I just got back from Haiti, and I have decided to go with more of a "stream of conciousness" post than my usual style.

 Aristide's expressed hope that Haiti could rise to the level of "Poverty with dignity" has not yet been realized.  Everywhere you look there are "dwellings" that hardly deserve the name.  Cinderblocks, banana fronds, discarded wood, rusted out corrugated tin are standard home building materials.  Indoor plumbing is rare, which hardly matters because there is no sewer system anyway.  Everything ends up in the ground water, and ground water is used for everything; washing clothes, washing people, drinking, cooking. Garbage is everywhere, for there is no real functioning system for recycling or picking up garbage. 

 Rural life is dominated by sharecropping.  A very few people own all the arable land, and allow farmers to till the soil in exchange for half the crop.  We all know what "half" is in a system like that.  Half is whatever the owner of the land says it is.  I didn't see starvation, but I saw a lot of hunger. 

The land has trees, contrary to popular images, but the forests are completely gone.  The hillsides are brown and eroded, which gives an eerie cast to what is otherwise a spectacularly beautifuly countryside. 

The open air markets teemed with people selling whatever they could find.  Lots of papayas, mangos, rice, beans, bananas, goat meat.  The atmosphere in the markets was stifling; it was hard to move around among all the people, but I soon became completely used to the smell of human sweat, rotting vegetation, tobacco and garbage, and I realized that this is just how life smells.  Wherever we went the children would stare at us with amused eyes and most of the time someone in the group would shout out "blanc" at us.  Adults wouldn't do this of course, only the children.  It was fun to be distinctive in that way.       

The government offers no public services worthy of the name.  There is electricity for a few hours a day, maybe.  No medical care is offered, no health insurance for the vast majority of the people.  The public schools are terrible, the streets are broken down and full of potholes.  As a result the people are not optimistic, they are not happy with their lot, but they are generous, far more so than I, and determined to live as fully as possible.  The lack of cynicism is remarkable, even among those we talked to who were clearly very, very poor, which is approximately 85 percent of the population. In fact they demonstrate that the human spirit really is indomitable, it cannot finally be crushed.  My great hope is that one day they will have a government that is worthy of them.  Thus far they haven't. 

Going to church in the countryside was an adventure all by itself.  The bridge was out so we had to wade the river to get there.  The water was warm and not very deep, so it wasn't difficult.  The bugs were.  In spite of my best efforts my body ended up looking like a relief map of Nepal.  The weather was tough as well.  It rained hard every day about 4:00 and lasted until about 8:00.  The temperature was in the 90s, and humidity was more or less 100%.  This meant that the difference between sponging off each morning and not was about five minutes.  I ended up bagging it altogether for the most part.  So here is my advice.  Do not go to Haiti during the rainy season unless you want to be a one person feeding program for the fleas, mosquitos, midges and other creatures who, after all, need to eat too. I know when I go back it will be in January. 

Voodou is not a wierd and strange religion, but is simply part of the culture.  It is at times ecstatic in that voodou music is designed to induce the spirits to come and bring wisdom and insight to the dancers, but except at its very fringes, where in Christianity you find snake handlers and the like, it is a celebration of the community of the living and the dead (think Communion of Saints) and its adherents are very ordinary folks.  Just around the corner from our little home in Haiti there were a group of people who gathered every day in the rain, and afterwards, to play voodou music and dance and sing. There wasn't anything dangerous or threatening or wierd or strange about any of them. 

It was a great trip.  I am not at all convinced we can change their lives much, though we are going to try with them to improve educational opportunities in one small place.  I know they have already changed mine. Life is not made good because of what we have.  Life is made good because of what we are.  Human dignity is not negotiable, and you can't have it stripped from you. You can only give it away, in spite of appearances to the contrary. In this country we routinely sell ours for a good paying job, a bit of power, and dab of momentary prestige.  Theirs is not for sale at any price.  None of this is profound, but it is true, and we all need to be reminded of it periodically.  In the end I suspect very strongly that we need Haiti more than Haiti needs us. 

And last.  In my previous post anticipating this trip I got the song right, but the lyric wrong.  It wasn't the roses after all, it was "the ribbons, ribbons, ribbons."  Everywhere I went the young girls had ribbons in their hair.  Not just one or two, not even three or four, but six, eight, ten ribbons bound up in their hair.  Robert Hunter wrote "Faded is the crimson from the ribbons that she wore and it's strange how no one comes round anymore.  I don't know, it must have been the roses, the roses or the ribbons in her long brown hair."  It was the ribbons, Robert.  It was the ribbons after all.  That is why we could not leave her there.