Luna has her very own flight reservation!

But we know better than to think that getting this:

 into this:

will be easy.

If it seems ridiculous that the only reason we booked afternoon flights was to give ourselves ample time to put her in a cat carrier, you've obviously not met Luna.

What's Up

A random assortment of some of what's been up, anyway:

• On Friday, this happened: social movements throughout the country and across the Americas protested the 8th anniversary of the UN's military presence in Haiti. I meant to write about it, but:
• We spent the weekend alternately dealing with Ben's food poisoning and a serious cockroach invasion. Me: spraying noxious, cancer-inducing roach repellant at the kitchen; Cockroaches: dive bombing out of cracks between our kitchen cupboards, and worst of all, out of the cupboards themselves; Me: dry heaving over the toilet; Ben (with a fever and chills): "Honey, please let me help you!" etc...  
• Meanwhile, it's suddenly lay-naked-in-front-of-fan-and-try-not-to-move hot around here. In the space of a week, the weather has gone from hot (and humid, owing to daily downpours) to ho-oooooot (and dry, with no rain to cool things off in the afternoons).
• Yesterday evening, Ben boarded a (delayed) AA flight to visit his family, attend a workshop and a photography festival, go backpacking with my family, and take a bit of a Haiti breather.  He'll also be getting our bicycles, currently collecting cobwebs in his parents' garage, ready for our July island-hopping bicycle tour of St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica and Guadeloupe. 

 Smiling for the camera, but sad to say good-bye

• Then this morning, this happened: Luna brought me a rodent, which she cornered squeaking and squealing in various parts of the house. It's in my closet now, and I'm still trying to determine whether or not my pajamas can reasonably pass for clothes.
  

 Look how proud she is!

Sick Days

We've spent the past days nursing the vile colds bequeathed upon us by last week's inclement weather. Over the weekend, we went through more than 2 lbs of sitwon, Creole key limes, Ben let me cheat at Scrabble, and even Luna was well cared-for.

Hide 'n Seek Kitty

Around Here

It is getting dark now at 5:30. Even at summer solstice it is only light until 6:30 or so. Still, an hour makes such a difference in our hectic lives.

No matter how hard we try to create space, things never seem to slow down.

Today, Ben is off to the North for three days. He's taking pictures of agricultural work supported by Groundswell International. Check them out. We are increasingly critical - on our worst days acrimonious, even - of the international humanitarian aid and development world, but there are still plenty of organizations out there that humble and re-inspire us. Groundswell is one.

The manuscript for the book that I have spent the last four months helping to edit, research and fact-check is due on October 30th. Let's just say I'm a wee bit stressed out.

Thankfully, Saturday and the annual Artisanat en Fête provided a nice break from my computer and a chance for me to acquire yet more Haitian art (eeps).

Now that the mayor of Pétion-ville is repressively cracking down on street vendors, some of my favorite market ladies - think pumpkins, piles of gleaming shallots and vine-ripened tomatoes, sour oranges and bunches of chard - have been pushed from their usual spaces to a spot approximately 500 feet from our front door. Are we spoiled or what? 

Meanwhile, Luna's new favorite napping spot is among the bright orange impatiens that I planted last week. She spends her days looking like she's posing for a cat calender. It's seriously too cute.

Now, it's back to fact-checking I go!

Daily Minutae

Our weekdays have been replete with lotsa work and a steady stream of houseguests, not to mention gifts from Luna (on Friday alone: a snake, a mouse and a giant green lizard) which tend to necessitate a fair bit of chasing around the house.

Recently, Ben seems to be providing the entire city and its environs with composting worms. Today we went up to Kenscoff to deliver a batch of worms, pick wildflowers and visit J's fledgling strawberry farm. Who can't wait for December and strawberries (fertilized with compost à la Ben)? Me! Me!

Among other destinations, Ben's worms have also made their way to Cité Soleil -- to fertilize a Pax Christi urban gardening program. Oh, and remember the Kabrit? The Kabrit has also found a happy home in Cité Soleil:

(The banner above the bike reads "Another Haiti is Possible: look further")

Coming soon: Ben will be spending 2 weeks in southern France at a photography festival. And even sooner: We're hoping that we will dodge Tropical Storm Irene just like we did TS Emily. The National Hurricane Center advisory isn't looking too good for tomorrow. Boy, does hurricane season have us perpetually on edge around here.

Today we are also grieving the death of Ben's uncle Fred, who passed away yesterday. Fred Fay became quadriplegic in an accident at the age of 16 and was a leader in the Disability Rights Movement. A PBS documentary, A Life Worth Living, showcasing his life will air on October 27th. Fred's death has us thinking a lot about Martha today, too.

Where's Luna?

Luna was no-where to be found (possibly hiding under the flipcharts again?) when we left for the airport yesterday morning. See you in a month, you rascally kitty!

Luna is 2 for 2

We originally got Luna because she was such a cute and promising rat deterrent. When she was still a kitten she would hesitantly chase rats her same size around our yard. She's all grown up now and there are no rats.

But there are birds. Yesterday morning at 6:00 AM she brought a gold finch into our bedroom and let it go so that it could half fly around our room for her to chase. When I finally got a hold of the bird Luna jumped 3 feet in the air and grabbed it back out of my hand. This morning, I came home from running errands and found a huge dove dissected on our bedroom floor. I have to admit she's pretty good at hunting. I feel a little bit of pride mixed with disgust - probably how a parent feels when their child wins an MMA fight:

Home-eopathic Recipe

Makes:
1 cure for a cold, rainy, pre-Christmas-in-Haiti-without-my-family Sunday

Needed:
1 Ben
1 Luna
Homemade biscuits
1 jar of Ben's mom's blackberry jam
Christmas lights
Nirvana playlist
Wool socks
Picasa album of old, old photos from Laura

Instructions:
1. Mix the Ben with the Luna

2. Make the biscuits while wearing the socks

3. Top biscuits with the blackberry jam

4. Add the music, lights and old photos:


Top: Ben, Mom Depp, Tim, Caleb; Bottom: Caleb, Martha, Ben
5. Cheer up.

Luna is One

Luna's first birthday was sometime this month. Don't worry, we're not dorky enough to celebrate.

A year ago, we moved into this house and quickly discovered that the yard was overrun by rats. Seriously big ones. At the same time, MCC's cat Noche had a surprise litter of kittens and little Luna was the only survivor. Adamant non-pet-owners (we're busy, we travel a lot, we don't want the responsibility, etc, etc), we finally caved. This is what did it:

Well, her irresistible adorableness and the giant, gross rats.

Being that we're not super responsible cat parents, Luna was preggers by the time she was 5 months old. I maintain that the fact that there were no vets open for several months after the earthquake absolves us of some of the blame for this.

In May, she had FIVE kittens.

Luna's had a rough first year, what with getting pregnant, nursing 5 (and then 4) kittens while she was still a kitten herself and dealing with the trauma of us stealing her children to give them away. Then there was the rogue tomcat (baby daddy??) that was sneaking in and eating her food every night for months. We have finally resolved that situation and she is now approaching a healthy one-year-old-cat weight.

We have no rats, none of the geckos in our house have tails and, bonus for me, it's super cute to watch her cuddle up to Ben.

Latest

Latest amazing Haitian handicraft find: Papier-mâché zebra wearing an outfit.

Latest homecooked feast: Wheat tortillas, guacamole, mango salsa, red beans. 

Latest kitty drama: Poop on the spare mattress. 

Latest craft project: Newspaper pots for seedlings.

Latest garden woes: Blossom end rot and dead rosemary.

Latest hullabaloo: After some delay, the CEP (Provisional Electoral Council) finally announced the list of approved presidential candidates last night. Wyclef Jean was not among them.

- posted by Alexis from Ben's account (he didn't want to take credit for these pictures. Why ever not?)

Airsick

Created with 20,000 photographs and a haunting soundtrack, Airsick plays out like an unsettling dream. Photographer Lucas Oleniuk examines our addiction to fossil fuel - and its consequences. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/airsick

Airsick is exactly how I often feel breathing in the diesel smoke pouring from all of the cars and trucks here. Knowing that all of our electricity in Haiti comes from power plants that burn low grade diesel makes me question what development really looks like. Even my laptop runs on diesel here. (Diesel powers alternating current powers batteries powers inverter powers laptop powers me posting videos about pollution on my blog).

Speaking of oil, at 11:45 last night Luna ran into the house looking like one of those dead ducks from the BP oil spill. She must have chased something or been chased into a sewer. The sewer is where everybody here dumps their waste motor oil. We tried washing her and although the electricity wasn't on and we ran out of water, we were able to wash off about 50 percent of the oil (and everything else that you might find in a sewer in Port-Au-Prince). We decided that if she dies from licking the oil off, at least she'll cremate well. But seriously, it's disgusting. And there is no waste oil disposal system or recycling center so even the waste oil from NGOs doing environmental conservation will eventually end up in the sewers.

I've been working on an idea for a mango dryer that uses waste motor oil, but that's for another post. Meanwhile, we have oily paw prints everywhere and an oily cat that hates taking baths.

Awwww, four year anniversary family snapshot

What to Blog?

Today is the 6 month anniversary of the earthquake. I feel like I should have something insightful to write about the situation in Haiti, perhaps an advocacy piece that will provoke impassioned action on the part of all of you readers out there to change things for Haitians. My colleague at MCC's DC office wrote this article for the Third Way Cafe. It quotes me, from a letter I wrote to the LA Times last week (based somewhat loosely on this blogpost/tirade). My colleague at MCC's Ottawa Office took the same letter, improved upon it greatly and had me send it in to the Globe and Mail as an Op ed. So, I guess I feel like my words are out there. Sometimes I think there's only so much you can say and only so many times.

I'm not even sure if I'm going to read the articles that came up in my Haiti google alerts today. I opened the digest email, greeted by the following headlines: Six months after Haitian quake, many barriers to recovery; Half a year later, Haiti is still in need; Haiti Six Months After the Quake; Haiti recovery stalled by aid and land issues, etc.

I often feel guilty for writing blogposts about our cat, what we eat, hikes we take and weekend activities when six months ago today, it felt like the world had come to an end. For so many Haitians, the world is irrevocably changed. Basic, human rights are being violated on an unimaginable scale. So, when I get work emails on Friday night, I feel sorta guilty knowing that I will be spending the weekend making sauerkraut and watching soccer.

This is a line that we've had to draw. Knowing that we plan to live here for awhile yet, we have to nurture patience, creativity, emotional and spiritual well-being, friendships and love for this country, which we cannot do if we don't consciously set time aside to rest and to play. We're both blessed to have jobs that we are passionate about and that (usually) provide us with a sense of fulfillment. But, we also live here and for us, living is a choice that includes trying to experience Haiti on a level beyond what we can bring to or do for...

So, in order to work towards confronting the injustices faced by Haiti this week, the week of the 6 month anniversary of the earthquake, my weekend looked a lot like this:

Kittens

Kittens - Images by Ben Depp

Pictures of Luna and the Kits

Read Frank's entertaining account of the day the kittens were born (alright, of yesterday) and see photos (!!!) here: http://goatpath.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/breaking-news-luna-loses-weight-kittens-appear/#more-136

Lunababies!

Luna finally came through and delivered not two or three, but FIVE kittens. Naturally, she had them on top of the kitchen cabinets. She's been hanging out up there a lot, so this morning Ben made her a little nest with cardboard and a torn sheet. I guess that's all she needed because by the time we got home from work, she was nursing five black and white, squirmy little offspring (and looking quite exhausted).

I'm glad she had them before my trip to Canada on Thursday. I'll be gone for two weeks and by the time I get back, they will be SO CUTE. You'll have to ask Ben to take lots of pictures since I won't be here to nag him. Any care tips for newborn kittens (or nursing teenage-mom cats) he should know about?

Overdue for an Update

Mostly we've been posting pictures and video lately. Sometimes pictures speaker louder than words and also sometimes we're just too busy to update our blog.

What's keeping us so busy these days?

Classes have resumed at the SKDE seminary and thank God for Sharon because now that she and Bryan are living in Port-Au-Prince, she will be working with Nixon to create a better, more systematized curriculum for our social justice, human rights and advocacy classes. See Sharon's post about our first class since the earthquake.

MCC is moving forward with a well thought-out response to the earthquake that will include income generation to create sustainable livelihoods, projects to strengthen national agricultural production and others, mostly with a focus on decentralization. More on that and things Ben and I have been working on later.

An announcement by President Preval (being spread endlessly on the radio) that we should be expecting another earthquake. A month and a half ago, this unsubstantiated rumor would have had us sleeping in the driveway, which is testimony to how much more normal we are feeling. I was talking to my mom earlier this week and she told me that I sound like myself again. I guess most of our post-earthquake healing has happened so gradually - and less as an effort on our part than as a function of life simply going on - that we haven't even noticed it happen. Our life in Haiti will never be the same and in some ways, we'll never be the same either, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty now that I am well.

Another gas shortage. Remember this one? Once again, it's difficult to find out exactly why there's little gas to be had in Port-Au-Prince but it stands to reason that when all of the gas stations in the country are owned by a small, wealthy group of business owners and the government decides to try to lower the cost of gas so that more people can afford it, said business owners will strike back. This is neoliberal capitalism hard at work, folks.

Waiting for kittens. Every day we rush home to see if Luna has delivered... And every day her mid-section just looks a little bit fatter.

Seeing rubble move. The new hotel catty-corner to our house (we can actually see it through our window when we're lying in bed) is being demolished because it was damaged in the earthquake. In the more visible parts of the city, damaged buildings are being demolished - most by a few manual laborers with sledgehammers - and rubble is being cleared. An ugly thing happening is that both the government and private landowners are beginning to force displaced people to move from many of the camps that spontaneously sprung up in the days following the earthquake. What's being publicized is that with the rainy season beginning, the government and international community have set up five areas on the outskirts of the city and are giving people in IDP camps that are at high risk for flooding and landslides the option and cash incentives to move. What's not being publicized are the other, forcible evictions taking place all over Port-Au-Prince with no resettlement options available for people.

Lastly, The Christian Century published an interview with us that you can see here and Ben has updated the photo slideshow at the bottom of this page.

That's it for now.

Whatta Month!

So far my tranquil plans for December - meditative reflections on advent, watching the tomatoes and greens grow to the soundtrack of Handel's Messiah, a new flower bed (flowers only - no veggies allowed), Christmas baking, actually going to my yoga class in Pelerin, crafts and some romantic time in the mountains... all, of course, squeezed into our respective work schedules in Port-Au-Prince and the Central Plateau - have been upstaged by:

• a feral cat that broke into our house 3 nights in a row. The first time it attacked Luna IN OUR BED at 2:00 in the morning, resulting in cat sh** on our sheets, mosquito net and Ben's pillow.
  
• a week with stuffy, snotty all-consuming colds followed by:
  
• Ben's severe bout of dengue.
  
• the rats that have eaten most of the tomato, kale and mustard green seedlings. (Oh well, I lost my copy of Handel's Messiah anyway).
• fatigue as I try to work full-time, commute by tap tap, care for my sick husband, feed a kitten, feed myself (thankfully for him, Ben hasn't been real hungry this week), keep a litter box clean and water the seedlings that haven't been eaten by rats. Clearly I don't have what it takes to be anything more than one half of one couple with an equal household division of labor! My kudos to all of you amazing men and women out there that juggle so much more.
  

In spite of the madness, we have both been able to enjoy some pre-Christmas serenity through advent celebrations on hope, peace, joy and love with our MCC community and other friends. We managed to decorate our home with a too-expensive string of lights and a few DIY eucalyptus wreaths (turns out Ben is an amazing wreath-maker). Saturday I spent the day baking Christmas goodies with the Hoffmans while Ben lent moral support from the couch; Sunday I pulled out the trowel and got dirt under my nails while Ben lent moral support from the hammock.

And now, its time to fight the rush-hour masses for a bench seat on a tap tap.

Loony Luna

Um, what is that thing you're pointing at me?


A camera? Well, hello world!

Don't be fooled by my cuddly looks. I'm a ferocious puma. And I bite.

Okay, go away now.