April 17, 2008
Greetings from Haiti!
 
Although where I am in the mountains things are quiet as everyday life continues, I know the news is full of violence in the Haitian streets. As you may know by now, it was not violence for the sake of chaos, but a desperate and frustrated reaction to a worldwide suspicion that the poor are being screwed out of food. It is something most of us can't conceive of.  Imagine feeling the necessity to storm the White House because a dozen eggs suddenly costs $85 at Star Market. Not a good example, as we have a lot more food alternatives than Haitians do.

Today a group of neighbors asked to use the Art Center to call a meeting of several local groups - from the carpenters to the farmers to the artists - to discuss the possibility of opening their own store.  The thought was, if each group put in a little money each week they would try to eliminate some middlemen and make rice and other staples more affordable to themselves and the surrounding villages.

It's a complicated thing to try to do here, and the forces that made this happen are so much bigger than they are. But it was heartening to see a small group of people trying to be creative and constructive about their very real dilemma.

Thanks for your support!


Ellen LeBow

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April 25, 2008
Greetings from Haiti!
 
I thought we were here for the rainy season but, as the I CHING says, "dense clouds, no rain."

Mikey is learning to cook Haitian style.  Franselya, one of the scarf artists, has been giving him lessons. She's tied up a beautiful rooster next to our charcoal stove, a regal boy doomed to the knife tomorrow for a few shreds of his meat in the "Mayi Moulin." Friday she is going to show us how to cook goat's balls, but she said we have to get to the Friday market early because they sell out even as they are slaughtering.  "Memorable with hot sauce", she says.

We're not eating a lot - not by American standards - and a lot of people in the village are sick. Certainly rice is not around much.  Mostly we are eating a rough-cut yellow corn "polenta' called Mayi Moulin with a dose of a thin black bean sauce and some cooked down vegetables for our one main meal with Wolan's family. Otherwise it's a few spoonfuls of Franselya's scotch bonnet spiked peanut butter and many cups of coffee that has been grilled over the fire with burnt sugar. It's mostly our fault. Not domestic enough.

Not much food in the market though, some roots, cabbage, and bread.  The rest is cheap Chinese plastic buckets and used clothes.

We went down to look at Wolan's job at the water source. It has always been a spring flowing from single broken piece of PVC pipe thrust into a rock wall - sometimes only a trickle - which three towns compete to stick their buckets under.  But with a big influx of outside money - some of it yours - and some serious planning, an enormous cement cistern is being built by Wolan and about 10 of his masons crew (first they had to build a road to the water to get cement in, which is all still mixed by hand).  It will change things for everyone when done, with separate areas to water animals, wash clothes and collect drinkable water that hopefully will not run out.

The Wellfleet Library allowed me to take some DVD's to watch on my laptop. The neighbors gather around at night. We watched "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks because most of it has no words-blew them away-and 'Jean de Florette" because it was in French which they hardly understand, but it was of particular interest to them because it's about a very hard working French farmer whose crops and dreams are destroyed for lack of water and the loss of a single spring source.

The animals here are not as exotic as South Africa's, but have their own excitement. The other night Mikey (they call him "Nike") woke up to a tarantula taking a nap on his arm and I found one in the towel I was seconds away from wrapping around my body ( 3 rules of world class travelers: piss when you see a bathroom, drink when you see water -- or a bar, shake out towels before using).

Mike also woke one night to a rat at the table eating a mango.  Last night there were two rats. He decided not to tell Arielle, who still hasn't forgotten the hefty cockroach traversing her face a few nights ago as she slept. But they don't hurt anybody.

Otherwise, things are good.

Love,

EL