The Chicken and Pig, and other adventures in the North

This will probably be my last blog post…exhaustion is setting in and I have factory notes that are backing up that need to be worked on.  Just thought I’d update a bit on the flight to the North and time up here…it’s been an interesting couple of days to say the least.  There were no actual chickens on the Chicken and Pig, but the flight attendant was also the pilot. Oh, and they asked me how much I weighed when we checked in.  Not sure what that’s all about but it made me think the plane was going to turn sideways when a big lady sat across from me.  There was no storage room around any of the seats so we all had to pack it in the ‘trunk’ at the back of the plane.  I was doing ok until the pilot/stewardess made a woman move from the exit row and replaced her with a ‘strong man’.  Apparently they use the exit rows more often on Chicken and Pig than on the US airlines I’m used to.  The flight itself was a harrowing twenty minute jaunt over the Haitian mountains.  Although I have to admit, I’m so exhausted at this point that I almost dozed off. 

Most of the factory work is confidential, but I will say that they call them ‘sweatshops’ for a reason.  We’ve been to a couple a day and the temperature and air quality are enough to make you want to pass out or vomit or both.  We made it to a border town, and our hotel is located between the Haitian and Dominican borders, so I’m technically writing this from the Dominican-Haitian.  Everyone speaks Spanish (only), so I’m a little better off than Creole and French.  We are literally in the middle of nowhere, kind of a jungle without really big trees (Haiti is de-forested).  I woke up to a screaming peacock this morning, who happens to also be a guest at the Dominican-Haitian.  I’d take a rooster any day over a screeching peacock.  I nearly rung his neck and ate him for breakfast.  Oh, and they stole my towels here too.  I’m learning that no matter what time of day I want my towels, they disappear.  Once again, I couldn’t get ready after breakfast…you would have thought I’d have learned my lesson in Port au Prince but not so.

We head back on the Chicken and Pig to Port au Prince tomorrow, visit one more factory, and then pass out for the night before heading back to Boston on Sunday.  It’s been an amazing adventure…surely not one I’m going to forget any time soon.

Haiti’s official ‘no white people walking’ policy

That title’s not far off the mark.  My first year in Haiti, one year after the earthquake, there was an official UN policy that didn’t allow any affiliates (mostly white) to get out of their chauffeur (all black) driven cars and walk in the streets of Port au Prince due to ‘security’ issues.  But here I am 3 and a half years after the earthquake and there are still no white people in the streets.  There were plenty of white people on the plane, and occasionally you’ll glance a bit of whiteness in a passing vehicle or in a truck of machine gun toting blue hatters (the UN patrol).  But color is such an odd phenomena in Haiti…I guess I think more about it since my daughter is a shade of brown but it’s truly striking.  We’ve met a lot of important Haitian politicians and business people, who are indeed native Haitians, but the people with money look white.  Social standing here is directly and starkly determined by the shade of your skin.  Light skin Haitian – rich, dark skinned Haitian – not always bad, but a crapshoot. 

Today we went to a factory in the city center, and got invited for an unscheduled visit to a new factory compound at the nearby town of Carrefour tomorrow afternoon.  The area was described as a bit scary, I think the words that were used were ‘the slums of Port au Prince’.  To which I thought, are you f-ing kidding me?  Sorry for the language but that’s what I was thinking.  I mean, what have we been driving around in for the last 3 years?  How is it possible that I haven’t seen the worst of it?  Apparently I’ll find out tomorrow on our impromptu trip to the outskirts of Haiti.  Before heading to Carrefour, we’ll be in a couple of factories in the morning, so chances of my getting to blog tomorrow night after such a full day are slim.  But I’ll try, because we fly the following day to the north of the country on what I’m lovingly referring to as the ‘chicken and pig’ flight, and it’s unlikely I’ll have reliable internet access for the rest of the trip.  We’ll be visiting the new factory compound in Caracol (for those interested in the political happenings in Haiti, there’s rumors of moving the capital from Port au Prince to that location – Google it).  Then we’re heading to a rural area to spend the night and visit another factory compound the following day.  I’m excited and a little apprehensive about our jaunt to the north, but if I can survive a hotel gas explosion, I think I can make it through a 20 minute flight on Chicken and Pig airlines.  But seriously, a Haitian friend of mine said it’s not that bad (no actual chickens and pigs) but that you can see the pilot and it’s ‘a little bumpy’ getting over the mountains.

As for today, I hid my towels in the morning (it worked), but this time they disappeared in the afternoon.  Completely unexpected!  So when I got back from the factories I couldn’t wash up, but there are worse things in Haiti than being stinky.  I’m trying to adapt to this whole towel snatching thing, but clearly it’s a moving target.  We went to dinner at a recently opened sushi restaurant nearby – yes, sushi in Haiti!  I have now officially broken all of the health warnings/rules for travel to Haiti, including raw fish.  FYI…it tastes just like sushi in the US.  Fortunately, our program host just happens to be a gay man who knows all of the hot spots.  It’s amazing how no matter where you are in the world, a gay man can find all the good restaurants and nightlife, and that’s not a trivial task in Haiti.  You’d never know the place was there from the street, and I’m pretty sure Google maps won’t get you there, so thank goodness for ‘gay man GPS’.  I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t get food poisoning, and don’t even get me started about malaria.  The Haitian mosquitoes seem to be completely oblivious to American bug spray. 

From gas explosions to machine guns…all in a day’s work

Read the last post to figure out the gas explosion part of the title…I’m still a bit stunned by the whole thing.  Anyway, I couldn’t help but add another blog post about dinner in Haiti tonight.  Just too unique an experience to hold in.

So the plan was to meet the World Bank peeps for drinks to discuss Haiti development projects.  As we arrived at the hotel restaurant, a man in a Haitian army uniform jumped out of a vehicle with a machine gun, and I swear it was pointed right at my face.  I might be making that part up about the face pointing, but it’s amazing what goes through your mind when you see a machine gun all of the sudden within poking distance.  Following the machine gun man out of the car was the president of Haiti (again, I’m pretty sure this was the case, but my eyes were focused on the barrel).  Martelly is a pretty noticeable celebrity (former rapper), but it’s hard to compete with a machine gun.

We had a nice chat with the World Bank people, but somehow managed to sit next to them at the bar for a half hour before realizing that we were all there to meet each other.  It would have helped if they had been wearing matching WB t-shirts advertising globalization.  Somehow, drinks with the WB people turned into an impromptu dinner with a different set of people we had never met before from the US Embassy and the Dept of Labor.  Interesting dinner conversation to say the least, and another beautiful sunset over the Caribbean.  I happily enjoyed violating another food-health warning and ate fish.  You pretty much can’t eat anything in Haiti if you read the entire brochure (which of course I did).  Dinner ended with an interesting conversation about my setting up an air quality monitor at the US embassy here.  Finally some interest in my idea!!  It might require some more travel, which isn’t easy with three kids, but has the potential to make a major impact on understanding quality of life issues here. 

Holy Haiti, it’s hot down here!

Wow, what a day so far.  I started it with some early morning prep followed by the hotel breakfast buffet, again violating all health warnings about buffets in Haiti (no joke, there is a buffet health warning).  I’m not usually a risk-loving personality, but it’s either that or not eat.  Plus, last night I saw a little kid eating from it, so it must be safe.  Although come to think of it, I didn’t see that kid again this morning at the breakfast buffet.  Anyway, I’m not sick from food YET…knock on wood.  It would be terrifying to be visiting sweat shops and traveling the streets of Port au Prince with digestive issues. 

Breakfast was delicious, and the coffee was excellent as usual.  Oddly though, when I returned to my room to get dressed for the day, all of my towels were gone.  Nothing else was changed in the room, except for the absence of towels that I kind of needed to finish getting ready.  Tomorrow morning I’ll be sure to hide my towels before breakfast.  While I was getting ready (without the help of towels), the hotel phone started to ring.  I thought about not answering it, because really, who would be calling me in Haiti.  But I did finally pick up to have the front desk say ‘your driver is here for you’…those are six words I could totally get used to.

We started the work day with a meeting at the program headquarters to update staff on our work.  For those of you that don’t know, I’m part of a project that looks at working conditions in Haitian apparel factories (aka sweatshops).  The US gives preferential trade status to the apparel companies under the condition they treat workers humanely, and there is a quasi-enforcement program in place as watchdogs/helpers to keep factories in line.  If you’re interested in learning more about it, go to http://betterwork.org/global/  My travel partner and I are both part of a Tufts team exploring how well the program is doing, and my piece in particular is focused on health and safety.  But more on that to come later.

We had a great meeting with the program staff before heading off to our first factory.  Unfortunately, once we got there they were ‘busy’, so we scheduled to return during an open spot in our itinerary on Wednesday.  But lucky us we made the trip despite being turned away, because while we were out there was a major gas explosion at our hotel that sent a number of people to the hospital.  We arrived just in time to see the people being taken away in ambulances.  Everything seems back to normal, and fortunately it didn’t impact my part of the hotel.  But I’ll thank my lucky stars that we were scheduled for the sweatshop that turned us away or else we would have been at the hotel at the time.

On a different note, I’ve been monitoring the air quality in Port au Prince since we got here as part of a side study.  The first year I was here I was completely flabbergasted by what I perceived to be the worst air pollution I could have ever imagined (for those of you that don’t know, air quality is a major research interest of mine).  The poor air is caused by a combination of extensive diesel generator use (because the electricity grid is so poor and unreliable), horribly polluting diesel vehicles, massive traffic backup, and trash burning.  So this year I came prepared with an air monitor and ran it hanging out the window of the car while driving through traffic on our way around the city.  Just to give you a sense of the problem, the levels in traffic were over 5 times the EPA max set to protect public health in the US.  Scientists have been complaining for some time that the US health limits are not protective enough, so imagine 5 times what would be considered the worst possible acceptable scenario in the US as your standard workday commute.  I’m going to keep collecting gobs of data on this trip, and hope to bring some visibility to the problem when I get back.  All of the attention in countries like Haiti is going into ‘saving lives’, but the quality of life remains truly deplorable.  I got a headache and nausea just from having the window cracked with the monitor hanging out, and people have to live and work in these conditions daily. 

Tonight we’re headed to meet a group of World Bank folks for drinks and dinner (sorry in advance to those friends of mine who are WB haters).  I’m looking forward to getting a different perspective on the issues here.

PS – I swear something just fell from the sky right outside my hotel window.  Never a dull moment in Haiti.

Safe Arrival!

Arrived safely in Haiti this afternoon from Boston via Miami!  I’ll start with the journey… 

Nellie flew with me to Miami and my sister picked her up outside the airport before I flew on to Haiti.  We survived the flight together, although Nellie was on a 5 minute ADD cycle, which meant that she required pretty much constant entertainment.  In-flight movie (The Avengers) – 5 minutes, coloring – 5 minutes, listening to music – 5 minutes…you get the idea.  So I was able to nap, read, work, etc., as long as I could fit it into Nellie’s 5 minute ADD cycle.  At least she wasn’t running up and down the aisle banging seats…Cameron did that once when we tried to ‘put him out’ with Benadryl (apparently one of the side effects is extreme hyperactivity in children).  After I dropped Nellie off, I had a nice lunch with my travel partner and then proceeded to lose my wallet, right before the flight line-up started.  I ran the halls of the airport frantically looking for it, and ended up in the bathroom where I found a cleaning lady who seemed equally agitated and on her phone with airport security.  She spoke Spanish, and I spoke English, both of us manically trying to tell each other something.  I’m embarrassed to say that after one year of high school in Spain and another semester of college at a Spanish university, all I could manage to utter to bridge the communication gap was ‘walleta’?!  Fortunately, there were plenty of other women in the Miami airport bathroom who translated my mangled Spanish and the cleaning lady produced my wallet and I safely boarded the flight to Haiti with ALL of my belongings.  For those of you that don’t speak Spanish, FYI…walleta≠wallet. 

Arrival in Haiti...  Wow, what a difference a year makes!  The airport looked like an actual airport, pretty much all brand new.  The crashed plane was finally off the runway.  You could still see the tent cities on the far side of the airport fence, but they were better hidden this year than in previous years.  Although the airport was much improved, our driver was late.  In most places, waiting curbside at the airport is no big deal, but in Haiti, we were bombarded by packs of ‘drivers’ and what I not so fondly refer to as ‘the gauntlet’.  It’s hard to describe how exposed you feel when you’re overwhelmed with people shouting and pulling at you, and fifteen minutes of ‘no merci’s’ felt like a lifetime.  Fortunately, our driver did eventually show up, and the ride to our hotel took about a third of the time it usually does because of the road improvements.  The flowers are in bloom, the weather is gorgeous, and we arrived at our hotel to be greeted by some old friends for drinks and dinner. 

We stay at the same hotel every year.  During our first visit, it had just reopened after literally ‘pancaking’ during the earthquake and was still very much in the midst of rebuilding.  The hotel has made a lot of improvements and changes over the last three years, but the faces are always the same.  It’s strange how seeing the same waiter year after year brings comfort amid the chaos.  I watched a beautiful sunset over Port au Prince, enjoyed a delicious Creole buffet despite all the health warnings, and was bitten by at least three mosquitoes (thank goodness for malaria meds).  My room feels like a honeymoon suite, although the canopy over the bed is intended for keeping the bugs out and not the romance in.  I have satellite cable in the room, but a massive rainstorm wiped out my dream of watching Game of Thrones in Haiti.  I’ll have to catch up when I get back.

Tomorrow starts the real work...

February 17 - Day 4 in Haiti

Today was a much better day overall.  We got out to the factories earlier than usual, and so we were back at the hotel before rush hour.  It was a total relief for me to be able to avoid the street chaos.  It’s more difficult for me than my travel partners, who seem to view the experience more like an adventure.  For me, adventure means skiing, roller coaster riding, hiking, etc., not harrowing trips through the belly of Hell.  But they are much more well-traveled than me, especially among third world countries, although Haiti is the worst they’ve ever seen.  They are going to dinner outside the hotel compound but I’ve opted to stay back.  I’d rather eat alone or not eat at all before making a non-essential trip away from the hotel…too much adventure for one day!  I can only manage one roundtrip through traffic a day.  I have to admit that I will miss having a driver to chauffeur me around, but I definitely won’t miss the actual driving part. 

For the first time in four days I saw a pair of white people walking in the street.  They must have not gotten the UN memo.  It was such an odd sight that I tried to take a photo before I realized that my battery was plugged in back at the hotel.  Another odd thing that happened today was that I saw Haitian money for the first time.  Odd mostly because I’ve been here four days now.  I tried to change money in the US at the Bank of America and was denied, then tried again at the Miami Airport – denied again.  Apparently, the Haitian currency is so low and volatile that no one carries it. 

One bit of unusual excitement today…I was out on the hotel patio eating lunch when a string of journalist appeared following one of the Haitian presidential candidates.  You might have heard a bit about the election fiasco and run-off election…anyway, there is a two-way run-off about to occur between a 70 year old woman and a rock star.  I saw the woman – Mirlande Manigat.  Apparently our hotel is a hotspot for political press conferences.  We asked our Haitian waitress who she planned to vote for, to which she responded ‘oh, I don’t vote’.  She was totally nonchalant about it.  Apparently, the elections and government are so corrupt that she doesn’t even bother.   

One more day of factory visits before heading back home to the US on Saturday morning…

Day 4 - Feb 16

It was HOT here today…maybe not the best day to wear my heaviest long sleeve shirt.  Whatever temperature it is outside, add about 10-15 degrees inside of the factories.

So my strategy today was to focus on the positive, and for me that was the faces.   At first I felt like I needed to watch and absorb everything, but it was completely overwhelming for me.  I brought so many medications with me on the trip, but apparently the one I needed the most (and didn’t bring) was anti-anxiety meds.  Oh well…lesson learned.    My ‘positive’ strategy worked well until we hit Port Au Prince rush hour.  We were repeatedly stuck in areas where trucks were blocking the roads, and at one point I was relieved to see a police officer come out of nowhere to direct traffic after about 30 minutes of idling.  It seems amazing to me that the UN and other organizations bar their workers from walking on the street, while there’s an assumption of safety in an essentially parked car along the road.  The windows aren’t tinted, and so you feel more like a target in this big SUV than you would walking among the people.  I have yet to see one white person walking on the street, despite the fact that about three-quarters of the airplane to Haiti were white.   I have no idea where all of the relief workers are…maybe in the countryside?  Certainly not in Port Au Prince.

But it hasn’t been all bad.  One factory I went to is providing health care to workers onsite.  They have a full staff of nurses, and a doctor that comes in once a week.  They provide medications, sanitary items, prenatal vitamins, and other simple things that the workers would otherwise have to do without.  They provide a place for them to eat and subsidized food, clean water, and fans.  So in some cases (the good ones), the factories provide a place of respite for workers, and is a total contrast to life outside the factory walls.   

Thanks to everyone for all of the well wishes and messages of support.  They really helped me focus on the positive today so keep them coming.  My sister sent me off with a prayer and two angels (it was two, right Sarah?).  Maybe I’ve just imagined it was two because I don’t think one would do it at this point.  I have two days of factory visits left and then I’m off to the airport on Saturday morning.  The project I’m working on is supposed to potentially bring me back to Haiti again next year, so we'll have to see how it goes.  I also might do the same thing in Nicaragua in August, which I think would be a big step up from Haiti based on what I’ve seen here.

I have been taking lots of pictures and short videos, but forgot to bring the cord to download them to the computer.  I will post them to the blog after I get back to the US.