Weaving and Unweaving

Last week, Gabriela opted for a hair cut over new braids. We love looking at her gorgeous face. And we're seeing more Haitians here styling their hair o'natural (yes and fyi, wearing black hair naturally still requires lots of time, often more time, styling). There also lots of Haitian women getting weaves (hair or simulated hair) sewn onto their own hair, a style that was invented in Eygptians culture in 3400 BC. Caring for hair and doing each other's hair is a very important part of Haitian culture and the weekly schedule of Haitian life. I want to value the ritual and the comradery of doing hair. But it's not just the hair products, expensive and strong smelling that make me feel baffled about how to assist Gabriela with her hair. It's that many of the products help the hair to be straighter, more like...well more like the black people's hair you see on tv or in magazines (fashion or other)...more like white people hair (or at least the ideal of it). What would it take for my hair to be very very tightly curly and black? What would it be like if hotels had bottles of oils instead of shampoo and conditioner that are most often drying to most hair and especially black hair? What would it be like if most fashion models had lovely black skin, nappy hair, and shapely figures?

Niko says Niko...at long last.

x-rated peanut butter

This wasn't staged.

Wedded

Gabriela decided that this is where she wants to get married! While we wait for that event she'll settle for having her 6th birthday here. As for me, i am forever wedded to the idea that it's possible to sew together the rich and the poor (materially rich, materially poor). So it drives me crazy to hang out places like this except that they have these beautiful lounge chair and the view of upper and lower Port au Prince is so fabulous. Gabriela wants to get married here and why shouldn't every girl get what she wants!?? This sentiment is prominent enough in my first culture that even me (who often gets made fun of for my cluelessness about popculture) knows about it. By being me and raising Gabriela, I'm most likely raising her with this sentiment as if it's the only way. The truth is I don't know if this sentiment exists in Haitian culture or any other culture. Haitian culture might teach that girls should always have something to wish for, that the most important thing about your wedding is what you feed your guests or that if your relative works at a fancy hotel then he or she should obviously get you a deal to get married there. Seriously 5 years later and I still am only momentarily able to imagine thinking outside of my shoes and into someone else's, into Haitian culture. However I'm raising a daughter and now also a son who have less patience, less acceptance, lesser ability to share, greater pickiness, greater ability to use electronics, lesser chance of dehydration, lesser respect for authority, lesser tolerance for boredom and not being the center of attention, greater sense of entitlement, lesser resilience, less tolerance for disorder and decreased ability to make something out of nothing than the average kid around here.
Hmmmm. I'm wedded to the idea of sewing together the rich and the poor. I might not be engaged to the know how yet.

I bought 3 lightbulbs at a store in Petionville. The people at the store sent me a couple blocks lower to get a key cut for our household help (which is a fancy phrase meaning the woman who folds our clothes, many for the first time they've been folded). The key cutting place what would a back alley except there were just more houses directly behind the front houses. The key cutter had 45cm square of the table to put his key-making machine and a clamping device. The rest of his table was being used to make cherry juice to go with the rice, beans, and chicken that was being prepared in front of a adjacent table and assembled on it. That was fun to watch while waiting for my key to be cut. This is handy if a restaurant springs up in your front or back yard and you need a job! But it also made me think what good training this was for people McDonald's workers and that made me feel sad. So even more interesting was a pivot away watching the key guy operate his key-cutting machine using only his hands.
Watching him made me wonder what corners we could cut in North America to save electricity (and maybe even gain some muscles and improve our dexterity and feed our ingenuity at the same time). While you are thinking about that, I'll be sleeping but I'll write more on this tomorrow. e
E

Wawa's House

Wawa's house (tent) has cable tv!

Seeking Security

Yesterday I went here.

It's the Marche Fer (Iron Market) a huge historic market and architectural landmark in lower Port au Prince. Built in 1891, it's been restored twice most recently January 2011 with $12 million from Digicel. It IS as beautiful as it looks on the picture.
I saw many regular market things there but also turtles (swimming in a eastern) Haitian grown cinnamon, and play pots which is what I went to the market to get for Gabriela's play kitchen which so far is a clean and flat place to play in the yard : )
On the way home we went lower down to buy some bicycles for the kids (mine and the friends who come over). Niko and I have been scoping out bikes for two weeks mostly in the large supermarkets. Basic bike with training wheels for just over $100. I can walk to one supermarket but instead I took a Moto almost to the port of Port au Prince to choose from the lovely display of bicycles that I'm convinced are stolen from Miami and loaded on to boats headed here. When i asked the sellers if they think they are stolen they showed no offense but merely started asking each other if they thought the bikes are stolen. While they did that, I tried to assess the environmental impact of buying a potentially stolen bike on the street vs buying a new one in a fancy store. I'm not convinced I'm making the best environmental choice here however I do LOVE buying from regular folks. And today my higher need and desire was to seek security. When we got to the Iron Market, my Mototaxi driver said. Don't get off here which I was already feeling. For me, it seems there are two ways to find security here 1. Be black 2. Get to know people and places across all social classes although the economic poorer ones are most likely to rescue you when you need it as they seem to have more time for that sort of thing. Despite being told not to get off the Moto, I felt at least emotionally safer at the Marche Fer than when I used to have meetings with the mayor or when I shop at the big stores. I asked Maxo, my mototaxi driver if he would come into the market with me and he did!

Luckily the bicycle sellers saved me from overthinking everything by offering me free marejuana, which is the word these sellers used to describe the skill and art of tying things up or onto something, in this case, the bikes onto the back of Maxo's moto. This made me laugh for a hour because hanging with these sellers for while I honestly just think they are into marejuana and not it's smokable cousin. Besides anyone would be hopeless at marejuana if they were good at marijuana. Even I know that.
Niko was thrilled with the Radioflyer tricycle that I came home with. His new mantra is: "me mototaxi driver" a welcome change from "play hockey Haiti!!!! Mama?!!!"

Sent from my iPhone

Mare-juana

"Mare" is the Creole word for "to tie".

bel frez

Seeking beauty
I loved my life in Haiti.  Three sunny years in the Artibonite learning Creole, eating local rice and planting trees often simultaneously with climbing mountains.  Then two years in Port au Prince teaching everything I learned from the countryside and my friends there, swimming with Gabriela, learning Haitian folklore dance, climbing every mountain I could get to, and eating copious amounts of watercress.  It did not take me five years to find the most beautiful places and people in Haiti.  And then I continued to visit them and bring beautiful things home to adorn my house and/or make our mouths water. 
I have friends who live in concrete houses in the suburbs of Port au Prince.  I know people who drive their cars everywhere including spending hours in traffic.  I know people who write reports and lead evaluations.  
I worked at a school in Carrefour (which is where gravity and rain beaches the garbage of Port au Prince that doesn't make it into a dumpster) for several months.  I have been to and through Cite Soleil.  I have waited more then an hour in the back of a taptap...I've even fallen out of a taptap!    But this afternoon picking these strawberries made me wonder if It's okay well if it's good enough to go around seeking beauty.  I am a little jealous of people who can work in ugly environments and even get there by car.  Will I learn this someday?  I am between wanting everyone to seek beauty like I do and wanting to be more functional in environments that lack or appear to lack the elements of beauty that I seek.  In the meantime I've decided that it is good enough to seek beauty- as long as it's on foot no, no as long as I'm supporting local businesses- okay okay seriously I think it is is good enough to seek beauty for itself period.   Seeking beauty means that you have hope of finding it and that you are up for the challenge of defining it.  Seeking beauty.

Sent from my iPhone

Carnival holiday- an afternoon in Wynne forest

Collecting a few things from the forest floor for playing kitchen.

Wawa's house (tent) has cable tv.

Wapunzel

Hi from Haiti. Early last week, we moved into the cutest little cabin in Port au Prince proper. Our cabin is in a group of cabins above a totally forested ravin nestled up behind the Prime Minister's office (with a post earthquake camp in it's front yard). Once we moved in here, Gabriela opted for staying home in the cabin, often watching Tangled on the iPad rather than galavant around with Niko and I on essential errands and visiting friends. This morning when Niko and I went out (to buy a toilet seat) Gabou wanted to paint the walls while singing. This idea was too cute for me to resist.

The Rapunzel bit also reflects our desires to participate fully in Haitian life and while also wanting/needing to design personal space within this beautiful landscape.

??? Moulin sou Mer beach, Haiti

Painting