Wyatt

A person is a product of her many years of experience.  She is 25, 15 and 5.  I am 24, 14 and 4.  Like it or not, your past is you.  It is not the only thing that is you, but you do not exist without your past.  

What about fictional characters?  We find them at a certain point in their life; all we know of them is what the author tells us about them; maybe that's all there is to them.  That one period of life that fits between the pages of a book.  But I would be willing to bet that our favorite characters have pasts as well.  Pasts lived by actual people in this world who inspired the authors.  Maybe the author writes this persons history, pages of material that never make it to the final cut but still shape the characters.  The author will some times let us in on the past, but in other occasions we are left guessing of the past of these characters.  How much of the author is expressed in his characters?  Assuming they are characters devoid of connection to reality (which seems terribly unlikely) where do they come from?

What about the horrendous acts they commit?  What about the acts displaying noble character?  What about their fears? Hopes? 

Where did Wyatt come from?  

Twenty

I am back in Searcy and it didn't take long for me to return to my normal routine.  I am sitting in the corner of Midnight Oil, in the chair which should have my name on it; glasses are cleaned, letters read, journal written in, coffee drank.  I am back in the usual, the normal, the life-as-I-knew-it ritual. I just realized I was too cold this morning to pray as I walked; I was too busy cursing the weather.  I had another epic dream last night involving a large mechanical dog which was terrorizing a town and I was determined to save the town; all he wanted was to lick my face though, then  he halted his rampage and became quite amiable.  These dreams are getting a little out of control.  All of this is good, and I enjoy it, but I feel that this mode is coming to an end.

Midnight Oil is not exactly the best place to write.  I knew that from the beginning but I wanted to give it a fair chance and so I have; I simply know too many people who come in at semi-regular intervals and I am to conscious of the social problems inherent in ignoring people who know you.  I want to ignore most and just write and read, but I am concerned about the consequences.  I need to find another option for writing.  Probably later in the day, probably the evening and definitely not here.  It's worse in the evening; then it's not just people I know, but a general explosion of activity; overriding any concentration.  What I need is Charlotte's where I am un-known and youngest patron by 30 years.

Also, I am getting fat.  No, nowhere near the 300 pounds as I once was, but I can feel in my body the weight compressing parts not compressed at the beginning of the semester, my knees hurt more often, and I feel lethargic often.  Also, I don't look as good in my work uniform or shirt and tie as once did.  I'm creeping on 200 pounds and I don't want to be there.

Thirdly, coffee costs.  Even if it's only a dollar a day.  'Nough said.

All of these restraints have given me an idea.  I want to write, I want to ride, and I want to save.  I think this calls for a tweak of my traditions.  I am young and flexible; though I have developed some old man routines.  I am always prepared for a change and the change of weather (if it ever gets nice again, I am afraid it will be cold for the rest of my life) and the need to change my routine has given me an opportunity to keep myself on my toes.  So here it goes:

Goals for Spring:
20 miles a day.
20 dollars (cash) a week.
20 pages a month.
20 pounds by Illinois.

I have done harder things in the past, but I have a severe lack of motivation and will power for some reason.  Anybody wanna make a bet, or make a challenge out of this?
  

I Could Dread My Hair Right Now, No Problem

Today was our last full day in Gonaives.  We will stay the night and wake up tomorrow some quick shots of preparation of oral re-hydration fluid, pack up, say our good byes and thank yous to Pacius' family and make way south.  Our first stop is Wanga Bay, the hotel where I was during the earth quake.  I'm nervous.  I have been joking about getting the fish at the hotel restaurant cause it was awesome, I may still but I am afraid of the emotions that will bring to the surface.

I have decided that instead of Arabic being my next language Kreyol will be.  I have already built quite a foundation and it would be silly not to profit from that.  The question is, how to go about that?  The best way is to be immersed in it, hands down.  So this is what I am thinking, after teaching in France, I would like to spend 6 months or so on Pacius' farm, or at the Catholic run "Hands Together" a reforestation project north of Gonaives. Judging by the fact that after two trips for a total of maybe 20 days I am already dreaming in Kreyol I could do a fair amount of work on it in 6 months.  I am not naive enough to forget that living in Haiti that long alone will be a wicked mental challenge in which to participate; but I think I could handle it.  France and Haiti are far from similar, but spending 7 to 9 months "alone" (I fully plan to expect to make friends) will help a fair amount in more alone time.  Don't ask about time frames, I don't have a clue, but it is the next step that seems to make the most sense.  Oh, also, living either at the farm or the reforestation place, I could learn some valuable farming techniques.

Dinner is served, but I would still like to talk more about the reforestation stuff, it was sweet, there was a baobab, or mapou in kreyol!!!

I Can See Clearly Now

The film crew had just finished the village scenes for the belated Cholera prevention video the day before.  They were currently being driven by their host to an unknown location some 6 miles outside of Gonaives.  As usual, it was nearly 85 degrees by 9 am and the sun was bright and had been awake for 3 hours.  They had taken to the habit of carrying a cooler full of soft drinks, water and ice in the bed along with camera equipment which included two camera bags, one large heavy duty tripod and smaller less substantial one which was often neglected by the second cameraman who preferred hand held shots for close ups and cover footage.  In the two camera bags were various chords, microphones, gaffers tape, light reflectors, dozens of extra batteries, scripts, props, logs, and many other items which had managed to work themselves into the bags such as toothbrushes, i.v. drips, sunflower seeds, tobacco pipes and a small bottle of clairin, which is a local moonshine created from sugar can, which the director was thankfully unaware of.  It took the edge of the work.  Also in the bed were John and Jake, their preferred location for different reasons.

                Jakes reasoning was that he could be comfortable in the states where he couldn’t ride in the bed of a truck.  He enjoyed the feel of the air rushing past him and feeling of freedom which was habitually denied him as both a resident of the United States and as a husband and father.  His was rebellion.  John, on the other hand, sat in the back because he didn’t want to be isolated from Haiti.  He didn’t like the sterile cab of the truck with the air conditioning, firmly closed windows and laboratorial discussions of the plight of the Haitians by a fat American and a Haitian with an even fatter pocket funded by Americans.  He wanted to be a part of the world he was “helping”.  Sure he wanted the rush of the wind, but he also wanted the smells, the sounds, grit of Haiti bombarding him. 

                They were moving more slowly now over the rock road, not gravel, but rocks, golf ball sized to bowling ball sized sand stone rocks left behind after all the topsoil had been depleted.  The small “candelabra” or cacti used for fencing around the village had become over grown in this desolate landscape, towering over the truck, threatening to reach into the truck bed and removed the passagers and video equipment bodily.  The city had given way to the country side, and only one other motor vehicle had greeted the 4x4 in 30 minute, 6 mile ride.  Houses were few and far between, people need land that can support them and this was not the place, and yet people were their final destination.

                These people lived on the edge of everything.  On the edge of Gonaives, on the edge of a vast barren landscape on the very edge of existences.  Every day for them was another day to fight for life.  Some had grown up there, some had married in to this landscape some had been forced here by an act of God.  Nearly 60 refugees from the earth quake in January of 2010 near Porte au Prince ended up in the near desert location.  The local congregation of the Church of Christ in a beautifully human display of hospitality welcomed their fellow Haitians into their homes and lives.  Some had returned to Porte au Prince to pick up the pieces, some had, like one woman interviewed, remained because she had lost everything in Porte au Prince and had no pieces to pick up. 

                Upon arriving at the Bonlieu, the site of the housing project funded by the Goniaves based NGO H___, they saw a dozen men surrounding two earth bag houses which will eventually house the preacher and one refugee family consisting of one woman and her 6 children; the husband and youngest child had been killed in their crumbling concrete house.  The earth bag houses are bags filled with dirt dug out to create the foundation, stacked overlapping with barbwire laid between each layer of the house and rebar reinforcements.  Earth bag construction was the most recent fad at that time.  The film crew got down and began doing interviews with the preacher of the Bonlieu congregation and the foreman of the site, an illiterate but strong man with leadership abilities and a member of the church.  Also interviewed were three widows-by-earthquake.  The plan for this particular interview session was to create a promotional video to show rich white donors a sob story in order to bring in more funds.  It’s successful, but feels manipulative.

                After the interviews were done, the intrepid film crew decided to climb the hill-mountain to get a feel for the local terrain which they could already tell was much different than Gonaives.  John and Jake and Oneal made it half way up and decided they had had enough of the torturous razor sharp rocks and the dozen different species of cacti.  James was followed all the way to the summit by malnourished children with bare feet. 

                John returned to the H___ headquarters and decided to write this in his blog in a narrative form in order to practice writing.  Sincere apologies are warranted to his readers.  He would also like it to be known that that night the amigos went for a stroll through post dark Gonaives and met a number of interesting, lovely, inspiring, mysterious, lively, invigorating  Haitians who had not a bad thing to say about Americans, hated the American government, wanted Aristide to return and were not opposed to giving some blans a sip of the strongest stuff you can drink in Haiti: Clairin. 

NOTE:  There is no clairin in the camera bags, that was an embellishment.  Also, done filming Cholera video, information gathering meeting tomorrow with reforestation group, I am really excited about that..   

Goats with Weeds Tied to Them Are Pregnant and Can't Be Eaten or Mwen Gen Gep La Nan Pantalon Mwen

Today was a much more exciting day than normal.  It started off two incredible discoveries.  We had just rolled up to the shooting site (which we are done using as of today, tomorrow we have 2 clinic scenes to shoot and a promo for earth bag houses, neither of which can be done at Poteau) when I saw a goat with a lead tied around its' neck at the other end of which was connected a branch from a tree or a weed of some sort.  I went on a fact finding mission and asked several of the Haitians what it meant.  I dragged one guy across the road to find out and he eventually didn't have a chance to answer because a woman in the compound to which the soon to be Momma went answered.  All the while, I have a very strange sensation in my pants, I thought my cell phone was going off.  I then realized I didn't have my cell phone on me.  Then my cell phone began ringing in my waist line and in my other pocket.  I had something alive in my pants.  I did indeed wait to find out why this goat was dragging a branch around, trying to remember the number for the Gonaives chapter of PETA.  I walked back to the other compound, moved swiftly to the latrine which I left moments earlier and drew worried questions from the other blans present (Cholera scare) to which I explained there was something in my pants.  I entered the latrine and quickly undid my pants and much to my relief and to the relief of the WASP!!!! in my pants.  I undid my button, unzipped slightly and saw it fly up to the roof of the latrine and I very punctually left the latrine.

Second great story.  Jake and I went off to film some cut aways (footage of a woman cooking, a kid my own age pretending to have diarrhea running to the bathroom, etc. to cover over dialogue) when we wondered into a field and talked with some men plowing with bulls.  The diarrhea kid was our "in" to that interaction which we would have other wise missed.  He is 23, in america we could have been friends.  In Haiti, if I were Haitian, we could have been friends.  As is, I am a strange alien plopped down to "help" a source of help and food and money.  Life on the other side of the fence isn't always greener, but it always an accident of birth away.  If my skin were black...

I want to fill up the rest of this post with some photos.  We are blessed with lots of talent and the following photos are thanks to James Rucker:

 On Site

This is what I do.

Village children and adults semi-interested in the proceedings.

Nandsie (pronounced Nanzy, long A) started something very bad.  She counts to 10 now very well in english,.

Excitment? Joy? Pain? Incredulity?  At least it's not a wasp in the pants.

Final result!

Recovering What Was Left or Leaving More Behind

Jake and James and Oneal and I are being housed at the Haitian Christian Development Project’s headquarters in Gonaives.  The building is a two story concrete structure which has been in the works for some time and was finally completed with the influx of funds after the earthquake.  I have yet to be up to the second floor, so I’ll leave that up to your imagination.  The first floor consists of one large conference room, a bedroom, maybe half the size of the conference room, a dining room and a bathroom.  Consistent hot water with good pressure await us every night after filming and ease us into day ever morning.  We are fed with a hearty Haitian dinner of rice and sauce every night and eat something very similar (we’re not sure it isn’t the same) on site every afternoon. 

It’s hard to realize I am in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Getting on site has been a struggle so far this week, but it has been better than last year because we are staying the same compound with Pacius so don’t need to wait for him to pick us up, we have been able to get on site around 830 or 9.   The site is a small neighborhood called Poteau about 10 minutes from the HCDP headquarters.  This community is open to us because Pacius is the preacher at the congregation near the families.

Writing about the actual shooting seems tedious to me, but I will do it so you may know what it is I am doing.  A typical scene is divided into several different takes of one or two at the very most 3 completely untrained actors reciting lines.  Pacius has freshly translated the English manuscript and fed the lines to our actors and Oneal interrupts this entire process by changing things, or wanting more action, or for the actors to “fe naturel”.  Haitian weather is also set out to disrupt us with wind, untimely sun and shadow and roaming animals. 

Children clamor for attention, older girls sometimes women fawn over Jake’s and my long hair.  You are pretty they say, can I have your hair?   I hit it off with two of the women actors while they weren’t on camera and they told me their real names, not just their stage names.  Marie (stage name) is Serameme and Natalie, well she actually Natalie.  Serameme has 5 children, Natalie 3.  Natalie’s youngest fell and broke her neck.  She is completely paralyzed.  I think she will have a short life.

During lunch today Oneal brought up the presidential election.  All the male actors unanimously supported the lady candidate.  Why? Because she’s a woman.  The countries greatest fear with her is that she is too closely tied to the South American dictator Chavez.   The other candidate, the musician from America wants to hand over governorship to the Dominican Republic.  Which is the lesser of these two evils?  Pacius said that as a Haitian he wanted him to come back, but not now.  Aristide had had good ideas but lost it when he came into power.  “He will come back in a couple weeks.”   That is big news and I am happy to hear a Haitian speak fondly of Aristide. 

During the same conversation, Pacius mentioned the current president’s fiscal policy of spending millions of dollars of vodoun temples.  The three largest are in Gonaives, all thanks to Rene Preval.  We may get a chance to go see one of these Hounfours.  Also, there is a Houngan (a traditional healer, or Vodoun priest) who lives just next door to the church building.  Pacius also informed us of the Boka, or “witch doctor” who was converted and is now a member of the church.  Jake and I hope to interview this reformed Boka on Sunday.  Word from Pacius, btw, Zombies are real…

                It seems like my Kreyol is getting better.  I don’t know how much new stuff I am learning but I am surely understanding more.  I am building upon last years knowledge gained.  I’ve been able to do some more direct interaction with actors and actually stood in Pacius on occasion. 

It should be weird to be here.  I expect surrealism and find nothing but reality.  Pure dusty sunny Haitian reality.  Sitting in the shade of a banana tree should feel strange for me.  Communicating in a language I have never studied should not be so ok with me.  The food situation still feels uncomfortable to me, blans and adult men served first, women and children second and third and then only left overs.  We all follow the leader though and eat only half of our plate and give the rest to an adult to hand to the children. 

Children tell me they are hungry and ask me for food.  They laugh when I tell them I am hungry too and that I have no food.  They laugh and point at my belly.  I am glad they never saw my 280 pound belly.  I may try and explain that poverty looks different in the US.  Not to the kids, they are enjoying the attention.  Maybe to an adult.

We arrived safely in Porte au Prince and were quickly shuffled through customs under the weary eyes of officials too busy to really pay attention to the new arrivals.  Leaving the airport, we were met with the usual, “Zami mwen yo, do you need a taxi?”  Zami mwen, my friend, do you need me to carry your bags?”  The inherent assumption being that he was not offering free of charge impregnated the interactions.  With everyone so convivial, almost family, why not ask for money.  Surely you wouldn’t approach a stranger that way.

                Side stepping and brushing off several would be relatives with a brisk “non, merci” and an averted glance I was able to navigate through my new extended family.  One persistent tonton, uncle,  though, accosted me using our friendship.  “Zami mwen, take my taxi.  I will take you anywhere,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.  Stonewalled by tonton I was forced to work my tongue around the broad strokes of the African nuanced French.  I looked tonton in the eye and said firmly, “Nou cheche zami mwen.”  Without missing a beat, tonton said, “If your friend doesn’t come, I will be your friend.”

                I couldn’t be sure, but as we were landing I thought I saw tents but surely, I had thought, those just covering stuff, protection from the sun and wind.  The irony didn’t hit me immediately.  My rosy reasoning was befouled shortly after leaving the airport.  Surrounding the road which takes you from PAP to the main north south highway are hundreds or thousands of tents and tarps.  Side by side, overlapping, one within another.  Women, unashamed, bathed in the open.  Cash crop can sugar grew in the alleys created by so much canvas.  No room for subsistence farming here, money is the only commodity that works in such conditions.  Haitians are strong people, they eek out a living in a country becoming quickly on large Cite Soleil. 

                Cholera camps, a gruesome reminder of the most recent crises to hit Haiti, and a reminder to wash my hands, have popped up all around PAP.  Convalescent homes.  Hospice care.  Pacius, out faithful guide, host and friend points out the hill side tent city, much larger than the one before and the mass grave where the dead were taken after the earthquake.  Thousands of black crosses and a giant purple ribbon descending down a denuded hill with a large white cross in the center mark the paupers grave of so many poor Haitians.  Most cemeteries are bright, white and orange and yellow above ground sepulchers.  This is dirt.  This man took dead bodies from PAP to this grave in the very truck we were in.  All of this is a vivid reminder or the day that thousands died. 

                Little more than a year ago, Haiti was rocked by a massive earthquake.  Buildings still lay in ruins.

                Little more than a year ago, I was witness to Haiti being rocked by a massive earthquake.  Parts of me still lay in ruins.

                My emotions gathered steam as we approached the seaside resort in which I was during the quake.  They climaxed as we passed and continued our trek north.  I was left breathless as I listened to Pacius and Oneal speak words I could only think or feel.

                As time passes and slowly heals or provides rest by amnesia, so too our journey north did.  Cars and camions and bicycles and pedestrians vie for position all over the road and around it.  Honking swerving , but never break slamming.  Another reason Haitians are tougher than the blancs, a Kreyol term used for all none black, non-haitians, even mullatoes, mixed race Haitians, are placed in the same category.   Foreigner and so much more can be heard in that word through the echo of time.  Decades of white European oppression of black African slaves.

                Pacius laughs nervously, congratulatory for the kid on the bike who barely missed the front right bumper of Pacius’ 4x4.

                We arrived in Gonaives to “RaRa” bands and raucous Mardi Gras dancing.  Feasted like royalty.  Ruth brought us water and cold cokes.  She’s pretty.  Probably too young.  But pretty.  

God is Love

Burning with an unfamiliar passion, he stood up, walked out of the classroom where he spent so many hours listening to meaningless, mind numbing numbers and capitalist propaganda.  He had been on Facebook and Twitter like most good university students, following the blogo-sphere like a wizened old teacher, more connected than his one track, old as dirt, status-quo keeping professor.  The collective knowledge of so many  students being a call and response.  A certain liturgy of modern excess and convenience; the back and forth, the name calling, the approval and disapproval, love and hate.  Text and bit and bytes swirling around spreading life and death.  "Likes" and "follows", modern day "hurumphs" in an updated and (post)modern town hall meeting connecting the entire campus.  Bringing in comments from the peanut gallery, connecting the world to a small conservative Christian college.  The largest town hall meeting ever, converging on a hot button issue.  Erupting.

A small, "zine", independently created, he didn't know by whom, had appeared under his door.  Ten or so pages in length, five eight and a half by eleven pieces of paper, printed upon, folded down the center and stapled.  Stories from various anonymous authors of their lives as homosexuals at that campus.  Their moving through a life wholly other.  Interactions with therapists to find an answer for what they had been found to be... themselves.  Encouraged to flee from sin, emaciating themselves of their very being.

 He didn't know that to be true, but he felt for them.  As a member of another closeted community at this Christian college, a minority, who lack a belief in God, he felt the sting of their marginalization and desired to stand with them.  He heard the words of Jesus, whom he greatly admired, speaking of love of neighbor; imagined his footsteps among the least of these; he heard the angry voices of the status-quo keeping, though plausibly well intended Pharisees.  He heard the voice of Martin Luther King Jr., speaking, calling out loudly, speaking truth to the powers that be.  The voice of the prophets rang out in his ears, numbed and buzzing with hope for justice to roll on like a river.  And also peace like a river.  Shots would not be fired, but tempers would flare.  May peace like a river flow as well.

Touched, stabbed, prodded, called and promised by a still small voice; follow me. He stood up from his desk, closed his computer and walked out.

He walked towards the front lawn, steps short and nervous, unsure of what this irrational mind was doing.  Why are you doing this?  You left your computer, your books, possibly your degree in that room.  What about the money?  You've invested so much in this, don't throw it away for these queers.  You don't even believe in God, this isn't your fight.  You don't even know if there is a "gay gene", maybe it is a choice?

He stopped dead in his tracks.  What the hell are you doing?  He turned around, started walking back to class.  You just went to the bathroom, that's all.  He stopped again; no.  Someone needs to speak.  I'm tired of not using my voice.  He turned back around, and walked.  Resolutely, firmly, long strides.  He moved towards the front lawn.

Reaching the front lawn, he moved quickly to the center of the large grassy area.  It was too early for the usual  Frisbee throwers to have gathered.  He was alone.  He stood like a fool; dead center, staring at his feet.  Love queer, love straight, love all. If God is love, we are far from it.  If God is love, we don't know God.  He mulled these words over in his head.  Love queer, love straight, love all.  He said to himself slowly, working his lips with no sound coming out.  "If God is love, we are far from it." Whispering.  "If God is love, we don't know God."  Mumbling.

He looked up.  No one was watching him.

"Love queer, love straight, love all."
"If God is love, we are far from it."
"If God is love."
"We do not know God."
"Love queer, love straight, love all!"
"If God is love, we are far from it!"
If God is love, we do not know God!"

Keeping Up with the Jones'

"I have jus' one mo'e story, and then i'll sto'.  I promise.  I's a story the first church acts, the Jones and the Smif.  The Smif are slave person, and he goe' to church wif all he has, one bag, wif all he has.  All his food, there was nofin' more, tha's all he had.  And the smif, he give' all he had, tha' was all th'food he has. The smif' they bring all they has to church, in one bag, and give' to everyone.  And the rest the church they knew that, it was normal.  One day, the Jones, he tells the Smif they can' be there no more.  And the Smif, he leaves depressed.  But the smif' he loves the Jones.

Sid sat there, on the futon, speaking life giving and taking words, clearance pre-popped popcorn grasped in his right fingers, atop his large, frozen food fed belly.  Motioning loudly with his left hand, emphasizing points impossible to reproduce in text.  I sat, transfixed, watching his moist red Santa Claus lips working over his poor, broken uneducated better understanding english, through,his white and gray salt and pepper beard.  Tears proceeding from too long dry eyes.  Witnessing Saint Sid of everywhere.

"Jones', he ask' the Smif to be his servant' and he is very welfy.  And Smif' work' for the Jones good.  He work' hard and lon' for the Jones.  The Jones want to getting rid of some of hi' business, and he see' the smif, and says to him, he says him: Smif, you's a good working, I wan' a give you job, cause you's chrishin.  And the Smif and the Jone's they come together and cry and weep togever cause that's the way the first church was.  It wasn' want we talk about, these churche' on the corner, Race street, or any other street.  They had to love, and they did.  Tha's what the church was.

I jus' have to love people.... I jus' have to love people."

Sid had spoken, to gestured, indicating his conclusion.  He moved his hand up to his mouth, deposited the interrupted pre-popped popcorn into the waiting opening.  He reached to his right and retrieved the bag, digging out more, and moving it to the other side of his body.

"I jus' have to love people."