The teachers’ meeting took place on Wednesday. The father presided and said he wanted to discuss two important points: monthly exams and punishments.
He started off by saying how valuable the teachers were to him, to the students and to the whole community of Carcasse. He said that that after all, living in Carcasse and teaching for very little money (around $100 monthly) is not easy, and that he commended them for their dedication and hard work.
In my previous discussions with the Father, he explained to me that every decision regarding the school and teachers required much deliberation and forethought on its possible consequences, as new rules might upset some teachers enough for them to leave, or end up in having to fire some for breaking the rules. With teachers for St. Joseph’s being so hard to find, that’s the last thing he would want, and I could see why at the meeting he took the time to make his teachers feel appreciated.
He then continued by explaining the difference between infringing upon a person’s liberties and making sure they fulfill contractual duties. The fact that he should have to expound on this is still a bit strange to me, but by now, not unexpected. I get the feeling that their idea of liberty here is different from the one I grew up with and experienced in the US – that many things which I consider a basic responsibility are to them objectionable as they are a restriction of a person’s liberty. For example, two teachers’ separate reactions at the idea of giving extra homework or supervising Saturday morning shifts as forms of punishments for the students were: “But that would be punishing the teachers!” Or consider the fact that they talked about the “slavery” of the different educational systems from different developed countries that the Haitian Government has been imposing on the Haitian people throughout the years. The Father later explained that part of the reason the Haitian educational system is broken is due to the fact that each new government so far has tried to adopt the educational system of a different country - France’s, Canada’s, etc…This created constant disruption, not to mention that these developing countries’ systems were inappropriate for the Haitian culture. Still, the use of the term “slavery” seemed a bit far-fetched to me, especially for what seems to me to be a sharing of knowledge and practices. Small things like this make me think that although Haiti gained its independence over 200 years ago, the psychological damage inflicted by slavery still manifests itself in its present-day culture. Perhaps the backlash against oppression has resulted in an overemphasis on an individual’s liberty rather than his or her social responsibilities, to the detriment of society as a whole. Of course, this is a not a fact or definitive judgment - I am only laying down my impressions and speculations of the moment based on a few people in a small town in Haiti. Rather than being an anthropological study on Haiti’s culture, much of what I write is a reflection on me – the reactions of an American girl who’s lived around the world, faced with a new environment. This is not a blog for those who want to get a purely objective look at Haiti’s culture. Apologies - but it’s inevitable.
But back to the meeting. Father Verdieu reminded the teachers that giving monthly exams was not a question of liberty - it had been agreed upon since the beginning, and was, in his words, sine qua non. It was essential for monitoring the students’ progress, and getting them to study regularly rather than leave everything to the last minute for the trimester exam.
He then broached the topic of punishments, saying he would like teachers to give out homework as punishments, and if the teachers were on board, have the students come in on Saturday mornings if they refused to do that homework. If the students refused to show up on Saturday mornings, and showed no apparent will to go to school or do any work, then they would be expelled. He finally pointed out that the use of corporal punishments would not be allowed. This seemed to wake the teachers up. One of the teachers said that this would never work, as he had worked in schools in Guadeloupe where these non-corporal techniques were used and the students were unruly and disobedient.
Father Verdieu said that in any case, corporal punishments were not severe and rare at the school. I contradicted him, telling him what the principal had told me my first week here when I asked about punishments (that students were punished by standing against the wall with their hands up and the teachers hit them with a stick), and that I saw him doing it myself, and heard the girl screaming. The principal looked at me like I was crazy and denied this, and everyone laughed. At this point, I was really sick of their attitude and lies, so I told them this was a serious matter, and that many of St. Mary’s parishioners would probably not want to make donations to pay teachers if they knew about the use of corporal punishments at the school – in other words, the teachers would lose their jobs. I also pointed out it was against Haitian law to use corporal punishments in schools, and that if an inspector should make a surprise visit, they or the Father could get in serious trouble. They made the argument that the Haitian Government is not fulfilling its promise in providing free universal education, so how can its laws carry weight? I said the two issues were separate, and this fact couldn’t be used as an excuse.
The Father said he would be talking to the students individually to see if the new rules were followed, and then agreed with me that anonymous surveys would be better because the students might not want to speak up for fear that whatever they say should come back to them.
Father Verdieu is aware of what is going on, but as I mentioned before, he can either tolerate the occasional corporal punishment, or deprive his students of an education. Obviously, I doubt this intervention will change things overnight, but I think it’s useful to at least lay down the rules.
It may seem to some that I’m imposing my own culture on the Haitian culture. That is quite possible, but I do have the Haitian law, the Catholic Church, and the Father on my side, who is the first responsible of the Catholic school here. Obviously that doesn’t mean I’m right – but let me explain my viewpoint, considering that I’ve heard both sides of the story, which I will try to relate here.
The arguments I’ve heard from those against corporal punishment include psychological studies that show that the punished child is far more likely to use violence in the future, not just for corporal punishments but towards their family members, including spouses. As one person put it, using corporal punishments is like teaching children to use violence to get what they want. Some may grow up and be able to distinguish between using corporal punishment in a controlled way at appropriate times, while others may not make this distinction, going straight from corporal punishments to domestic violence.
I personally hadn’t given much thought to corporal punishment until I was confronted with it. My gut reaction was to be filled with anger each time I saw children or teenagers being whipped. Perhaps this is a result of the culture I grew up in, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It feels like the proper natural reaction one would feel when seeing a bully beat up a defenseless child, just because he can. The fact that beating seems to be a first resort rather than a last resort to maintain order in the classroom makes me all the angrier because it seems like an easy cop-out. It’s easier for the teacher to whack a student a few times than grade extra homework given out as punishment or supervise students in detention - both of which would address the root cause of the problem, which is lack of studying.
It also seems to me like beating a child is an insult to his or her intelligence – it’s like saying to a child “you’re too stupid to understand reason, so I’ll just have to use the Pavlovian method instead.” (Pavlov is all about action-reaction, not leaving much room for complex thought or emotions, as I recall). A child who incorporates this belief won’t grow up with the confidence to think for himself about what is right and wrong – as I see it, one of the keys to attaining maturity and wisdom, as well as a sense of responsibility and compassion for others. The child can also grow to believe that he is an intrinsically bad person who deserves to be beaten, which can cause a host of psychological problems. I’ve also heard from those who have been beat that they would lie to their parents about their misdeeds to avoid corporal punishments. It’s easy to see why – why feel bad about lying to someone who has no interest in learning the real reasons behind one’s behavior? And thus starts the circle of vice…Of course, these are simplistic extrapolations concerning a very complex subject. I’d be interested to hear what other people think about the topic.
Those for the use of corporal punishment have told me the following things: They were beat hard as children and they’re better people for it. The first person who told me this, and who champions the cause of using it on students, incidentally, is one the most undisciplined people I’ve ever met – and although he is gregarious and fun-loving, I’ve also caught him being dishonest. Needless to say, his arguments don’t hold much weight for me.
The other person who’s told me they were beat as a child has done a better job of explaining the cultural reasons behind it. He said that although his mother beat him, he never uses corporal punishments on his own children because the different environments in which he and his kids were raised are worlds apart. This is what I came to understand from him. Proverbially speaking, there are two ways to motivate: the carrot and the stick. He made me see that in richer settings (including his family), one can hold a carrot up as a potential prize (eg: you’ll get ice cream if you do your homework!) or threaten to take an existing carrot away (no more TV for you if you don’t clean up your room!), to the point where the stick isn’t needed. In poorer settings, however, there is no carrot – only the stick remains. What can a mother do to get her child to walk 2 hours to go to school each way? She can’t promise something special – they’re already barely surviving as it is. She can’t threaten to take away a luxury they don’t have to begin with. If the child stays behind to chat with his friends and comes home late, worrying the mother silly, what can she do? Although ideally parents could just reason with their children, more often than not kids and teenagers don’t grasp realities of everyday life very well, much less their parents’ dreams of having them excel in a city university they can’t even imagine, as they’ve never left their small village. I asked this man whether he didn’t resent his mother for beating him. He said not at all, that he loved her dearly and they were very close, adding that she was poor, illiterate and uneducated when she used to beat him. Even so, I wonder if he didn’t excel despite the beatings, rather than thanks to them, as he was wise enough to look at his mother objectively and forgive her shortcomings as she was trying her best. I suppose what’s important in these different methods is whether the child feels loved or not – which can happen if the child perceives that the parent beats him or her for his or her best interests, rather than as a cop-out or a release of misdirected anger.
Talking with this man reminded me there is more than meets the eye in corporal punishments, and that one shouldn’t judge these people without walking a mile in their shoes. Some people say that the problems of corporal punishments at school and domestic violence will eventually take care of themselves as economic conditions and education levels improve. While the second man’s story fits in with this theory, the first man’s story does not, as he is from a wealthy family and still champions the cause of corporal punishments.
While I agree these factors help, I also believe the cause needs to be addressed directly, through education in non-violence and through role models who are willing to go against cultural norms to do what is right. I also think we can’t wait for the country to develop to start - if not now, then when? It will probably be another 50 years at least before Haiti lifts itself out of poverty. As a foreigner, my input is limited – after all, who am I to tell these people what to do? But people like Father Verdieu, who is influential and respected in his community, can make a world of difference.
mardi 10 avril 2012
March 18th blog
Three weeks have passed since I took notes for my last blog entry, so I won’t try to pretend I remember what happened day by day. I will write more by topic instead.
The topic on my mind today is Haiti’s social culture, or what I’ve seen of it. I’m afraid this won’t be a very positive post – I’m past the “honeymoon phase,” and perhaps this post will be more like me venting my frustrations than anything else. Part of my aggravation comes from talking with a few people recently about American aid. They all ask: “Where did the money go? We’re no better off than we were.” I say that first of all, a lot of money did make it to Haiti, and it was spent on very important things. Clearing away rubble takes money. Building roads takes money. Providing tents, water, food, toilets and basic amenities to millions of refugees takes money. Building the infrastructure for MINUSTAH and other aid organizations takes money. International aid staff need to be paid, and providing a secure environment for them raises expenses.
I’m not saying the money poured into the country has always been used in the best ways, or that special interests don’t have their say with Congress about which NGOs receive funds and how they are used. According to a documentary on aid in Haiti I saw on PBS a few months ago, 93% of USAID money ended up going right back to Americans, through American NGOs and the like. Don’t quote me on that figure, I don’t know its sources. I will save the discussion on international aid for another post and get back to Haiti’s social culture. There is a lot I’ve seen that is wrong with some parts of Haiti’s social culture (or at least Carcasse’s) that I believe impedes development in the long run. They say world peace begins at home. If that’s true, I can think of a lot of reasons Haiti hasn’t achieved its full potential which have nothing to do with lack or misuse of international aid.
For example, I found out that violence towards children was commonly accepted soon after I arrived in Carcasse. Just the other day I was at the rectory and heard a child sobbing and screaming outside. I stepped out of the gate to see a 10-or-so year old boy walking down the road, weighed down by large bottles of water in each hand. A man (I assume his father) was walking behind him with a stick, whacking the boy in the back with it occasionally, as someone would do with a mule. Other than the stick, the father wasn’t carrying anything. He didn’t seem to mind that the child was obviously very tired and sobbing with pain.
Another time, I was at the school teaching an English class with the principal sitting in. A woman started beating her 5-or-so year old child with a stick right outside my classroom, and of course it was impossible to continue my lesson as all the students and the principal were captivated by this scene. After a while the principal non-chalantly said to the mother “That’s enough, ma’am.” She went on for a few minutes and finally stopped, dragging the little boy home. The fact that I was fuming seemed to be amusing to the principal, and the children laughed when he made a joke in Creole about how angry I was.
As if toddlers weren’t young enough, I was walking back from the school a few days ago and saw a mother hitting and yelling at her 1-year old with a banana leaf (or some similar leaf) bigger than the baby itself in the middle of the street, as the neighbors lazily went around their business. The child was crawling around crying out occasionally, and looking somewhat bewildered (to my eyes). I had to wonder what the mother thought she was accomplishing, what lesson she was trying to impart, by hitting a baby who was probably barely aware of her surroundings.
It seems these violent ways have trickled down to the children themselves. As I walked past a bunch of kids playing marbles the other day, I couldn’t help notice that as one child got angry at another for taking his marbles, he picked up a stone to throw at him. I didn’t see the actual throwing, as we quickly walked out of sight. Although I haven’t seen this in person, I’ve also heard that domestic violence occurs.
Someone told me recently that a man had been beaten to a pulp by the police in a neighboring town – thankfully Father Verdieu intervened and drove the man to the nearby hospital.
It’s hard to gauge how big a problem violence and corporal punishments are in this town – occasionally I’ll hear one of the neighboring children screaming, or a dog yelping in pain repeatedly, but I can’t be sure of the reasons behind these events.
Violence isn’t just reserved for humans. It really bothers me how people here throw stones at dogs just to get them out of the way, as if it were some kind of game. It wouldn’t surprise me if dogs’ ribs, already protruding from near-starvation, weren’t broken occasionally by those stones. As I’m one of the few who treats the dogs kindly, they immediately latch on to me, always sitting by my feet, starved not just for food but also for affection. Most people of Carcasse are scared of dogs, and are surprised when they see me petting the Doberman. Some may think I’m being too sentimental, but it just seems so basic to me that if you treat a person or an animal with kindness, it will respond with kindness.
Even for non-cuddly animals, why hurt or kill when there is no need? Every time some people in this household see a frog, they catch it and kill it, smashing it on the ground and throwing stones at it. Why this gratuitous violence? Is it part of their culture, as some claim it is, or is it a symptom of extreme poverty and misery?
From what I’ve written so far it may seem like violence permeates the town. Not at all - It’s just that witnessing these events, even if rarely, ruins my day and my mood, and I’m unable to write about the fun and interesting aspects of Carcasse. Finally I decided to write about what was on my mind.
Although at first Carcasse seemed like a quaint little town where everyone greets you with a welcoming smile, I’ve figured out since that many unpleasant things lurk beneath the surface. I’m not shocked that this would happen in a very poor remote village, but I am disgusted nonetheless and depressed at my inability to intervene. My reasons for not physically intervening are first of all, for my own security, at the time of the beating and later on, and second of all, because it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run. The parent would probably give the child a second beating to make up for the first botched one.
I was able to change things for the better in one situation, however. The first time I witnessed one of these physical punishments was at choir practice. The choir director is one of the seminarians here, and is one of the most positive people I’ve met. He’s always up for a good laugh and takes the time to chat with every person he meets. He kisses the babies, hugs the grandmothers, and proudly presents just about everyone we meet as his dear friend. Coming from a wealthy family, I’ve seen him give generously to people in need. He’s also very talented in music, a fact that all the Americans noticed as he played his guitar (self-taught) and improvised different voices for his men’s choir at the beach. On top of his teaching duties, he was given the responsibility of preparing the music for the “Fete Patronale” (Patron Saint’s feast day) on March 19th, including directing the choir. I had heard previously that his teaching methods were too harsh as he used corporal punishments, but I hadn’t really understood what was meant by that. This man was so popular, who wouldn’t want him as a teacher? So it was a surprise to me when, ten minutes into the first choir practice, he took off his belt and whipped a girl’s hand with it just for singing off-key. The girl had complied with his orders to show him her palms without a flinch, a slight smile on her face, and acted as if it was no big deal – a show of bravery, to be sure, as I’m sure that belt must have painfully stung her skin. I was shocked and angry, but decided not to say anything just yet. I told myself that just 50 years ago this was still common in the US – and my parents’ generation turned out fine, so who was I to judge? But ten minutes later, the same thing happened. Except this time, the girl refused – incidentally it was a girl he had introduced me to earlier in the day as a very dear friend who had come to him for help, as she had been temporarily kicked out of school for failing to pay school fees for many months. As they argued over it, I decided that enough was enough. Even if I couldn’t do anything about the punishments, I certainly didn’t need to be a part of this choir. Back in the US, going to the CUA Town and Gown choir was the most relaxing and enjoyable part of my week. It was a time to appreciate the beauty of voices in harmony, both musically and socially. Attending choir here, however, would be more like the opposite – watching kids getting whipped every 10 minutes (for something they can’t even control!) is not my idea of fun. I stood up and calmly announced that I was leaving, and that I didn’t have to put up with the way things were run here. The choir director immediately stopped haranguing the girl and started to explain to me that this hand-whipping was necessary to get them to sing well, and it was a part of Haitian culture that maybe I didn’t understand very well. I told him he could do what he wanted, but I certainly didn’t want to be a part of it. As I made to walk out, he asked if I would stay if he stopped whipping their hands. After making him promise never again to use any form of physical punishment, I agreed to stay. As the practice continued, I could see he was itching to get his belt out every time someone made a mistake, and it was very frustrating for him not to be able to take out his anger on the choir members. He pleaded with me a few times to let him punish them, saying that they needed discipline and would never learn this way. Obviously I said no. He never punished them while I was there, although he did threaten to beat them in creole occasionally, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. And thus was I roped into the choir, not wanting to leave for fear he would start beating them again. It was an enjoyable experience overall, as this seminarian, despite his desire to use corporal punishments, always knew how to make us laugh. It just took up far too much of my time, 2 or 3 hours every night that I could have spent writing the blog, as we were rushed to learn at least 18 songs (by heart, no one reads music) for the mass of St. Joseph’s feast day, which took place today. In the end, he and the other choir members were very grateful to me for leading the altos and sharing my experiences from former choirs I had belonged to. They even wanted me to lead the choir during the “Fete Patronale” mass, as the seminarian would be busy at the altar, but I refused for various reasons.
Unfortunately, I found out that he resorted to whipping the choir members again during my stay in Port-au-Prince, just a few days before the mass. Although he denied it, it just goes to show how hard it is to change one’s violent habits. Ironically, the choir did improve while I was gone. I would say this is firstly due to pressure from the upcoming performance, and secondly due to the fact that the day before I left I insisted that all the altos stay together on one side, so that we could hear each other rather than being spread across the back, 7 altos against 15 or so sopranos. He and others probably thank the belt for this sudden improvement (a guess made from snippets of conversation I’ve overheard).
Anyhow – these are a few examples of violence that I’ve seen. There are many wonderful things about Carcasse, and as I said, even the people who use violent forms of punishments can be good people otherwise. As the choir director explains: “I was beaten as a child and it did me a lot of good. It taught me discipline and it’s made me the man I am today” (not verbatim, but close). He may have the best intentions and honestly believe that he is helping children by whipping their hands with a belt, but I for one am not convinced any form of physical punishment is necessary or helpful.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid some teachers use physical punishments as well. When I asked the principal what they did to punish the students here, he told me that they stand against the wall, and get whacked with a stick. He said this was a necessary step, because if the students should fail their exams due to lack of discipline (by stick), the parents would beat them up even more for wasting their money. So in his mind, he is using violence to prevent even greater violence.
I’ve had a long talk with Father Verdieu about all this, and he’s told me that of course he does not like such things, but that he can’t be there to supervise every teacher for every lesson. He’s also told them that they must give out homework regularly and exams at least once a month, but from what I’ve seen, the French writing teacher and I are the only ones who give out homework, and they only give out semester exams.
As I can see, Father Verdieu does his best, but he is only one man with far too many responsibilities in trying to run an entire town. He works with the school inspector, who passes by occasionally, and he’s had meetings with the students, together and individually, to ask about the quality of the teaching and their methods.
He is aware that some teachers may not be the best – because they give out physical punishments or for other reasons - but firing them would leave the children with no education, as it is extremely hard to find anyone willing to come teach in a small remote town like Carcasse. Most teachers are not from Carcasse, and some even commute from a larger town for each class. He’s told me that he’s been looking for other teachers for quite some time. I can believe this, as St. Mary’s has told me that he had been asking them for an English teacher for two years. Not only an English teacher – but someone who could help him run the school properly.
It is hard to blame him, as he is stuck between a rock and a hard wall – either he keeps the teachers, even with the occasional physical punishment, or he deprives the children of an education and the chance of a better future.
At the end of the talk, we agreed to have a teacher’s meeting to discuss all these things. I suggested the use of anonymous surveys the children can fill out regarding individual teachers’ performance and methods. The problem is that printing anything out here is difficult and costly. The priest does have an individual printer for special cases, but paper and ink are hard to come by (and expensive – an ink cartridge is over $60). The closest town with copy facilities is Anse D’ainault, a 45-minute drive away. As always, nothing is easy in Carcasse. I’ll report on that teachers’ meeting once it takes place.
At the start of this post I said I would discuss some parts of Haiti’s social culture and how they affect development in my mind, but I ended up mainly talking about corporal punishments. However, I believe this practice creates much larger problems, for individuals and for society as a whole. I’ll talk about why in another post.
The topic on my mind today is Haiti’s social culture, or what I’ve seen of it. I’m afraid this won’t be a very positive post – I’m past the “honeymoon phase,” and perhaps this post will be more like me venting my frustrations than anything else. Part of my aggravation comes from talking with a few people recently about American aid. They all ask: “Where did the money go? We’re no better off than we were.” I say that first of all, a lot of money did make it to Haiti, and it was spent on very important things. Clearing away rubble takes money. Building roads takes money. Providing tents, water, food, toilets and basic amenities to millions of refugees takes money. Building the infrastructure for MINUSTAH and other aid organizations takes money. International aid staff need to be paid, and providing a secure environment for them raises expenses.
I’m not saying the money poured into the country has always been used in the best ways, or that special interests don’t have their say with Congress about which NGOs receive funds and how they are used. According to a documentary on aid in Haiti I saw on PBS a few months ago, 93% of USAID money ended up going right back to Americans, through American NGOs and the like. Don’t quote me on that figure, I don’t know its sources. I will save the discussion on international aid for another post and get back to Haiti’s social culture. There is a lot I’ve seen that is wrong with some parts of Haiti’s social culture (or at least Carcasse’s) that I believe impedes development in the long run. They say world peace begins at home. If that’s true, I can think of a lot of reasons Haiti hasn’t achieved its full potential which have nothing to do with lack or misuse of international aid.
For example, I found out that violence towards children was commonly accepted soon after I arrived in Carcasse. Just the other day I was at the rectory and heard a child sobbing and screaming outside. I stepped out of the gate to see a 10-or-so year old boy walking down the road, weighed down by large bottles of water in each hand. A man (I assume his father) was walking behind him with a stick, whacking the boy in the back with it occasionally, as someone would do with a mule. Other than the stick, the father wasn’t carrying anything. He didn’t seem to mind that the child was obviously very tired and sobbing with pain.
Another time, I was at the school teaching an English class with the principal sitting in. A woman started beating her 5-or-so year old child with a stick right outside my classroom, and of course it was impossible to continue my lesson as all the students and the principal were captivated by this scene. After a while the principal non-chalantly said to the mother “That’s enough, ma’am.” She went on for a few minutes and finally stopped, dragging the little boy home. The fact that I was fuming seemed to be amusing to the principal, and the children laughed when he made a joke in Creole about how angry I was.
As if toddlers weren’t young enough, I was walking back from the school a few days ago and saw a mother hitting and yelling at her 1-year old with a banana leaf (or some similar leaf) bigger than the baby itself in the middle of the street, as the neighbors lazily went around their business. The child was crawling around crying out occasionally, and looking somewhat bewildered (to my eyes). I had to wonder what the mother thought she was accomplishing, what lesson she was trying to impart, by hitting a baby who was probably barely aware of her surroundings.
It seems these violent ways have trickled down to the children themselves. As I walked past a bunch of kids playing marbles the other day, I couldn’t help notice that as one child got angry at another for taking his marbles, he picked up a stone to throw at him. I didn’t see the actual throwing, as we quickly walked out of sight. Although I haven’t seen this in person, I’ve also heard that domestic violence occurs.
Someone told me recently that a man had been beaten to a pulp by the police in a neighboring town – thankfully Father Verdieu intervened and drove the man to the nearby hospital.
It’s hard to gauge how big a problem violence and corporal punishments are in this town – occasionally I’ll hear one of the neighboring children screaming, or a dog yelping in pain repeatedly, but I can’t be sure of the reasons behind these events.
Violence isn’t just reserved for humans. It really bothers me how people here throw stones at dogs just to get them out of the way, as if it were some kind of game. It wouldn’t surprise me if dogs’ ribs, already protruding from near-starvation, weren’t broken occasionally by those stones. As I’m one of the few who treats the dogs kindly, they immediately latch on to me, always sitting by my feet, starved not just for food but also for affection. Most people of Carcasse are scared of dogs, and are surprised when they see me petting the Doberman. Some may think I’m being too sentimental, but it just seems so basic to me that if you treat a person or an animal with kindness, it will respond with kindness.
Even for non-cuddly animals, why hurt or kill when there is no need? Every time some people in this household see a frog, they catch it and kill it, smashing it on the ground and throwing stones at it. Why this gratuitous violence? Is it part of their culture, as some claim it is, or is it a symptom of extreme poverty and misery?
From what I’ve written so far it may seem like violence permeates the town. Not at all - It’s just that witnessing these events, even if rarely, ruins my day and my mood, and I’m unable to write about the fun and interesting aspects of Carcasse. Finally I decided to write about what was on my mind.
Although at first Carcasse seemed like a quaint little town where everyone greets you with a welcoming smile, I’ve figured out since that many unpleasant things lurk beneath the surface. I’m not shocked that this would happen in a very poor remote village, but I am disgusted nonetheless and depressed at my inability to intervene. My reasons for not physically intervening are first of all, for my own security, at the time of the beating and later on, and second of all, because it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run. The parent would probably give the child a second beating to make up for the first botched one.
I was able to change things for the better in one situation, however. The first time I witnessed one of these physical punishments was at choir practice. The choir director is one of the seminarians here, and is one of the most positive people I’ve met. He’s always up for a good laugh and takes the time to chat with every person he meets. He kisses the babies, hugs the grandmothers, and proudly presents just about everyone we meet as his dear friend. Coming from a wealthy family, I’ve seen him give generously to people in need. He’s also very talented in music, a fact that all the Americans noticed as he played his guitar (self-taught) and improvised different voices for his men’s choir at the beach. On top of his teaching duties, he was given the responsibility of preparing the music for the “Fete Patronale” (Patron Saint’s feast day) on March 19th, including directing the choir. I had heard previously that his teaching methods were too harsh as he used corporal punishments, but I hadn’t really understood what was meant by that. This man was so popular, who wouldn’t want him as a teacher? So it was a surprise to me when, ten minutes into the first choir practice, he took off his belt and whipped a girl’s hand with it just for singing off-key. The girl had complied with his orders to show him her palms without a flinch, a slight smile on her face, and acted as if it was no big deal – a show of bravery, to be sure, as I’m sure that belt must have painfully stung her skin. I was shocked and angry, but decided not to say anything just yet. I told myself that just 50 years ago this was still common in the US – and my parents’ generation turned out fine, so who was I to judge? But ten minutes later, the same thing happened. Except this time, the girl refused – incidentally it was a girl he had introduced me to earlier in the day as a very dear friend who had come to him for help, as she had been temporarily kicked out of school for failing to pay school fees for many months. As they argued over it, I decided that enough was enough. Even if I couldn’t do anything about the punishments, I certainly didn’t need to be a part of this choir. Back in the US, going to the CUA Town and Gown choir was the most relaxing and enjoyable part of my week. It was a time to appreciate the beauty of voices in harmony, both musically and socially. Attending choir here, however, would be more like the opposite – watching kids getting whipped every 10 minutes (for something they can’t even control!) is not my idea of fun. I stood up and calmly announced that I was leaving, and that I didn’t have to put up with the way things were run here. The choir director immediately stopped haranguing the girl and started to explain to me that this hand-whipping was necessary to get them to sing well, and it was a part of Haitian culture that maybe I didn’t understand very well. I told him he could do what he wanted, but I certainly didn’t want to be a part of it. As I made to walk out, he asked if I would stay if he stopped whipping their hands. After making him promise never again to use any form of physical punishment, I agreed to stay. As the practice continued, I could see he was itching to get his belt out every time someone made a mistake, and it was very frustrating for him not to be able to take out his anger on the choir members. He pleaded with me a few times to let him punish them, saying that they needed discipline and would never learn this way. Obviously I said no. He never punished them while I was there, although he did threaten to beat them in creole occasionally, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. And thus was I roped into the choir, not wanting to leave for fear he would start beating them again. It was an enjoyable experience overall, as this seminarian, despite his desire to use corporal punishments, always knew how to make us laugh. It just took up far too much of my time, 2 or 3 hours every night that I could have spent writing the blog, as we were rushed to learn at least 18 songs (by heart, no one reads music) for the mass of St. Joseph’s feast day, which took place today. In the end, he and the other choir members were very grateful to me for leading the altos and sharing my experiences from former choirs I had belonged to. They even wanted me to lead the choir during the “Fete Patronale” mass, as the seminarian would be busy at the altar, but I refused for various reasons.
Unfortunately, I found out that he resorted to whipping the choir members again during my stay in Port-au-Prince, just a few days before the mass. Although he denied it, it just goes to show how hard it is to change one’s violent habits. Ironically, the choir did improve while I was gone. I would say this is firstly due to pressure from the upcoming performance, and secondly due to the fact that the day before I left I insisted that all the altos stay together on one side, so that we could hear each other rather than being spread across the back, 7 altos against 15 or so sopranos. He and others probably thank the belt for this sudden improvement (a guess made from snippets of conversation I’ve overheard).
Anyhow – these are a few examples of violence that I’ve seen. There are many wonderful things about Carcasse, and as I said, even the people who use violent forms of punishments can be good people otherwise. As the choir director explains: “I was beaten as a child and it did me a lot of good. It taught me discipline and it’s made me the man I am today” (not verbatim, but close). He may have the best intentions and honestly believe that he is helping children by whipping their hands with a belt, but I for one am not convinced any form of physical punishment is necessary or helpful.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid some teachers use physical punishments as well. When I asked the principal what they did to punish the students here, he told me that they stand against the wall, and get whacked with a stick. He said this was a necessary step, because if the students should fail their exams due to lack of discipline (by stick), the parents would beat them up even more for wasting their money. So in his mind, he is using violence to prevent even greater violence.
I’ve had a long talk with Father Verdieu about all this, and he’s told me that of course he does not like such things, but that he can’t be there to supervise every teacher for every lesson. He’s also told them that they must give out homework regularly and exams at least once a month, but from what I’ve seen, the French writing teacher and I are the only ones who give out homework, and they only give out semester exams.
As I can see, Father Verdieu does his best, but he is only one man with far too many responsibilities in trying to run an entire town. He works with the school inspector, who passes by occasionally, and he’s had meetings with the students, together and individually, to ask about the quality of the teaching and their methods.
He is aware that some teachers may not be the best – because they give out physical punishments or for other reasons - but firing them would leave the children with no education, as it is extremely hard to find anyone willing to come teach in a small remote town like Carcasse. Most teachers are not from Carcasse, and some even commute from a larger town for each class. He’s told me that he’s been looking for other teachers for quite some time. I can believe this, as St. Mary’s has told me that he had been asking them for an English teacher for two years. Not only an English teacher – but someone who could help him run the school properly.
It is hard to blame him, as he is stuck between a rock and a hard wall – either he keeps the teachers, even with the occasional physical punishment, or he deprives the children of an education and the chance of a better future.
At the end of the talk, we agreed to have a teacher’s meeting to discuss all these things. I suggested the use of anonymous surveys the children can fill out regarding individual teachers’ performance and methods. The problem is that printing anything out here is difficult and costly. The priest does have an individual printer for special cases, but paper and ink are hard to come by (and expensive – an ink cartridge is over $60). The closest town with copy facilities is Anse D’ainault, a 45-minute drive away. As always, nothing is easy in Carcasse. I’ll report on that teachers’ meeting once it takes place.
At the start of this post I said I would discuss some parts of Haiti’s social culture and how they affect development in my mind, but I ended up mainly talking about corporal punishments. However, I believe this practice creates much larger problems, for individuals and for society as a whole. I’ll talk about why in another post.
dimanche 11 mars 2012
Day 1 in Haiti - Port-au-Prince
Monday 02/20/2012 – Port-au-Prince
Haiti! Finally. After months of waiting, planning, discussing, dreaming and reading up on Haiti, I finally got to see the country with my own eyes. “Ayiti” as the Haitians write it in their now officially recognized Haitian creole, means the land of mountains. And it was plain to see why as we flew above it in the airplane. Mountains of brown dirt were specked with dots of green foliage, far and few between, the glaring proof of severe deforestation. Thousands of feet above the ground, the rolling mountains looked like a piece of wrinkled cloth, reminding me of the powerful tectonic forces that had pushed the Earth’s plates over hundreds of millions of years, in much the same way a fabric creases under pressure.
Our team, Jack Reid, Lee Bristol, Martha Mason, Diana and Ben Snouffer, and me, landed in Toussaint Louverture International Airport around noon and were welcomed by Father Verdieu’s brother, Canas. On the way out of the airport, a dozen people immediately crowded us, each one hoping to get a small tip for helping us to carry the suitcases – one of many reminders of the country’s poverty. I got my first glimpse of Port-au-Prince on the way to his house. It was not my first time in a developing country, and so I was not surprised by the typical scenes of a poor overcrowded city: unpaved roads, people in rags carrying heavy loads on their heads, pushing carts full of merchandise as they could not afford to transport it by car.
After dropping off our bags at Canas’ house (and a few beers), we went to check out the base of an NGO called “Haiti Communitere” (recently changed from Grassroots United), which mainly acts as a coordinating body between different NGOs – an important role, seeing as Haiti has the most NGOs per capita of any country in the world. The base is a hub and a kind of experimental ground for different organizations to try out their sustainable buildings and small-scale projects. Or to quote one of our team members (he knows who he is ;-) ), a dream place for “hippies gone wild.” If “hippiness” is all about green, cheap, do-it-yourself sustainable technologies that the average Haitian can use to better their lives without the need for massive outside funding, then count me in.
The best place to find out about their projects is on their website, but I’ll go over a few things we saw.
The first thing we saw was the aquaponics center. This was the first time I had ever seen one, and I was impressed by the simplicity of this self-contained ecosystem. I don’t remember the details, but the idea was that Tilapia fish in a black plastic tank were fed a type of plant contained in a nearby box, and their composted waste material fertilized the plants, with a small pump circulating the water around. There was no need to add fish feed or clean the water, which is I imagine part of what makes regular fish farming so environmentally unfriendly and expensive.
Next we took a look at the different types of composting toilets – I was especially eager to see the thermophilic composting system set up by an NGO called “GiveLove,” who has set up composting systems in several spots in Haiti including Cite Soleil, a refugee camp outside Port-au-Prince, and I one of the largest slums in the northern hemisphere. I could talk for hours and hours about how fascinating composting toilets are (especially thermophilic ones) and why they’re a crucial part of the solution to fixing our planet (ecologically and in many other ways), but I’ll save that for another post. Strangely enough, many people don’t seem to enjoy hearing about the wonders of composting “humanure” - especially not over dinner, I’ve found. But I highly recommend “The Humanure Handbook” by Joseph Jenkins, for those who are interested in the topic. This book isn’t just an instruction manual on how to start your own composting toilet - it gives the bigger picture, putting many related environmental problems into perspective, in a witty, humorous way.
Next we saw the different types of green buildings. Since virtually all of Haiti’s steel and cement is imported, construction of American-style homes is expensive. Workers don’t have the right tools to mix the cement properly, and tend to water it down too much in order to reduce costs. The result is shoddy buildings, ready to collapse at the first earthquake, as we saw in the Port-au-Prince earthquake last year. This article “Death by a thousand shovels” (http://cementtrust.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/concrete-crisis-in-haiti/) lays most of the blame for the 230,000 deaths on poor construction practices. All of the green homes we visited in Haiti Communitere, on the other hand, are made from locally-sourced materials (mostly) and have been tested for resistance to earthquakes and other natural disasters. We visited beautiful houses made out of trash (walls made from plastic bottles, or Styrofoam/trash bricks), cob (a mixture of straw, clay and sand), strawbales, earthbags, and many other designs. I could also go on about green homes for hours, but there’s plenty of information on the web about it (such as here: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com).
There are also plenty of people, including average americans, who have built their own homes out of cob for a few thousand dollars, literally from the ground beneath their feet. Their stories are easy to find on the web and quite interesting. Cob houses are quite durable, as evidenced by the fact that there are still several-hundred-year old English cob houses being used.
I also quickly looked at one of the NGO’s albums of solar cookers made and used in different parts of Haiti.
We returned to Canas’ house to find a sumptuous feast waiting for us. Canas imparted that this meal was a small thank you gift for all that St. Mary’s has done for the Parish of Carcasse. Unfortunately I’m writing this a week later after the actual meal, so I don’t remember everything we had, but I know it was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening chatting under his cherry tree, accompanied by clucking hens and proud fighting cocks. We went to bed early, exhausted from our early start at 3 am and long trip.
Haiti! Finally. After months of waiting, planning, discussing, dreaming and reading up on Haiti, I finally got to see the country with my own eyes. “Ayiti” as the Haitians write it in their now officially recognized Haitian creole, means the land of mountains. And it was plain to see why as we flew above it in the airplane. Mountains of brown dirt were specked with dots of green foliage, far and few between, the glaring proof of severe deforestation. Thousands of feet above the ground, the rolling mountains looked like a piece of wrinkled cloth, reminding me of the powerful tectonic forces that had pushed the Earth’s plates over hundreds of millions of years, in much the same way a fabric creases under pressure.
After dropping off our bags at Canas’ house (and a few beers), we went to check out the base of an NGO called “Haiti Communitere” (recently changed from Grassroots United), which mainly acts as a coordinating body between different NGOs – an important role, seeing as Haiti has the most NGOs per capita of any country in the world. The base is a hub and a kind of experimental ground for different organizations to try out their sustainable buildings and small-scale projects. Or to quote one of our team members (he knows who he is ;-) ), a dream place for “hippies gone wild.” If “hippiness” is all about green, cheap, do-it-yourself sustainable technologies that the average Haitian can use to better their lives without the need for massive outside funding, then count me in.
The best place to find out about their projects is on their website, but I’ll go over a few things we saw.
Next we saw the different types of green buildings. Since virtually all of Haiti’s steel and cement is imported, construction of American-style homes is expensive. Workers don’t have the right tools to mix the cement properly, and tend to water it down too much in order to reduce costs. The result is shoddy buildings, ready to collapse at the first earthquake, as we saw in the Port-au-Prince earthquake last year. This article “Death by a thousand shovels” (http://cementtrust.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/concrete-crisis-in-haiti/) lays most of the blame for the 230,000 deaths on poor construction practices. All of the green homes we visited in Haiti Communitere, on the other hand, are made from locally-sourced materials (mostly) and have been tested for resistance to earthquakes and other natural disasters. We visited beautiful houses made out of trash (walls made from plastic bottles, or Styrofoam/trash bricks), cob (a mixture of straw, clay and sand), strawbales, earthbags, and many other designs. I could also go on about green homes for hours, but there’s plenty of information on the web about it (such as here: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com).
There are also plenty of people, including average americans, who have built their own homes out of cob for a few thousand dollars, literally from the ground beneath their feet. Their stories are easy to find on the web and quite interesting. Cob houses are quite durable, as evidenced by the fact that there are still several-hundred-year old English cob houses being used.
I also quickly looked at one of the NGO’s albums of solar cookers made and used in different parts of Haiti.
We returned to Canas’ house to find a sumptuous feast waiting for us. Canas imparted that this meal was a small thank you gift for all that St. Mary’s has done for the Parish of Carcasse. Unfortunately I’m writing this a week later after the actual meal, so I don’t remember everything we had, but I know it was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening chatting under his cherry tree, accompanied by clucking hens and proud fighting cocks. We went to bed early, exhausted from our early start at 3 am and long trip.
First day in Carcasse
Tuesday, 02/21/2012
We took a flight to Jeremie first thing in the morning on a small plane holding maybe 10 people. I was a bit nervous about the flight at first, but my fears were relieved as soon as we soared into the air, and before I knew it we were landing on a shelly runway in what seemed to be the middle of a jungle.
We had arrived in the middle of Carnaval, and kids wearing paper-mache masks and towels on their heads grunted and growled at us, begging for some kind of compensation for their act. Father Verdieu greeted us at the airport, a small one or two-room building. After hugs and greetings for the old-timers and introductions for the first-timers, some locals helped us get our 10 or so heavy suitcases on the car roof and strap them down.
We drove to a nearby church and met with Pat Labuda, the medical mission organizer, and Honore, our translator and sanitation expert, who would accompany us on our week-long trip to Carcasse. After breakfast, Pat introduced us to several doctors, nurses and assistants who were seeing patients and giving out medications in the church.
We then packed ourselves back into the car like sardines and took off. Haiti is about the size of Maryland, but the infrastructure is so poor that it would have taken us about eight and a half hours to drive from Port-au-Prince to Jeremy, and the drive from Jeremie to Carcasse (30 miles away as the crow flies) took us 4 hours. Part of this is due to winding roads around mountains of course, but muddy roads carved by run-off from bare mountains slowed us down considerably. Navigating an overcharged car around ditches while maintaining a safe distance from the edge of the mountain cliff required considerable skill, and I’m thankful to Father Verdieu and Jack for getting us to Carcasse safely. I doubt I would be here to write this if I had been driving (especially since I don’t know how to drive a stick shift!).
On the way, we admired the landscape – mostly deforested mountain tops, and lusher valleys where all the topsoil that had washed down had accumulated. We passed small towns with houses made from concrete, sticks, bamboo, tarps with USAID and other donor names written on them, and other materials. People on the side of the road waved to us, small kids pointed at us and yelled out “blan!” which means foreigner (“blanc” in french means white). Small children went around naked, or with a t-shirt on. Adults wore American-style clothes, although I’m guessing many were donated, such as a t-shirt I saw with something like “Miami sewage maintenance team” written on it.
We came across several carnival crowds blocking the road, dressed in festive and strange outfits, marching and dancing, beating on their drums and blowing their whistles in synchrony.
We finally approached Carcasse in the late afternoon, and had to stop as the road was blocked by all of St. Joseph’s school’s students who had come to welcome us. All 300 or so of the students were there, singing “Oh welcome to you, welcome to you my friend.” We got out of the car and walked the rest of the way to Carcasse with them. Several students stayed and talked with me, speaking English as much as possible. One student told me he loved English and wanted to become an interpreter. We were greeted by more singing and dancing once we got to the village by both the school children and adults in their carnival outfits.
The school principal and a couple students gave thank you speeches, and Jack reciprocated by saying how happy he was to be in Carcasse again and to see how things had changed for the better.
We took the rest of the evening to settle into our rooms, have dinner and rest from the road.
As they knew I would be staying for 3 to 6 months, they gave me my own room, thoughtfully decorated with small religious figurines and stuffed animals, and papers on the wall with positive messages like “you are at home.” I soon learned that a great deal of work went on behind the scenes for everything we saw and used at the rectory. The beds and the furniture certainly didn’t get there by home delivery from some big furniture store. Father Verdieu probably transported them all from Jeremie or even Port-au-Prince on those bumpy roads. The water is another case in point – it all has to be transported from the stream, a 10 minute walk away.
The rectory has two 50-gallon drums to be filled. One stays close to the bathrooms, one is for the kitchen. The father employs someone to fetch the water from the stream, a practically full-time job. With 10 or so people in the household, the water goes fast – for bucket baths, hand-washing clothes and dishes, pouring some down one of the toilets after use (the other toilet is a dry latrine) and many other uses. In the first couple days, I didn’t even notice the man refilling them – he came in before everyone got up (or at least before I got up, before 6:30 am) and made his multiple trips to the stream, carrying several buckets of water in a wheelbarrow at a time. Augustin would have to refill the drums several times a day. I asked him the other day how many trips he made, and he communicated to me through creole and sign language that filling up one drum takes at least 10 trips. After he complained of elbow pain one evening (for which Jack gave him some painkillers), I realized just how heavy a toll carrying that wheelbarrow was on the back and elbows.
For drinking water, a panoply of items is needed. Gallons of filtered water are brought in from Jeremie or LesCayes. When that water runs out, local spring water (contaminated by people washing themselves and other things in it) is sterilized with aquatabs and passed through an american-type water filter, or slowly filters through a clay pot sitting in a bucket, called “Aquapur.” Honore, our water and sanitation expert, told me this was his preferred filtration method, as it was cheap enough for many people (less than 5$ I think), lasted 5 years, and worked well. As a last resort, local spring water is boiled. I’ve talked to the father about using the SODIS method, and we’ll probably start that as soon as we can go to Jeremie to buy plastic bottles of water, or collect them on the ground after the “Fete Patronale,” when vendors will come to sell all kinds of things, and people will inevitably leave trash everywhere, as there are no trashcans around.
I also asked the father later in the week where most of our food came from, and he told me that when visitors came, it was easier to buy it in bulk from Jeremie (4 hours away) than to go to the weekly market in Irois 15 minutes away by car to haggle for things piecemeal. Food from Carcasse was occasionally eaten. In my two weeks here, we’ve had coconuts, tea made from Corossol tree leaves growing on the rectory property, milk (boiled) from a local farmer’s cow, and eggs which I assume are local.
The rectory property also has a compost heap and plenty of chicken running around, but I’m not sure how often their eggs are harvested. I found out that being able to live off of your backyard garden is more myth than reality. Most cultivators here own land far off in the mountains just to be able to feed themselves, and those who can’t afford land and who aren’t fishermen don’t have many options left. As I settle into my life here, I realize more and more that nothing comes easy in Carcasse. It’s easy to take things for granted with Father Verdieu providing for me and making me as comfortable as possible, but I’m sure there’s plenty more work which I’m not even aware of that goes on just to provide basic necessities. Jack Reid has written up a very good log of everything accomplished during the team’s week here, so I won’t repeat their work. I’ll comment on a few things I was more involved in.
We took a flight to Jeremie first thing in the morning on a small plane holding maybe 10 people. I was a bit nervous about the flight at first, but my fears were relieved as soon as we soared into the air, and before I knew it we were landing on a shelly runway in what seemed to be the middle of a jungle.
We drove to a nearby church and met with Pat Labuda, the medical mission organizer, and Honore, our translator and sanitation expert, who would accompany us on our week-long trip to Carcasse. After breakfast, Pat introduced us to several doctors, nurses and assistants who were seeing patients and giving out medications in the church.
We then packed ourselves back into the car like sardines and took off. Haiti is about the size of Maryland, but the infrastructure is so poor that it would have taken us about eight and a half hours to drive from Port-au-Prince to Jeremy, and the drive from Jeremie to Carcasse (30 miles away as the crow flies) took us 4 hours. Part of this is due to winding roads around mountains of course, but muddy roads carved by run-off from bare mountains slowed us down considerably. Navigating an overcharged car around ditches while maintaining a safe distance from the edge of the mountain cliff required considerable skill, and I’m thankful to Father Verdieu and Jack for getting us to Carcasse safely. I doubt I would be here to write this if I had been driving (especially since I don’t know how to drive a stick shift!).
On the way, we admired the landscape – mostly deforested mountain tops, and lusher valleys where all the topsoil that had washed down had accumulated. We passed small towns with houses made from concrete, sticks, bamboo, tarps with USAID and other donor names written on them, and other materials. People on the side of the road waved to us, small kids pointed at us and yelled out “blan!” which means foreigner (“blanc” in french means white). Small children went around naked, or with a t-shirt on. Adults wore American-style clothes, although I’m guessing many were donated, such as a t-shirt I saw with something like “Miami sewage maintenance team” written on it.
We came across several carnival crowds blocking the road, dressed in festive and strange outfits, marching and dancing, beating on their drums and blowing their whistles in synchrony.We finally approached Carcasse in the late afternoon, and had to stop as the road was blocked by all of St. Joseph’s school’s students who had come to welcome us. All 300 or so of the students were there, singing “Oh welcome to you, welcome to you my friend.” We got out of the car and walked the rest of the way to Carcasse with them. Several students stayed and talked with me, speaking English as much as possible. One student told me he loved English and wanted to become an interpreter. We were greeted by more singing and dancing once we got to the village by both the school children and adults in their carnival outfits.
The school principal and a couple students gave thank you speeches, and Jack reciprocated by saying how happy he was to be in Carcasse again and to see how things had changed for the better. We took the rest of the evening to settle into our rooms, have dinner and rest from the road.
I also asked the father later in the week where most of our food came from, and he told me that when visitors came, it was easier to buy it in bulk from Jeremie (4 hours away) than to go to the weekly market in Irois 15 minutes away by car to haggle for things piecemeal. Food from Carcasse was occasionally eaten. In my two weeks here, we’ve had coconuts, tea made from Corossol tree leaves growing on the rectory property, milk (boiled) from a local farmer’s cow, and eggs which I assume are local.
The rectory property also has a compost heap and plenty of chicken running around, but I’m not sure how often their eggs are harvested. I found out that being able to live off of your backyard garden is more myth than reality. Most cultivators here own land far off in the mountains just to be able to feed themselves, and those who can’t afford land and who aren’t fishermen don’t have many options left. As I settle into my life here, I realize more and more that nothing comes easy in Carcasse. It’s easy to take things for granted with Father Verdieu providing for me and making me as comfortable as possible, but I’m sure there’s plenty more work which I’m not even aware of that goes on just to provide basic necessities. Jack Reid has written up a very good log of everything accomplished during the team’s week here, so I won’t repeat their work. I’ll comment on a few things I was more involved in.
Carcasse - Day 2
Wednesday, 02/22/2012
We set up two solar cookers full of rice on the school roof. Before we had even put the food in the pots, most of the secondary school students came up to see what was going on. So I explained the use of the solar cooker, how it worked, and how it was important for preventing deforestation. Most students were interested but a little skeptical. Some started joking around and teasing me, saying “And if it doesn’t work, are you going to go cut down the trees yourself?” I had told a few students that I had previously worked in forest conservation, and they found the idea of me having to go chop down trees while preaching about forest conservation hilarious. I admitted I would have to and laughed with them. Unfortunately, the day soon turned cloudy and I let them know that it probably wouldn’t cook in this weather, and that there was no need to come back up later to see the results. School was out for the week, and the students had only come on the principal’s request, so I didn’t want them to stick around for nothing. Some of the teachers stayed behind to talk. They wanted to know how they could get their own and try it out. I told them I had brought two rolls of aluminum foil and other materials to make some, but that they would need to provide the cardboard. But I realized they were thinking on a much larger scale when they said “But how will we get enough aluminum and cardboard for all 4000 people here?” It was wonderful to see that they had already understood the potential of solar cookers to improve people’s lives and save the environment.
Meanwhile, Honore was giving his water and sanitation seminar to the secondary school students. I had talked to him the night before about his seminar, and we had gone over a couple pages of his creole sanitation education manual. His book included information on the SODIS method, and he told me he would be talking about it in his seminars.
SODIS is short for solar disinfection. It’s a surprisingly simple and cheap way to kill human pathogens in water by exposing them to 6 hours of the sun’s UV radiation. All one needs to do is fill up a transparent, non-tinted plastic bottle with contaminated water, leave it out in the sun all day in a horizontal position, and by the end of the day it will be drinkable. It’s deceptively simple, but just like for solar cookers, training and reinforcements are needed to effect lifestyle changes.
After his seminar, Honore brought the kids up to the roof to show them the plastic bottles we had filled up with water lying in the sun. I’ve talked with the Father and teachers about starting a program to teach kids to use the SODIS method at school, and they’ve agreed it’s a good idea.
Later that evening, Diana, Ben and Jack met with key members of the Association of Producers of Coffee in Carcasse (APCC) to discuss their experiences. Walnus, the head of the APCC later asked me if I could help him and another APCC member with something. He invited me to read a document on how to run a small business association in Creole. In the end, he was the one helping me to understand the Creole text rather than me helping him with anything. I suppose they wanted me to make sure they were reading the document correctly as they were not expert readers. I think it was mainly though a way to engage me and make me feel included. Like many people here, Walnus always has a smile on his face, and as Jack put it, “being around him just makes you happy.” Despite the language barrier, we shared many good laughs with him and other people from Carcasse. Since I speak French, I can understand most written creole. That’s part of the reason I didn’t put too much effort into reading my creole lesson book before coming to Haiti. Reading it was so easy and intuitive, I figured that listening and understanding it would be a breeze. I soon realized I was wrong - spoken creole is much harder, especially when people talk quickly and use contractions.
We set up two solar cookers full of rice on the school roof. Before we had even put the food in the pots, most of the secondary school students came up to see what was going on. So I explained the use of the solar cooker, how it worked, and how it was important for preventing deforestation. Most students were interested but a little skeptical. Some started joking around and teasing me, saying “And if it doesn’t work, are you going to go cut down the trees yourself?” I had told a few students that I had previously worked in forest conservation, and they found the idea of me having to go chop down trees while preaching about forest conservation hilarious. I admitted I would have to and laughed with them. Unfortunately, the day soon turned cloudy and I let them know that it probably wouldn’t cook in this weather, and that there was no need to come back up later to see the results. School was out for the week, and the students had only come on the principal’s request, so I didn’t want them to stick around for nothing. Some of the teachers stayed behind to talk. They wanted to know how they could get their own and try it out. I told them I had brought two rolls of aluminum foil and other materials to make some, but that they would need to provide the cardboard. But I realized they were thinking on a much larger scale when they said “But how will we get enough aluminum and cardboard for all 4000 people here?” It was wonderful to see that they had already understood the potential of solar cookers to improve people’s lives and save the environment.Meanwhile, Honore was giving his water and sanitation seminar to the secondary school students. I had talked to him the night before about his seminar, and we had gone over a couple pages of his creole sanitation education manual. His book included information on the SODIS method, and he told me he would be talking about it in his seminars.
SODIS is short for solar disinfection. It’s a surprisingly simple and cheap way to kill human pathogens in water by exposing them to 6 hours of the sun’s UV radiation. All one needs to do is fill up a transparent, non-tinted plastic bottle with contaminated water, leave it out in the sun all day in a horizontal position, and by the end of the day it will be drinkable. It’s deceptively simple, but just like for solar cookers, training and reinforcements are needed to effect lifestyle changes. After his seminar, Honore brought the kids up to the roof to show them the plastic bottles we had filled up with water lying in the sun. I’ve talked with the Father and teachers about starting a program to teach kids to use the SODIS method at school, and they’ve agreed it’s a good idea.
Later that evening, Diana, Ben and Jack met with key members of the Association of Producers of Coffee in Carcasse (APCC) to discuss their experiences. Walnus, the head of the APCC later asked me if I could help him and another APCC member with something. He invited me to read a document on how to run a small business association in Creole. In the end, he was the one helping me to understand the Creole text rather than me helping him with anything. I suppose they wanted me to make sure they were reading the document correctly as they were not expert readers. I think it was mainly though a way to engage me and make me feel included. Like many people here, Walnus always has a smile on his face, and as Jack put it, “being around him just makes you happy.” Despite the language barrier, we shared many good laughs with him and other people from Carcasse. Since I speak French, I can understand most written creole. That’s part of the reason I didn’t put too much effort into reading my creole lesson book before coming to Haiti. Reading it was so easy and intuitive, I figured that listening and understanding it would be a breeze. I soon realized I was wrong - spoken creole is much harder, especially when people talk quickly and use contractions.
Carcasse - Day 3
Thursday, 02/23/2012
While Honore gave his water and sanitation presentation to the primary school students, Diana, Ben, Marty and I taught some young secondary school kids how to make rosaries from beads and string Diana had brought from the US. They were visibly pleased to be making something that vaguely resembled jewelry, and they all wanted the sparkly beads for their rosaries. Some complained that the rosaries we were making were too short to put around their necks, but we told them that wasn’t the purpose of a rosary. Seeing as the parents here barely have enough money to buy notebooks for their children, jewelry is a luxury few to none can afford. Indeed, several times people asked Jack or other team members for the watches on their wrists, and several people including little girls have said that they wanted my glasses, or at least some glasses since their eyes are bad. From what I’ve seen, I am the only person wearing glasses in Carcasse, apart from Abbe Damas, one of the priests in training here. And it certainly isn’t because they’re wearing contact lenses! But glasses and hence the ability to see clearly are way beyond the villagers’ economic reach. When I think of how incapacitated I am without my glasses, I wonder whether eyeglasses and other ways to correct vision shouldn’t be a priority in development projects. I don’t mind having occasional digestive troubles, but never being able to see people’s facial expressions when they’re talking can take the joy out of life. I suppose blind people have figured out a way around that, but for me it’s still crucial, especially when I’m learning a new language. On a more serious note, not being able to read the lessons on the blackboard can ruin even the most talented students’ chances of excelling at school. As I write this, I realize I don’t even know whether all the students in my own English classes can read what I write on the blackboard, and wonder whether their myopia might be the reason why it takes some of them so long to copy everything down.
The team then visited the clinic in Carcasse run by two nurses full-time and one doctor for two weeks out of the month. It was quite clean and neat, with the medicine arranged in an orderly way.
I attended the APCC meeting in the afternoon, headed by Jack and the head of the APCC, Walnus. The results of that meeting can be found on Jack’s report.
While Honore gave his water and sanitation presentation to the primary school students, Diana, Ben, Marty and I taught some young secondary school kids how to make rosaries from beads and string Diana had brought from the US. They were visibly pleased to be making something that vaguely resembled jewelry, and they all wanted the sparkly beads for their rosaries. Some complained that the rosaries we were making were too short to put around their necks, but we told them that wasn’t the purpose of a rosary. Seeing as the parents here barely have enough money to buy notebooks for their children, jewelry is a luxury few to none can afford. Indeed, several times people asked Jack or other team members for the watches on their wrists, and several people including little girls have said that they wanted my glasses, or at least some glasses since their eyes are bad. From what I’ve seen, I am the only person wearing glasses in Carcasse, apart from Abbe Damas, one of the priests in training here. And it certainly isn’t because they’re wearing contact lenses! But glasses and hence the ability to see clearly are way beyond the villagers’ economic reach. When I think of how incapacitated I am without my glasses, I wonder whether eyeglasses and other ways to correct vision shouldn’t be a priority in development projects. I don’t mind having occasional digestive troubles, but never being able to see people’s facial expressions when they’re talking can take the joy out of life. I suppose blind people have figured out a way around that, but for me it’s still crucial, especially when I’m learning a new language. On a more serious note, not being able to read the lessons on the blackboard can ruin even the most talented students’ chances of excelling at school. As I write this, I realize I don’t even know whether all the students in my own English classes can read what I write on the blackboard, and wonder whether their myopia might be the reason why it takes some of them so long to copy everything down.
The team then visited the clinic in Carcasse run by two nurses full-time and one doctor for two weeks out of the month. It was quite clean and neat, with the medicine arranged in an orderly way. I attended the APCC meeting in the afternoon, headed by Jack and the head of the APCC, Walnus. The results of that meeting can be found on Jack’s report.
Carcasse - Day 4
Friday, 02/24/2012
Most of the team met with business people in Carcasse in the school auditorium, while I helped more children make rosaries in a nearby classroom. Being the only American speaking native French, I was the only one able to help the kids in their crafts. I took a few moments to steal away from the class, however, to set up a couple solar cookers on the school roof. One of the students, Batisse, followed me up and prepared one of the pots of spaghetti himself. When we returned an hour later, the pots of spaghetti were done, and we decided to bring one down with the cardboard-aluminum panels to the small businesses meeting to show everyone. Father Verdieu invited us on stage, and I asked the student who had helped me to explain to everyone in creole how he had just cooked a pot of spaghetti in the solar cooker. People gasped and started talking to each other when they realized the sun could cook food.
While Father Verdieu explained the science behind solar cookers, Batisse went around with the pot and let everyone taste the spaghetti. Batisse and I exited as they resumed the small businesses meeting, and I gave Batisse the other pot of spaghetti to eat with his friends to thank him for showcasing the Cookit. They were done in a few minutes and gave me back the pot.
After the meeting, a woman approached me to tell me she wanted a solar cooker to try it out for herself. Her standing in the community as the APCC representative in Cap-a-Fou made her an ideal person to promote its use. Unfortunately, with her living so far away and a limited number of solar cookers, I didn’t want to give any up just yet. I told her maybe next week we could arrange for a kind of training in the use of solar cookers and make some more.
In the afternoon, we took a walk towards Cap-a-fou. After about 30 minutes of a steep walk up the mountain and 20 minutes of a steep walk down it, we saw the Cap-a-fou village in a valley by the sea from far away and decided that was good enough for us. I was especially ready to head home, as I was wearing my crocs which have little to no traction, and was having a hard time not slipping. I thought I would be the only one with crocs, but strangely enough, many if not most people wear there them here. But most people we passed did not seem to be having any trouble climbing the mountain. They were at ease on their motorcycles, or carrying enormous loads on their head. We especially admired the skill of one older woman carrying a mountain of bread loaves on her head, piled more than a foot high, any loaf or baguette ready to roll off at any wobble. We couldn’t help but comment on what a waste it would be if she should lose her balance. I had heard that Cap-a-fou and Bigarous were part of the Carcasse parish before coming, but I hadn’t realized they were so hard to get to, and that children, merchants and others made this trip every day just to go to school or buy or sell necessities. We made it back exhausted, dusty, and sweaty and made dibs on who would get the shower first.
Most of the team met with business people in Carcasse in the school auditorium, while I helped more children make rosaries in a nearby classroom. Being the only American speaking native French, I was the only one able to help the kids in their crafts. I took a few moments to steal away from the class, however, to set up a couple solar cookers on the school roof. One of the students, Batisse, followed me up and prepared one of the pots of spaghetti himself. When we returned an hour later, the pots of spaghetti were done, and we decided to bring one down with the cardboard-aluminum panels to the small businesses meeting to show everyone. Father Verdieu invited us on stage, and I asked the student who had helped me to explain to everyone in creole how he had just cooked a pot of spaghetti in the solar cooker. People gasped and started talking to each other when they realized the sun could cook food.
While Father Verdieu explained the science behind solar cookers, Batisse went around with the pot and let everyone taste the spaghetti. Batisse and I exited as they resumed the small businesses meeting, and I gave Batisse the other pot of spaghetti to eat with his friends to thank him for showcasing the Cookit. They were done in a few minutes and gave me back the pot. After the meeting, a woman approached me to tell me she wanted a solar cooker to try it out for herself. Her standing in the community as the APCC representative in Cap-a-Fou made her an ideal person to promote its use. Unfortunately, with her living so far away and a limited number of solar cookers, I didn’t want to give any up just yet. I told her maybe next week we could arrange for a kind of training in the use of solar cookers and make some more.
In the afternoon, we took a walk towards Cap-a-fou. After about 30 minutes of a steep walk up the mountain and 20 minutes of a steep walk down it, we saw the Cap-a-fou village in a valley by the sea from far away and decided that was good enough for us. I was especially ready to head home, as I was wearing my crocs which have little to no traction, and was having a hard time not slipping. I thought I would be the only one with crocs, but strangely enough, many if not most people wear there them here. But most people we passed did not seem to be having any trouble climbing the mountain. They were at ease on their motorcycles, or carrying enormous loads on their head. We especially admired the skill of one older woman carrying a mountain of bread loaves on her head, piled more than a foot high, any loaf or baguette ready to roll off at any wobble. We couldn’t help but comment on what a waste it would be if she should lose her balance. I had heard that Cap-a-fou and Bigarous were part of the Carcasse parish before coming, but I hadn’t realized they were so hard to get to, and that children, merchants and others made this trip every day just to go to school or buy or sell necessities. We made it back exhausted, dusty, and sweaty and made dibs on who would get the shower first.
Carcasse - Day 5
Saturday, 02/25/2012
I attended the teachers’ meeting at 9 am with Diana and Jack (more information on Jack’s report). I asked if I could put the books we had brought with us in the auditorium for students to read, as I was already getting so many requests from students to borrow the books. I had lent out a few, but I wanted them to be available to everyone and not have to keep track of them myself. To me, reading books for fun is one of the most important, if not the most important tool for learning, at least for languages. Students can repeat grammar rules all day, but they’re not going to stick and become intuitive until they see them applied in different sentences, and they’re only going to read for hours on end if the book is engaging. I owe my English reading and writing skills to English books read when I was young, as I went to French schools until 10th grade (except for 2nd grade, when I learned English). As far as I can tell, these kids don’t have any books at all. Just buying the textbooks are a drain on the family income, so leisure books are out of the question.
Another discussion point was the budget, and the teachers agreed to meet at 5 pm later that day to draw one up for the adult education classes, library and other expenses.
While most of the team went to Bigarous in the morning, I went to Batisse’s home(the student who had demonstrated the solar cookers yesterday) so he could try it out at home and show his family. After meeting his mother and younger siblings, we put some spaghetti in the solar cooker with at least 10 other people watching. I explained to them how it worked, and how to turn it towards the sun, and said I would come back in an hour and a half. When we came back, everyone on the way to his house (even those living blocks away) asked us “se cuit?” (“Is it cooked yet?”). The news had traveled fast.
The spaghetti was indeed cooked when we got there, and as soon as I took off the lid 10 or so kids gathered around and picked strands of spaghetti directly out of the pot, pushing each other over for a little bit of food. It was gone in minutes. I told Batisse that he could borrow the solar cooker so he and his mother could try it out, and that I’d like to know about his experiences with it in order to better help others. As a 19-year old breadwinner since his father died, a student at the school, and a choir boy who knew Father Verdieu quite well, he seemed responsible and trustworthy.
While I’m on the topic of parents dying, I should note that in the first week, I met at least four young people who told me that their parents had died. For example, I had asked one 16-year old if she lived with her parents, and she said that no, they had both died, and she lived with her husband. The average life expectancy here is pretty low – around 40 I think. I thought before this was mostly due to high infant and child mortality rates, but I’m realizing that few adults make it to a ripe old age.
At 5 pm (or maybe 6, nothing starts on time here), I went to the teachers’ meeting to draw up the budget. It was only the school principal (who is also a teacher), the other teachers and me. Most of the teachers, especially the women, didn’t say much, maybe because they were not confident about their French. We started with the adult education classes – how many teachers were willing to teach and when, how many books each student would need, whether St. Mary’s could pay for adults’ uniforms (I said the money could probably be better spent elsewhere), the cost of chalk for the blackboard, etc…We then listed some basic books the library would need, and then came to the part about extra things the school would need. Some items that came up were: maps and pictures (the teachers have drawn maps themselves of the world and Haiti and pictures of the body), trashcans (there isn’t a single trashcan at the school, so there’s plenty of trash right behind the school), a corkboard for messages, a projector (I told them this required a lot of electricity and there wasn’t even enough for the computers, but we would look into it), and they emphasized that the most important item was a set of marching drums for an inter-school competition they would be holding soon.
I asked if the students had clean water to drink. They said sure, and pointed to the “aquapur” bucket, in which a clay jar slowly filters water. I asked if that was enough to supply all the kids with drinking water, and they nodded.Then I said “But there are two of these at the priest’s house and it’s not nearly enough just for his household.” They looked embarrassed and admitted it wasn’t enough. Before I came to Haiti, I figured they had enough drinkable water for the kids. Then I heard from one of the Americans that they brought a bucket of water from the stream (contaminated of course) for each classroom. But I’ve found out since then that there really is no water at all. I found that out when I asked the director if he had a little bit of water to wet the eraser to wash the blackboard. He said no, and said if I really needed to, I could take the filtered water from the Aquapur clay pot/bucket system. I
imagine that single water filter must be reserved for teachers in case of extreme thirst or important guests. I think there is one drum which is sometimes filled with stream water in the schoolyard. But I haven’t seen anything close to the latrines, and I have to assume that kids simply don’t wash their hands after using them. I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing my own water bottle, but I haven’t seen anyone else do that.
But back to the teachers’ meeting. After seeing that they didn’t have a filtration system large enough to supply the whole school, I wanted to find out how important clean drinking water was to them. I asked them if kids often got sick with stomach problems, and said good health was very important, as kids can’t study when they’re sick or hungry, not to mention it’s a waste of food when it doesn’t get digested due to illness. They said it was true that the children were often sick, and seemed concerned. But it did not seem to be one of their priorities, perhaps because they had simply accepted contaminated water as a fact of life that could not be changed and was not worth thinking about. I suggested we start a SODIS program there to disinfect the water by exposing water in plastic bottles to the sun’s UV radiation. The teachers had apparently never heard of the method, but sounded genuinely interested, and agreed to try it out.
I then naively asked if they needed supplies for the toilets – toilet paper, soap (not knowing they had no water close to the latrines). They nodded, a couple of them repressed giggles, and we continued. I later found out they don’t use toilet paper (they use sand, apparently), and obviously don’t need soap since there’s no water.
At the end of the meeting, the director asked me what the most important item on the list was for me. I said clean drinking water. He said the drums for the marching band, and he made sure I underlined that item in the list 3 or 4 times.
I attended the teachers’ meeting at 9 am with Diana and Jack (more information on Jack’s report). I asked if I could put the books we had brought with us in the auditorium for students to read, as I was already getting so many requests from students to borrow the books. I had lent out a few, but I wanted them to be available to everyone and not have to keep track of them myself. To me, reading books for fun is one of the most important, if not the most important tool for learning, at least for languages. Students can repeat grammar rules all day, but they’re not going to stick and become intuitive until they see them applied in different sentences, and they’re only going to read for hours on end if the book is engaging. I owe my English reading and writing skills to English books read when I was young, as I went to French schools until 10th grade (except for 2nd grade, when I learned English). As far as I can tell, these kids don’t have any books at all. Just buying the textbooks are a drain on the family income, so leisure books are out of the question.
Another discussion point was the budget, and the teachers agreed to meet at 5 pm later that day to draw one up for the adult education classes, library and other expenses.
While most of the team went to Bigarous in the morning, I went to Batisse’s home(the student who had demonstrated the solar cookers yesterday) so he could try it out at home and show his family. After meeting his mother and younger siblings, we put some spaghetti in the solar cooker with at least 10 other people watching. I explained to them how it worked, and how to turn it towards the sun, and said I would come back in an hour and a half. When we came back, everyone on the way to his house (even those living blocks away) asked us “se cuit?” (“Is it cooked yet?”). The news had traveled fast.
The spaghetti was indeed cooked when we got there, and as soon as I took off the lid 10 or so kids gathered around and picked strands of spaghetti directly out of the pot, pushing each other over for a little bit of food. It was gone in minutes. I told Batisse that he could borrow the solar cooker so he and his mother could try it out, and that I’d like to know about his experiences with it in order to better help others. As a 19-year old breadwinner since his father died, a student at the school, and a choir boy who knew Father Verdieu quite well, he seemed responsible and trustworthy.While I’m on the topic of parents dying, I should note that in the first week, I met at least four young people who told me that their parents had died. For example, I had asked one 16-year old if she lived with her parents, and she said that no, they had both died, and she lived with her husband. The average life expectancy here is pretty low – around 40 I think. I thought before this was mostly due to high infant and child mortality rates, but I’m realizing that few adults make it to a ripe old age.
At 5 pm (or maybe 6, nothing starts on time here), I went to the teachers’ meeting to draw up the budget. It was only the school principal (who is also a teacher), the other teachers and me. Most of the teachers, especially the women, didn’t say much, maybe because they were not confident about their French. We started with the adult education classes – how many teachers were willing to teach and when, how many books each student would need, whether St. Mary’s could pay for adults’ uniforms (I said the money could probably be better spent elsewhere), the cost of chalk for the blackboard, etc…We then listed some basic books the library would need, and then came to the part about extra things the school would need. Some items that came up were: maps and pictures (the teachers have drawn maps themselves of the world and Haiti and pictures of the body), trashcans (there isn’t a single trashcan at the school, so there’s plenty of trash right behind the school), a corkboard for messages, a projector (I told them this required a lot of electricity and there wasn’t even enough for the computers, but we would look into it), and they emphasized that the most important item was a set of marching drums for an inter-school competition they would be holding soon.
I asked if the students had clean water to drink. They said sure, and pointed to the “aquapur” bucket, in which a clay jar slowly filters water. I asked if that was enough to supply all the kids with drinking water, and they nodded.Then I said “But there are two of these at the priest’s house and it’s not nearly enough just for his household.” They looked embarrassed and admitted it wasn’t enough. Before I came to Haiti, I figured they had enough drinkable water for the kids. Then I heard from one of the Americans that they brought a bucket of water from the stream (contaminated of course) for each classroom. But I’ve found out since then that there really is no water at all. I found that out when I asked the director if he had a little bit of water to wet the eraser to wash the blackboard. He said no, and said if I really needed to, I could take the filtered water from the Aquapur clay pot/bucket system. Iimagine that single water filter must be reserved for teachers in case of extreme thirst or important guests. I think there is one drum which is sometimes filled with stream water in the schoolyard. But I haven’t seen anything close to the latrines, and I have to assume that kids simply don’t wash their hands after using them. I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing my own water bottle, but I haven’t seen anyone else do that.
But back to the teachers’ meeting. After seeing that they didn’t have a filtration system large enough to supply the whole school, I wanted to find out how important clean drinking water was to them. I asked them if kids often got sick with stomach problems, and said good health was very important, as kids can’t study when they’re sick or hungry, not to mention it’s a waste of food when it doesn’t get digested due to illness. They said it was true that the children were often sick, and seemed concerned. But it did not seem to be one of their priorities, perhaps because they had simply accepted contaminated water as a fact of life that could not be changed and was not worth thinking about. I suggested we start a SODIS program there to disinfect the water by exposing water in plastic bottles to the sun’s UV radiation. The teachers had apparently never heard of the method, but sounded genuinely interested, and agreed to try it out.
I then naively asked if they needed supplies for the toilets – toilet paper, soap (not knowing they had no water close to the latrines). They nodded, a couple of them repressed giggles, and we continued. I later found out they don’t use toilet paper (they use sand, apparently), and obviously don’t need soap since there’s no water.
At the end of the meeting, the director asked me what the most important item on the list was for me. I said clean drinking water. He said the drums for the marching band, and he made sure I underlined that item in the list 3 or 4 times.
Carcasse - Last day
Sunday, 02/26/2012The whole team attended mass, with Honore translating the Father’s homily. He talked about how Carcasse was when he first came – no school, no electricity, no internet, not many community organizations, no roads, no clinic, no cell phone network, etc…As I imagined what the town must have been like back then, it struck me that the town I had considered thus far to be about as underdeveloped as you could get, was in comparison to a few years ago very much developed. And that was in large part thanks to technical support and donations from St. Mary’s, the Father’s leadership skills, and the community’s hard work.
He also announced to everyone that I would not only be teaching English, but also French, and adult reading and writing, and joining the choir, and that I knew how to make lamps using plastic bottles (I had shown him solar bottle lights on the web earlier that week), that I knew how to cook with the sun (solar cookers), and sterilize water with the sun (the SODIS method). The
father and I had briefly discussed me doing all these things, and I had vaguely agreed I might be able to do them, but in my mind I had not made any promises as I needed to take one day at a time. So the Father’s announcement took me by surprise, and as the audience roared with applause, I vowed to make my intentions clearer next time. On the one hand, it was a good idea to publicize these technologies, but on the other hand, I didn’t want people to think I broke promises if I didn’t deliver on his statements.
He continued by imploring everyone to treat me like their sister or daughter or granddaughter and to make me feel as welcome and included as possible, as I was accepting to live under such harsh conditions as theirs. He said that he hoped that by the end of six months here, I would feel so much at home that I would not want to leave. At the end of the mass, the Father asked all the Americans to come to the altar and say a few words. We all introduced ourselves again (we had done so at the mass on Ash Wednesday), and when it came my turn to speak, I said I thought the father was probably right, that I would not want to leave, and that I already felt at home, to much applause.
The mass ended on an amusing note, when the father announced to everyone that the rumor that Natcom (a new phone company with cheaper rates) is the devil, is NOT true, and that they can safely buy and use Natcom phones and should do so in order to save money.
The Americans and the mens’ choir with Abbe Damas, the choir director, and a couple other people, then went to go to a secluded beach for a bit of care-free swimming in uncontaminated waters. It was secluded as climbing down the cliff from the road to the beach was not easy, and the younger men had to support us to make sure some of us didn’t fall. 
While the men’s choir sang accompanied by the guitar and bongo, improvising new songs and playing around, we relaxed in the ocean waves. After eating, playing the Frisbee, a little bit of dancing and singing, we left just in time to avoid a downpour. Once home, some took advantage of the rain falling from the tarps for showers.For our last night in Carcasse, many people gathered outside the rectory for a small goodbye party. We came out for a little bit and listened to some beautiful creole music, with Abbe Damas leading on the guitar.
jeudi 9 février 2012
Making solar cookers in Kinshasa
I was living in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, when I first heard of solar cookers. At first, my mother and I were incredulous that all you needed to cook food and pasteurize water was a simple device made of cardboard, aluminum foil, and a heat-resistant plastic bag, on top of a regular black pot. The vast majority of people in Kinshasa rely almost entirely on charcoal to cook their food, which has resulted in severely degraded forests within a 200 km-radius ring around the city(1). The problem grows worse every year. And it is certainly not limited to Kinshasa. According to the World Health Organization, half of the world’s population uses firewood to cook (2). With charcoal and firewood being so hard to get, so dirty to burn, and so destructive for the environment, solar cookers seemed too good to be true. How could something so cheap and simple not be widespread already?
We had to see it for ourselves, so we ordered a “Cookit” from Solar Cookers International. We tried something simple first, white rice. Even though we had read it would work, it was still a shock when we opened the lid and saw a steaming pot of fully cooked rice, with no apparent source of heat – no flames under the pot, no hot oven. It was hard to believe, but it was just good old sunlight that had done the job.
We then tried out different recipes. Vegetables, beans, meats, it could do it all. Everyone noticed that the food was tastier than usual, as slow-cooking preserves more of the food’s nutrition than regular cooking. In many ways, it was also easier to cook this way, because we didn’t have to watch the pot. We could just set it out and pretty much forget about it. A timer set for 30 minutes would remind us to go nudge it slightly so it would face the sun again. If we did forget it though, no problem! The worse that could happen is that the sun would move and the cooking would slow down. This was a big bonus point for me, as I was known for being absent-minded and leaving food on the stove or in the oven to burn. It was impossible to burn food in the solar cooker, as temperatures never got high enough. So you could reduce the amount of oil or butter and water, and the pot was always easy to clean.
These cooking experiments convinced us that indeed, solar cookers really do work, and quite well at that. The next step was to make one ourselves. We printed out the online instructions, and set to work. The hardest part was getting the measures right for a full-size template from the one-page image on the computer screen. My mother made her own image with instructions on how to do this, called the “Happy Planet Cookit,” which I can send to anyone interested. It took my mother and me about two hours to make one Cookit panel, including cutting out the cardboard pieces, taping them together, gluing on the aluminum foil and cutting the extra off, and making the desired folds and cuts. See these links for pictures of making the solar cookit panels: https://picasaweb.google.com/108485528695279638079/SophieSStories# and a video of me, my mother and sister cooking a vegetable mix in the Cookit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYc1gms0ru8&list=UUWGPGJGy3gox06Isu9MBLNQ&index=3&feature=plcp
We made sure our homemade Cookit panel worked just as well as the one we had ordered by using it to solar cook more food. Finally, we wanted to show this technology to people who might really benefit from it, in the hopes that they would like the idea and be motivated to build their own Cookits. We built two more Cookit panels, and decided to search for the other components in Kinshasa, to see how easy it would be for locals to make their own complete Cookit. Not surprisingly, we couldn’t find any turkey oven bags – in fact I think it’s hard to find turkey oven bags anywhere outside America, as other cultures don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and find other ways to cook turkey if they do at all. Although there are other ways to get around the problem of heat retention through a plastic heat-resistant bag (glass bowls, for example), we figured we would just use our turkey oven bags for the time being and order some more bags from the US if needed. At 50 cents apiece from SCI, these were affordable to most locals. Although there is no functional postal service in Kinshasa, non-governmental organizations usually had some way of obtaining needed items from abroad – often just by asking a friend to buy it on their next trip home and bring it back in their suitcase. Plastic bags hardly take up any room. Next came the pot issue. Finding a black pot that was more or less airtight and not too thick was a very hard task. We could not find the right kind of pot no matter where we looked - on the streets, in open-air markets, and even in the expensive stores meant for the few rich and/or privileged Kinshasa dwellers (incuding Embassy and UN workers). Cheap pots abounded, but they were all shiny aluminum, and were of such poor quality that their lids barely fit on them, as both the lid and pot were so easily deformed. We considered painting some of these black, but did not know where to get non-toxic paint (there are ways to make your own, which we later found out). Ironically, the problem of finding black pots in the field wouldn’t really be a problem in most cases, because all these shiny aluminum pots soon become black from sitting over smoky charcoal fires. Finally, we settled for a greyish pot that was a bit too large for solar cooking, and decided to make the best of it.
References (indirect) (1) http://www.jembala.eu/Download/Jembala_Mampu_CatherinePaul_14102011.pdf (2) http://www.she-inc.org/
We had to see it for ourselves, so we ordered a “Cookit” from Solar Cookers International. We tried something simple first, white rice. Even though we had read it would work, it was still a shock when we opened the lid and saw a steaming pot of fully cooked rice, with no apparent source of heat – no flames under the pot, no hot oven. It was hard to believe, but it was just good old sunlight that had done the job.
We then tried out different recipes. Vegetables, beans, meats, it could do it all. Everyone noticed that the food was tastier than usual, as slow-cooking preserves more of the food’s nutrition than regular cooking. In many ways, it was also easier to cook this way, because we didn’t have to watch the pot. We could just set it out and pretty much forget about it. A timer set for 30 minutes would remind us to go nudge it slightly so it would face the sun again. If we did forget it though, no problem! The worse that could happen is that the sun would move and the cooking would slow down. This was a big bonus point for me, as I was known for being absent-minded and leaving food on the stove or in the oven to burn. It was impossible to burn food in the solar cooker, as temperatures never got high enough. So you could reduce the amount of oil or butter and water, and the pot was always easy to clean.
These cooking experiments convinced us that indeed, solar cookers really do work, and quite well at that. The next step was to make one ourselves. We printed out the online instructions, and set to work. The hardest part was getting the measures right for a full-size template from the one-page image on the computer screen. My mother made her own image with instructions on how to do this, called the “Happy Planet Cookit,” which I can send to anyone interested. It took my mother and me about two hours to make one Cookit panel, including cutting out the cardboard pieces, taping them together, gluing on the aluminum foil and cutting the extra off, and making the desired folds and cuts. See these links for pictures of making the solar cookit panels: https://picasaweb.google.com/108485528695279638079/SophieSStories# and a video of me, my mother and sister cooking a vegetable mix in the Cookit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYc1gms0ru8&list=UUWGPGJGy3gox06Isu9MBLNQ&index=3&feature=plcp
We made sure our homemade Cookit panel worked just as well as the one we had ordered by using it to solar cook more food. Finally, we wanted to show this technology to people who might really benefit from it, in the hopes that they would like the idea and be motivated to build their own Cookits. We built two more Cookit panels, and decided to search for the other components in Kinshasa, to see how easy it would be for locals to make their own complete Cookit. Not surprisingly, we couldn’t find any turkey oven bags – in fact I think it’s hard to find turkey oven bags anywhere outside America, as other cultures don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and find other ways to cook turkey if they do at all. Although there are other ways to get around the problem of heat retention through a plastic heat-resistant bag (glass bowls, for example), we figured we would just use our turkey oven bags for the time being and order some more bags from the US if needed. At 50 cents apiece from SCI, these were affordable to most locals. Although there is no functional postal service in Kinshasa, non-governmental organizations usually had some way of obtaining needed items from abroad – often just by asking a friend to buy it on their next trip home and bring it back in their suitcase. Plastic bags hardly take up any room. Next came the pot issue. Finding a black pot that was more or less airtight and not too thick was a very hard task. We could not find the right kind of pot no matter where we looked - on the streets, in open-air markets, and even in the expensive stores meant for the few rich and/or privileged Kinshasa dwellers (incuding Embassy and UN workers). Cheap pots abounded, but they were all shiny aluminum, and were of such poor quality that their lids barely fit on them, as both the lid and pot were so easily deformed. We considered painting some of these black, but did not know where to get non-toxic paint (there are ways to make your own, which we later found out). Ironically, the problem of finding black pots in the field wouldn’t really be a problem in most cases, because all these shiny aluminum pots soon become black from sitting over smoky charcoal fires. Finally, we settled for a greyish pot that was a bit too large for solar cooking, and decided to make the best of it.
References (indirect) (1) http://www.jembala.eu/Download/Jembala_Mampu_CatherinePaul_14102011.pdf (2) http://www.she-inc.org/
Solar cooking in Kinshasa village, Day 1
My mother arranged for a two-day trip to a remote village called Menkao about three hours from downtown Kinshasa where some nuns we knew were working. For accompanying pictures and videos, see: https://picasaweb.google.com/108485528695279638079/SolarCookingInDRCongo# The village chief, a humble and affable man, came to greet us. After some small talk with the nuns, chief, and other villagers, we asked if we could set up the solar cookers, as it was getting late already and we had to take advantage of the sun. We had brought rice and beans in coconut milk to solar cook and now put them in the pots with some water and spices. We did not have a pot for the third panel, so we tried putting a cassava tuber in the middle for faster drying. My mother took a video of our demonstration, available at: http://youtu.be/bY7ANWme3Sc with the village chief translating my explanations from French into Lingala. In the first part of the video, you can hear me describing how we made the panels ourselves out of cardboard and aluminum foil, and the village chief relaying this information to the villagers. This new technology quickly drew a crowd, as they were all eager to know about this strange-looking contraption. My favorite parts are the reactions of astonishment by one man as he touches the pots and sees how hot they are. This man later said (as seen in the video) that there must not be anything in the pots, or maybe the food was already cooked! So we opened the pot up to show him the uncooked beans in coconut milk. We lost a lot of built-up heat in the process, but we had to prove we weren’t trying to trick them!
After the demonstration, the village chief offered to show us around the village while the food cooked. He showed us fields of eggplants, among other crops. We walked around the village, and he introduced me to various people. Typical village houses were made of mud brick walls and thatched roofs. Although villagers didn't have much in terms of material possessions, they seemed to be content, and were all friendly and welcoming without expecting anything in return. I saw many three-stone fires outside of homes emitting a lot of smoke which was easy to smell even from far away. All the pots were pitch black from years of being exposed to smoke – but they had most likely started out silvery and shiny like all the pots we had seen in the markets. The village had one small generator, which was mainly used to charge up everyone’s cell phones. Meanwhile, the sky had gotten cloudy, and newcomers had gathered in front of the solar cookers and were blocking the light. After explaining that the cookers depended on sunlight to work, they cleared the way. We reoriented the cookers, hoping the clouds would disperse later on, and went for a snack with the nun who spent most of her time in the village and had helped to raise funds for and manage various projects such as building the school and rainwater reservoir. She kept a lot of food and snacks in a large cooler/refrigerator, which she had installed for the benefit of the whole village. I then took a break from the heat in the little room they had set up for guests in the unfinished school. My mother left soon after that (notice how muddy the Jeep got in bringing us here!). I went back to check on the solar cookers, and found that several village women had gathered to watch the solar cookers. It reminded me of how people in the US would gather around a TV set, and at first I found it mildly amusing how they seemed to be entertained by completely motionless pots, as if expecting them to start dancing. But I realized this was more of an opportunity for them to chat and socialize, and I too took this moment to talk with the French teacher (one of the only villagers who spoke French) about her life and experiences in the village.
After an hour or so, we decided to check the solar cookers, as there was little point in continuing with the sun so low and a cloudy sky. The rice was almost completely cooked, and I gave it to one of the women to finish cooking in her home. The beans were hardly cooked, however. So the French teacher put it on the fire. We cooked it over the fire for over an hour, but the beans still showed no signs of softening. We concluded that these beans must have been bad from the start - they were probably too old, meaning they had dried out completely and would no longer absorb water and were therefore non-cookable. Thus ended the first day of solar cooking trials in the field. Not much of a success, but this was to be expected, given our late start, cloudy day, and old uncookable beans.
mercredi 8 février 2012
Solar cooking in Kinshasa village, Day 2
The next day I explored more of the village area in the morning (see pictures), and then learned how to make mpondu to put in the solar cooker. Mpondu is a local dish made from ground cassava leaves cooked in palm oil. The French teacher showed me the different steps. First she dried the leaves by tossing them continuously in a pot over an open fire. It’s still a mystery to me how she managed not to burn her hands while doing that. She was far more agile and her hands were a lot tougher than mine, I guess. The leaves eventually wrinkled and shrank. We dumped them in a bucket and soaked them in water. She then wrung the water out of the leaves, which required far more strength than I had, and used a large mortar and pestle to crush them. It seemed like at least half an hour of pounding and crushing. This is really hard work – that stick was not light. I tired myself out after about 5 minutes. I let the teacher and other woman do the rest – you can see from the pictures how strong and healthy these women are from doing these chores on a daily basis. No need to go to the gym when you’ve got mpondu to make!
It was past noon when we put the cassava leaves in the solar cooker with the palm oil. The sky was cloudy again, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Before eating lunch, they showed me how they use the cassava tuber. Cassava is a major staple in many developing countries, but it must be properly processed in order to destroy cyanogens (substances that trigger cyanide production when eaten – cyanide is a potent poison). There are different ways of processing cassava, but the tubers are usually peeled, soaked in water at least overnight, then laid out in the sun to dry. They can then be finely ground in the mill to make flour, which is used to make all kinds of meals and pastries. Cassava can also be fermented to make alcoholic drinks.
We then had lunch – some fish fried on the charcoal stove. The smoke was asphyxiating – it burned my throat and lungs, and I had to walk away coughing. The women sat right beside it – they had to, to turn the fish over every so often. Either they were less sensitive to the smoke because they were used to it, or they were just doing a better job of hiding their discomfort than I was. According to the World Health Organization, someone dies from wood smoke inhalation every 20 seconds, and respiratory infections are the biggest killers of children under the age of 5 in developing countries. Feeling that smoke attack my lungs, it was easy to understand why.
At the end of the day, we opened up the mpondu pot we had put in the solar cooker. I was half-expecting it not to be cooked – after all, the pot was larger than recommended, more shiny-grey than black, and it had been pretty cloudy all day. But we had left it facing the sun all afternoon, and the mpondu was well cooked. One of the women there took the mpondu back home, balancing the pot on her head, and encouraged all the villagers she met on the way to try the solar-cooked food. They all did and said it was quite good. This is a picture of her family with the French teacher. For video, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyfYwwDth5g&list=UUWGPGJGy3gox06Isu9MBLNQ&index=1&feature=plcp
My ride back to Kinshasa arrived soon after, and we needed to leave as soon as possible to get back at a reasonable hour. I said goodbye and thank you to everyone and took some last minute pictures of people which I promised to print out and send to them later on - these would be the first pictures they would have of themselves. I had talked earlier in the day to some young men who had asked me where they could find more information on how to make and use solar cookers. I gave them some website addresses which they could check out when they went into town, and my email in case they had more questions. I left the pots and solar cookers with the villagers. I unfortunately left the country soon after and have not been in touch with all the kind and friendly people I met in Menkao. I don’t know whether they decided to try solar cooking for themselves, or whether the men I talked to ever even researched solar cookers. But at least they know about the sun’s power to cook food. And who knows - If any of them should become important figures in public policy, they will at least know enough about solar cooking to consider including it in health and environmental programs.
It was past noon when we put the cassava leaves in the solar cooker with the palm oil. The sky was cloudy again, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Before eating lunch, they showed me how they use the cassava tuber. Cassava is a major staple in many developing countries, but it must be properly processed in order to destroy cyanogens (substances that trigger cyanide production when eaten – cyanide is a potent poison). There are different ways of processing cassava, but the tubers are usually peeled, soaked in water at least overnight, then laid out in the sun to dry. They can then be finely ground in the mill to make flour, which is used to make all kinds of meals and pastries. Cassava can also be fermented to make alcoholic drinks.
We then had lunch – some fish fried on the charcoal stove. The smoke was asphyxiating – it burned my throat and lungs, and I had to walk away coughing. The women sat right beside it – they had to, to turn the fish over every so often. Either they were less sensitive to the smoke because they were used to it, or they were just doing a better job of hiding their discomfort than I was. According to the World Health Organization, someone dies from wood smoke inhalation every 20 seconds, and respiratory infections are the biggest killers of children under the age of 5 in developing countries. Feeling that smoke attack my lungs, it was easy to understand why.
At the end of the day, we opened up the mpondu pot we had put in the solar cooker. I was half-expecting it not to be cooked – after all, the pot was larger than recommended, more shiny-grey than black, and it had been pretty cloudy all day. But we had left it facing the sun all afternoon, and the mpondu was well cooked. One of the women there took the mpondu back home, balancing the pot on her head, and encouraged all the villagers she met on the way to try the solar-cooked food. They all did and said it was quite good. This is a picture of her family with the French teacher. For video, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyfYwwDth5g&list=UUWGPGJGy3gox06Isu9MBLNQ&index=1&feature=plcp
My ride back to Kinshasa arrived soon after, and we needed to leave as soon as possible to get back at a reasonable hour. I said goodbye and thank you to everyone and took some last minute pictures of people which I promised to print out and send to them later on - these would be the first pictures they would have of themselves. I had talked earlier in the day to some young men who had asked me where they could find more information on how to make and use solar cookers. I gave them some website addresses which they could check out when they went into town, and my email in case they had more questions. I left the pots and solar cookers with the villagers. I unfortunately left the country soon after and have not been in touch with all the kind and friendly people I met in Menkao. I don’t know whether they decided to try solar cooking for themselves, or whether the men I talked to ever even researched solar cookers. But at least they know about the sun’s power to cook food. And who knows - If any of them should become important figures in public policy, they will at least know enough about solar cooking to consider including it in health and environmental programs.
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