Harvey,
This is all very interesting to follow what you are doing. So with all those charities down there, I gather there is a lot of corruption.
See safe.
hugs, Brandi
What's sad Brandi is most of the charities do more harm long term than good.
One of the nice things about being where I was today in the worst part of Port
Au Prince is I don't have children begging. That's because your average person on a mission to save Haiti won't go where I am going to be working. So the kids haven't been trained by the good hearted but stupid as a stump visitor to beg.
Begging embarrasses the Haitians just like it would embarrass you if your or your neighbor's kids begged when out of towners visited your neighborhood. And the only reason the kids beg is because visitors reward them for doing it.
It has been explained to me over and over that the only way you are going to get Haitians to do anything is to pay them to do it. That is understandable when you consider their unemployment rate is staggering and the poverty can only be described as devastating.
I'm living on two meals a day now because they are provided at no cost to me. Supper was a good example, white rice, limited portion, a drumstick cooked to leather which is a good thing because of the flies etc, and a slice of avocado. Breakfast was spaghetti with some hot dog weenies tossed in. I know there was at least two weenies in there because I got two end slices on my plate and the odds are impossible for me to have that kind of good fortune if only one was cut up for the huge bowl of spaghetti.
I cannot pay anyone to work with me. But two thirty five year old Hatians are on me like paint when I move around outside the compound. It is literally like I have a secret service detail. They've worked with me on making blocks and are convinced that our idea is going to be good for Haiti. And this morning when I was invited to attend a meeting of women in one of the worst parts of Cite Soleil they were there with me.
The reason I wanted to talk to the women was I believe they are the most important voice in Haitian society because Haitians are no different from any other society. But here there is a buffer built in between men like me and Haitian women. NGOs have trained a corps of young men who get things done because they speak all the languages of the visitors and of the Haitians. You can't get anything done without them. I found that when I asked them about how the women felt about houses it was like asking any teenage boy what his mom and sisters expected in a house. They don't think about that stuff, they've got boy stuff to deal with already.
I met a young lady yesterday that taught meditation and breathing exercises to these women as part of a program to help PTSD patients. These women all qualify many times over because of the rapes, the poverty, and the earthquake. Families were destroyed in the earthquake because so many died.
She was going back because they had asked her to visit them again if she could. I was invited along and thought it would be a good idea for purely selfish reasons. My thinking was taking advantage of her relationship by being seen with her. That way when I came back with our Ubuntu-blox they would see me a little better than if I showed up out of the blue.
We waited or two hours in the heat and then they called us to the front of the group to talk about Ubuntu-blox. I was just going to do a brief overview and then get out of there to let them do what they were there to do in the first place. I had my two guys who did the interpreting for me and it went south quickly. It was assumed that I was like everyone else and I was going to give them all a house that would never happen.
Tough audience, stiff questions, harsh replies, I was unprepared for the brutal honesty. It was also heart breaking to realize their reality was based upon good meaning people being the cruelest of cruel and never knowing it.
Then we got across the point that I wasn't there to build them a house. I was there to help them build good houses by using the plastic trash all around them. Haitians were going to build the houses, I was there to help them with the design and methods.
It got personal When was I going to help them? Was I going to be back to build houses? Who got the first house? you get the idea.
Then I got lucky I told them about micro financing in Bangladesh and how the women worked together to make lives better for women. I suggested they do the same thing. They can collect the plastic and we'll come in and help them to build the blocks. They figure out who gets the first house and we will all work together to build that house. We do that over and over again until everyone gets a house than can have one. But it is women helping women and that is the only way it will happen. If this didn't work it wouldn't be the government's fault or any NGOs fault. If it failed it would be their fault.
It got personal again. When was I coming back to help them get started making the blocks?
We start next wednesday.
