Haiti was also known internationally as a “failed state.” Despite all the NGOs’ efforts, the country remained the poorest and least developed in the western hemisphere. The websites of many large NGOs proudly stated they had been in Haiti since the 1970s—more than thirty years. To me, this was a sure sign of their failure. The point of development is to work yourself out of a job.
There was no doubt that the NGOs were helping individual people, but aid by itself had not built the country. The only thing that could do that was the country itself, through a strong government with a coherent plan.
The international body set up to coordinate aid in Haiti had approved many projects that fit the government’s plans. But almost half of those approved projects had not been funded. Donors were back to earmarking their own pet projects.
Nigel was increasingly frustrated. I met him in his office in the middle of the barricaded United Nations compound. We sat on blue leather couches across from one another, the air-conditioning blasting. He complained that he found himself stuck in meeting after meeting with an endless parade of visitors and evaluators.
“It’s so hard to get things done here,” he moaned. “It’s a curse that Haiti is so close to North America. We have so many specialists. It goes on day after day.”
The exact number of international NGOs in the country eluded even him. Only four hundred to five hundred NGOs had registered with the government—mostly the large and medium-sized international organizations, he said. But there were so many small groups that arrived to work on projects and the government complained to him there was no way to ensure their plans fit into the country’s larger vision.
“In Haiti in particular, NGOs have so much money. To whom are they accountable?” he said. “I fund-raised for an NGO for five years. It’s a business. You have thousands of actors; it’s not an effective system. It’s out of control. The whole humanitarian enterprise needs to understand how a local economy works when a disaster happens instead of just bringing in aid.”
Nigel had worked as a humanitarian for more than three decades in some of the most dangerous and difficult places in the world. After only a year and a half in Haiti, he’d concluded one thing: “The aid industry is broken.”
• • •
The irony, of course, was I was increasingly part of that broken aid industry. Whenever I arrived at the airport, my bags were stuffed with donations—just like the volunteer T-shirt brigades I mocked. How was I any different from any of them—the two-week voluntourists, the small church groups, the giant aid organizations, or the foreign donors who funded what they wanted? I told myself my actions were far more personal than the T-shirt brigades—and far less grand than the big aid organizations. My projects fell somewhere in between. And I was relieved to find they were working well.
I dropped in to Gilberte’s house to find the yard out front buzzing with workmen hammering together simple wooden benches and painting green chalkboards in preparation for the school year. Gilberte’s staff greeted me from a table placed by the house entrance where they were registering students.
Gilberte met me in her sitting room, dressed as always in a simple blouse, long skirt, and straw hat. Compared to our last visit, she was erupting with energy and enthusiasm.
She showed me the posters she’d printed, advertising Muspan and the Canadian funders who were sponsoring it. She expected 350 students this year. She’d enrolled the school in the government food program, which offered hot lunches to students for just 20 cents US a day. And she’d used the start-up money to replace the school’s tarps with rudimentary cinder-block walls, plywood, and tin sheets. The last two she’d bought from a black-market vendor who was selling the components of T-shelters meant to house earthquake-affected families.
“We asked different NGOs for T-shelters, and they said, ‘No, they are not for schools.’ Other people heard I’d been refused, and they approached me. It’s robbery,” Gilberte said, leaning toward me. Her mouth stretched into a wide smile that revealed her gap teeth. “It would have cost so much more at a store.”
She agreed it was a sign of corruption, but she was a realist. Corruption in Haiti was a curse, but she wasn’t above its petty forms if it propelled her cause. The building was far from a permanent structure, but she was feeling very optimistic.
“Your help has rebuilt my morale,” she said.
Up in Fermathe, all the kids in Lovely’s family were now enrolled in school, except for Lypse—Elistin and Rosita’s three-year-old son.
I arrived one morning at their home to find Lypse dressed in a new pair of pants and a shirt that Elistin had made on the sewing machine. Four hands touched him: Rosita rubbing cream on his face, and Elistin brushing his short hair.
I’d never discussed paying for Lypse’s tuition with his parents. They just assumed I would, since I was already paying for the other kids’. And, really, what would I have said? With help from friends, I was now paying for every other kid in the family, including Venessaint, who was starting grade two. How could I justify to them excluding Lypse?
When Lypse was ready, we set off down the dirt road proudly, as though we were part of a parade. I had assumed we were heading to the Baptist mission school, where Sophonie would be starting grade four. But instead of turning left at the crossroads, we continued straight toward the little dilapidated church that clung to the edge of the road. A sign leaned against the wall out front: École Univers Fraternel, inscriptions open every day, kindergarten to Grade 6. Required: Birth Certificate and report card from last school.
The school was located in the basement of the church, which we accessed around the side. The stairs down were so badly broken that we had to jump over them to reach the landing.
Inside, the rooms appeared like caves: dark, separated by half-finished cinder-block walls, with wires sticking out from holes in the ceiling. There were doors, but all of them were torn in half as though a bear had barreled in at night and clawed its way through.
We found the administrator in a closet-sized room, working on a silver laptop on a desk. His feet were resting in a puddle of water. He handed us a flyer from a stack on the desk that outlined the school fees: US$250 a year. He assured me that he followed the state curriculum, but no matter how many times I addressed him in French, he answered in Kreyòl. For me, that was a clear sign he likely hadn’t finished high school, which was taught largely in French.
I asked Elistin to talk outside.
“The school isn’t good,” I whispered when we were alone. “It’s not safe. If there is another earthquake, li pral kraze nèt. It will totally break. And Lypse will die here.”
Elistin calmly listened to what I was saying. “I am comfortable with the school,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I responded. “You should not be comfortable with your child going to this school.”
It was the first time I had put down my foot with anyone in the family. Up until that moment, I had been the opposite of a classic aid worker: I hadn’t taken charge at all. I hadn’t picked the kids’ schools or told Rosemene how to spend the money I’d given her to rebuild her business. I hadn’t offered an opinion, even—because, frankly, I hadn’t thought it was my place as an outsider.
But now I understood that respect comes only with mutual trust and understanding, and there was nothing mutual in our relationship. It was all one-sided—me offering them money, them taking it. I didn’t want to be a benevolent parent, watching silently from the sidelines, nor did I want to simply be a walking bank account. I still struggled with that feeling in Haiti, and it was particularly acute around Lovely’s family. To me, they’d become much more than a story, but in my weaker moments I worried that they saw me as a less-than-human piggy bank. They rarely asked about my life back in Canada, my family, my job. That was not surprising, because they couldn’t imagine the right questions to ask, and they were so used to answering my queries. But it still smarted a bit. I decided that if I respected them, I’d challenge them o
n things and debate their decisions with them. That’s what I did with my family and friends and colleagues back home. That was the sign of truly treating someone as an equal.
I couldn’t in good conscience allow Lypse to descend into this wet crypt every day. Not without protesting, at least.
We moved to the road, out of the principal’s earshot. Rosita, Lypse, and Sophonie joined us. The sun beat down on our necks. I turned to Elistin.
“You are Lypse’s father,” I said. “You can send him to any school you want. But not with my money.”
Elistin leaned back and smiled. Rosita, standing beside him, beamed at me. My outburst either shocked them and they were masking their reaction, or they enjoyed seeing me get passionate. In any event, they agreed they would enroll Lypse in the Baptist mission school that Sophonie was already attending.
We toured the mission school, and I asked Elistin if he liked it.
“There is no problem,” he said.
“That wasn’t my question. Do you like it?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you sure you want Lypse to go here? Is there another school we should check out?”
“No,” he said. “Lypse will go there.”
There is a Kreyòl expression: “An egg today is better than a chicken tomorrow.” Perhaps Elistin thought it was better to get me to pay then and there, rather than risk that I wouldn’t send the money after I’d left the country.
But after I’d registered both Sophonie and Lypse and we’d returned home, Elistin and Rosita seemed genuinely happy, retelling the story of my reaction to the school for Rosemene and Enel’s enjoyment, and laughing at how the principal was standing in water.
It was a moment when I had shown my real self, and I realized I needed to do that more. If I wanted a relationship with Lovely’s family that wasn’t just transactional but personal, I needed to share more of myself: my thoughts, my reactions, my own life. Listening to them laugh, I thought, perhaps, that they recognized our relationship was changing and that they welcomed it, too.
While we sat around the sun-dappled courtyard, the kids took turns climbing up onto my lap and I bounced them up and down and rocked them side to side, pretending to be the frame of a car. It was the same game I played with Lyla and Noah, except they always wanted to ride a horse. In rural Haiti, a machinn ride was not boring. It was a luxurious thrill. So I purred and bounced and turned the imaginary wheel while they squealed with laughter.
When I announced it was time for me to go, both children threw tantrums. Jonathan wailed loudly. Lovely raced after me and clambered onto my lap in the front seat of my driver’s machinn.
“Kite m!”—“Leave me!” she yelled at Rosemene, who’d come after her. It was her version of Lyla’s hidden shoes. Rosemene scooped up Lovely so we could pull away. As I waved good-bye, Lovely kicked and screamed in her mother’s arms.
Before I left, the tantrums had exacted one more promise from me: I would return for Lovely’s graduation from kindergarten next June.
Chapter 10
Chèche Lavi
(Trying to Make a Living)
June 2012 arrived like a bicycle without brakes, and suddenly I was speeding into Port-au-Prince for Lovely’s graduation.
The morning after I arrived, I met Enel by the park in Pétionville. He’d been working in the city, selling pop and living with his relatives during the week, only making the trip to Fermathe on Sundays to bring money home. He was joined by two of Lovely’s aunts and one uncle. We stopped at a bakery for beef patties, some pops, and a large vanilla cake, and then we all squeezed into the car to slowly climb up the mountain.
Rosemene greeted me warmly with two kisses and a hug. “You are Lovely’s mom,” she said. “If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t feel good.”
And then there was Lovely: she had a white towel wrapped around her head and a white baby doll in her hands. She seemed taller and more poised. She retrieved a school notebook and showed me what she had learned since I’d last been there, nine months before.
Rosemene’s comment echoed in my head. It was meant in kindness, but it rattled me. I obviously wasn’t Lovely’s mom. But I also was no longer just an impartial journalist who’d come to document her story. So what was I?
I pushed the battling thoughts away and sat down on the stone floor beside her to watch in wonder as she sounded out the combinations of letters printed on a page of homework. She was the first person in her immediate family who could read. It was a huge accomplishment and a leap up the development chart. Already Lovely could enter worlds closed to her parents.
One of Lovely’s aunts took her into the yard and bathed her in a plastic laundry tub brimming with cold water. Then two of them groomed her, rubbing oil onto her arms and cream on her face. Finally, they slipped her into her school uniform. It all took more than an hour—more time than I spent dressing for my wedding. This was clearly a special day.
The graduation was held in the large stone church set in the middle of the Baptist mission campus. The place was packed by the time we arrived. Fans spun slowly above the heads of family members cramming the white pews, languidly lifting and dropping violet balloons and streamers strung between white pillars. People outside pressed their faces against the large glass windows that spanned the sides, looking in.
The ceremony stretched more than four hours. At one point Lovely and her classmates appeared in beige gowns with matching graduation caps. Hers was too large for her small head and tipped to one side, the tassel hanging by her nose. We watched as she crossed the stage and collected her kindergarten diploma from the principal, who delivered a flowery graduation address.
Lovely sat stone-faced up on the stage, not smiling or paying any attention to the many parents who came forward to take photos. She was bored but not acting up. I couldn’t imagine my kids sitting through that many hours in a church—even with music and little skits going on—without having a meltdown.
Afterward we returned to her home for cake and pop, set out under the sunshine on a big table. By now, Lovely had changed into her second graduation outfit: a violet dress with an eggplant-colored ribbon. She posed for photos and became a child again, chasing her brother gleefully around the table as the adults chatted idly. A cow mooed nearby.
I always had to rush off, and today was no different: I had to write the story about Lovely’s graduation for the newspaper and file it before deadline. But I recognized, digging into my piece of cake and watching Lovely dance around the table, that this was a good day not just in Haiti but anywhere. And that, despite all that was going wrong in Haiti, some things were going right.
• • •
Pink posters with big photos of the president’s smiling face were plastered all over the city. One hung from just about every lamppost, whether it offered light or not. They were publicizing the success of Sweet Micky’s now year-old free education program, and they were tailored to each area of town; in Pétionville they boasted that 18,685 local children were now going to school gratis. In Delmas—where Gilberte’s school, Muspan, was located—the number on the posters was 18,778. Then even bigger billboards perched on the side of the main roads proclaimed 903,000 children across the country were now in school for free, thanks to Martelly’s “bald head.” At the bottom were the words pwomès se dèt—the Kreyòl version of “delivering on his promise.”
Those numbers seemed suspicious to me. They were too precise, particularly considering that official reports disagreed as to exactly how much money the government had collected. How could the politicians be so vague on funding yet forensically precise when it came to the numbers of students enrolled?
Since I couldn’t justify a trip to Haiti with just one story about Lovely’s graduation, I had pitched a few others to my editors, including one that looked into whether Martelly’s program was legitimate or not.
I’d scheduled an interview with Sophia Stransky, the newly named president of the Digicel Foundation, the biggest private foundat
ion in the country. The charitable arm of the international mobile telephone company focused on education, building new schools, and training teachers at them.
Digicel’s corporate office was a gleaming eleven-story building that looked more like something from Toronto’s Bay Street than Port-au-Prince. It was sleek and mirrored, and among the city’s few structures built to be earthquake-resistant.
Sophia looked more like a lawyer or a corporate manager—which she had been, before jumping from Digicel’s sales team to its charitable wing. She was tall and thin, with blond hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her nails were beautifully manicured, her shoes exquisite, her teeth gleaming; I could not picture her picking her way around the garbage piles and open gutters of the country’s bidonvils to inaugurate new charitable projects. She greeted me with a firm handshake.
Spanning one wall of her office was a giant map of Haiti dotted with little pins, one for each of the seventy schools the foundation had built, most of them since the earthquake. There were eighty more on the books for the next two years.
Sophia was explaining how the foundation selected which schools to construct when I remembered an email Gilberte had sent me a few months before. In it she had mentioned that Digicel had given her a grant to help her rebuild. I had meant to quiz Gilberte more about it, but with everything else going on I had forgotten.
“Was there any chance a little school called Muspan was among those selected?” I asked Sophia.
“Yes,” she said, eyes locking with mine across the table. “We all really admire Madame Salomon. She has such vision.”
A Girl Named Lovely Page 17