1 of 2--- Work Hard, Play Hard

It's been a wild ride in the 6 months that have passed since my last post, so I figured I'd do 2 posts---- One to catch you up on what I've been up to since April and a second post (at an undetermined time) to impose upon you my reflection on my first year in Haiti (my official 1 year anniversary here was on Sept. 29th!).

So, here is post 1 of 2...

APRIL:
Work: I'm not sure that I've ever really explained what I do every day at work (and I've heard quite a few inquiring whether or not I live on the beach based on my blog pictures).  So, to clear up that confusion, here is a brief synopsis of what I do:  I work on a project that aims to strengthen the Haitian health system by building individual hospital capacity and by strengthening a network of Christian hospitals here. From mid-February until around July, I was essentially serving as the Program Manager for our project due to some recent staff turnover. Most of my day-to-day activities involve liaising with the hospitals and other partners to ensure that we are completing our activity plan for the year.  One activity, for example, is to help the hospitals connect with Bio-medical Equipment repair technicians from the US who visit the hospitals to complete repairs on broken equipment (e.g. xray machines, centrifuges, scopes, etc.). There is a serious lack of bio-medical repair technicians in the country, so we're applying this temporary "band-aid" to the problem until we are hopefully able to assist partner hospitals in coming up with a more sustainable solution.
Play: As you might have noticed, there is no shortage of festivals or celebrations in this country.  After Carnival celebrations are over (ending on Ash Wednesday), the country quickly switches gears to "rara" season.  On Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter, rara bands line the streets, playing music and dancing well into the night. Whereas the Carnival parades are more "organized" and feature popular Haitian music artists, papier-mache masks, and party trucks, a typical rara street procession is more down to earth, relying almost entirely on music produced by a variety of handmade instruments-- pipes, drums, maracas, percussion instruments, and trumpets. The most spirited rara celebration happens over Easter weekend in Leogane.  So, after a lengthy (and very, very French) Easter mass and a quick fresco (Haitian snow cone), I headed to my friend's family's home to have some lunch before we enjoyed the rara celebration in Leogane. We also tried Kleren-- a potent Haitian moonshine/cane sugar liquor. As with many celebrations in Haiti, the action didn't get started until after dark, at which point, we were already on our way back to Port-au-Prince, weaving in and out of rara processions for most of the ride home.

Rara procession in Leogane on Easter Sunday

Kleren Sold Here

 



MAY:
Work: In May, I made an unexpected visit to the US to attend a meeting for work and was able to swing by Omaha for the weekend.  May went by pretty quickly after this conference.  During this month, I had the opportunity to lead a day-long meeting for our project's hospital partners.  I also spent some time conducting interviews with other hospital networks in order to learn more about the "best practices" that could be applied to the network with which we're working.
Play: I can't even remember May at this point, but I'm sure I enjoyed a number of rhum sours and Prestiges over the course of the month.  I think I also visited Saut D'Eau, a popular waterfall that is the site of religous bathing rituals.

Katelyn and I at Saut D'Eau

JUNE:
Work: I spent most of the month wrapping up loose ends from our May hospital meeting and planning some biomedical repair visits at a few of our hospitals.
Play: Several of my good friends/neighbors left Haiti in early July, so we tried to squeeze in as many yet unseen destinations as possible before they left.  I visited Jacmel again (still one of my favorite cities in Haiti) and enjoyed the fresh seafood, unique art, and calm, beachside-town vibes.

My favorite building in Jacmel

This little guy : adorable

Coterelle Breeze, Jacmel---my home away from home in Haiti

The food in Jacmel >>> the food in PAP

The newly renovated Jacmel mosaic board walk

Checking out some interesting art at FOSAJ art gallery

Most notably, I finally got the chance to explore Northern Haiti (outside of work), with the main attraction of the trip being a visit to the Citadelle, the largest fortress in the Americas and a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Palais Sans Souci, the palace built for King Henri Christophe and his family. While it was a LONG walk uphill to the fortress in the June heat, the impressive views and the fortress itself were well worth the grueling hike.

Students on field trip doing laps around us

The long and winding road up... The building in the back is Citadelle.

The Citadelle

Just one hill left--- clearly wondering at this point if we should have just taken the horses instead of walking

A little history

Inside the gates- We made it!

Citadelle--- side profile

 
 

Old cannons inside

 

On the way back down: Decided to moto it

On the road down

Palais Sans Souci - side profile

Katelyn and I at the Palais

Palais Sans Souci - sits far below the Citadelle fortress

Marble statue in front of the palace

We also were able to explore Cap Haitien during this trip.  Cap is the second largest city in Haiti (probably also my 2nd favorite city) and serves as a major port for the country. It also recently (just a few days ago this October 2014) opened up its airport to international flights!  We lucked out and ended up meeting the right people at our hotel in Cap Haitien who got us hooked up with a group of Cap Haitien-ites who had just started a boat tour company called Aqua-holics (I think you can see where this is going).  Our new friends took us out to a private island and a few beaches in the Labadee area, and I had perhaps the freshest and best lobster I've ever had in my life (cooked on the beach over a fire just minutes after it was caught by a local fisherman). After our day of booze cruising, we stopped by beachside hotel/bar to catch the last half of the Germany-Ghana game.

It's 5 o'clock somewhere

Will never get used to this crystal clear Caribbean water

Fresh lobster + ocean salt water + a squeeze of lime = PERFECTION

Catch of the day

Which brings me to my next point:  You would think that not having had a team in the World Cup for 40 years would put a damper on World Cup hysteria in the country, but Haitians come out in FULL FORCE to support their favorite teams, the most popular ones being Argentina and Brazil.  I spent probably 3-4 nights a week watching world cup matches in various bars and restaurants throughout Haiti during the month of June and the enthusiasm and passion that Haitians have for the game is unreal.  Throughout the month of June, the country was in World Cup Mode---- tap taps painted with famous football stars, Argentinean and Brazilian flags for sale on every corner, and instead of starting awkward small-talk conversations about how hot it was, everyone started just asking who you were rooting for and where you were watching the next game.  I kid you not, I saw a man bathing himself in beer (and his own tears of joy) after Brazil won the semi-final match.  And of course, I was caught up in the bandwagon action, managing to smuggle in a portable TV for our office so that we could watch the USA-Germany game over the lunch hour.


JULY
Work:  Meetings on Meetings on Meetings about what we wanted the new direction to be for our project and beginning to plan for the new year.  I also took my driving test and got approval to DRIVE!
Play: Watched the last of the world cup games... and then... Carnival Round 2 y'allll: Carnaval des Fleurs is a Carnaval celebration held in Port-au-Prince every year in late July/early August.  It's very similar to the traditional Carnival during week before Ash Wednesday, but this one is always in PAP, it is only 3 days long, and the theme is flowers. We didn't make it to any of the day-time parades, but we were there during the evening celebration for the 2nd night. We were able to hang out in one of the stands for most of it, but we felt obliged to at least brave the crowds once in order to go down on the street to dance when our favorite band, Djakout #1's party float came down the street.  Here's a little sampling of the rowdiness that ensued: Djakout #1 at Carnaval des Fleurs 2014.  A lot of my favorite Carnaval songs from March were remixed into songs for Carnaval des Fleurs, so it was fun knowing all of the songs this time. Predictably, I lost my wallet that night, but in a miraculous turn of events, someone called me the next day saying they'd found my wallet and they returned it to me-- no questions asked!

AUGUST:
Work: I spent the first week of August wrapping up all of my work from Year 1 and getting ready to head to Indiana for two weeks of work.  Also--- I got assigned a car and started driving on my own!
Play: 3 weeks in South Bend, IN, Chicago, IL, Omaha, NE, and Kansas City, MO.  Countless dark beers, Bloody Marys, tons of SALADS (i missed good salads!), DINKER's, pizza, friends, family, and Irish Fest.

SEPTEMBER:
Work/Play: After my 3 weeks in the US of A at the end of August, I arrived on Haitian soil to work for a few days, putting together reports on Year 1 of my time in Haiti and catching up on all of my emails.  Then I jetted off to a certain Caribbean island next door to Haiti for a 10 day vacation. And, now, I'm back in Haiti working for the foreseeable future!  The plan is to be here until probably August of 2015 :)

Year 2, here I come!


This is a personal blog. Any views or opinions (or grammatical errors!) represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated.  All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated. 

6 Mwa nan Ayiti :)

Piti, piti, wazo fè nich li ... Little by little, the bird makes its nest.

It has been 6 months (plus a couple of weeks) since I first arrived in Haiti, and I am constantly reminded of how beautiful/complicated/wonderful this country is. I would love to try and encapsulate my perspective on Haiti in one comprehensive update to share with you; but, every time I have tried to write something down about my first 6 months, it has felt inadequate. It seems that the more I learn about Haiti and about the International Development/NGO (non-governmental organization) world, the less I seem to know and the more difficult it becomes to explain.


So, rather than trying to produce something insightful, I am just going to leave you with some descriptions of what I've been up to along with some pictures of some of the things that I have seen and done in the past few months.


And it goes.. and it goes... and it goes a little something like this (hit it!):
...(did anyone else just start singing the Aaron Carter classic "That's how I beat Shaq"?... just me? ok. great.)

1) Karnaval happened... I was able to go to some of the pre-Carnival events in Port-au-Prince (as I mentioned in my last post) as well as the annual Carnival celebration in Jacmel.

PaP Pre-Carnival on Delmas (Jess' photo)

At our place in Jacmel before Carnival (Kate's photo)

 Jacmel is a cute little beach town that EXPLODES with Carnival fervor as Ash Wednesday approaches. The Carnival parade in Jacmel traditionally happens the week before the national Carnival is celebrated. I have been to Jacmel outside of Carnival season and loved it, but Carnival is this city's shining moment. Jacmel is touted by many as the artistic capital of Haiti. Throughout the city, you can find beautiful tile mosaic murals as well as troves of papier-mâché, which is this city's artistic speciality and a particularly important part of the Carnival celebrations, with thousand of papier-mâché costumes, masks, and other accessories created each year for the celebration.

Jacmel Mosaic  (Kate's photo)

Papier-mache masks lined up and ready for the parade (Kate's photo)

On the days leading up to the main parade, all of the buildings on the main route build a new Carnival-themed facade (these facades were actually still being constructed and painted just hours before the parade began). The result is that the main street of the city is completely transformed into Carnival-mode. It was as if the entire city put on a Carnival mask just for the occasion!

In the stands (Kate's photo)

The main parade route (Kate's photo)

Now, getting to the parade itself--- You can either buy tickets to watch the parade from up in these freshly-constructed stands or you can process along with the parade as it comes down the main street (we opted to do a little of both, as you will see in the pictures). The parade begins around noon and it lasts almost until daybreak. It consists of various dance troupes, floats, and party trucks (also known as chars), but the papier-mache costumes and the Carnival music are what really provide the energy for the celebration. Click here for my favorite Carnival song (it doesn't heat up til 2:40 in, so do yourself a favor and just skip past the intro).

Barbancourt dancer (Kate's photo)

Papier-mache masks (Kate's photo)

Watching the action from above (Kate's photo)

Traditional costumes (Kate's photo)

Joining the parade (Kate's photo)

2) Work has been crazy. We are currently restructuring our department as well as re-conceptualizing the project on which I am working. During this sometimes tumultous process, three of my colleagues have resigned (in a span of 3 months). The silver lining in this is that I have gotten some street cred for stepping up and taking on new roles in the interim. We are already working on hiring new staff and we hosted some consultants who helped us think through how we would like to tackle my project going forward. This has kept me busy at work, which I am happy about. I still am not crazy about my project, but I have built a lot of confidence at work and have learned a lot about how my organization works (for better or worse).


3) I visited some new beaches and attended a Haitian wedding. One of my favorite recent adventures was a trip to Kokoye beach, which is just outside of Ti Goave. The beach is inaccessible by car, so we had to take a 1 hour boat ride to get there. It was very secluded and the water was a crystal clear Caribbean blue. It was hands-down the most beautiful place I have been to so far in Haiti.

Camping at Kokoye Beach (Maz's photo)

A few weeks later, I went to a wedding in O Kay (a coastal town just about 2-3 hours past Jacmel). It was pretty similar to weddings I have been to in the US except that the procession out involved the bridesmaids dancing to a synchronized, slow, ballet-like dance. Oh, and they also hired singers who sang love songs to the new couple after the wedding vows were exchanged. Curiously, all of the songs were in English. (For example, Foreigner's "I want to know what love is"). I didn't take any pictures at the wedding (although plenty of pictures were taken of me, owing to the fact that I was the only blan that decided to crash the wedding that day). During this impromptu trip to the South, we also made a stop at Port Salut, which is a popular beach nearby O Kay.

Port Salut

4) My mom, grandma, and 2 aunts visited Haiti to celebrate my mom's 50th birthday! According to the reports that I received, they had a great time here. It meant a lot to me to be able to show them the country and to give them a different picture of Haiti than most people receive via the US Media. Among other things, we went to a nice restaurant in Port-au-Prince, stayed at Moulin Sur Mer on Haiti's Arcadins coast, went to a Haitian history museum downtown, had an obligatory Rhum Sour at the Hotel Oloffson, ate a big Haitian meal at my apartment, and went to Sunday mass at one of the Catholic churches nearby.

Reynolds sisters at Hotel Oloffson 

Moulin Sur Mer's beach

Frou Frou drinks at Moulin Sur Mer

 DISCLAIMER: This is a personal blog. Any views or opinions (or grammatical errors!) represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated.  All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated. 

Dominican Sand and Sun, Work Woes/Breakthroughs, Jazz in the Park, and Pre-Carnaval Sundays

I thought about trying to give an update of everything that has happened since I last wrote a blog post in December, but I kept putting off writing it because there was too much to talk about…. And now it’s mid-February and I still have yet to put up that January blog post… but is anyone that surprised about my procrastination?  So, suffice to say, I had an amazing time in the Dominican Republic.  I stayed at a beautiful beach resort in Punta Cana with my family for the first 5 days  I then met up with my friends for NYE in Santo Domingo and then (among other things) went on several wild taxi/horse/moto rides to and from Las Terrenas, which is a small beach town in the Samana Peninsula.  Below are some pictures of the trip (none of these are my pictures since my phone shit out halfway through the trip--- so, thanks to Anne, Bridget, Mom, Annie, etc. for letting me use your pictures!).  It was great to see everyone and to spend some time just enjoying each other’s company.  I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation!

 

It is always hard to come back to work after a long vacation, but it was especially difficult for me this time around.  I was frustrated and disillusioned with work before I left for the trip and these feelings had not diminished when I came back to work.  I was in low spirits for most of January and I thought a lot about leaving Haiti after my contract ended in August.  I was tired of not having anything to do at work, I was frustrated by the language barrier, and I had lost a lot of my initial motivation. It was especially frustrating because everything else here was going really well for me--- I have great friends, I love where I live, and I am enjoying learning more about Haiti and experiencing all that the country has to offer.  The only missing piece to the puzzle was work, which was odd because this was the main reason that I came here--- to work and to learn.  Not being fulfilled by my work has been such an odd feeling for me and it’s something that I’m not used to.  At the height of my frustration, I found out that there would be a change in management for my project.  We would be down one staff member and did not plan on hiring someone new.  Due to this, we would be redistributing roles and responsibilities for our project.  While to outside ears, this might sound like a bad thing, it was actually a ray of sunshine peeking out from behind the clouds for me. It has only been a few days since this change has taken place and I have found that I have much more work to take on and my role as Monitoring and Evaluation lead on the project has allowed me to have a more active role in how our project progresses.  I have also begun working on a research study that will explore the “best practices” of different health networks in Africa and elsewhere with the overall goal of producing relevant information that we can use to shape the health network that we are building in Haiti. It is the first real project that I have been given and I am excited to finally have something that I can take ownership over.  So, while work can still be very frustrating and slow and I am not always working on things that interest me, I am happy to report that it has gotten a LOT better!  I feel that I am taking tangible steps toward making real contributions to the project.

On another note, I will also (after much debate, angst, and a lengthy pro/con list) be enrolling in a more intensive French class that will hopefully help me pick up the language more quickly so that I can better participate in meetings, etc.  I’ll explain my epic moral struggle in choosing between French and Kreyol in another blog, but I’m guessing whoever is still reading has likely had enough of me waxing poetic about my internal struggles.  I’ll try to keep it to one internal struggle per post to keep you all sane.  Cliff notes version: I’ll be taking the French class but continuing to learn Kreyol through my daily interactions with coworkers, market women, etc.  French is a necessity for work, whereas learning Kreyol would just be an added bonus (despite how much I wish it was the other way around).

It seems that anytime I am feeling especially frustrated or unsure of myself, there is always something amazing happening here that pulls me back in and reminds of how privileged I am to be living and learning in such a beautiful country. So, without fail, right in the middle of all of my work confusion, Haiti happened to be hosting its annual International Jazz Festival. The festival drew Jazz artists from around the world who came to play at various events that were offered throughout the week.  One of the events was a free concert in a public park down the street from my apartment.  There were thousands of people who turned out for the show (the event featured 2 Haitian bands and 1 band called “Soul Rebels” from New Orleans).  You can see a video of the Soul Rebels concert here (Start the video at 3:00--- the audio doesn't do them justice-- it was so good!). Many times I feel disconnected from my Haitian neighbors and I feel like I am living in an expat bubble, but since this concert was free, it meant that anyone could attend.  Without the prohibitive cost that many events in Haiti have, access wasn’t restricted to wealthy Haitian elite or expats as it usually is.  I felt like a real part of the community--- singing to the music and drinking Barbancourt along with the rest of the concert-goers rather than being isolated behind an iron gate at an exclusive event.  It also helped that the bands were great performers and put on a great show.  This free show ended up being one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen… and it all happened within walking distance of my apartment.  You can’t beat that!

Besides the Jazz Festival, the Carnaval festivities have started picking up.  Carnaval (also spelled Kanaval or Carnival depending on who you’re talking to) is similar to American celebrations of Fat Tuesday/Mardis Gras/etc. While Fat Tuesday is not until March 4^th this year, Haitians essentially start the celebrations right after the Epiphany holiday in early January.  This means that EVERY Sunday from early January until March 4th, I will be greeted with a rara band (or two or three if I am lucky) parading down my street in the afternoons. Rara bands are groups of musicians, dancers and, often, some bystanders that are drawn into the action that play “mizik rasin” (rasin translates to “roots”--- it involves lots of drums and heavy beats and hearkens back to Haitians' roots in Africa). These bands are an important part of the Carnaval celebrations in Haiti. Rara bands can simply be a group of people making music together, they can be symbolic performances designed to tell a story or to support a particular political candidate, they can be tied to religious themes (be they Voodoo or Christian), or they can be all of the above and more. The rara bands that I have seen so far usually have trumpet players, drums, tambourines, and maracas plus some handmade metal trumpets that look very similar in shape to a vuvuzela (think World Cup in South Africa).  Another popular instrument is a huge plastic pipe (it looks like it’s just a standard PVC pipe that you would find at a construction site) that is used to produce a loud, bellowing tone.  No matter how tired (read: hungover) I am on a Sunday morning, I can’t help but smile as I stand on my porch and watch these bands pass my apartment, dancing, waving flags, and playing spirited music as they march through the streets of Port-au-Prince.  This past Sunday, I went with a friend to watch the rara bands come down Route de Delmas (a big, busy street near where I work).  Every Sunday until Carnaval, thousands of people flood Delmas to dance, drink, play music, celebrate, and sing. Delmas becomes so swollen with people on these nights that from about 7:30-9:30pm on Sundays during pre-Carnaval season, it is literally impossible to drive on this street because it is filled to the brim with people, instruments, and party trucks.  The party trucks (called "char") are constructed on top of semi-truck beds and they serve as a platform for 50-100 people dressed in coordinated t-shirts to dance and sing to the music that is being blasted through built-in speakers on the truck. I don’t have a working camera here, so, unfortunately, I don’t have pictures that can better illustrate what it’s like; but, if you picture any large festival/parade, you'll get the idea.  The amazing thing, though, is that this parade down Delmas happens EVERY Sunday during pre-Carnaval season.  The elaborate costumes, masks, and other traditional festivities will wait until the official Carnaval events in late February and early March, but these weekly Sunday celebrations are still pretty impressive.  Each and every Sunday, people march for hours, walking from Downtown all the way up to Petion-ville, with all the raras and party trucks and partiers eventually culminating in Petion-ville and with celebrations lasting well into the night (yes--- this all happens on a Sunday night). I am still in awe of how massive the celebration was.  If this is just a typical pre-Carnival Sunday, I can only imagine what the official “warm-up” event will be like in Jacmel on February 23^rd and what Port-au-Prince will be like from March 2^nd through the 4^th when the real Carnaval events take place.  Just the pre-Carnaval parades on your “average” Sunday are a sight to behold. Hopefully I will have some pictures and videos to share with you so you can see what it’s like!

Na we pita! (see you later!)