:"Snow Day" #3

Friday Oct. 26

It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood–"Snow Day" #3

By now we’re tired of shoveling and drinking hot chocolate and ready to go back to school. Actually, most days are over 90 degrees. The rain had stopped, sun was coming out, but after breakfast we found out that the Grand Anse River had overflowed outside of Jeremie and waters had flooded the lower part of the town, so the buses weren’t running. Worse yet for the country, crops in the affected areas were ruined–corn, grain, rice, etc–so prices will rise and people will suffer. In addition, many have lost their homes, not because the storm was so bad but because the homes are so fragile. I’ll include some photos.

Yesterday, one of Renate’s former students, now a teacher at UNOGA and a few others traveled to his home town several hours away to assess crop damage and observe the engineering repairs in progress in order to learn from them and be able to improve what’s taught here. They were not able to make it all the way to his grandmother’s house because of the river but he did learn that 3 fishermen he knew were dead. They fish far away and when they heard the warnings, had tried to make it back in time but didn’t.

In addition to the 3 days off, we lost a few hours of teaching time last week when we arrived on campus one morning to find the entrance blockaded. With our blackboard. A sign on it protested the foundation that owns the school’s not having responded to the students’ request for protection after two incidents that week, which we had not known about. Jeremie is very safe but people are known to take action against other Haitians whom they feel are a threat to them. That includes those who manage to rise above the lowest poverty level, and the movement to stop them is sometimes lethal. Poisoning is a preferred method.

We wait in our vehicle; blackboard barrier in the distance

The male students' tent

In this case, there are about 7 young men and 15 young women students who live far away who have been allowed to sleep on campus by the foundation who owns the property – some think an ill-advised kindness. The women were housed in a small cabin and the young men in a large tent. When property is sold in Haiti, people who have been living on the land (squatters) are not (or cannot be, not sure which) )asked to move. Those who have lived for years on the campus property apparently felt their being allowed to continue here was threatened by the presence of the students, so they had burned their tents while no one was there. A few laptops, cell phone, belongings and perhaps some money were gone. (Of our 52 students, about 20 have email access, though usually through an expensive internet café. A few actually own laptops and about a dozen charge their cell phones all around the classroom each morning.)  

student cell phones charging in the classroom
There were a dozen outlets around the classroom,
all full each day.



The students felt that those in charge (who are separate from UNOGA) had not responded, hence the protest. After some discussion and negotiation, we walked past the barrier and after a meeting, the class resumed. The next day the foundation president and some of his staff came to address the students and they felt much better. The day of the blockade was Friday, the day of the first exam.

The campus building for UNOGA administration (4 people),
one small classroom, and the health clinic

The while brahman bull that lives on campus

 After the resolution, they protested politely but mightily and even formed a representative delegation to press us to postpone the test. Because of all they had endured; they couldn’t possibly concentrate. In consultation with Renate, we decided to go ahead and used the prior day’s lesson on the ego, id, and superego to half-humorously challenge the id’s wish to have its way and said we would make the test a bit easier (answer one fewer question) and would give consideration to those directly affected.. In fact, only 7 students–the boys who had lived in the tents and were now in another cabin–were affected. Four of the 7 went on to ace the exam, including the group’s spokesperson, and we quietly congratulated them on the triumph of the ego.



The older of the two large classrooms

I can hear Luluz, the housekeeper here, outside now, washing clothes in her large basin, pounding them between rocks to cleanse them. Bleach is popular and my whites have never been whiter. She does all the linens and guests’ clothes here and when needed, uses a charcoal filled iron on a towel on the dining room table to press the shirts. Actual jobs in Haiti are scarce. People either sell goods or if "employed," work as part of a project or grant that is time-limited. So you don’t ask people what they do for a living; you ask about their "activities."



The back yard, wash basin in lower left corner
Every front yard is swept daily of leaves, twigs but in back are empty bottles etc.,

The battery is running down so I’ll shut down until the evening. ration of "courant" is turned on.. The internet is restored but extremely slow and no one has been able to actually access email yet..Though I took a sponge bath using the bathroom bucket of water, a facecloth and a cup, I understand from my housemates that running water has also been restored by the city so it’ll be a grand evening.