one time 5 min deal.
Children don't care about politics the way adults do. Children don't care why are they getting the candy as much as about the fact that they are getting it. And now they can trade it, treasure it, look at the nice wrapper, share it with someone else who didn't get one or simply eat it and enjoy the flavor of the melting sugar in their mouths...
Sometimes it's worth taking things at face value as opposed to going the college route and seeking the underlying metaphors and hidden meanings...
Wow, girl you really romanticize American candy! And simply in observance of a fleeting pleasure handed down from a benevolent passers-by who clearly demonstrate the depth of difference in a child's mind. I suppose you could overlook anything college has to offer in suggesting as well that symbolism, associations, and metaphors have no impact on a child's psychological development that dictate how to interpret future social relations.
ReplyDeleteYou know know who else hands out candy? Western soldiers in occupied countries.
Of course, I am not saying the act itself is wrong or that the people creating those social interactions are blind or ill-willed. Instead I challenge you to consider what larger trends it points to in societies dominantly structured on post-colonial relationships.