Hi ho, hi ho it’s off to work we go…

 

It occurred to me the other day that we haven’t really blogged about our jobs yet… In an attempt to share a little about the work we are doing here I’ll start with my (Rachel) two jobs. 
I say two jobs because I’m working for RNDDH and POHDH. These are two Haitian organizations that work on defending Human Rights within Haiti. RNDDH is a bigger organization and is where Joel works as well. I work Monday and Tuesday at RNDDH, Wednesday and Thursday at POHDH and on Friday I alternate or go to the job I have the most work to do that week.

So far I have been mostly a translator at RNDDH and occasionally traveling with them to watch some of their Human Rights education seminars in other parts of Haiti. For example I just finished translating an Election Monitoring Proposal for 2010 for the Haitian presidential elections. I’m pretty sure I’ll be helping monitor those when they come around too. My coworkers at RNDDH are very busy and the organization is one of the most respected Human Rights organizations in Haiti. All written work is conducted in French but all talking including staff meetings are in Haitian Kreole so as far as language goes we’ve been thrown in the deep end and little by little we are swimming to the surface. J

As for POHDH, it’s a plateform comprised of 8 member human rights organization. My desk is in the library we have at our office. POHDH is smaller and has a slightly more relaxed work environment but does a lot of good work too. So far I’ve been learning more about the plateform and its members. I’ve also been given the work of figuring out ways to update and promote the Human Rights library at the office. Another project that I’ve been helping work on is a report my coworker is putting together for the United Nations on cases of violence against women in Haiti. I’ve traveled to courts and police stations and look through case files and collected this information. It’s heartbreaking to learn about but feels kind of good to think that I’m a part of the solution in a small and seemingly indirect way.

So that is an incomplete and haphazard explanation of my work in Haiti. Please feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to post more about work as we go.

Here are a couple pictures…

 

Walking to work

 

(my favourite coffee cup at RNDDH)

 

 

Why do we follow Jesus?

Today we had our “MCC house church” (a once a month event) at our flat. Our topic was Jesus, in the since that whenever we travel overseas and encounter other cultures, worldviews, and religions we are confronted again with the question, “Why do we follow Jesus.”

A jumping point to the discussion was in John 6 where Jesus is telling those following him that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. This is the reaction,

66″From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.’”

From there the discussion was, what are the things about Jesus that convinced us to follow him? What were the words of eternal life? What things did He do that won our allegiance? We then went on to discuss what are those sayings of Jesus that are hard to accept, that we have a hard time dealing with? And finally how do we reconcile the two to have a complete view of who Jesus is and what he demands of us.

We thought it might be cool to hear some of your responses. To get the ball rolling here were some of ours:

Joel: I like the fact that Jesus chose the weak and foolish of this world for his kingdom to grow through, the mustard seeds. Along with that how he showed a different kind of victory and power, one that comes through weakness and suffering, even death. I think that’s unique and I love that about Jesus.

On the other side, it’s confonting how much of Jesus ministry consisted of exorcism and how these days, besides some select few in the church, this is rarely practiced. How many of us would feel comfortable going up to a mentally disabled person and exorcising them? Yet Jesus did.

Rachel: I like how Jesus came as a servant. Not many other gods in this world are shown as a servant. Jesus is unique in that way and showing what God is like and how we should follow him. It completely changes the worlds notion of power. I also like Jesus’ revolutionary idea of loving your enemy. This is something so different than anything else and something so radical and extreme.

For something difficult is how Jesus acted sometimes with intense anger to people like the Pharisees. He called them names, denounced them in public, rediculed them in a way. Is that something we can or even should emulate today? And what about us knowing we are Christians by us loving each other. It seems a lot of people call other Christians names and we are constantly divided.

So how about you? Why do you follow Jesus (if you do) and what things do you find hard to accept? And then how can we reconcile the two?

 

Tap-taps and global redistribution

So today Rachel and I “tap-tapped” to church and back. Tap-taps are the most common form of public transportation in Haiti. Essentially they are pickup trucks with two boards on each side of the truck bed and a plastic roof on top. People cram them as full as possible, but actually we’ve found them quite comfortable because you’re out of the sun and you still get a nice breeze, so for the most part we find them pretty enjoyable. They are also dirt cheap; it costs about a dollar for both of us to get across town.

This morning we caught a tap-tap from where we live all the way up the hill to Petionville, got off and walked a few blocks to catch one going down a different side of the hill in order to get to church in the morning. We found a church we really love by the way, but that’s another story we’ll leave for later. After church we did a few errands in the area then went back out to the street to catch a tap-tap back up the hill and down the other side again to our flat. By this time we are getting the prices down pretty well. It’s pretty easy to remember and tap-taps are usually the one non-negotionable price here. It is what it is, so it’s usually no hassle. So as we said “Mesi” to stop the truck, and squeezed out through the rows of people, I grabbed 10 gourdes from my pocket and dropped them in the driver’s hand saying thank you. We turned to walk away when I hear this, “Non!” coming from the cab of the car. I turn around and the man’s hand is outstreched. “Kat dolla, pa dou dolla!” Meaning four dollars not two. (As a side note currency is very confusing in Haiti. Prices can either be in gourdes, Haitian dollars (five gourdes) or American dollars (40 gourdes). It can sometimes get pretty confusing and everyone uses something different. I had given him 10 gourdes (2 haitian dollars) and he wanted 20 gourdes (four haitian dollars). Just a little currency lesson if you ever come to Haiti).

Now let me preface this by explaining every day people come up to us asking for money. All the time and there is culturally no shame in that. White is equated with having money (which is usually true, comparatively) and people often try to take advantage of that upselling items off the street. When you live in a place like Haiti, the novelty of it all easily wears off and after a while it gets a bit annoying. That’s why when I turned around and looked at the man I exploded using as many creole words I know angrily telling him that I was not going to be ripped off. We went back and forth for a while and he never backed down so reluctantly I reached in my pocket grabbed another 10 gourdes and slapped it down into his hand a little stronger than necessary storming off in a huff.

As an American, I think there is something innate within us that hates getting ripped off. I don’t know what it is, but we (or maybe this is just me) have some pride issues about paying a fair price and some deep rooted capitalism ethics which seem to seep out in these situations. Looking back over the situation (after I had cooled off a bit) I wondered what the right thing to do is. Basically I had to pay 50 cents extra. 50 cents, that’s really nothing. My rational kept telling me, “this is the kind of thing that creates dependency, of third world countries relying on hand outs from the West, and these little things are just as important as the big things. It’s a mentality thing.” In my mind that sounds right. Two years ago Rachel and I were in a similar situation in africa except instead of 50 cents we lost a few thousand dollars. Is there really any difference between the two? It is rooted in the same mentality, “You are white so I can take advantage of you because you can afford it.” It’s frustrating.

But……maybe it’s true. It’s easy to put all this noble language and dignity into it, like it’s a matter of principles, but maybe we are blind to greater principles taking place. I do have more money than that Haitian tap-tap driver. A lot more money. Why? Because I was born a few thousand miles north. That’s really the only reason. In this day and age where social justice are such buzz words and we talk about helping out the global south and redistribution of wealth, fair trade and all that, do we really mean it? Or is it just something we talk about to convince ourselves we care. And yet how difficult is it to part with 50 cents. I am more rich than most Haitians. Why shouldn’t I pay a bit more? There is no ethical reason why I “should” have more money than him. I haven’t worked harder or longer for it. I was just born a few thousand miles to the north. We like to be philanthropic with our money, give to charities and missions agencies, support people over sees, but when needy people come grabbing it out of our hands, we suddenly get really defensive; it doesn’t seem so heroic or noble.

“But it’s bad business, capitalism can’t grow out of hand outs.” Maybe so. Maybe it shouldn’t be growing. Capitalism isn’t fair; it isn’t just; it isn’t compassionate. It’s every person for themselves. It doesn’t even matter who is deserving. The tap-tap driver will probably work harder than I ever will. What’s the answer?

Jesus once said, “Give to whoever asks of you.” I sometimes complain that Jesus didn’t use many qualifiers you know like. “Give to your friends who you trust who can pay you back, maybe even a family member who can’t, but don’t worry about the man on the street asking for money he’s probably just going to buy beer. And don’t worry about those friends of yours who can’t seem to get their life together, they need to learn about life the hard way. And don’t worry about those people overseas asking you for money, they need to learn that true change is funnelled through development organizations. They need to learn how to make their own business.”

It would be a lot easier if he said that…..but he didn’t. He said “to whoever” and whether that comes from the child with the bloated belly, who you can see down the street is giving the money to whoever put them there, or if that comes from a tap-tap driver who is doing what he can to get ahead even at your expense, he said “Give.” It seems wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Christ and capitalism have little to do with each other.

Any thoughts?

Funtivities, I knew this wasn’t just a day at the beach!

So MCC takes all it’s workers on a retreat for three days once a year and we came just in time to join this years. It was at a beach resort called Club Indigo, (what used to be Club Med Haiti). We spent almost all three days in the pool except for thrice a day for our buffet meals. One night a Haitian artist called Mika put on a gig by moon light, (mostly covers of American R’n'B/rap songs but fun all the same). It was wonderful, not to mention the many hot showers we took in our air-conditioned room. So for all those of you who are still up in the air about coming to visit us here, we will let these ocean views speak for themselves.

 

Yes, Rachel even had a pool side coffee!

 

 

Fish and Chips … Haitian style!

Last weekend Rachel went to a town called Les Cayes (in Creole - O Kay) with RNDDH as they were putting on a Human Rights seminar for teachers in that region. It was a great weekend with lots of Creole, an air-conditioned hotel room, bonding with coworkers and dinners on the Caribbean ocean.

Two of the three nights we were there we ate the Haitian equivalent of fish and chips which was really Banan Peze (pieces of plantain fried, smashed then fried again) and a whole fish marinated and grilled with a side of tomatoes and avocado. It was beautiful!

This weekend we are leaving for what used to be a Club Med beach resort with the rest of the MCC team for a retreat they put on once a year. So we’ll be sure to blog about how that goes. We hope you are all well.

Vodou

In Haiti, Voodoo is actually pronounced vodou (like vuhdoo). It was learning little things like that to show how little we actually know this religion. It’s hard to go very far without encountering it in Haiti; even most of the artwork has vodou influences. Though we are still learning a lot, we thought we’d share a little bit about what we’ve learned. We really want to try to treat this as truthfully as possible so if we find out anything here isn’t true we will update it promptly.

So what is Vodou? Well historically speaking, the Africans were brought to Haiti on slave ships and with them they brought their religion. In Africa there is a large influence of animism. Animism, more or less is the belief in spirits and that depending on what you do you can appease certain spirits for you favour or on the other hand they can be used against you or someone else. When the slaves came to Haiti they were also introduced to Catholicism. So naturally the two began to blend until vodou was formed. Vodou is deeply engrained in people in Haiti who probably would not see it as a “blend” but as their religion, their beliefs which were influential to forming them as a people and for their independence. We’ve heard different things but it is a fact that vodou was influential in the slaves claiming their freedom. Therefore with something so ingrained, so connected to something that holds so much value, it can become a very sensitive issue.

As far a beliefs, vodou believes in the Trinity, a surprising fact. They believe in God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However, in vodou they are very distant and not accessible to people. However, spirits are, which they call lwa. The lwa are more or less neutral and could even be described as similar to angels in their beliefs. Therefore the spirits are the ones you interact with. If someone is feeling sick they ask the spirit to make them better. In that way the lwa can be used for good and bad. A lot of Haitians who use vodou then, would say they just use them for good, for healings, blessings, etc. There are people who use them for bad things like curses, but that’s not really accepted by most people.

Also in vodou there are a lot of Christian symbols like the cross and different saints of the catholic church. These are usually given different meanings though and different saints are identified with different spirits. As far as an afterlife goes vodou believes in “guinea”  a place you go when you die. It does resemble the actually country Guinea where they were taken from and it’s interesting that is used to symbolize “heaven” or going home when you die.

As far as the bad side of vodou there are some strange things. Zombies are used in the “bad” side of vodou. People are poisoned until they are technically dead but still walk around and can be used to do bad things. There is an idea of werewolves where spirits put on other people’s skins but then later shed them and fly around shooting fire at things. Also some people believe with vodou you can turn yourself into a fly and go listen in on someone’s conversation that go away and switch back. It is probably with this kind of vodou that we in the Western world associate with it.

I think it is important to make a distinction though. Like Christianity and Islam, though we may disagree with Islam I think it’s healthy to understand that not everyone who practices islam are terrorists. Likewise many people who practice vodou are nice, decent people. It’s inevitable that we disagree with other religions but our disagreements need to be based on understanding and not ignorance.

There is a lot more that could be talked about, but the question we’d like to bring up now is, is vodou any worse than other things in the world? A lot of us in the states don’t deal with the spiritual realm as much as our southern neighbors so “evil” looks quite different. But really is vodou any different than materialism and greed which have ruined thousands of peoples lives in the US with the economic downturn and kill millions of people every day who suffer from poverty in order that the US can be so wealthy. Comparison’s aren’t always the best way to look at things, but three perspectives come to mind when I think about these issues.

1. Vodou is actually worse and more demonic than a lot of that other stuff.

or

2. Vodou actually isn’t that bad, just a cultural element.

or.

3. Vodou is demonic and it shows us how demonic things are in our own culture that we don’t even realize.

So far I’m leaning towards number 3. We had an interesting chat with a local pastor the other day who was saying that Satan is clever and he does whatever works best to deceive people. Vodou works in Haiti and people suffer for it. Equally materialism, apathy, greed work in the US and it is just as evil.

Those are our thoughts so far. We are open to suggestions and to any thoughts you might have.

Alreading Making The Haitian News

This past weekend a few of us MCC workers visited an art fair. It was great to check out some local art and even get a few new pieces for our place. As we were leaving someone took a snap shot of the foreigners and Monday morning we saw that we had made the newspaper! Here is a link to the article online: (Our photo is to the right of the article)

http://www.lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=75305&PubDate=2009-10-19

Also, we are having fun playing with the look of our blog, it may change skins from time to time but it’s still us

Our flat

Here are some photos of our new flat as well as some pictures of us going out to eat and eating the most amazing pizza ever! We also posted a video tour of our flat on facebook if after looking at the pictures, you’re still wanting more. Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=648816242  If you are not friends just ask, we will accept you…..unless we don’t like you.

In 1492….

Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And landed in…..Haiti actually. Well on a small island off the coast of Haiti. He had come in the name of Spain looking for gold and the local people pointed him to a larger nearby island. So off he went and as he landed on Haiti’s shores he claimed the land for Spain and for God.

I find that in itself quite interesting. I don’t seem to remember from grade school where Columbus landed. I think most people assumed it was in the States somewhere. So it was a surprise to learn that Haiti was actually the first place “discovered” although that’s a poor word choice because it was actually inhabited by the Taino people. We’ve been told that they were a peaceful people; they didn’t even have any weapons and they took a lot of naps in hammocks and played a lot of games. We read this from Columbus’ description in his journal which is also something I had no idea existed.

It’s an interesting surprise and actually a sad one after what came next. Columbus left for Spain and left an outpost on Haiti until the next arrivals. Soon the whole island was taken over by different European nations. The Taino people were forced into slave labour and most of them were tortured and killed. A Spanish priest saw what was happening and was so saddened by it he pleaded with the Spanish government to stop it’s cruel treatment of the Tainos before they were all exterminated. Instead he suggested bringing people from Africa instead. It’s interesting the beginning of the slave trade may have been sparked by a plea of compassion. The priest eventually took back his suggestion after seeing the same treatment of the Africans and in the end it didn’t help the Tainos who now are completely exterminated. Thus all Haitians are descendants of Africans and all are descendent of slaves. It is a very interesting and sobering history.

I think it really makes us examine our own history. We’d like to believe that the US was founded on pure principles of justice and liberty. And yet look at the Native Americans. We did the same thing to them. That was a price for our freedom, or a least a cost we were willing to pay. And it should break our hearts, but all to often I find that it doesn’t and that is a shame. We all have blood on our hands and the “freedom” that we have now came at the cost of thousands of innocent lives. How do we deal with that?

These are questions that we are dealing with here in Haiti. I think it’s easy for us to push aside these things to the past, something completely separate from us. But we find here that most Haitians haven’t forgotten. It’s much more easy for the oppressors to move on than the oppressed. And so when we think about Haiti as a crazy, impovished, politically unstable country, we have to understand what it went though, and maybe even see how we played a part to make it what it is.

Anyway, that’s a lot of history, but we would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts about this. How do we as Christians deal with the past? With these gross injustices that have been committed? Some of which had given us the many privileges we have today. And how does Christ redeem these situations?

Any thoughts?

Looking out over Port-au-Prince

We have officially ended our 4 week ‘Orientation To Haiti’. We have had a taste of the food, the language, the projects that MCC works with, the sicknesses, the rural life, the city, the religions and a few bits and bobs that fill in the spaces between those. As it is with most learning experiences we are left with more questions, just different ones from the ones that we came with. Good thing we have three years to try and answer a few of those.

Here are a few photos of our past few weeks.

Rachel helping make a wedding cake during our homestay

Joel being shown how to weave a chair

Rachel tree planting with the MCC team

Taking a break after a hot hike

The Artibonite Valley where MCC has its reforestation project. Most of the trees you see were planted by MCC.