At last, we reached the entrance to the small village of Jeannette. Suddenly the missionaries began blowing up balloons and throwing them to a parade of screaming children. The driver shook his head disapprovingly as the children ran dangerously into the road. The missionaries laughed. The scene reminded me of my childhood, watching Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier throw pennies out of his limousine window as he rode through the slums of Port-au-Prince. Had I paid so dearly to come to Haiti to contribute to the further dehumanization of my own people?
During our stay in Jeannette, we were lodged in the priest's living quarters, a luxurious mission house equipped with all the amenities: water, modern bathrooms, and comfortable furniture. A garage was under construction. I learned that it had cost eight thousand dollars to build. The priest was a tall, imposing Haitian man in his seventies. He had a long gray beard that made me think of Rasputin. Always lurking behind the missionaries, he seemed to have disdain for them, even while they were in awe of him and his "projects."
The priest's projects for the people of Jeannette included a small dark church, and two school buildings with tiny dark rooms and blank walls. The teachers' dormitories resembled jail cells. Ironically, prior missionaries had once spent an entire trip stenciling the dank concrete walls of the dormitories "a la Norwegian." A clinic, which the brochures had advertised as well-stocked, had no bathroom facilities, no running water, and no electricity. I was told that even the light bulb that lit the clinic during our visit would be removed by the priest as soon as the missionaries left. I watched as a clinic helper hauled heavy buckets of water to an unsanitary bathroom where medical implements were being scrubbed, while hundreds of patients waited all day to be seen.
Most people in Jeannette must go for days without a proper meal, walk for miles to fetch water, use the bushes as their bathroom, live with infected skin wounds if they can't pay the two gourdes or twelve U.S. cents required to see the nurse in this clinic. Teachers report that the local children are so hungry that many are unable to stay alert in class. The teachers themselves often go without food. A teacher's aide who shares a shack with eight members of his family told me that he could not afford to replace his torn shoes. In the meantime, he watched quietly as the eight-thousand-dollar garage was built to accommodate the Haiti Project's van. People do not need to build elaborate garages for their cars in Jeannette, especially when their homes are fenced in. Leaving the car in the yard or under a simple carport would offer it plenty of protection. With the eight thousand dollars for this garage, the project could have built over a dozen solid homes, or an open-air cafeteria to provide a balanced midday meal for all the students and school personnel, five days a week, for a year.
In addition to obvious wastefulness, the missionaries also showed a lack of sensitivity toward the people of Jeannette. In one instance, the Haiti Project leaders kept the cook waiting long past her working hours and then, while indulging in one of their nightly cocktail parties, declared that, "All she had wanted was to go and party."
A young Haitian woman who had spent an entire morning helping us in the clinic was invited by the nurse to join us for lunch. This gesture displeased the church members, who rushed to take the food away, sending the young woman running from the table in shame. I talked with a man who had designed a number of greeting cards and embroidered several items of clothing hoping that the mission would use them for fund-raising. Project members ignored him, patronizing instead an art shop in Port-au-Prince that was a well-known sweat shop.
If in fact the goal was to develop self-reliance in Jeannette, not only would the missionaries have supported local entrepreneurs, but during the yearly "hands-on" trips the missionaries also would have brought with them appropriate items such as farming tools, fabrics, blankets, lamps, and up-to-date medical supplies, rather than the hard candy, plastic cups, balloons, and sample vials of expired medicines. These items did nothing to help poor people escape their oppression and misery. Furthermore, they contributed to the significant amount of dumping I saw around the clinic and the school yard.
Since none of the missionaries on this particular trip had bothered to master the language of the people they served, I wondered if they could assess the people's needs and measure the effectiveness of their interventions. For example, What happened to the young people once they completed the last grade at their Mission school? They returned to their shacks to face hunger with the rest of the community.
I saw and heard discontented people who watched as the priest obtained a TV antenna, solar and wind generators, a garage, and a bamboo fence to keep them out of the mission house, while their children remained malnourished and thirsty in the mud huts. Weren't the people of Jeannette the reason so much money was donated to this project? Weren't their pathetic photographs used to touch the donors' hearts and pockets?
Now it is clear to me what the promotional bulletin meant when it said: "Do something for your soul, go to Haiti." For this mission, Haiti is a place to relax, have nightly cocktail parties, and feel important as you watch the natives beg for your leftovers and trash. Returning to my homeland with the Haiti Mission project did do something for my soul: It wounded it deeply.
A POEM ABOUT WHY I CAN'T WAIT GOING HOME AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
Gina Ulysse
Every morning from the time I was three
I had to open my mouth to receive
two tablespoons full of emulsion scott
sometimes I would pinch my nose so I couldn't smell it
making it easier to swallow that pasty white liquid
that left my tongue tasting of salty tears and cod liver oil
Often we had to chase it with homemade V-8
watercress celery beets spinach carrots and all sorts of
other things that grow in the earth to give little weaklings strength
Despite the grimaces pouts tears
despite the nos the I don't want tos the cries the wails
the screams that often preceded this ritual
eventually I would drink it
not because it's good for me
but because I had to I didn't have a choice
I had to open my mouth
let it slime down my throat
and swallow
When I was about fifteen
One day my father called all three of us in the living room
and told us we had to let go of our dreams
and be serious about the future
Poor man not even a son to carry on his name
he had been cursed with three girls
and we wanted to be a singer a dancer and a writer
After calling us by our names he said
I want a doctor a lawyer and a dentist
I remember saying to him
I don't care if I never have any money
(though I would change my mind later)
I don't care if I never have any money
even if I live in a tent as long as I have my music
What are you asking me that I live this life my life for you
In all my sassiness I dared him.
And when would I live my life? when you die?
the horror on his face I have since forgotten
but I remember mother verbally mourning her wasted life
having given him the best years of her life
and realizing that I only get to do this "life thing" once
so I was going to do it on my terms
as long as I have a choice
I remember the first time I went back to Haiti
It had been 17 years
but I had to hide in a hotel so daddy wouldn't know I was there
Desperate to refill all the gaps in my past
I stole back memories at night to retrace my childhood
I begged my cousin to drive me around
to the house on rue darguin
but it was long gone
and had been replaced with an edifice that
b
reathed the same coldness as the Pentagon
then we went to the gingerbread house
that too had been demolished and reconstructed
though the mango tree was still there
le petit chaperon rouge had been closed for years
vines interlaced with the iron of the gate
I went back again two years later
and I remember a conversation with a man
who has lived in Haiti longer than I did
this white man who says he loves my country
the country that I saw in newspapers and on TV
for seventeen years
the country that for the longest time I only went to in translation
we were talking about class and color
I was asserting my gramscian ideals
about the importance of and the need to fight both wars—
the war of maneuver and the war of position
especially the war of position
so we can take back spaces
hence why I tie my head with a scarf when I go to those places
you think they care he replied
they don't care about your aunt jemima head
uhmm! even after over twenty years in this country
you still have no other references I said quietly
Oh these ethnic notions I thought enraged
after over twenty years in my country his social limits were intact
for me that was the end of the conversation
after all this was not a teach-in
How do you overturn four hundred years of history
in less than one century?
I've been thinking a lot about writing a poem
about the meaning of the word diplomacy
about how this word is just another four letter word
about how this word is just another way to say
I am going to fuck you
not only are you not going to enjoy it
but when I am done with you
you're sure to say thank you
and like my sistahgurl says you might even pay me for it
in accrued debt interest
Can life exist without ideals
Can life exist without dreams
where does your soul go
when all you do is function
where does your spirit go
when all you do is function
I am only 31 years old and I am getting so cynical
I am trying not to be
I've been reading Shakti Gawain
trying to do creative visualization
trying to imagine
< imagine all the people
living life in peace >
trying to imagine a better world
so I can change my world
so I can change the world
But I have been having a lot of difficulty
I keep remembering my friend B with her three kids
who after a year still can't get a job
its not because she's not qualified
or that she's not trying
but because she's not from the right family
she doesn't have the right connections
and her skin is too damn dark
worse
she doesn't play by the rules of the game
she doesn't do safe cocktail conversations
she was on the sidewalks in the 80s
bringing down the second revolution
she was there on the streets
in front of the palace
in front of ministries
in front of police stations
waiting
waiting to lay claim to dead bodies
no one else would acknowledge for fear of losing their lives
you know in Haiti one often inherits social scars by association
you know in Haiti one often inherits fatal scars by association
scars
wars
social fatal
death by association
tell me how to imagine a better world in this place
tell me how to imagine a better world in this place
where even after operation restore democracy
that came bounded with IMF loans
International Mother Fucking loans
for the structurally adjusted
where the rules of the game are
I am going to fuck you
and you are not going to enjoy it
tell me how do you imagine a better world in this place
tell me how to imagine a better world in this place
where the rules of the game is this diplomacy
where blackness still equals poverty
where even after over 400 years
still too black too strong not French enough
never really French enough
and the new generations don't want to be men
raging youths are now more committed
to seeing blood run
raging youths are now more committed
to seeing blood run
to seeing blood run on sidewalks
just to see blood run through the streets
next to expensive cars
outside of elite-owned stores
because they say they have had enough
jan I pase I pase
jan I mouri I mouri
however it goes down it goes down
however it dies it dies
the end result is still the same
the revolution is not over
tell him to build a coffin>
the revolution is not over they cry as they die
they have had too much adversity
this is the generational gap
don't need to ask them when are they going to grow up
when are they going to grow out of this phase
it is not a phase this is about the game
it was at the university that they learned the rules
through liberation theology they learned they were comrades
it was at the university that they learned
the multiple meanings of the word diplomacy
how you have to be pliable
acquiescent
don't make waves you don't get the perks
no gains if you misbehave like a good little neg
that's what you are being trained to be
a docile body without integrity
like the ancestor who sold my ancestor to the west
depi nan ginen neg pat vie we neg
gede nibo gad sa vivan yo fe mwen
plante mayi m mayi m tounen rozo
rozo tounen banbou
banbou tounen ponya
ponya yo ponyade m gede
How do you overturn four hundred years oj history in less than one century?
And I keep thinking back to my life here
And I keep thinking back to my life right here
in this white power center
ain't no misbehavin' here
in the ivory tower
abounded with liberals and marxist scholars
where liberalism is rhetorically defined
as a floating signifier associated with
the ever-growing pony tail
the peace sign
the old leather jacket from undergrad
the backwards baseball cap
nightly homage to the celestial herb to justify being a function
commitments
commitment to the metaphysics of diversity
commitments
to the environment to animal rights
the pet projects
and pet cultures
signifying signifiers
are recreating structures
these signifying signifiers are recreating structures
these signifying signifiers are recreating bourgeois structures
bourgeois bourgeoisie bougi bouginess
blackness bouginess blackness
contradictions
disjunctures
underplayed identities
downpressing privilege
down
down
down you got to keep it down
sometimes it just wants to rise up
but you gotta keep it down
Shut your mouth!!!!
stuff it in your mouth
just keep your mouth shut and get out
ram it down your throat
deep down your throat
swallow
it
down
you're being forced
to
deep throat
But I don't want to
I don't want to
swallow
it
down
you gotta keep it down
you gotta keep it down
why you have to be down to keep it real
downplaying privilege
little white rebels wanna be niggers
and niggers wanna be niggaz
bourgeois blues
opportunities denied
blackness bouginess
disjunctures?
contradictions?
In Haiti the bourgeoisie funded coups
in Jamaica uptown bougies tried to silence a revolution
but rastafari had a free black mind
so they self-fashioned an everyday resistance
the self-fashioning of an everyday SEXIST resistance
an everyday HOMOPHOBIC resistance
or even try to school ya>
blackness bouginess blackness
in the Caribbean bouginess has funded revolutions
little white rebels wanna be niggers
and rebelling niggers wanna be niggaz
these signifying signifiers are just recreating bourgeois structures
Can life exist without ideals
Can life exists without dreams
where does your soul go
when all you do is function
where does your spirit go
when all you do is function
Lately I have been thinking a lot about writing
a poem about class comfort
and color and privilege and guilt
about the social luxury of whiteness
Butterfly's Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States Page 19