I have lost count of days. I have been here for nine or ten days. My world is very small: the compound, the hospital, a trip to the beach; I see the same people over and over except for maternity clients. It's always changing there except for two patients who need longer term care.
I wanted one post to be about beauty and the good things. Food is good, available, and expensive. A local chicken - read not imported (Poule Pays) costs as much as an organic, free range, grass fed chicken at Whole Foods. I guess the math is right for the local chicken is also all that. I've enjoyed the smell, taste, and color of local eggs: Orange yolks and grass taste. I spent the week-end with seafood of all kinds: oysters, fish, conch, fresh from the ocean. My special treat has been fruits: Mangoes fresh from the trees in the yard; mandarines in season; corrosol (soursop), caymans (cherimoya) from the neighbor's tree; and cayemite. If you can afford it there's food; good locally grown, most likely organic food.
Today, a dear friend noted an important analytical distinction. The earthquake affected the infrastructure of a number of cities and that impacted the economy of those places (read access to jobs primarily). The agricultural sector was not destroyed. It's somewhat absurd to see the aid food flooding the market. The problem is not lack of food. It's lack of money. Put people to work. It cannot be very difficult in cities full of rubble. Pay them enough to live. Pay them enough to support the local economy. Pay them enough to eat good local food.
I spent the week-end in a tiny beach hamlet. On Sunday, I saw old women coming out of churches wearing their Sunday best. I remember the style of clothes and their colors from my childhood: indigo, pale yellow, sky baby blue with rick rack and embroidered collars. They shuffled quietly and slowly in the afternoon sun. It occurs to me that they've been wearing similar clothes and shuffling in similar ways in those streets for perhaps centuries. Pockets of this little country are enshrouded in a time capsule; their pace slow; their mood enduring. People go on living around here. Haiti is not destroyed.
I wanted one post to be about beauty, lightness, and good things for there are good things.
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Thank you for the beautiful remarks and for your vision, Rose-May love. Its so very true that the embroidered collars, the caymans and the rhythms of daily life are the heartbeat and the love of living connect people and pump the blood without cessation. Silver kisses flittered over to you from Oakland, California.
ReplyDeleteThanks you for this.
ReplyDeleteI can actually picture it as I am reading this. The other day my brother, who settled in Ouanaminthe, a border town by the DR was telling me of his breakfast of hot chocolate made with locally grown cocoa and milk from area cows, broiled egg, and fruits. The whole meal was home delivered by various "pratik" (merchants). Every thing was organic. A luxury by US standard. Yet, quite common practice in rural areas. Time capsule indeed. You wanna live in Haiti? Al viv en deyò. If one have the guts to do so, one will not regret it. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe flip side though is that the population displacement caused by the earthquake may affect those time capsules. My brother told me that the town got an influx of earthquake victims and crime rates went up. There were kidnappings recently.
Rosemay, I am going to write a query to the Sun Magazine asking if they would consider an interview of you. I guess I should ask you first. Well would you be willing to do it? Do you have any ideas of specific Haiti and earthquake topics we might discuss?
ReplyDeleteTodd