Faces of Carnaval

When Carnival came around last year, Port au Prince was in no shape to celebrate. This year, there was a modest come-back of  this beloved holiday. Though locals assured us that the parades, music and celebrations were mere shadows of their former selves, we thought it was a wonderful display of community and colour. The sense of pride and self-assurance was unmistakable as the parade danced past the fallen palace and the tent city of the down town square. I asked Jean-Claude, one of our drivers who just happened to run into us on the parade route, if he thinks Carnival will be back up to his standards in a few years. He roared with laughter and said, "you'll just have to come back to see for yourself".

Yes, even cholera deserves a spot in the parade!

Isolated Poets

It’s a useful reminder for those of us “NGOers” that are based in the capital that there is much more to Haiti than Port au Prince. My trip last week took me to the far-flung provincial capital of Jérémie in Grande Anse. Founded back in 1756 under French rule, it became known as the “City of Poets” in honour of its artistic community. Its people suffered oppression by the Duvalier regime in the 1960s for daring to mount a political opposition, isolating it even further.

Even with vastly improved roads that cut through the mountains towards the southern highway, it still takes almost 10 hours to get to the capital by car. Thankfully, a roughly cut landing strip and a dodgy airline make this journey possible in 45 minutes by air. As we circled over what appeared to be a large leafy fishing village, I wondered what it would be like to be in a town that had for once benefited from being so far away from Port au Prince. After all, there was no earthquake damage here which means no rubble, no dramatic reduction of schools or clinics, and most of all, no camps.

The plane seemed to skim the tops of the palms on our rapid decent to the landing strip – clearly the rocky track was short enough to make it important to not waste any of it. We thumped down and bounced along with the props roaring in reverse. After a minute or so, the pilot stopped the plane (no need to taxi or “park”), slid out his sunken cockpit door and opened the cabin door for us. We had arrived.

The reason for my trip was to observe a human resources work shop that my colleague was running with the departmental government. Strategic plans are few and far between in the public sector if Haiti, and this is particularly noticeable with the lack of HR planning – nobody can really tell you what they need, why and where they should hire from. But this exercise is fraught with structural shortcomings, such as lack of funds and over-centralization. The government in the capital has very little money to hire workers in the departments. Its obsession of control (and concern of multiple levels of corruption) means that the minister needs to sign every letter of nomination for new hires – be they doctors or janitors. In short, Port au Prince – as far away as it is – controls the fate of the local institutions in Jérémie. So, the planning workshop will not have immediate results, but it will provide the local government with the data and reports to lobby their distant ministry counterparts for targeted and specific HR needs.

It was most definitely a wonderful reprieve from Port au Prince. A seaside town of about 150,000 inhabitants, Jérémie gives you the sense that it’s in no rush. People saunter down the streets and cars move uncharacteristically slow and steady. The main street sidewalks are covered by arcades that shelter merchants from the sun. Green bushy trees seem to sweeten the salty air. The garbage is less abundant, or perhaps just better hidden. The difference couldn’t have been more stark from the dilapidated capital which struggles amongst the rubble, litter and now the dust of the dry season. But make no mistake, Jérémie is no haven of development. Decades of isolation have slowed the building of schools and clinics and the agriculture industry limps along in the shackles of farming practices from a bygone era.

Yet it was important to see Jérémie to get a better sense of what Haiti is like once you strip away the complexities of urban congestion and earthquake damage. In fact, the relative simplicity of working in “les provinces” is in a strange way comforting and enviable. But this also might be just a reflection of a cute little town that captured my imagination and gave me a break from the big city. Next time I intend to find the poets.

Where in the world is SAIS?

A few months ago, you might have seen a random dancing video that my friend Ian and I performed in front of a waterfall. That clip was combined with those of our classmates from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) all over the world. The video was dedicated to our dear friend Julia who we all lost to a terrible accident in the fall.

The video went viral amongst our university community, so we're doing a second round. Niraj (who I also went to school in Bologna with) and I took advantage of our time in Colombia together over Christmas to file this equally random video.

Deye mon gen mon - Beyond mountains there are mountains

We have just come back from a short trip to Vancouver, BC to attend a friend’s wedding. In just over 6 days we visited Graham’s family, spent time with friends, had a couple of lazy afternoons watching snow fall on the ocean, and overall had a wonderful break from the very hectic work weeks we had before leaving.

January and February came and went very quickly and very slowly at the same time, mostly because of how much we both worked. Both of the organizations we work for were going through some changes, I was transitioning departments and Graham was completing difficult projects. The routine went something this: alarm would go off at 6:00am, and we would both turn to our flashing Blackberries to start reading the emails of the day. Both of our Country Directors are detail-oriented super humans who live on little sleep and can type emails faster than us. By 7:30am we would say bye to each other and get into the cars waiting for us. About 12 hours later one would text the other person to let them know we were going to be late...again. By 9:30pm, but sometimes later we would meet back at our apartment, eat something, type a few more emails, mumble something in bed about how the day went and finally fall asleep still thinking of the emails we had not managed to send that day.

The days were long, the work was frustrating, and we barely saw each other. However, we still manage to find some time to read “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder, a book about a doctor that has been working in Haiti for several decades. We had been meaning to read it for a while since Partners in Health, his organization, was one of our first windows into Haiti before we even considered working here. As well, while in Haiti, we have both come across several of their projects and have been very impressed by their work.

The book is very well- written, and I am a bit embarrassed I didn’t read before I came to Port-au-Prince last summer. It would have been a perfect introduction to many aspects of working in Haiti, particularly about working in health, an area new to both of us.

It is hard to describe how inadequate one feels about complaining about working long hours after you read about Paul Farmer’s work. It is not just that he has devoted his life to helping vulnerable people all over the world, but the fact that he does it because it is the only acceptable thing to do. His understanding of humanity and the dedication to his patients everywhere, but especially in Haiti is empowering, overwhelming, devastating, touching, upsetting and comforting all at the same time. I highly recommend reading it for an overview of Haiti’s history, the inspiring journey from a young man in his teens to a world renowned public health specialist, to learn about goes on at international health forums, or if you ever feel that you are working too much!

- Tania