Now, they say, I am Haitian

    My scooter is in the shop again (for the 3rd or 4th time) so, to get around, I have been taking Tap-Taps. A Tap-Tap is a converted pickup truck with wooden bench seats and a metal or fiberglass roof. You flag one down, pointing in the direction you want to go or are urged to use one by the "barker" that tells you where his particular Tap-Tap is going.      It is a very cheap way to travel, hence they are also very crowded. The saying is "How many people can you fit on a Tap-Tap?.... Just one more." So they are not comfortable. The trip from my home in Petionville to the Orphanage near the Airport takes 3 Tap-Taps and costs 45 Haitian Gourde (about $1) roundtrip. 

They really aren't that uncomfortable depending on the size of the people that try to squeeze in. I usually try to get the seat on the outside back, partly because it is open to the air and I can see a lot. I am probably the only one who experiences a Tap-Tap like a tour bus. I also sometimes hang out on the back, rather like I liked to do on Cable Cars in San Francisco. 

     The great thing for me about this (apart from it being cheap) is that I am surrounded by Haitians. I have never seen another "blan" on my rides. I hear the other passengers speaking (understanding some of it - more perhaps then the other riders think) and it helps me learn my Kreyol. I get some curious looks, and hardly anyone speaks to me - but they don't speak much to each other either, they are mostly on their cellphones. 

     It can be very hot inside, especially when the Tap-Tap is stuck in traffic, which is most of the time riding up Rue de Delmas, one of the main roads from Downtown Port au Prince to Petionville. But, when we are moving, there is a breeze through the windows and the decorative cuttings in the metal, and the breeze gets cooler as we ascend the maybe 1000 ft of elevation to Petionville.

    This is how most Haitians travel, so now I feel more like one of them.

I'm becoming REALLY Haitian

     The Chikungunya Virus has hit Haiti pretty hard. Originally from China (hence the strange name which first sounded to me to be something about chickens) is spread by mosquitoes. The official count, last I checked, seemed somewhat low because virtually everyone I knew has it or has had it. It begins with high fever and very painful aching in all the joints, especially hands and feet. The fever often lasts a week and the pain can last a lot longer. It is rarely fatal but can be for the elderly, the very young, and those who are already frail.

    Well, not to be left out, I contracted the fever Wednesday, despite copious, if not regular, applications of insect repellent. After one of my trips down to the orphanage on a Tap-Tap, I started to feel feverish. I had already had some pains in my right wrist (where I have some arthritis anyway) and my lower back (which I chalked up to the bad mattress I sleep on.) But as the fever grew (spiking at 101.5) and with an increasing amount of pain in my hands and all my joints (it seemed), I knew what was happening. 

    There is no cure for this virus, only symptom relief which means acetaminophen or ibuprofen or, the drug of choice here, paracetamol. And lots of water. The fever can last a week, mine lasted only 2 days. The pain can last a lot longer - up to a year. In my case, most of the pain subsided today with the fever. 

    So, now I have more of the Haitian Experience - the worst form of public transportation and the Haitian Virus du jour. And I already am a big fan of "Diri e sos pwa" (rice in bean sauce). So now, they say, I am Haitian! 

    The Adventure continues.

Some of Haiti’s Problems are Internal

        Now that I have lived in Haiti for 3 months, I am an expert. Right? But I want to share some thoughts and impressions.

        Much of Haiti’s ongoing economic problems are a result of other countries (e.g. France at the beginning, and the United States at various times ever since) seeing Haiti as a source of free, then cheap, labor creating large profits for these other countries. But that is not the only reason Haiti has never thrived. There are internal reasons as well.

        The biggest problem I have seen is poor Education. Only a small percentage of Haitian families can afford the meager (as little as $25 per year) tuition for school. There is a literacy rate of just above 50%. And, most of the less expensive schools are way below second rate. For example, there is a school next door to my apartment, and I listen to what is going on in the classroom while I am retrieving the sun and wind-dried laundry from my roof. From the opening bell, 7:30am, until the close at 2pm there is constant chattering among the children with the teacher’s voice barely audible above the din.

        Most of what I do hear that passes for teaching is rote memorization. The teacher says something and the children say it back. I am told, and I have read, that this is common except for the expensive “private” (as opposed to the missionary-run, or for-profit) schools. I am told that, in general, the children are also taught not to question anything, and thus, not to think for themselves. A Haitian friend of mine, in his late teens, was reading a book about American Superstitions (to learn English and about American Culture). I asked him what he thought. He said: “Well, I guess they must all be true.” So the children are not trained to think in a way that might lead to creative solutions to the social and economic problems.

        Another major problem is a result of the poverty and the small number of jobs available. When (if) you are looking for a job, it is not a matter of having skills needed for a particular position so much as who you know in the company who can give you the job. And, once you have a job, say as a secretary in a Notary’s office, in order to assure that you will work a full day, you stretch out the work to make sure there is enough. I sat in such an office for over an hour watching a typist prepare a needed document, typing by a very slow “hunt-and-peck” method.

        When I understood that the average pay for secretaries and bank clerks and others of that level is just over $5 per day, I could see the reason for this. You can’t live on “part-time”. You can’t really live on “full-time”.

        This is so much a part of the present culture, that when I asked “What would happen if Martelly (the present, and very good, President of Haiti) were to give speeches about how increasing productivity would help increase prosperity by making foreign investment more appealing?”, I was told: “He would be shot!”

        I don’t have any solutions, but we (GracePeople, a program I work with which provides tuition and school supplies to about 50 children in Montrouis and Leogane) are working with the teachers of these school to develop teaching programs that go beyond rote learning and develop the ability to think creatively, in addition to know facts. The children we sponsor are getting good grades, and hopefully, as the teachers develop better skills, the quality of learning will improve even more.

        My three months in Haiti have been a major education for me, especially about Haiti’s problems, but, by extension, about the global education problem. Now I hope to have a bit of impact on the remedies.