Little by Little

It feels like I have been in Haiti for at least a month now, but as I look back in my calendar, I realize that it has been just 7 days since I arrived here at the airport.  So it seems that I am right on time for my weekly blog post. My plan is to try and post updates to this blog once a week so that I can share my experience with anyone who is willing to wade through my meandering thoughts about Haiti and my life here.  So, here goes nothing!  (P.S.  I promise that my blog posts will get shorter-- I just had a lot to say in this first post!  Also- I will try to get better with taking pictures to make this more interesting)

Arriving in Haiti:

Haiti's inescapable label as "the poorest country in the Western hemisphere" precedes it, so I thought that I was relatively prepared for what I would encounter when I landed in Haiti. I knew that I would find a country still damaged from the 2010 earthquake along with a level of abject poverty that I had never seen before (even paling in comparison to other very impoverished parts of Latin America where I had worked and traveled). Despite this mental preparation, my stomach dropped as the plane approached Port-au-Prince and we flew over countless buildings & homes which had been reduced to crumbling frames and which still remained broken and abandoned. Even more visually unsettling were the blue-roofed tents that dotted the landscape, evolving into large, tent cities as we got closer to the airport (and this is nearly THREE years after the earthquake). Even from a hundred feet in the air, the problems seemed almost insurmountable.

Feeling a bit nervous after landing (partly because I don't know any French and only a tiny amount of Haitian Creole, but mostly because everyone whom I'd talked to about Haiti told me that the airport was mass chaos), I stepped into the swarm of people collecting their luggage from the carousel. I got my luggage outside after wrangling all of my bags and met up with my driver who was waiting outside for me. All-in-all, not as painful as I thought it would be. After a quick hello to the driver, we loaded everything in the car and we were on our way to the hotel, where I would stay for the night before moving into the Guest House.

"Koman ou ye?" (How are you?), I asked the driver.

"M' byen. Merci! Ou pale Kreyol!?" (I'm good. Thank you! You speak Creole?!), said my driver, both surprised and pleased.

"Wi, M'ap aprann"  (Yes. I am learning), I said.

"Se bon! Se Bon! Piti piti na rive!"  (Good! Good!  Little by little, we will get there!), he said.

"Piti piti na rive" or "Little by little, we'll get there" ---- I recognized this Haitian proverb from a book that I had read about Haiti while preparing for my trip. I've also heard this same phrase used a few more times in conversation this week and I've realized that this mentality is a valuable one for Haiti.  In the days leading up to my trip here, I had gotten more and more worried about what I could actually accomplish in Haiti. I felt overwhelmed by the grandiosity of the problems in Haiti and by my lack of knowledge on how to solve even the smallest ones.  And, I think, rightfully so. The scope of the problems here seem too big to conquer, even on a good day. Haiti has been screwed by wealthier international powers since Christopher Columbus stepped foot on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, resulting in the deaths of virtually all of the native people living there (these lives were subsequently replaced by hundreds of thousands of Africans who were brought to the island as slaves).  And that is just the beginning of the transgressions committed against Haiti and the island of Hispaniola. (See this article for some examples.  It is a bit dramatic, but it does make an important point-- You break it, you buy it--- We, as the developed world, grew our wealth by pillaging the natural resources and human capital of other nations, so we are responsible to some degree for their failings.  We didn't cause the earthquake in 2010, but we didn't set Haiti up to be able to deal with these sorts of crises either //steps off soapbox//). [Side note: I recognize that aid has repeatedly failed to do what it set out to do in Haiti--- that is a topic for another blog post--- but this doesn't give us the option to walk away from the problem].

So, how is it possible to reverse that many years of damage? The answer---- Piti piti na rive.  Little by little, we'll get there.... Because we have to.  Because this is what justice requires of us. Because people are suffering. To reference another great one-liner from my first week in Haiti (this from one of our partners during a sometimes tense meeting with a hospital network in Haiti): "If it were easy, it would already be done."  Getting there will not be easy, but it would be wrong NOT to try, and if we are going to try, we will have to make changes (both in Haiti and at home) little by little, doing our best to make progress, albeit slowly.

What most energizes me and makes me believe that this is true (that progress is possible, that things will change, that we will get there, etc.) are the attitudes of the Haitians that I have met this week.  The optimism and strength that I have seen in many of my coworkers is unbelievable.  After all that their country has been through, it seems that the natural reaction would be cynicism or despair.  But what I see is a sense of humor, resilience, and the belief that it will eventually get better. One of my coworkers told me the other day that
"Haitians who have the means to move away from Haiti, but who choose to stay, are very strong. They have to be. It is not an easy place to live.  People here are fighting every day just to survive." It is clear that I am working with the cream of the crop--- Haitians and international staff who are well-educated, well-spoken, motivated, bi-lingual at a MINIMUM, and who choose to stay in Haiti in order to make things better.

It will not be an easy two years and I have a lot to learn, but I think I am in the right place.  I will straighten out this whole business of when I should say Bonjour vs. Bonsoir vs. Bon nuit.  I will remember to put the toilet paper in the waste basket, not in the toilet.  I will learn how to convert US dollars to Haitian Gourdes in my head (so that the lady at the market doesn't think I am an idiot when I stand there dumbfounded, trying to divide the price she gives me by 43.5 so that I know whether or not it is too expensive for me). I will learn the language. I will make friends with the little lizard that is crawling around the Guest House and convince him that he should live outside on the porch.  I will figure out how I can contribute in some small way.  Little by little.



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