 Rural
life: Housing, Leisure,
Entrepreneurs
Pride
We’re
in English class, and to practice the word “proud,” I have asked
the students today to tell what makes them proud. The
first one answers: “I’m proud to be a Haitian.” One of the positive aspects of dictator François
Duvalier's presidency was his promotion of black pride, (Africanism,
le noirisme or la négritude) in the 1960's.
Since liberation from the French, blacks have still had
to fight for control of their country from the mulatto elite,
the five percent of the population descended from white French
plantation owners and black African slaves, which controls 30%
of the country’s wealth and much of the political power.
Housing
Housing
ranges from the sublime compounds of the elite, where they hide
their luxury and Range Rovers behind high walls, or their seaside villas, to the modest huts of the rural
poor and the slums of Port-au-Prince.
Common building materials are slim poles
for stick-and-wattle construction, or concrete block. We see new homes which appear abandoned, their free-standing concrete
walls waiting for the money to buy materials for a roof. A typical modest two-room home in Deschapelles,
the village near HAS, has a small living room and a small bedroom,
both used for sleeping, a thatched or tin roof, often with colorful
fabric as a door and no covering over the windows.
Cooking and conversation take place in the dirt yard in
front. Houses are brightly
painted,
often have a woven-palm
screen, and a wooden or candelabra
cactus privacy fence. In a few there may be television sets and
computers, which work as intermittently as the electricity. Few ground-level flowers escape the omnivorous goats. Cleanliness clearly is a cultural value - laundry drying on the line or fence is ever-present.
The
rhythm of the day in rural Haiti is dictated by the climate and
lack of electricity: it begins early, around 5:00 a.m., when the
morning is still cool, and ends with dark at 6:00 p.m.
For many there is one meal in the afternoon, which usually
includes rice or beans or both.
Recreation
What
do people do for fun in an economically depressed, rural environment? They become resourceful. The hospital soccer
league competes in a nearby rocky field with no line markers,
and the basketball league manages without nets on their goals.
To substitute for the missing tennis net, Frankie, our
frequent guide on hikes, keeps a long string wrapped around the
handle of his racket. I see a boy wearing only jean cutoffs happily
peddling his bike and humming along to his Walkman, and smaller
boys running behind hoops made of bicycle rims, or pulling a toy
car made of a tin can.
The
beaches are beautiful, fine sand and the warm clear ocean. Schmid, the Haitian who was teaching English
at HAS, and his girlfriend often made the rough 90 minute trip
by taptap in order to spend the weekend at
one of the many, inexpensive public beaches.
Our team takes a much-appreciated mid-month weekend break
to the beach resort of
Moulin-sur-Mer. Those who can't travel, swim in the canal.
Pierre, Assistant Housing manager at HAS, invites Ben, Kelly and
Kadee to the disco in the nearby town of Liancourt, where they
learn Haitian dances and drink Coke or the local beer, Prestige.
They travel, of course, in the back of someone's omnipresent
pickup. Another popular weekend activity in our area
is the three-plus hour hike up to a waterfall
high above Verrettes for a swim and picnic.
When we arrived during the two day New Year’s Day/Independence
Day celebration, adults were dressed up, talking
in the streets. Cockfights are also popular, with nightly
competitions alternated among the various pits.
Work
Rural
people work hard. Preschool
children help carry goods to market, such as this little girl with a huge plank on her head. A shy little
girl with a plastic laundry basket balanced on her head lets us
inspect the loaves of fresh bread she must be taking home for
supper. People
may walk four to six hours to market to sell
their products. A group
sings to the beat
of a drum as they dig foundations.
There
is evidence of entrepreneurs.
The lottery booths, borlettes, must be profitable, as we see many small stands with colorful
names identifying the vendor, Chez
Toto or invoking religious protection, Eternal
Father. We also see street booths selling scrap iron, often grillwork from
elegant 17th and 18th century houses, or
building supplies. A photo
shop shares space with a hairdresser. But the most profitable
is the funeral director - see religions.
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