NGO Economy in Haiti

I’m trying to understand how a country rebuilds itself when the actors that claim to be contributing to the reconstruction of homes and infrastructure, provision of health and éducation, security, social and business enterprise, and production of domestic products and livelihoods, only invest and purchase goods and services from private, often élite and foreign businesses ? A country with (some estimâtes) 70% unemployment (which may include the massive informal economy – e.g. odd jobs, shoe repair, selling street food, sex work, contraband) may have diffculties finding public revenue to put back into its own recovery. Instead, many professional jobs are to foreign workers (like a reverse Dubai labour migration flow) who don’t always pay taxes due to the nature of the « volunteerism » sector. It’s well known that UN technicrats get paid bloated « stipends » or perdiems that can be extended in contracts for months, if not years. But even the modest expat NGO worker can receive as much as the highest paid Haitian staff in an organization. Although not a handsome rémunération, it can still pay the bills, so that you do not have to starve to survive, that your food budget isn’t put all towards housing or utilities. And whatever surplus exists is easily used for entertainment or travel.

If there is a Haitian working class, it’s not as if there are huge left-overs to put back into the country’s development, through such mechanisms as luxury taxes. The répétition of digging one’s own grave, amounts to little hope in long-term solutions and folks want escapism in any way possible. Liquor, for instance, is subsidized, so that it is affordable to a wider majority ; whereas food prices are ridiculously high. No wonder the major advertisements are for whisky, mobile phone service, and beach parties, as opposed to Home Depot.

We know Haiti’s one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual income of about $11 billion -- this may not reflect the downfall in the economy after the earthquake. (This clearly cannot compare to US Senate’s récent passing of a $600+ billion price tag for 2011-2012 military budget.) Haiti can only continue to be dépendent on other countries: mostly US for its free market wheeling-and-dealing, Canada for its large humanitarian spending, (2nd after Afghanistan), and Chinese and Korean télécommunications investment. But again, the conditions that créate this dependency need to be eradicated, with revitalized efforts to emphasise its domestic development.

Perhaps protect its agriculture and livestock for one, so that people can fucking eat. What’s the point of growing your own shit if US eggs, Costa Rican pineapple, Israeli pickles and nuts, MONSANTO seeds and fertilizer, flood the market and cost half of what’s yours ? And how can Haiti afford to pay for $5-6/gallon of petrol when there is no public transportation and the roads are jammed with NGO cars or tap-taps ? Transportation of everything through the shoddy road system into the inner parts of the country, make it difficult to meet delivery times or get to domestic markets.

At least its remittances account for almost 20% of the GDP and twice the earnings from exports (CIA 2011). But this hardly goes into widespread infrastructure development, --rather only to keep family members afloat.

And we can look to how the international finance vultures, the IMF and World Bank, have used the devastating disasters as an opportunity to shore up more debts on Haiti. Before the earthquake, Haiti received debt forgiveness for over $1 billion through Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, and another $400 million was cancelled by donor countries in 2010 – levelling its balance. So it’s revolting that the new Mickey Mouse President is in discussion and already agreeing to new loans, when maybe the issue is how is its annual budget (largely from foreign aid) being spent ?

Right, so I’m not convinced of the renewal of the mandate for the CIRH to rebuild Haiti, (http://haitianpost.com/2011/07/23/haiti-la-commission-de-reconstruction-prolongee). Which essentially, continues the flow of (and governance by) NGOs, albeit through a convoluted registry system, despite having virtually no solid needs analysis for the kinds of NGOs/experts/workers for which to appeal. Nor is it just to sit, arms crossed, while an inept head of state listens to the same business and International Finance Institution cronies, without any real forums for Haitian civil society to stake their claims. Instead, where is the leveraging and solidifying of Haitian or quartier-par-quartier community organizations, non-profits and coopératives to refresh the antiquated notions of réhabilitation and reconstruction ? How can I place myself in a system where I am not perpetuating the immense inequalities and injustices, bending over for the donors’ dollar, and not putting it back into the same malevolent private industries that have ravaged the country for the past few centuries?

Expats - Part I

It’s rather ironic to talk to some of the expat colleagues, on the very anniversary of the earthquake, about what they see as injustices. We had a small gathering amongst the coordinators of all the projects, Haitians and expats alike, around our pristine, reverable palace, by the pool, gorging on grilled pork, stuffed aubergines, bacon-pecan-crusted potato salad, crevettes, saucisson, olives, too much wine, rum and béer, and a beetroot chocolaté gâteau. Not only did most expats not attempt to incorporate our Haitian friends in the discussions or joviality, but later they accused us of not knowing the local situation and how it is to live in want.

The expats’ -- maybe just to chalk it up to a select group of québécois expats, most of whom are on their first mission or work expérience abroad -- idea of want is to live sans internet and all the amenities they consider « normal » for a few days, as they have to make the transition to another résidence. The move has been one of many difficult negotiations : for the proprietor to finish all the réhabilitation work, thereby probably exploiting a labour force during the holiday season, in order to have hot showers, functioning electricity, gorgeously-made furniture procured, kitchen in function. The proprietor, of course, has many justifiable reasons for delays, in terms of obtaining permits and other bureaucratic necessities to do the work, as well as many excuses, invoking concerns of security from récent violent political manifestations (even tho there were none for the last month). Point is, there are reasons for delays, and why things don’t go so smoothly in Port-au-Prince.

But I find it hard to digest, at this dinner, when talking amonst our Haitian staff who participated in our fete, to find out that they do not have TV, radio, internet, running water, many friends nearby or with free time, access to alcohol to wash away their already congested malaise with the situation in Haiti . This is normal hère. So to impose any other perspective is completely luxurious and irrelevant. Instead, when telling aforementioned expat malakas, that they will be without internet or a few amenities for 1 or 2 days, I enter angry conflicts claiming how unfair it is, how they could possibly live like « nuns » ?

How they could possibly reflect on such a day of immense dévastation and incompréhensible human suffering, that their wants outweigh the dignity and essential needs of every fucking person around them. When just 50 feet away are tent cities, where people are forced to eek by, contining to do so one year after the earthquake. This disconnect and « otherness » is too sickening to describe. So don’t blame me if I don’t regularly partake in their célébrations and social activities, in a country that I can’t help think deserves sober commitment, gratitude, and opportunities upon which to learn more from folks who have come to know profoundly about life, death and aspiration, plus des autres places I’ve been fortunate enough to go.

Henceforth, I feel quite lost and disillusioned in terms of the fuckwits that we keep recruiting ; is it part of some sick québécois nationalist joke ? Why send people with no previous project management expérience to do the jobs of Haitians ? Why assert such rhetoric that we are in collaboration and capacity-building partnerships with our Cite Soleil comrades (true, we do have more established liasions and histories within our projects than some of the other foreign NGOs) when we turn around to burn our beneficiaries, through lack of communication, lack of trust, lack of consulation, lack of empathy.

Or am I just imagining such ego-centricism ? Even if my French is not perfect, I know an asshole when I see one.

So yeah, I am blown away that even though I had another violent argument with a lush, even in front of my Director General, that the favor goes to the megalomaniac, whinging blan -- that their needs are ultimately superior than every bloody person I see and meet during my day. These kinds of disparities, discrimination, ségrégation, subjugation, patriarchical attitudes, etc etc etc, that one sees in Haiti are at the very frontlines -- made more visible hère -- of the kinds we witness and absorb in our every day lives in other parts, perhaps more privileged regions of the Western Hemisphere.

I cannot write enough, or sufficiently express the rage I have, within this context…but hopefully this bequeaths some sort of knowledge that can transcend my anger into discussion, dissémination and action!

Premiers jours

Our business is treating the poorest of the sick. So when it rains, we have a lot of business. That’s because a huge portion of the sicknesses, like acute respiratory infection, diarrhea and fever of unknown origin, are coming from lots of damp, lots of standing water (which breeds mosquitoes), and inadequate living conditions overall. When you look at this pathology, you wonder what prevents folks here in Haiti from having solid shelters and functioning water/drainage systems. Even before the earthquake. But it’s quite clear, in-your-face, that the earthquake exacerbated, exponentially, the realities of poverty, bringing with it crises-level health cases.

Initial impressions of Port-au-Prince are confusing, especially when I am trying to formulate them in my foggy, coerced French. There are many similarities to Sri Lanka, the streams of people in every direction, small-scale vendors crowding the sidelines to earn a meager living, the random gestures, daily actions, and deeply scarred looks in people’s eyes that suggest that every breath and movement is for sheer survival. The earthquake certainly thrust together everyone but the uber-mega-nauseatingly rich. Yet you can still see class distinctions within the refugee population. Perhaps by those folks better dressed, or being able to send their children to school instead of fetching water, or seeing some women care for their hair and makeup, or braiding their girls’ hair with intricate patterns of bows and plastic clips, or men wearing freshly pressed suits when going to church. But why bother grooming at all?

To hold onto their dignity.

Which is continually eroding even after the earthquake. Not that over 200 years of occupation, internal conflict, really shitty governments (consorting with our own shitty governments) and absolute destitution hadn’t already kept the country and its people from catching a break. But somehow, after everything impoverished Haitians have been through, and knowing the unimaginably vast destruction of the earthquake, it is the continuation of the horror stories, maybe that are not visible in the media, that make this place even more difficult to work in and understand. It is these horror stories that really urge me to seek out or latch onto any behvioural nuance that suggests people are trying to make it better for themselves, and say ‘fuck off’ to the various international actors and corrupt government leeches, which take advantage of the plight of poverty to attain power and political ends.

So when I hear other NGO actors complain that Haitian authorities or health agents or other focal points are “difficult” to work with, I wonder if it isn’t really instead the presence of a boatload of foreign workers? The neo-colonial aspects of this kind of NGO work, indeed, has followed me, even been amplified. First, I must live in an immaculate villa with pristine pool overlooking the destitution below. I can’t complain, of course it’s comfortable, but I wonder how this separation and detachment is doing any good at understanding the needs just outside our compound. Our team consists of amazing people, all with good intentions, but for some this is their first experience working abroad and maybe they are already caught up in the privileged lifestyles, the ability to vacation, have bbqs, acquire cirrhosis of the liver, with beaucoup de disposable money. Of course, for security reasons (rampant attacks, thefts, rapes, kidnappings of Haitians and NGO workers) we abide by curfew laws and lock ourselves away after working hours. We must leave Cite Soleil by 330pm to avoid interceptions with gangs. But this quarantined lifestyle puts us in a position to look the other way, ignore extreme desperate requests for help (such as by panhandling children) and maybe not take back what we do in the field into our own personal lives.

With this, I have a problem. I am fresh-faced, eager and ready to attend to whatever is needed. And I know my limitations and privilege, as someone coming from the Miami area – a place already with some disconnect, or blind-sightedness to the plights and turmoil of Haiti. I know I cannot understand fully the degradation and continual hopelessness, nor the conditions of extreme poverty. I can only listen and hope to integrate some demands into our work, as a medical NGO worker, striving to provide primary healthcare services, with focuses on maternal/child health, HIV treatment and malnutrition, in an already overlooked part of Port-au-Prince --- the slums of Cite Soleil. Yet I still yearn for that connection outside my imposed palace walls. Maybe it is easier to be a “blan” man, with more mobility to ask these questions and manoevre through the city, maybe without as much confrontation by Haitian men?

Some initial observations include the immense strength and ability to survive by folks in Port-au-Prince. On my first day, I saw a girl barely over 12 carrying a huge oil barrel on her head. Even if it was empty, I have no idea how she could carry it. And the young boy, during school hours, fetching water from the public water pump. And the women cautiously entering the public showers, which are situated in the middle of a round-about intersection, immediately in front of a massive tent city existing in a public square, of sorts. These folks could be anyone that we know, if we were hit by an enormous quake, with 95% of the buildings crumbling and land-sliding down on top of each other. What would we do? Would we be able to survive in the amazingly strong way that Port-au-Prince folks have? Would we be able to have the same smiles, dancing and gyrating lasciviously to techno-ized Creole music at the public beaches, create magnificent art to sell in between all the small vendors, donkeys and chaos? Would we have the capacity to look after our neighbour and see them as comrades in this struggle?

So, indeed, these first days, there is a lot to adjust to, on top of struggling to work completely in French, but the most difficult thing is integrating again into the expat lifestyle with all its contradictions, privileges, and disconnect. But also I am persevering, knowing that we are providing essential medical services and that we have good relations with the folks we are serving.

Will keep sending my thoughts, as things evolve…

comme ca...in the Western Sahara

Hola companeros -

Greetings from the Sahara!

To give you an update about the recent transitions in my life:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175241&l=23089&id=690080320

…After nearly 3 years of what felt like being embedded in hypocrisy, due to the disconnect from and esoteric representation of people living in poverty - facing hardships quite different than what is faced in the west where I was bred - I left one plush ivory tower in Colombo to pursue a more challenging mission.

This mission takes place among a people who have been surviving a ‘forgotten’ crisis, for 33 years, with the Western Saharan people, the Saharawis, also considered as part of the bedoin collectivity of Northern Africa. The first discussion I properly had - with Ali, director of the central pharmacy in Dakla - advised me not to write, document or project the experiences of the Saharawis, because as forever external, I can never know the torment of being illegally occupied by Morocco, perpetual fighting with arms and diplomacy, and forced into exile into one of the most desolate, barren, inhospitable places on our planet. But rather I should film, photograph, or try to reach people who have not heard about this immense struggle - for liberation, recognition by the international community and enjoyment of autonomy - through my emotions. Thus, as I write to you about my first experiences, I shall largely omit some of the political, social and historical details, quantification, bloody human development indices, and other norms that enraptured social scientists use – instead I refer you to Toby Shelley’s overview, Endgame in the Western Sahara.

This omission is my limitation to expanding maybe your own interest in this cause, but I have had to forget everything that I have read, heard about or learned through the Western Sahara liberation campaigns – because this reality is often so inexplicable, contradictory and challenging to the previous representations of the Saharawis.

I am supposing what would help get you up to speed are the following:

- illegal occupation by Morocco in Western Sahara Occidental since colonial Spain pulled out in 1975, leading to broken promises for resolving the plight and self-determination of the Saharawis, and to Mauritania and Morocco battling for the territory; later Mauritania withdrew from claims for the mineral, fish and natural resource-rich territory
- subsequent violent exile of the Saharawis to near Tindouf, Southwestern Algeria, as well as unknown numbers of Saharawis still residing in the W.S. territory occupied by Morocco
- numbers are political, which comes out later in the difficulties in knowing how to provide medicines to everyone (UN estimates are around 125.000 persons, but looking across each wilaya, or township, they could easily be over 200.000 persons in SW Algeria alone).
- there exists a sliver of ‘free zone’ between occupied Western Sahara and Algeria, lined by minefields on Morocco side
- still political tensions between Morocco and Algeria on this issue (not helping their war in 1980s and 1990s)
- Polisario are the political party in government ‘representing’ the Saharawis
- failed referendum (Baker Plan) by UN in 2003, so stagnation since then
- deadlock and stagnation over their self-determination by the international community – so put pressure on your government representative to push for a referendum!
- there is already loads of information, speculation, propaganda etc on the web and in media, so you can supplement my writing
- I am here because it is a humanitarian crisis – on many levels – and because I am capable, passionate, curious and hopefully convincing you to keep this cause in mind.

…I guess I don’t know where to begin on why I have been absent and impossible to reach – but let’s face it, I’m in the middle of the desert. The best advice on what I was told to prepare is to bring a sense of humour and that there are a lot of liquor shops in Algiers – whenever I pass through there…But with this medical NGO mission I have not had time to breathe. I am coordinating a mission to provide 80% of the pharmaceutical provisions to the long-term refugee population, as well as help construct a standardized health system and manage medical waste in all the health facilities for this nation – mostly in the 4 main camps (Dakla – the farthest, Smara, El Ayoun and Aousserd, named after the cities left behind in the occupied territories). So in some ways, I have been dropped in the desert, with limited support and financial security from headquarters in Athens, expected to swim and find my way through this quicksand.

Luckily, I have an amazing, close-knit team of 3 Algerian guys and an Italian chiquita – oddly no Greeks - who have made me feel immediately welcomed and shown me the ropes, especially with the language barriers. I am improving my French and Spanish, comprehending more than I can speak, and trying to pick up some Hassini Arabic.

Hamdu ‘lillah!

I live in the NGO Protocol, in Rabouni with about 25 permanent expats, and mucho ‘solidarity tourists’ who come for a few days or a week here and there, as part of official delegations, medical commissions or presumptuous researchers. We each have our objectives, which makes for a coordination debacle, and raises questions of impact and dependency creation - for everything - on the NGO industry…

It is like living in a rudimentary hostel, with a lot of cockroaches, flies and begging semi-domesticated cats, squalid squat latrines, cold bucket bathing (we have some underground water sources), creative uses for water conservation and recycling (we are even trying to sprout onions in our kitchen courtyard), disconnect from the world due to dodgy internet and mobile connections, and testing of one’s tolerance to megalomaniac, Spanish dominance in the field, and cartoonish neighbours. My narrow room that I share with our medical coordinator has very thin walls, which does little to muffle our large Italian elephant neighbour who consumes 30 eggs a day and snores/shags his girlfriend loudly. But there are some of the most beautiful, expansive starlit skies here – extremely dry, sometimes with scorching dry heat days, and chilly, windy evenings. Right now I am freezing in my poorly insulated room, waiting for massive sandstorm to pass…

Comme ca…

I try to keep tranquil and balanced with attempts at sunrise yoga and meditation and long sunset runs through the desert. It is amazing running through the Sahara, like flying, as the terrain is sometimes bouncy, sometimes rocky – like running on the moon! It can be quite shocking though as the first time I tried to find a good path I ended up running through what I learned was a camel abattoir – still fresh corpses rotting away. This makes it sometimes dangerous as there are also packs of famished, wild dogs that could easily hunt me down. The other sad thing is that I must pass by the camel ‘waiting room’, so the few camels I see each week, slowly wait their death and dwindle in numbers – thus I have fewer curious gazers as I run by.

Food is basic, unmentionable – a lot of lentils, pasta, potatoes with onions, and Friday lunch of couscous and camel – I have largely abandoned vegetarianism, especially if I am offered food from a family in their haima (tents attached to their adobe domiciles). I really do not feel comfortable discussing in detail about the private homelife among these families, except that they are some of the most hospitable, warmest, affectionate people I have met. In general though, I learned that Saharawis are largely matriarchal, with women largely participating in high professional jobs as well as in municipal governments and having considerable influence in the private sphere in some ways. I learned that when women marry, the husband comes to live in the wife’s family compound – and the land, assets, wealth are passed down to the brother-in-law to be kept for their daughters. Sons go to their wives’ families and there are some practices of bigamy, not to mention extramarital affairs. Perhaps this can be seen as attaining more wealth, status, etc through reliance on women as an economic medium.

I cannot write too much, in my naivete, about the complications within the gendered social structure – only that there are clear existing gendered inequalities and inequities: even though women do largely participate in public offices and decision-making bodies, often holding highly skilled jobs, they still carry double burdens of carrying the household responsibilities – preparing enormous servings of too-sweet tea, procreating in a context without contraception and family planning (government policy), and basically married in order to gratify the needs of the husband and parents.

Of course, economically, socially, politically, things have been changing dramatically this last decade and half, since permanent NGO interventions, increased migration (securing remittances from abroad) and the very odd Spanish vacation time given for every child each year…People are fairly progressive and liberal, and largely influenced by communist and socialist ideas; Che, Fidel and their own Polisario martyrs adorn the walls of schools, public institutions. Interestingly, as part of international aid schemes, the younger generation mostly have gone abroad to study, mostly in Cuba (termed ‘cubarawis’) and Spain, so there are a lot of doctors, pharmacists, psychiatrists, IT specialists, lawyers, judges, politicians, teachers (one of our drivers is a Spanish teacher who studied 14 years in Cuba – hopefully inclined enough to help me with courses) etc – but they often cannot find jobs in the countries of study, so must return to the camps for a life of interminable waiting. They are savvier about NGO work and our donor relations than perhaps we are. Hence, there is pervasive frustration and even a feeling of ‘what-to-do?’ among folks, which comes up later in terms of how we can carry out our work.

I guess this is a lot to digest for now…I hope to find more time to put thoughts down regarding the actual complications with implementing our project; badly constructed NGO approaches; the role of branding and consumerism as a manifestation of status among Saharawis (they mostly drive Mercedes, wear designer sunglasses…); projections of what folks like you can do – despite, I know, the current overbearing problems we all face; underlying and persistent new form of colonialism by Spain (e.g. sex tourism); lackadaisical UN structure here; etc.

For now just know that I am safe, energetic, dedicated, reawakened. I’ll try to keep things shorter in the next rambling I pass along…hopefully, these photos can also give you some food for thought!

Welcome to this (often forgotten) world –

Big hugs, enduring love and beauty in your lives,

Paz, paix, salaam!

3,500 Tamils arbitrarily detained in Colombo

On Sunday, check points and security measures were amped up to the point that all buses, pedestrians and other vehicles were stopped and searched. In the process the army and police detained about 3,500 Tamils (some of whom were also Singhalese or Muslims) including children as young as 7 years old. This is all under the pretense that all Tamils are terrorists. In cramped, squalid detention centres, sometimes with a 100 people to a room or 100 people to one toilet, people wait out their detention and hoping for release. Opposition leaders and representatives from Tamil parties have been outcrying to the president for the release of the civilians. After two days nothing has been done. No rule of law, no justice, only misery and fear.

Seeking solidarity from you....