If you had told me a month ago that I would be going to a third-world country, I wouldn't have believed you. I was in the middle from the California coast to Charlotte, North Carolina, a modest move of 2,500 miles. I was tired, having rapidly closed my semester at CSUMB, and starting a new job at UNC Charlotte.
If you had told me that I would find something important for me personally in Haiti, especially Tovar and Milot, I would have had you hospitalized. I've seen the pictures of Haiti, and if you are reading this, you probably have, too. In the photos, it's dirty, and that's not wrong (especially Cap Haitien, aka Okap in Creole). The houses are dilapidated shacks, and they often are. There's little functioning economy and people just hope to scrape by, and that's true as well.
So why am I already trying to plan my next trip? I'm already thinking of times to visit Port au Prince; Adam told me about Grassroots United, a group that has a facility for volunteers working in Port au Prince; it's $15 a night, and you bring your own tent. They don't even have dorms, but they have wireless internet; can I just say that as a technologist I find that perfectly charming? And yes, yes, they have showers and potable water and security.
The answer is twofold: people and opportunity. Every travel blogger/voluntourist/etc. talks about the wonderful people they meet, which leads me to believe that the world is full of wonderful people. I do really like the Haitians I've met, but I won't go on about their generosity and hospitality, although they certainly have them in spades.
The people of Haiti are amazing, but still a mystery to me. What should be cognitive dissonance turns out to represent a precarious balance in a precarious situation, and how they do it is something that may take a lifetime to understand. Haitians are generally poor. They are used to seeing NGOs and voluntourists and aid workers and missionaries, and they are appreciative, but they are still poor. However, poverty does not equal despair; they're just as happy as Americans (if not more so, since we are a morose bunch). Poverty also does not equal shame, although they have a legitimate complaint (voiced loudly, but never violently) when an American takes a picture of, for example, an overloaded taptap. Poverty does not equal homogeneity; Haitians are as different from one another as Americans, although it seems that all of these people have pride in their history and country. I would say that the one universal theme that pervades all of the people we met is hope for the future. The Haitians don't want another handout; while they graciously accept the help of NGOs, missionaries, and others, they want to do it themselves.
There are no simple solutions to Haiti's problems. Creating a native economy is a challenge faced by other (and better organized) states, and we can't just try to replicate what India did; Haiti is its own country with its own history and culture. What we can do is what we're good at (as scientists), which is experimenting. We have many protocols in place to ensure that risk to persons is minimized, and we always ground ourselves in theories that predict positive outcomes. We know that Haiti is not a toy or piece of lab equipment, but without experimentation, we're unlikely to find something that works.
It's absolutely essential that this "we" include Haitians. American academia cannot just come in and say "this is how we will do it". I hope to create partnerships with Haitians, not just because hey, it's their country, but because I believe the following about working with and for Haitians: first, it's their culture, second, it's necessary to create sustainable models, and third, because I'm selfish. Yes, you read that right, I'm selfish. I want to get out of this more than I put in, which is one mantra of science. I want at least some of the knowledge they have, I want to learn about the alien world they inhabit between feudalism and postmodernity, and I want to be more than another helping hand, a do-gooder who doesn't leave behind a legacy. I don't care if my name is remembered, but I do want things that will last beyond my trips and beyond even my life.
It's rare that someone blogs about both Martin Buber and the criticality of small-business startups making profit, but I'm going to try. Buber was a German social philosopher whose work can be in part boiled down to the phrase, "all real life is meeting". What is important is interaction; without it, what would science be, and how could we communicate our findings? If we can make the right connections, we can see what can be done.
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