Update excerpt

A quick note: this past Saturday, I went to the airport to pick up S (who had been gone for about 2 weeks), and her sister Z. It's been really good to have other people around, fellow expats and most importantly, fellow believers. It's also good because they're early risers, which has helped restore my earlier sleep schedule. I'd been drifting toward sleeping later and waking later, which had contributed to some general laziness.

Z will stay the rest of the week, then go back to the US. She's never been to Haiti before, so it's interesting to hear her perspective as she gets introduced to various facets of life here. And I'm no longer the person here who's been in Haiti for the shortest time.

I sent an email the other day to someone who asked for an update, and I thought I'd include it here, with some minor editing:

It's been a little more than a month since I've arrived in Haiti, and I've got a little less than a month to go. In some ways I think I've adjusted well: I've learned to drive on Haitian roads, speak some very basic Creole, and relate to my coworkers, both American and Haitian. My living conditions are fairly good relative to life in California, which is very very good in Haiti.

Still, I earnestly hope you'll keep me and my coworkers in your prayers--we're still trying to figure out our role as we learn new things and figure out how to relate to a particular government agency which for certain reasons has been making things difficult. And getting anything done in Haiti can often be really slow, which can be a little discouraging.

Please pray for Spirit-led living, divine wisdom, and encouragement for us. Lift us up before the throne, especially as we try to lift up various things before Him. Many thanks for your prayers.

More pics from Haiti

That one above is me standing under an air conditioner. There's a wall unit in one room in the house, and it only works when city power is on. I'm not sure I ever thought before of how glorious God is for giving us the gift of air conditioning.

Some of the pics above are from the countryside. I've heard it said that there are 2 Haitis: 1 is the Haiti of the cities, and the other is the Haiti of the countryside. There's a pretty big difference between the two in terms of how people live and think, and what opportunities they have.

Rebel Against the Status Quo

Apologies for not having written sooner. It's been a difficult couple of weeks.

As I mentioned in the last post, R left on a Thursday, and Bn and S left a few days later. Which left me as the only expat in the house. And the only one sleeping in the house, other than the dog, Spikey.

A few comments on the living situation. Apparently, Bn, S, and R had been staying at MOH from Jan to the end of March, but they were paying a rather considerable amount for rent. So around the end of March, they found a house in the city to rent.

The owners of the house are a Haitian couple, a doctor and lawyer, upper middle class. They have 3 staff/servants: a cook, a housekeeper, and a gardener. They also have a semi-wild dog, Spikey. Apparently, when the lease started, the organization I'm working for got the staff and the dog, too.

That's all to say that during the day, I've had all 3 of the house staff and By around as company. And many days, I had By with me in the car as we went around town meeting people or running errands. By and the house staff are all Haitian, and By is the only one fluent in English.

At night, on the other hand, it's been just me, Spikey, and Jesus around. It was a little scary, especially the first few nights.

Before they left, R asked whether I'd be ok by myself at the house. I'd confidently said sure, thinking about the 2 years I lived in a single apartment unit by myself. But thinking back now, that was in an apartment complex, with a nighttime security guy for the apartment. And if there'd been any serious issues, I could have called 911, or gone to my neighbors.

Here, it's a different feeling. Especially with the warnings that different Haitians have told me, warnings of how there's a huge divide between rich and poor in Haiti that leads to some real resentment by the poor. My coworker S has commented on this, that she feels one of the huge spiritual influences in Haitian society is a spirit of fear and suspicion.

Related to the idea of class struggle, I met some guys who work for a fairly big NGO that specializes in disaster relief and development work.

I asked them what they thought the biggest problems in Haiti are. They mentioned two. The first is that Haitians are having too many kids and aren't able to take care of them. The economy and educational system aren't able to support so many (the percentages of those unemployed and of those uneducated have varied a little depending on who I've asked, but all the numbers I've heard are sky high). And at a family level, rather than a government or systemic level, it's a big cultural difference that here, a parent's obligations to his or her kids are quite different than in many other places. I'll explain that later in this post, but for now, I don't wish to digress too much.

But I'll digress slightly here. I asked a Haitian guy later about this, and he commented that it's part of the culture to have lots of kids. There's a Haitian proverb: "Children are a cane to lean on in one's old age." In other words, while Americans have social security and retirement accounts, in Haiti (and many parts of the world), you have kids because you expect them to take care of you later when you're old.

Anyway, the second big problem they mentioned is corruption. And the weakness of the rule of law. They commented that there's corruption in every country, anywhere you go. But in places that have a strong rule of law, corruption is limited. (I think of the internal affairs of a police department, internal auditors, corporate whistleblowers, and such.) But in places without a strong rule of law, it's more about who are the people with power, and how they can be influenced, persuaded, bribed. And in Haiti, it's so pervasive that it's just accepted--knowing people, making connections, giving money to contacts so that they'll help you, it's just how things are done.

They made this fascinating comment that in Haiti, as in a lot of countries, there's a very small, very rich, and very powerful minority. They control the wealth, and they control all the institutions in the country. In other words, they own the system. And on the other hand, there's a huge majority of the population that's very very poor. And in many other countries, when capitalism, free markets and such are introduced, the vast majority who are poor becomes somewhat better off, and the rich minority become richer. Way, way, richer.

So at some level, those who are rich are sometimes presented with a choice. Ok, you're rich now, but if you want real wealth, change the system so that everyone can benefit. In a number of countries, they choose to go for the vast wealth. But in Haiti, the answer has always been no. They don't want things to change because although they might become vastly more wealthy, they would lose control of the system. And they'd rather keep that.

Anyway, I'll add some comments on that first problem (the digression I previously avoided), which relates to family structure and the cultural obligations of parents to their kids in Haiti. In the US, parents either keep their kids (care for them, provide for them, etc), or give them up (either by giving them up for adoption or abandoning them). And we've got adoptions, foster care, and orphanages for kids whose parents are dead. (Question, if a kid's parents are unknown, does anyone know if they go to foster care or to an orphanage?)

In Haiti, things are structured differently. Unemployment here, by most accounts is somewhere on the order of 70%. So parents are often unable to provide. Biological parents (in most cases, just the biological mom) are willing to let their kids stay for extended periods of time (maybe even permanently) at "orphelinat." Orphelinat are orphanages, institutions where large groups of kids are raised, sheltered, fed, sometimes schooled. But these kids may or may not have living parents. They may or may not have been abandoned. Parents may just feel that they can't provide for their kid for the next few months, or year, or whatever, and so they place them at the orphelinat, but maybe they'll come and visit once in a while. And at any time they want, they can come back to the orphelinat and take their kids back.

There's also another institution for kids: creches. When a kid is sent to a creche, everyone knows it's for the purpose of adoption (which is pretty much always an international adoption in Haiti). So the kids at a creche are those who were completely abandoned by their parents and found on the street, or are the ones where mom (and maybe dad) gave a legal statement before a judge saying they understood they were giving up all parental rights over their kid.

These are the institutions that care for kids. Societally, there's also a lot of noninstitutional care of kids. There's some stuff with extended families, and lots of stuff with a sort of informal adoption, which almost always takes places with girls, not boys. And the dark side, restaviks, poor girls taken by well off families to be house servants/slaves in a pretty exploitative relationship. (I don't want to digress too much here, so perhaps I'll explain why later, or ask me if you're really curious.) I haven't heard a lot about how widespread prostitution is, so I don't know how often that happens, but I've certainly heard some anecdotes that have me shudder.

But I digress yet again. What came to mind while I was writing this post (and what led to the title) is an article I once read, part of the reading for the Perspectives course. The article is titled: "Prayer: Rebelling Against the Status Quo" (It's a really great article, and I just googled and found it

here:

It's 3 pages. By all means, if you at all have the time, read it first, before reading on below.

It describes petitionary prayer in a new light. When the persistent widow comes to the unjust judge and pleads for justice, she's refusing to accept her current situation.

And the article relates that to us, when we're confronted with the fallen state of the world. Do we come to terms with things as they are, or do we refuse to accept what is wrong, unjust, that which is opposed to God?

All too often, for me it's the former, and not the latter.

I guess the use of the word "rebelling" in that context has such an interesting twist. I normally think of someone who's lawless, a kind of anti-authoritarian, maybe an anarchist or something. Satan was the first rebel: "better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven" from Milton's Paradise Lost.

But those who pray, who petition God to change things, who refuse to accept the injustice of things--they're rebels of another sort. Rebels against the world, the system set up by that first rebel.

Kind of turns things on their head, no?

He's with the guy with the white beard

It's been a different week this past week. And the week before, in a different way.

I'll start with last last week, which is when Bn, who's the president of the foundation, came to Haiti. He's also S's dad. And both S and R anticipated his coming with a mixture of 1) gladness, since S wanted to see her dad, and R really likes and respects him, 2) relief, since there were some big things going on that he needed to be apprised of and make decisions about, and 3) expectation that we would be going at a much faster pace, since they expected him to be a mover, a shaker, someone who gets a lot done and pushes those around him to get a lot done.

And yes, it was. Bn's trip was a week, and it was an intense week. He's a big guy, in his 50's or 60's, with a large white beard. (R said that at some orphanages, kids will just start calling him "Papa Noel" which is Father Christmas, or Santa Claus.)

Bn has been to Haiti many times before the earthquake, and shortly after it, he was here for something on the order of 6 weeks. So he knew almost everyone that I'd been meeting and getting to know during the time I've been here, and he knew them far better than I did.

A few days before he arrived, S had been feeling sick with some gastro-intestinal malady. So that Sun morning, R got a list of her symptoms, and we drove to MOH to see if we could ask Dr. M about her condition, and see if she could give us something to help her. We got there, found Dr. M, and she was willing to do even more than we asked: she wanted to come and see S and examine her personally (basically, she wanted to make a housecall). And MOH, remember, is more than an hour away from the house.

But Bn's flight was arriving that afternoon. So she gathered some medicines, then came with R and me to the airport to pick up Bn. We got there, and he was waiting by the side of the road with a single carry-on. R greeted him, gave him a hug, and then asked "Do you want to drive?"

Now mind you, we knew that Bn had left his house around 5 or 6 am that morning, been on something like 3 different flights to get to Port Au Prince, and it was around 4 pm when we saw him. So I thought it was a joke.

But no. We put his carry-on in the back, he takes the keys, and the rest of us climb in and he drives to the house. (Through the streets of Port Au Prince, which are slightly less crazy than usual because it's Sunday afternoon.)

We get to the house, we all see S, who's in bed, greetings are exchanged, Dr. M examines S and tells her which pills to take, and then Bn puts his stuff in one of the rooms. Bn enters the room, and says, "let's add prayer to the treatment here." He kneels by the side of the bed where his daughter is lying, and we all pray for a bit.

We then talk for a little longer, then Bn and I drive Dr. M back, while R stays with S. It's about 5 or 6 in the evening.

The entire hour plus trip to MOH, Bn and Dr. M talk about what's been happening since he left, and how people are doing, and who's doing what. We get there, and BJ, the president of MOH is around and says hi. Conversation ensues between Bn and BJ. They arrange to talk at greater length on Tues. I follow Bn as he checks on D and J, to see if they're around and awake, but they're not. Then Bn wants to check on a fence that he's helping to put up on MOH's campus. We drive around MOH checking on the fence. Then Bn wants to check on C and S, 2 guys that Bn sent to Haiti to help MOH put up the fence and some buildings. We find people who know where they're staying, so we drive there, and Bn talks with C and S for a while.

It's around 10 pm, and I'm fairly tired at this point. But Bn is indeed a dynamo, and talks most of the way back to the house.

Side note: during the drive, we're on National 1, the main freeway in Haiti that connects the northern parts with Port Au Prince and the southern parts, presumably. Bn tells me that he heard that when we drive that road at night (and really most roads in Haiti at night), we should not stop for anyone. The reason is that there are stories that some Haitians deliberately pretend to be in distress on the road, try to flag down expat drivers passing by, and then kidnap them and/or rob them. Realize, too, that it's a lot easier to try to flag a passing motorist here because of the many large and deep potholes in the roads here, and the many many unpaved roads here.

Anyway, we get home around 11 or so, and then Bn helps pour some gasoline in the generator, and checks it out, starts the generator, and we all go to sleep.

So that's kind of what Bn is like. Lots of energy, is very comfortable speaking his mind, and also listening to what others say, prays over a lot of things that I would take for granted. Willing to extend an already long day to reconnect and renew relationships with people he hasn't seen in a month.

Later that week, we do a bunch of stuff.

Bn meets various people at MOH to talk about a possible project to build homes for folks who lost their homes in the earthquake. We check out a similar sort of project that Habitat for Humanity has been doing for some time in Haiti.

We check out a possible site for the homes. Bn also explores a small river that flows out of the mountains to the sea (possible hydroelectric project?)

We visit 2 orphanages, one really poor (basically, some tarps set up in a clearing, some benches and chairs, a cooking area, some tents, and one woman who runs it). The other is pretty well off--this one run by expats, with Haitian staff and expat volunteers. They mananged to get about half their kids abroad after the earthquake, into the homes of adoptive parents in the U.S., Canada, France, and some other countries.

It's also determined during the week that S will go with her dad back to the U.S. R was already scheduled to go (she'd already planned a trip to Asia on business for somoe time). So that left me as the only expat, here to hold the fort and get stuff done with the Haitian staff.

And so, that's been this past week. The plan is for Bn and S to come back after 2 weeks in the U.S., so we'll see how I hold up.

More on this past week in the next post. But for now, one of the funny things that happened the week after Bn left was that I drove to MOH with By (a Haitian staff worker who translates, among other things, for us).

The MOH campus is surrounded by a wall on the side facing the road. Within the wall are two gates (1 is a side gates manned only until 3:30 each afternoon). Each gate has security guys with big guns (either rifles or shotguns, don't remember). This is not unusual at all, as I mentioned in a previous post.

In any case, I drove up in a gray rental car (regular, 4 doors, sedan type). Usually when we've gone in the past, someone's driving the blue Nissan X-Terra (SUV). But that car is a manual transmission vehicle, and I don't know how to drive stick. So the gray rental for me.

The guard at the gate doesn't recognize the car, and apparently doesn't recognize me. So instead of opening the gate, he walks up to the car. I lower the window, and By leans over and says something in Haitian to the guy. The guard recognizes By, says a quick reply, then walks back to the gate to open it.

As we drive in, By tells me that what he said to the guard was: "He's with the guy with the white beard."

And that was enough to get me in. By explains that the guard probably doesn't know the name of the foundation I'm working for, probably doesn't know the names of any of my coworkers. But he knows that the guy with the white beard has been approved by the management. And now that he's told them that I'm with that guy, I'm ok, too.