Woch nan Dlo Pa Konnen Doule Woch nan Soley
The rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun.
I am rounding out my experience here in Haiti and only have about two weeks left which is a really sad reality for me. Haiti has become my second home and it still hasn’t really hit me that I won’t be living here anymore in less than 15 days. I have learned so much more about Haitian culture, language, food, music and history than I ever thought I would. My language skills have gotten a lot stronger and, while I am still a little shy when it comes to talking to new people, I am able to communicate with pretty much anyone. Sometimes I think in Creole instead of English or will start a sentence in one language and finish in another without noticing. When I am texting friends in America, I have to check my spelling really carefully because I tend to replace c’s with k’s like is common in Creole (or Kreyol). I have an arsenal of Haitian music downloaded on my phone (heads up if you ride in the car with me when I get home) that I’ll play when we’re out doing work, hiking, or sitting around eating a meal together. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in many Haitian celebrations from Carnival to Mother’s Day to a big celebration for the anniversary of the church in Cange. People tell me pretty regularly that "I'm Haitian now" and I will always keep Haiti close to my heart.
My home, Cange, nestled on the side of the mountain
All of these experiences plus many, many more have changed who I am at my very core. I have so much more of an understanding of the Haitian people, their struggles, and the things they have overcome. What hurts them hurts me and what excites them excites me too. I’ve never been one for watching soccer, but that’s truly changed while being here. I enjoy watching kids play soccer and I jumped on the Brazil bandwagon for the World Cup. Speaking of the World Cup which has been going on the past couple of weeks, there has been plenty of excitement in Haiti surrounding the tournament. Everyone here was cheering for Brazil and Argentina who both lost out pretty early this year, but the excitement before that was unreal. Flags, jerseys, bracelets, and bandannas for both teams were available on every street corner. People would huddle around any television they could find to watch the games. Even if you weren’t watching a game, you could tell which team scored by the sounds of people cheering throughout Cange.
While my time here has definitely given me a better understanding of Haiti, I know I will never be able to fully understand what it is to be Haitian. People may say that I am Haitian because I have lived here for a long extent of time, but the reality is in two weeks I will be back home in my air conditioned house with constant power, running water, stable internet, and a pantry of food. In a few more weeks, I will move back up to Clemson where I will have the opportunity to complete my second degree. The things that are considered so basic in the United States are things that people dream of having here. It breaks my heart that some of my friends in Cange will not have the opportunity to continue studying at a college level because they cannot find anyone to financially support them. Not going to college here means you’ll most likely continue living in your home village and will have to find whatever work you can.
People often act like coming to be an intern in Haiti is such a large sacrifice and while you do sacrifice things like being close to family, missing holidays, and being away from school, our lives are still pretty easy here comparatively. We have nice bedrooms with good mattresses, running water from sinks, showers, and toilets, fans to keep us cool at night, a balcony with a beautiful view, and office space to do our work in. We can generally find rides when we have somewhere we need to go and we have people who make every meal for us.
The Haitian life is a beautiful life and the Haitian people are incredibly strong. I am not looking down on the way that they live, I just trying to make clear the comparisons between my own life and theirs because of the simple fact of where I was born. There are many things that I admire about the way Haitians live that I wish we in America could learn from. There is such a strong sense of family and community here that you just don’t find amid the busy lives we lead in the US.
Life in Haiti seems simple, but I know that it is hard, much harder than anything I’ve ever had to do.
I will never know what it is truly like to live in poverty, but feel I can now empathize and advocate for those who do. Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere with most of its people living on less than $2 a day. There are the poor that live out in the countryside where I am located that rely mostly on subsistence farming and there are the poor that live in Port-au-Prince that may have a small job, but live in overcrowded, unsanitary neighborhoods of small, poorly built houses right next to the other. Many of these neighborhoods were camps of tents that you may remember popping up after the earthquake where people just ended up staying because they didn’t have another alternative. No matter where you live, there is an overwhelming reality that most of Haiti is poor and overpowered by a small, rich elite. There are many thoughts as to how Haiti became this way, but no matter how you look at it, it’s hard not to blame US actions and policies for some of the hardships Haiti is facing (check out Mary Evelyn’s blog post about it here).
The struggle between the rich and poor was made very apparent this past weekend when the government announced that prices for fuel would be rising after subsides funded by the International Monetary Fund had ended. The announcement was made during the Brazil-Belgium game which Brazil ultimately lost. Amidst the devastation that Haiti’s favorite team was out of the running to win the World Cup, people began to hear about the rise in fuel prices and chaos ensued. Someone here in Cange showed me a picture of a gas pump someone had lit on fire in protest in Port-au-Prince and that was when I knew this would not be a quiet resistance. People took to the streets burning cars, throwing rocks, damaging buildings, and setting up road blocks by setting tires and other objects on fire. The most violent protests were contained in Port-au-Prince, but the entire county was on edge. We're now under a level 4 travel advisory which means travel from the United States is not advised. Nothing extremely crazy happened here in Cange, but the road blocks continued out to here keeping us from being able to go anywhere.
Photo from CNN
The prime minister eventually suspended the rise of gas prices, but protests have continued. People are now calling for the prime minister and president to step down. To me, this reaction has truly shown how unfair the Haitian people feel they are treated. I mean how would you feel if you had less than $2 a day to spend on everything from housing to food to healthcare and you were told you would have to pay almost $5 for a gallon of gas? It’s not just gas either, when the prices of gas rise, everything else follows. In the eyes of an average Haitian, this was just another blow after many others of the rich making the lives of the poor even more difficult.
While I was shocked about how explosively the people of Haiti reacted, I was also shocked at America’s response. The only articles you could find about what was going on here were about mission groups who were going to be stuck in Haiti a few extra days because of the protests. While it would have been scary to be in the midst of the protests and I am glad that I wasn't in the city, most of the groups were well outside of Port-au-Prince in secured and guarded compounds. There was one girl tweeting to Oprah and Ellen and President Trump for someone to please come save her. The Americans who were “stuck” here were in the same situation as the majority of Haitians in Port-au-Prince who hadn’t taken to the streets in protest and were stuck in their homes and workplaces not able to get the supplies they needed, but you probably didn't hear about this on the news.
Photo from the Washington Post
People talked about how ridiculous it was for the Haitians to respond this way, but was it really? For the most part, these demonstrations were peaceful except for a few fights between police and protesters that broke out. The intent of making road blocks was not to hurt anyone, but to cause a big enough scene to be heard. One priest leaving church last Sunday was quoted saying “What they destroyed yesterday is largely meaningless to the poor in Haiti because it is inaccessible to them. They can never attain it so it’s not impossible to understand why they would destroy it." I often think about what would have happened had people not reacted the way that they did. People don’t really have a way of sharing their opinions in Haiti’s political system and so I assume the gas price would have risen and people would have slipped even further into poverty. I think many Haitians feel they have nothing else to lose.
As Americans, it is extremely hard for us to understand what these people are truly going through. The two times I have gone home throughout my internship people always ask if it is strange to be back in America. I’ve always struggled to answer because while it does feel strange, the two places are so drastically different that it’s hard for my mind to even compare the two. It’s almost like there are two versions of my life, the Haitian version and the American one. I’ve really appreciated each of you that have heard what is going on in Haiti and have reached out to make sure I am okay and tell me you are praying for me. I hope after reading this, you will also have a little sympathy for what my fellow Haitians are going through and pray for them too. There is a Haitian proverb that states the rock in water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun and I think there couldn’t be anything more fitting for this situation. If we could all be just a little more understanding of what the people are going through around us and find ways to help our brothers and sisters, it think this world would be a much better place.
Photo from the BBC
