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!

Ten Things to Love, October Edition

Lest you think I am the eternally cheerful optimist that Ben claims I am, you should know I came this close to drafting a Ten Things to Hate list today. From my sprained ankle to Martelly's plan to reinstate the army to my theory that the NatCom (the end result of privatizing the state telecommunications company) is sabotaging Digicel, our current cell phone provider, so that almost every call I try to make these days gets dropped... it would have taken me far less time to spew onto screen the myraid of things currently upsetting or aggravating me. It seemed like a better exercise in positivity to come up with Ten Things to Love. Right now I am loving:

1. Snuggly kitten on rainy days.
2. Snuggly husband on rainy nights. (I recently told a friend that I have come to measure weather by a cuddle index. October, finally, brings temps that do not send us to far and opposite ends of our bed.)
3. Marigolds, recently planted in garden.
4. Pumpkin milkshakes. (Oven roast a pumpkin. Add to hand-crank blender with vanilla ice cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice and cardamom. Crank until arm is sore. Savor. Of course if you don't live in Haiti, you can use a regular blender and enjoy your milkshake without a sore arm.)
5. 572. The first emergency response system dedicated to sexual violence in Haiti has recently been launched.
6. Kurt and Wilda's wedding on Saturday.
7. My sister's hilarious chronicles of maintaining a backyard farm, though most of her time seems to be spent admiring adorable bunny rabbits: carolinabackyardfarm.blogspot.com.
8. Fresh local carrot juice, discovered recently in a restaurant near Champs Mars.
9. Today, Columbus Day, has the web busting with thoughtful posts and commentary acknowledging the pitfalls of HISstory. My personal favorites are the e-card that says, "Let's celebrate Columbus Day by walking into someone's house and telling them we live there now" and the #OccupyColumbusDay twitter hashtag.
10. Other Worlds most recent publication, "Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives." Downloadable here.

Port Salut, Numerically Speaking

• 6 hours to procure 1 rental car 
• 1 alarm clock set for 4 AM 
• 2 companions
• 9 hours of driving
• 5 gas stations ($100 worth of gas)
• 1 hour of waiting for anti-MINUSTAH protest to begin
• 3 hours of interviewing, recording, watching & listening 
• 1 phone stolen
• 300 or so protestors
• 10 PNH officers
• 1 accidental dropping of a canister of tear gas
• 1 speech given by notorious drug trafficker and advocate for reviving the Haitian army (who also happens to be a current Senator)
• 1 lovely lunch by the sea
• 1 rental car return deadline missed
• 1 $50 late fee
• 1 day of unsuccessfully trying to make sense of hidden agendas and complex political motives  
• 1 aching head

Tonight,

I am parked in front of my laptop making up for 3 glorious internet-free days.

Hoping to skype with my globe-trotting husband, who by last accounts has bruised feet from walking around Paris, a stomach full of filet mignon, rabbit, cheese and wine; and is now camping with gypsies in Perpignan.

Tonight I am also:

• Unpacking my smelly, damp weekend bag -- a result of hastily packing my still-wet bathing suit and towel this morning on Ile à Vache (while my fears of missing the morning's motor boat taxi run were being realized), said wet bathing suit and towel permeating the rest of the bag on an hour-long sailboat ride back to the mainland (main island?), and finally, wet bathing suit, towel and rest of damp bag fermenting on top of a bus for the 6 hours it took me to get back to Port-au-Prince.
• Applying aloe.
• Alternately charging my laptop and plugging in the internet, since I don’t have enough power to do both.
• Scrounging up dinner that doesn’t require cooking, since I’m out of propane.
• Cursing my anti-paper napkin snobbery, since I’m out of toilet paper.
• Changing sheets and preparing guest room for tomorrow’s arrival of our fifth house-guest in a month.
• Going to bed early since (a) I am exhausted by the day's travels, and (b) I will spend tomorrow morning translating for an MCC group visiting TIMKATEC (Timoun Kap Teke Chans), a homeless shelter and trade school for youth, followed by a working lunch with a friend that I need to interview and then two back-to-back meetings downtown. At some point I'll also need to get our propane bottle filled. Oh, and buy toilet paper. 

Why do we leave everything to the last minute?

On today's to do list:

• Clean and pack away our camping gear, which we sadly do not have opportunity to use in Haiti
• Clean and pack away Ben's mountain bike
• Cut Ben's hair
• Clean downstairs bathroom, post-haircut
• Laundry, 3 loads
• Drop our little diesel Rabbit off at my parent's house
• Final internet downloads before we leave the land of fast internet
• Take one last hike in the woods
• Scour attic for Ben's health insurance information
• Call my grandmother
• Make lots of other calls
• Pack
• Weigh suitcases
• Re-pack
• Print flight itineraries 
• Rest up for our 4 AM departure for the airport. Who ever thought 5:50 AM flights were a good idea?

We both fly out tomorrow, but Ben is leaving me to hand-carry motorcycle tires and smuggle a kombucha scoby into Haiti on my own. He's headed to the Dominican Republic for a 2-day photo assignment for American Airlines' in-flight magazine. I'll be cuddling with Luna and cursing mosquitoes and our slow internet connection by tomorrow afternoon.

Pictures of our fun vacation month coming soon...

Fèt Drapo

It's Flag Day, y'all! Last year I celebrated with Bryan and Sharon by paying some beautiful pink birds a visit. On the way out to Trou Caiman we chanced across several parades (including a boyscout march. Scouts in Creole are "scoots," which is just so endearing).

Unfortunately, there's no day off or parades for me this year. While I intend to write a blogpost soon about our upcoming plans, in the meantime I'll just tell you that May 31st is my last day at MCC. Suffice it to say, I have a lot to do between now and then. Today, for example: I spent the first part of the morning giving a really fun workshop on Canadian intervention in Haiti and advocacy for a visiting MCC group. The second part of the morning was my last conference call with MCC's advocacy offices (I think I just shed a little tear - what an amazing group they've been to work with!) and at 3:00 I have another conference call with some other people to talk about something else. Meanwhile, I am trying to deal with the invasion of mosquitoes into our home. We always have skeeters, but lately they've been unbearable. The strategy:

1. Spray myself all over with Herbal Armor (it's one of the most effective DEET-free repellents we've found).
2. Drink a prestige to compensate for blood loss. It's a holiday, after all.
3. Find and empty all sources of standing water in our lakou. This will include cutting open some of the tires stacked outside for the planned expansion of our tire garden. Turns out, tires make great places for pesky mosquito larvae to grow...
4. Burn eucalyptus leaves, incense etc (Mosquitoes hate the smoke and smell. We like the smell).
5. Mix up a mosquito deterrent of thyme, lemongrass, lavender and eucalyptus oils and put it all over the house. (I use this book all the time and would highly recommend it if you're into natural remedies.)
6. Take my 3:00 call in bed, under the mosquito net.

We've been asked a lot about malaria. We don't take anti-malaria prophylaxis because we would rather take a course of chloroquine when we get sick than be on an antibiotics full-time, which kills all the friendly bacteria in our bodies. Malaria mosquitoes (fancy name, Anopheles) are really only out at night, so we just sleep under a net. However, the mosquitoes that give us dengue (which we've both had here and it totally sucks) are daytime fliers... thus the concerted effort to repel them.

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.

10 Things to Love

1. The beginning of mandarin, orange and grapefruit season.
2. We've had electricity for 2 1/2 days straight.
3. MCC office has finally been repainted - in color. My space is yellow!
4. Hurricane Season is almost officially over.
5. The flamboyant tree on our street is blooming.
6. The SIZE of the pumpkins we bought in Furcy last week.
7. Leah Gordon's new book, "Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti."
8. It's been cold enough to cuddle this week.
9. Maurice Sixto audio stories in Creole.
10. Cilantro is sprouting in our garden.
    

10 Things We Did This Weekend

1. Slept in.
2. Went on a walk.
3. Listened to NPR podcasts.
4. Made chana masaledar.
5. Read the May 2010 issue of The Sun. It has a beautiful cover of carrots being harvested + a great interview with Sandor Katz on fermented foods.
6. Went to "Sinema Anba Zetwal" - Cinema under the Stars - to see our friends' awesome racine band and Clowns Without Borders. There were also break dancers, mimes, fire jugglers, PSA's and other terrific musical acts.
7. Attended Mirlonde's wedding (deserving of a full post if I get the time).
8. Had brunch with 13 old and new friends squeezed into our house.
9. Family cuddle time, which was Luna's favorite part of the weekend.
10. Finished taking in a pair of Ben's shorts that were falling off of him. He clearly needs more chana masaledar!

What's Wrong with Wyclef

 Journalists wait for Haiti's provisional electoral council (CEP) to announce which candidates qualify to run in the November election.

Wyclef Jean (formerly of the Fugees for those of you who don't know your hip-hop) made quite the splash last month when he announced that he would be running for president in Haiti's November elections. On Friday, Haiti's provisional electoral council (the CEP) released its list of approved presidential candidates. Rumor has it that Wyclef will be appealing the CEP's decision to disqualify him, in spite of another rumor that the ruling cannot be appealed.

You're entitled to your own opinion (everyone's got 'em!), but here's how I see and hear it:

1. In this interview Wyclef actually says, Haitians "don't need a local president." I disagree, based not only on my own view of the multinationals-that-are-taking-over-the-world, of economics and of development, but because the Haitians that I work with and for whom I have the utmost respect, believe that the only way to ensure a sustainable future for Haiti is to build a local, bottom-up economy. This is a basic tenant of sustainable development the world-over. My colleagues believe that the solutions Wyclef champions for Haiti's development will only further establish the current social and economic system which so clearly does not work for most Haitians. I'm not saying that any of the other candidates will be different, but at least most of them would give lip service to local agricultural development.

2. Wyclef does not meet the constitutional requirements to be Haiti's next president, so his posing as a candidate does not reflect much respect for the Haitian constitution. Not such a great attribute in a president.

3. It's true that having Wyclef as a candidate has put an international spotlight on the elections, but it bothers me that the story has become about Wyclef. There's a whole historically oppressed and conflicted nation of people here that will be electing themselves a new president in November. No-one cares unless a famous hip-hop artist who happens to have been born in Haiti decides to run. And when he is no longer a candidate, there's no more story. Are we really that star-struck?

4. When news articles refer to the massive amounts of support that Wyclef has generated in Port-Au-Prince, I am skeptical. It's true that the mean age in Haiti is 20.5, that many young people do view him as the only  "new" option on the political horizon and only option for changing the status quo. But it's also true that most of his supporters (and all of that oft-refered to graffiti now spoiling every wall in the city) has been paid for by Wyclef. I know this - we have a friend here who is a political mobilizer.

5. Wyclef's foundation, Yele Haiti, has done some great work in Haiti. Yele has also been accused of fraud and corruption time and again. Here the New York Times levels some pretty serious allegations against Wyclef's philanthropic work.

Now you have my two (or five) cents.

This week

• Lots of heavy rains. Hot days, cool nights. (Comparatively) lots of electricity.
• We have been too busy to blog. We have also been too busy to cook, clean or hang out. Ben's had a ton of video editing to do (his least favorite kind of work) and I've been working with KPL on a proposal for the Canadian Food Grains Bank, connecting with PAPDA, planning the MCC advocacy delegation that will be here in almost a week and lots of other stuff. Busyness seems to come and go in waves for us, but July has been a tidal wave of activity that shows no signs of letting up. 
• Luna has been acting crazy - total wild cat. I think it has to do with the full moon. Luna, moon. Makes sense, right?
• We found out that Karen and Abe will finally be visiting us. Hurrah for amazing sisters and bearded brother-in-laws. October could not possibly come soon enough!
• I found the most amazing sandals I've ever owned in the street market on Delmas 33. Should I post a picture? I want to. If someone will allay the guilt I feel about putting a picture of my new used shoes on my blog about Haiti, I'll upload one.
• Ben made hot sauce with peppers from the Indian Firecracker pepper bush in our yard that is now almost as tall as I am.
• I've been getting nervous about the end of the month, which is also the end of my security as an MCC service worker. Even though Ben and I never made a salary with MCC, we haven't had any financial worries for the past two years - everything from our rent to our food to FULL health insurance has been covered for us. But since I'm switching to a local hire position, I will be making less than was provided for me as a service worker. We've never been in it for the money and I truly do love my job, so I'm trusting that it will all work out.
• Ben bought the XL200 from MCC. He is now the proud owner of his very own motorcycle.
• Starting tomorrow we'll be dog sitting again for F&J. I'm not sure if we mentioned anything about our first Olie-sitting experience, but because it resulted in 5 AM wake-ups, puppy poop on our floor and a very traumatized Luna, we're going to stay at their house this time. Good thing he's cute!

Why I am in Canada

It's not just to

• see tulips and daffodils blooming
  
• eat sushi
• eat Lebanese
• eat Indian
• eat strawberries
  
• visit a bike-friendly city with a functioning bus system
  
• go to a thrift store
• buy maple syrup
• attend question period
  
• plug in my MP3 player and walk for MILES going nowhere on SIDEWALKS in complete anonymity (ie. with no one yelling "blan," asking me for money or trying to grab my a@$)
• be cold enough to wear a sweater
• drink fair trade coffee
  
• stay at the YMCA and wake up to the fire alarm at midnight then spend half an hour outside until the firemen say it's safe to go back in - all the while imagining my computer, all of my work notes and my fabulous thrift-store finds going up in flames
• meet great other MCCers.
  

Although most of those would be reason enough to be in Canada, I'm actually here ("here" being Ottawa) to give a presentation on MCC's work in Haiti to the Canadian Parliament. Our Ottawa office is hosting a breakfast reception tomorrow morning to which 21 members of the Canadian government have RSVP'd. Give me 8 hours and I will be a nervous wreck. In the next couple of days, I am also supposed to be meeting with representatives from the Canadian International Development Agency (Canada's equivalent to USAID) and the Department of Foreign Affairs, though it's unclear whether or not those meetings will actually take place.

I've already had the privilege of talking to several Mennonite congregations about what MCC is doing in Haiti and from here I'll be headed to the Toronto-Kitchener-Waterloo areas to do more speaking.

As you can probably gather from the list above (and from my recent hey,Ifeellikeatrainwreck post), it's been nice to be out of Haiti for a little while. Unfortunately, I kind of suck at traveling without Ben. Everything fun just seems like it would only be funner if he were here, too. I've been pretty good at getting out - mostly going on looong walks - when I haven't been working, but I'm glad that I don't have to travel alone much as part of my job.

Why I have not made dinner

Ben will be home from a 3-day trip - to the North, to film 2 microcredit program graduations for Fonkoze - in about half an hour. If I were the person that I wish I could be, I would have dinner on. But since the 1/2 pumpkin in my fridge that I was planning to transform into soup turned out to be moldy because we've had almost no electricity and I have no creative energy (or any kind of energy, for that matter), dinner is not on.

I am tired.

- tired of trying to function in a language that I can't fully speak.
- tired of being stared at and/or talked about everywhere I go.
- tired when I have to communicate with a Haitian coworker that I like and respect and am supposed to work closely with, but with whom I JUST. CAN'T. communicate well.
- tired when the market ladies that I always buy produce from ask me for food distribution cards and here I thought that since I buy my food in the street market and speak enough Creole to shop in the street market and have lived in Haiti for almost two years, these women view me as a person and not another potential white-skinned benefactor.
- tired of being hot when it's still only April.
- tired of my hand-washed clothes being stretched out, of having to wear mosquito repellent at home and of dealing with tadpoles in our water cistern, cockroaches, ant nests and an infestation of baby tarantulas.
- tired of my neighbors dropping by with no warning.
- tired of feeling guilty for all of the above (and for not being a kinder, more compassionate and more patient person).
- tired of people thinking that I am some kind of hero for living and working here.

I grew up in Cameroon [grew up = 18 years]. I have spent 20 out of my 27 years being stared at. I KNOW all about different cultural approaches to money and all about living in a relational culture and a tropical culture and yet it still reduces me to tears when someone in the market asks me for money. I still forget to ask my coworkers everyday how their families are and sometimes forgot to greet every single one of them individually. I still would rather come home at the end of day, lock my gate and not visit with my neighbors. I have not cooked dinner - because cooking dinner requires arguing over prices in the market (something that I usually love to do) in the hot sun and making something from scratch (which I also usually love to do) by lamplight. Most days right now, I have almost no patience and even less energy.

Ben doesn't care that I haven't made dinner. Here's to an amazing, supportive husband who doesn't expect me to have cooked for him when he comes home from a 3-day trip and without whom living in Haiti (or anywhere else!) would be much, much harder.

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.

New Things

Lots of changes around here. Not only am I still settling into my new job, which by the way I absolutely love, but we're also enjoying all sorts of other new things:

1. New House
Pictures coming soon...

2. New MCCers
September brought more diversity to our MCC team here with Joel and Rachel Colbourne-Hoffman. Joel will be working at RNDDH, one of MCC's human rights partner organizations. Rachel, who is Australian and wowing us with her awesome accent and Aussie slang, will be working part-time at RNDDH and part-time in my former position at POHDH.

3. New Niko
Congratulations to Matt, Esther and Gabriela De Groot - Van Geest for a new addition to their family! Most of those congratulations, though, go to Esther who gave birth at home over the weekend to 9-lb Niko Dieufèl. (Dieufèl means "God made him" in Kreyol). If you think you're tough, read Esther's blogpost on The Birth and think again.

Confession Time

June is *finally* over. This week, as we resume our less calculated and much easier plasticized life, we can buy things like dish soap and cleaner and yogurt and granola again. Oh, the relief! But, that's not to say that a month of attempting to forgo plastic hasn't made for some lasting change: we are more conscious of our choices than we used to be. Trying to avoid all things plastic, we've had to look for creative alternatives to some of our usual purchases and it turns out some of those make a lot of sense. And, I've had to get over my discomfort with insisting on no plastic. It's become kind of automatic. I just hope that the girls at Epi-Dor - where we buy bread and eat sandwiches several times a week - find it endearing rather than extremely annoying.

So here's the final count of the plastic we did end up purchasing in June, mostly inadvertantly but sometimes not (as previously stated, we weren't planning to go without drinking water all month... or, apparently, sour cream) :

9 or so culligan lids (to be honest, I stopped keeping track)
1 bottle of bleach
1 bottle of laundry detergent
1 plastic baggie
1 jar lid (peanuts)
1 baguette bag
1 bag of flour
The ends of Ben's new used shoelaces
2 packages of crackers
5 plastic bags
plastic container of cheese (in very misleading cardboard packaging)
1 plastic twistie-tie
1 straw
2 sets of plastic silverware
1 container of sour cream
plastic-wrapped green peppers
1 package of pita bread

Crazy, right? I'm asking myself how we managed to purchase that much plastic while we were intentionally trying NOT to. One of these days I hope to get around to a thoughtful analysis of the global effects of our plastic consumption (so, in case you're still trying to understand why we would take on this crazy experiment, check back soon).

Looking forward to

1. Three more weeks with Tim and Andrew.

2. Planting the cilantro seeds they brought and hoping rainy season humidity will help them germinate. With a steady supply of cilantro I could probably live in Haiti indefinitely. As it is, we'll have to see...

3. Cinnamon rolls from the bakery in Fermanthe. Saturday!

4. A Sunday boat trip with Fritz the Rastafarian to the Iles des Arcadins. These little islands off the Cote des Arcadins are supposed to have some of the best snorkeling in Haiti.

5. 3 days in Desarmes next week, planned of course so that we'll be there on Friday, market day, and I can do two of my favorite things of all time: buy fruits and vegetables in the market and EAT them.

6. Vacation!! We're taking the first week in June off to do some sightseeing/beachlounging with our guests: Aux Cayes, Port Salut, here we come!

Recent highlights and lowlights*

Note: activities are not listed in order of importance or level of enjoyment.

Ben:
- Filming Lisa Simpson in the Central Plateau. I'm not making this up. Lisa Simpson's voice is a donor for the Grameen Foundation. Last week she and GF president and CEO visited Fonkoze clients in Boukan Kare. Ben (along with fellow MCCer Josh) is working on a short documentary film of their trip for fundraising purposes.
- Watching the biodynamic garden he planted behind the MCC office become a biodynamic JUNGLE. Beware of the unrestrained pumpkin vine.
- Broken boots and chacos in the SAME WEEK. He's practically barefoot now. Dad, send ShoeGOO.
- Being the proud new owner of a Trek road bike from the 1980's, purchased on the street in Saint Mark. Also, getting bicycle tires and parts from home last week (Thanks T and A!)

Lexi:
- A bout of something that seemed an awful lot like giardia
- Gorgeous albeit rainy weekend backpacking trip to Seguin. I'll post photos as soon as I can retrieve them from the depths of my husband's photo archive. Anyone who has ever asked Ben for a photo knows what I'm talking about...
- Transitioning into a new job! By August I will be the policy analyst and advocacy worker for MCC Haiti. I'm very excited.**
- Watching my sunflowers and nasturtiums bloom.
- An amazing package from our moms and Karen: tea! trail mix! lavender Dr. Bronner's soap, rice paper, funnies clipped from the Charlotte Observer and more!
- Taking T and Ben with me to yoga. This, thankfully, turned out to be a highlight
- Re-experiencing the beauty and challenges of Haiti through the eyes of our visitors

T and A (Ben's brother and nephew aka our current month-long house-guests):
- Sleeping on our floor and washing our dishes (despite our disdain for food-for-work programs, this is working out quite nicely)
- Actually not sleeping on our floor, but in a hammock under the stars on our lovely porch (T)
- In the middle of the night: Barking dogs and the church across the valley with the insanely loud sound system (lowlight, not highlight.) As a matter of fact, said church is producing some eardrum popping sound as I write this at 11:15 PM.
- Helping to vaccinate 300 goats in Boukan Kare and practicing Kreyol with the CLM case managers
- The incredible mountainous view from our hike to Seguin
- Playing ping-pong (A)
- Sorting TB samples at the Gheskio Clinic for two days (T)



* inspired by my sister's "things we love about our new ap't" blogpost. If you're ever bored reading our blog, skip on over to hers. It's much funnier.


** more on my new job coming soon.

You know it's Christmas time in Port-Au-Prince when...

1. Some of the water trucks that play a synthesized version of the Titanic theme song now play a synthesized medley of Jingle Bells, We Wish you a Merry Christmas and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
2. It's apparently cold enough for used-clothing vendors on the street to replace tank-tops with jackets. (To be fair, I have worn a cardigan a few times recently).
3. There is a GIANT inflatable Santa Claus on the roof of the Total station in Petion-Ville.
4. You can buy Christmas trees (read: tree branches painted white and secured into milk powder cans) on the side of Avenue John Brown.
5. The larger supermarkets have set up real fake Christmas trees.
   
6. Crime rates go up, especially pickpocketing and petty theft.
7. Colored lights are everywhere, including our porch as supplied by our landlord.
   
8. The fancy shops in Petion-Ville have Christmas-themed window displays.
9. The expats with real salaries are preparing to leave for the holidays.
   
10. Intricate luminaries made with colored paper are for sale on Bourdon. Vendors light them up at night and the street looks magical.
    

20 of our favorite things

So, the deal on our amazing apartment fell through - the landlord decided that we should sign a two year lease and pay in full, up front. That, in addition to our foiled plans for the week has left us feeling pretty bummed out about Haiti. Someone helpfully suggested that we make a list of the things we LIKE so far about being here and we thought we should share what we came up with:

1. that people greet each another with a kiss on the cheek
2. avocados
3. the murals and advertisements painted on walls all over Port-au-Prince
4. tap-taps (we promise to post pictures soon)
5. water trucks that play a synthesized version of the Titanic theme song from speakers mounted on the roof. Also with horns that sound like fake police sirens.
6. the French bakery up the street
   
7. Haitian hot chocolate - made with dark, bitter, locally produced chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, nutmeg and lemon peel
   
8. mountains
9. beaches
   
10. honking the horn. Maybe it's a function of having learned to drive in Cameroon, but I LOVE being able to honk the truck horn with no restraint as I squeeze between two vehicles on a road clearly not designed for multiple lanes
11. KPL
    
12. shopping in crowded street markets
13. mayi moule (so much like grits!)
14. the MCC library (read: hundreds of books that we can check out for free)
15. riding a dirt bike in the city
16. that Kreyol is written completely phonetically
17. the tree on the road in Petionville with faces carved into its trunk
18. Wyclef Jean's song "President" from the Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101 album
19. oil drums recycled into metal sculptures
20. spicy peanut butter