A (Poetic) Farewell

I meant to write this post last night, but a beautiful summer storm (complete with magnificent lightning that imbued the sky with a violet hue) got in my way. I'm going to take advantage of the calm of this rain-cleaned morning to try again.

My Book 2 class had their final last Friday, which meant that our class officially ended last week. This week, consequently, has been pretty informal, mostly consisting of saying goodbye, giving final grades, and reading poetry together. It's been bittersweet.

You all know how much I love poetry... and I wanted to share that love with my students, so I decided to make them each a card, with a personal note on one side and a poem on the other (this proved to take much more time than I anticipated, like many of my projects do.) I wanted to give them a crash course in English language poetry, so I picked a poet that seemed to match the personality of each student, and then chose one of that poet's most famous works. The results:

I'm not sure if they actually understood anything on the card, but my hope is that they'll at least know how much I appreciated them, and that they might be interested to keep reading. I want them to know the beauty and flexibility of the English language, not just its mechanics, and I hope that, starting with one poem, they might be able to take ownership of the language and fall in love with it. We read the poems aloud, they gave me some notes of their own, we took pictures, and we said goodbye. Some of my students have continued to come to the compound each afternoon, and we'll spend a few hours discussing the poems that most interested them (so far we've done Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise" and Sonnet XVIII) but, really, the end to my time in Haiti has come, and the goodbyes are starting to pile up.

I have one last day here, and I'm going to try to make it count.

Some of the students from my Book 2 class:

The poems that made the short list:

Sonnet XVIII by William Shakespeare

"The Day Lady Died" by Frank O'Hara

"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams

"Ariel" by Sylvia Plath

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

Canto 120 by Ezra Pound

"Hope is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson

"i thank You God for most this amazing day" by E.E. Cummings

"Skunk Hour" by Robert Lowell

"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou

"The Tyger" by William Blake

"Harlem" by Langston Hughes

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens

"Pomegranate" by D.H. Lawrence

"A Supermarket in California" by Allen Ginsberg

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

excerpt from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

"Bright Star" by John Keats

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

excerpt from "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot

A Day in the Life: Haiti

It is one of my last mornings here, and I am watching the sunrise. It feels like the perfect time to do what I always irrationally do - give you a sketch of a typical day here, right before I leave.

Most mornings, like this one, I'm the first one awake. I usually get up between 6:00 and 7:00, take a shower, and then spend an hour or so by myself, reading or writing or thinking or praying. It's my only alone time of the day, and I cherish it.

Life at the compound is dictated by meal times, which means that everyone starts heading downstairs around 8:00 for breakfast. Breakfast is the best meal of the day, and I try to savor it. I'm actually going to miss having fresh coffee, eggs, and oatmeal made for me every morning.

After eating and chatting for a bit, I usually head back upstairs and get to work. Work means different things on different days; maybe I'm making lesson plans, or grading papers, or writing a test, or doing research. If there's power, I'm usually on the computer. Sometimes, I get pulled in to help out with other programs, like summer camp or the garden.

At 12:30 or so, meal time rolls around again, and we all head back downstairs. Lunch is usually pretty underwhelming, but it's nice to sit and eat together for a little bit. After lunch, I continue doing my work.

I teach from 2:30 until 5:00 or so. I have my Level 2 (out of 6) first, and then at 3:45 or so, I start phonetics class. After class, it's usually time to eat again. The rest of the night is pretty low-key, especially if there's no internet - a few hours spent chatting, reading, watching movies, doing research, replying to emails, or  lusting after pictures of food. Around 11:00 or 12:00, it's time for bed. I cover myself in bug spray, lay down underneath the mosquito net that retains more heat than seems possible, and listen to the compound noises (roosters crowing/ducks quacking/dogs barking/rats clicking/goats wailing) as I wait for sleep to come.

So, not too exciting, but it's life. We'll see how that compares to the American life that's waiting for me...!

Missing

One of the reasons I decided to come to Haiti was to test my ability to live in a developing country, away from my "first-world" comforts and surrounded by realities that would challenge me. My response thus far has been very similar to what I expected it would be. I do miss reliable electricity, hot water, washing machines, paved roads, sanitation, fresh produce, and all that fun stuff but, really, I can live without those things and still be happy. The things I truly miss, the absences that hurt, are not things at all, of course. I miss people - my family, my friends, and you.

I have very much appreciated the company of my fellow interns (I sincerely think I might have lost my mind if I was here without them), but I am starting to yearn for the companionship of those people who know and love me. My experience here has been somewhat different compared to my other travel/study/service/work experiences. For whatever reason, after almost seven weeks here, I still feel a bit disconnected from the rest of the compound. I feel like I'm stuck in the in-between land of "acquaintance-ship" - not quite strangers but not good friends either.

I really became aware of this a week or so ago, after I wrote a particularly angsty blog post. I was surprised with the response; I opened my inbox to find eight or nine supportive, loving messages from people back home. They were able to see through my anger, they were able to understand me, and they were able to love me in all my craziness.

The response from some of the other interns here, however, was quite different. Let's just say there appeared to be some misunderstanding, something that happens a lot around here.

It's been strange for me to be here, to be doing this kind of work and seeing what I'm seeing, without developing a level of intimacy or shared vulnerability. I'm used to my life being an ongoing conversation, a discussion of love and truth and beauty and responsibility and dignity and solidarity. That hasn't happened here. Maybe it just doesn't happen everywhere? I'm not sure.

It has been nice to disconnect for awhile, to form friendships free from the intensity and seriousness that usually characterizes my relationships, but I will be extremely happy to get home next week and get tangled back up into my life. Time away always makes me appreciate what I have, and this summer is no exception. I am learning to love my family and friends more and more, and to recognize exactly how blessed I am to have them all.

But this experience is teaching me something more than just gratitude; it's teaching me to look closely at what I want, and what I need. I know I can live like this for two months, but can I do this for a year? Five years? An indefinite amount of time? Would I recreate my beloved support system eventually? Or is it a rarity I should hold onto? Is it sustainable for me to live without the intimacy, the companionship I so love? Right now, I don't know, but I will certainly be thinking about that.

Now that I think again, I realize that I have had this experience before; this very blog has a passage from my journal freshman year, where I lamented having people to laugh with, but not people to cry with. It got better. Maybe I'm just impatient. We'll see.

Either way, I miss you all, and I am very excited to get home and start the conversation again. I can't wait to start the story-swapping and life-sharing.

Poem of the Day

The One-Year-Old Lemon Tree

by W. S. Di Piero

 

Its small celestial reach stops

       where the counterweight, the first

             tough green fruit, pulls earthward   

and returns the brazen, almost rank perfume   

of blossoms now six months gone.

The slurred odor of its leaves

       calls back that long evening’s end:

             we shivered in the cool light   

a northerly sun bent against the world   

into the hands of friends

who helped clear the outdoor supper’s

       sharp debris—forks, tin plates,

             balled napkins and bone nests.   

The lemon blossoms throbbed. The air   

slowed with so much young life,

the fragrance quickened in our veins

       the common, too surprising wish

             to hold, just then, another,   

whoever stood nearest, whatever charm   

would bind us to the lowering light.

Then someone said, “Let’s eat the tree”—

       Tear apart the bole, raid the green heart,

             devour remembrance with one moment’s   

hunger and eat the nature of things.

Scraped plates, laughter, glasses refilled . . .

Our sweet anger urged and gathered us

       around the young tree’s tub, made us

             tamp the wet soil and drink fast   

the clear smell of unseen yellow fruit   

in time we ourselves might never know.

Viva Guacamole!

About a week and a half ago, I did a listening activity with one of my classes to help them practice "kind of" and "kind of like." We don't have power in our classroom (or walls...), so instead of using the prepared activities that come with the text book (and require a c.d. player), I usually just write and read my own:

There is a lot of Mexican food in California because California is very close to Mexico. I really like to eat Mexican food. It is one of my favorite kinds of food. One of my favorite Mexican dishes is guacamole. It is kind of like a sauce, but it is thicker. It is made from avocados, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, salt, and lime. Sometimes, guacamole is a little spicy. When I go home, I am going to eat lots of guacamole.

For whatever reason, my students were fascinated with that wonderful, mysterious food I called guacamole. They would not stop talking about it and insisted that I find some way for them to try it. It was hilarious. Finally, I explained that I couldn't get the ingredients by myself, but I'd be happy to make them some if I had some help. Wideline, one of the star students of the class, volunteered immediately and after exchanging phone numbers, we made plans to go to the market on Monday.

Wideline met me on the compound on Monday morning and took me on my favorite Haitian adventure thus far. We hopped on a tap-tap and headed to the main open-air market in Croix-des-Bouquets and it was great. I had very little idea what was going on, and just followed Wideline around like a lost child, but it was wonderful to be in the thick of real life, to be overwhelmed by the smells and sights and heat, to marvel at new foods, to just completely not fit in. With Wideline's help, I returned to the compound with a bagful of fresh ingredients:

I waited for the avocados to ripen and then, last Wednesday, I went to work. I made quite a mess with the tiny cutting board and dull knife I had at my disposal, and the kitchen staff here couldn't help but laugh at me, but I had a grand old time "cooking." My hands burned from the peppers, I was covered in avocados, and I was smiling.

Tortilla chips are a scarce commodity around here, so we just ate the guacamole with crackers and spoons. It was such an unproductive day, but we all got to sit and laugh and eat together, and it will be one of my favorite memories from my time here. We clapped, we took pictures, someone even started a "viva guacamole!" chant... it was a good time. We finished the class with some "popcorn reading" (a new concept that was quickly loved by all) and then just giggled some more about the silliness of it all.

Moral of the story: I might not be a good teacher, but I'm good at making people happy with guacamole. Or, maybe, guacamole is just good at making people happy. Either way, I'm happy.

Food for thought

Last night was a late one and so the compound is quiet this afternoon, with most of my fellow interns napping or reading. I spent an hour or so lounging on the empty bunk by the window, enjoying some delightfully spunky prose from Zadie Smith and smelling the last hints of the sugar cane they cut down a few days ago. Usually, things around here smell pretty bad - don't you love the smell of sewer water and burning trash in the morning? - but for the past few windy afternoons, we've been granted a sweet reprieve. 

But enough about smells. It's time that I got down to business, and focused on what's really important: tastes. I'm sure you all know how much I love food and maybe you've been surprised that I haven't talked about it more since being in Haiti. Well, don't worry. I have been talking about it. ALL THE TIME. I'm already planning my first meals back in the U.S. But the food I've been eating here has been less of a conversation topic, mostly because there isn't much variety. Beside some rare meals in restaurants or a surprise treat (yesterday blessed me with a fresh cupcake, pizza, crazy bread, and french fries, oh my!), we eat the same thing all the time. But, because you can't really understand my life without knowing what I'm eating, I'm going to give you all the details.

Breakfast - best meal of the day, hands down. Some things we typically eat, in different combinations:

Fresh coffee

Evaporated milk

Corn flakes

Bread (and we have a toaster - a wonderful indulgence)

Margarine

Peanut butter (it's a bit spicy and completely delicious)

Hard-boiled eggs

Scrambled eggs

Porridge (with anise and cinnamon)

Bananas

Mangos

WAFFLES (we had these twice, and it was amazing)

Lunch/dinner - highly variable in terms of tastiness. Possible dishes:

Pumpkin soup (a personal favorite, with cabbage and lots of tubers)

Dumpling soup

Spaghetti with "hot dog sauce" (everyone's least favorite)

Pates (empanada-like pockets of meat; I eat the vegetarian version with cabbage and onions)

Rice and beans (heavy on the rice)

"Veggie mash" (vegetables pureed beyond recognition which you eat with rice and beans)

Okra

Ham salad sandwiches (I have not partaken)

Fried plantains

Pikliz (a spicy cabbage slaw)

Fried fish (ANNOUNCEMENT - I started eating fish here because I was worried about my protein intake, which means that I recently dealt with bones for the first time in 8 years. And the bones are so tiny! And fish have eyes! So weird.)

Beets

Tomatoes and water cress

Beverages:

Water (of course)

Aforementioned coffee

Ginger tea (to calm our tummies)

Juice (mango or passion fruit, usually; any time it  appears at lunch it's a good day)

Hot chocolate (we only really got this in the beginning, but it was good)

Coca-Cola or 7-Up (made with real cane sugar)

Prestige (the beer of Haiti)

Rum (they like it a lot here)

I'm sure I forgot a few things, but that's more or less it. Enjoy!

Grading Papers

"Jesus is the first but without English, life is dark, Miss Kelsey."

Today, my spirit aches.

Instead of giving you all the informational updates I promised, I'm going to give you a glimpse into my heart, which seems just as important, especially if you know and love me as much as I probably do you. Here goes.

This morning, my heart is heavy, as it should be. It is breaking as I try to reconcile the disparity between humanity's beauty and its depravity. I am conflicted, and I am ashamed.

I seem to have made friends with a parasite in the past two weeks, and my body hasn't felt great. It's not terrible, but I suspect I'll feel like this until I'm able to see a doctor in the United States in a few weeks, and I'm not too excited about that. I've been complaining a lot. About everything. My attitude is not where it should be.

I am not unhappy here. That is not the problem. What's problematic is all of my little annoyances, those that get in the way of gratitude and appreciation and joy and genuine love. What's problematic is my propensity to complain. What's problematic is my laziness.

I complain about feeling sick while I know that most people who live here probably deal with worse symptoms every day. They are malnourished, they are constantly exposed to bacteria and nasty stuff, they are dehydrated, they are discouraged, they are abused. That doesn't mean that my discomfort is meaningless, it doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to suffer, but I don't need to dwell in it. It could be worse, and it is for many people all around me. I complain about the food, I crave vegetables and dairy and whole grains while people are starving. That doesn't mean I shouldn't want healthy, delicious food, but really, I can stop complaining. I should stop complaining.

What brought this all on, why this morning? Partly because I started to actually hear myself complain, and I was embarrassed. And partly because I am reading through my students' paragraphs, and they are touching some tender places in my heart.

Today I'm very happy to write ten sentences about the country I would like to visit. I would like to visit the United States of America because it has many jobs and I want to make money. When I arrive in the United States of America, I will feel good. I would like to have a good job. I would like to visit the United States of America because it's a beautiful country. I would like to visit the United States of America because when I arrive there, I can make a lot of money to help my family. I would like to visit the United States of America because Haiti does not have many jobs. OK thanks. That's all!

My privilege is weighing heavily on me right now. This isn't about guilt, or self-deprivation. I don't want to be a martyr, and I'm sure plenty of my students here are indulgent when possible. Everyone deserves some indulgence. But I am frustrated with how unappreciative I can be, how much I think I need certain luxuries, and how my desire for convenience harms others. I cannot solve the problems here, but I can make choices to help alleviate them somewhat, and I often fail at that. I can be grateful and attentive and compassionate and informed. I can be vocal and visionary. I can work harder. I can control what I say and eat and buy. 

I accept my guilt and shame and anger. I need it for motivation. As long as I am not exhausted, or defeated, it is good and important. I just need to harness it.

I'm praying for self-awareness and guidance, as always. And reminding myself to give thanks, and to live in love. It's hard at the moment.

Word vomit over.

Many, many apologies for my lack of updates over the past two weeks. I know some people are worrying, but there's no need, I promise! I am alive and (mostly) well! (Some bothersome, but ultimately harmless annoyance has taken up residence in my digestive system... I am definitely not at the top of my game but it's nothing too bad.)

So, what's happened since I last wrote? A lot more of the same, I'd say. I've continued with my two classes, and I think/hope we're making some progress. Last week, we focused on political vocabulary in my phonetics class, and that led to some interesting conversation topics - Somalia, Monica Lewinsky, the electoral college... you know. Summer camp is over, which is good, and so now the mornings are filled with a teacher training institute - much less stress over all. When I'm not grading papers or preparing for class or teaching, I'm usually researching grants and educational policy in Haiti. Things are good overall.

We don't get to leave the compound much, so my stories aren't too exciting... We have made it to the beach twice in the past few weeks, and it remains a source of beauty and relaxation for us all. Last weekend, we visited Ti Goave, one of the organization's satellite sites, which was a very challenging experience for me. Ti Goave is significantly more rural than Croix-des-Bouquets and the level of poverty and destitution was unlike anything I had witnessed before. Most of the children we saw had swollen abscesses and distended stomachs, and the adults complained about the lack of educational resources, health care, food, clean water, and jobs. My lowest moment was after lunch; we were serving the kids rice and sausage, but more people had showed up than we anticipated, and we ran out of food. I have rarely felt so powerless, or like such a disappointment. How have I allowed this sort of world to exist? That's a question I continue to struggle with.

On the way back to the compound, we stopped for pizza, which was a wonderful surprise, but as delicious as it was, it was a bittersweet experience. That night, like much of my time here, was a trying lesson in balance - between guilt and gratitude, responsibility and light-heartedness, joy and grief, service and caring for the self. I haven't found it yet, and I'm not sure I will any time soon.

The next day, I took my first tap-tap (Google image search it!), which I had been eagerly anticipating. The tap-tap was fun; the rest of the day was... absurd, in a hilarious way. I spent 7 hours at a Jehovah's Witness service, conducted entirely in Kreyol, and I couldn't help but laugh. It reminded me of the potential silliness of cross-cultural relations.

Other than that, I've just been enjoying the company of my fellow interns and working. I need to get ready for my classes this afternoon, but I'll be back soon with more about what I'm doing, seeing, thinking, eating, and feeling. Until then, know that I'm thinking of you! Last Thursday marked the exact midpoint of my stay here, so I'll be back in the United States before you know it...!

I've been in Haiti for over two weeks now, and this lazy Saturday afternoon feels like the perfect time to tell you about my experience so far.

So, what have I been up to? Last weekend, we had two exciting outings. On Saturday night, we took the long and winding road to Pétionville, an affluent suburb of Port-au-Prince. For many of us interns, that was an evening of... mixed feelings. We were celebrating a birthday at The View, a very "first-world" restaurant with, as the name promises, an impressive vista. It was a nice change of pace and the food was pretty good, but it was quite strange driving up a mountain to eat an expensive meal, surrounded by white humanitarian/NGO workers, looking down on an expanse of poverty and strife. I enjoyed the good meal, but the whole evening was an unavoidable reminder of the stark imbalance in our world, and the immense privilege I have experienced.

On Sunday, we headed to the beach, which I think was a more universally enjoyable trip for everyone. It was beautiful and sunny and just wonderful to sit in the warm, salty water (I'll try to post a picture soon.) The ocean always has a way of making me feel at home, and it was great to share a moment of such relaxing bliss with the other interns.

And that brings me to this past week, which was... less than relaxing. I have to write my official blog post for the HAC website soon, so I'm going to try to get out my negative energy here (please take it with a grain of salt.)

I continued to teach the adult English class every afternoon, which I have very much enjoyed (we had our first test on Friday, WHOA) and I also started teaching a phonetics class to some of the more advanced students (who would have thought I'd ever be teaching IPA in Haiti...!) So, my afternoons have been good. The mornings have been... rather hellish. Our "summer camp" started on Monday, which means 150 children have been climbing the walls of our compound every day from 9 until 12. If you know me, you probably know that I (usually) love kids but... oh my. This is one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. The kids are out of control, I can't really communicate with them, there's no organization or discipline, and we have no resources. There are a group of girls who I'm positive are plotting against me. I spend most of the morning yelling or at the verge of tears. It's no good. Morale is pretty low around here. I'm hoping things go better next week. You should be hoping for me too. Maybe, when this whole ordeal is insulated in my memory, I'll share some hilarious/horrible stories. At the moment, it's too soon.

But, despite the homicidal rage I've been feeling every morning, life here is good! There's some MAJOR room for improvement in terms of communication, but I guess that's why all us interns are here? I'm just going to keep praying for patience and guidance. Oof.

Click here to meet my fabulous fellow interns!

All of the interns here are keeping a blog to document our progress/projects this summer; click here to see my post from this week!

(I'll post the link each week, and feel free to read the other interns' posts too!)

Bonswa!

This will be a short entry, since the wireless internet here on the compound is a little sub-par, but I'm going to try to write enough so that you know that I'm alive and well!

I'm currently in Croix-des-Bouquets, an agrarian suburb of Port-au-Prince. I got here last Thursday but due to the aforementioned lack of wi-fi, this is the first chance I've gotten to spend more than 3 minutes on the internet. I probably won't be able to post any photos until I get back, but I'll try to update you all every week or so with details from my Haitian life. 

For the next eight-ish weeks, I'm living in a compound (read: cinder block building) with 10 other interns and a rotating group of shorter-term volunteers - they've all proved to be pretty fantastic thus far. My internship officially started today, so I've only gotten a small taste of what's to come; for now, I'm teaching a couple of English classes a day, working on curriculum development, and learning some Creole. Who knows what else lies ahead?

More info soon, I promise! Send me emails, tell me your stories, keep me updated, and I'll send you some love (and a response, when wi-fi allows)!