One woman was particularly angry. “That’s what I hate about the Haitian sousou … the sell-outs! … Look at the earthquake. God saved our lives, they say, but we were already mostly dead. Working here is a kind of death … the sousou do whatever they’re told … even to go back to work while we were trying to cope with everything. If we had all got together to say no, we aren’t ready to start work again … but no, we’re a bunch of losers.… If we would get together to show that we’re serious, then we’d be accepted as human beings … but no! We say annavan and everyone says yes, but there are always some sell-outs who run to the bosses to tell them who is plotting against them.” I had the impression that she had a few sell-outs in the crowd in mind. On the other hand, would she really be reliable in an important struggle? I wondered.
Another woman spoke. But she was sad. She had tears in her eyes. “Every time I ask the bosses to let us out early so that I can get home before dark, they tell me to decide whether I want to work or not. I’m afraid to go home in the dark. And I have to take care of my kids. They don’t care. I thought after the earthquake, things would change. Especially ‘cause of all the aftershocks. But no. I can’t even afford to make a miserable lunch for my kid to take to school.”
Another said, “Look at our friends who died. If the company was serious, they should have helped their families. Some of us need tents. When tents arrive at the factory, they’re taken away by people driving cars. Who is benefiting from these tents? It’s not us, who need them most. They say they’re sorry for us. But not sorry enough to change anything.”
I said, “Maybe it would be helpful if there was some kind of psychological help.”
“That’s too expensive. Besides, it’d only apply to human beings. We aren’t that important. They tell us they’re gonna to help us. They never tell us how they’re gonna screw us to make more profit. But that’d be the truth. Now they say there’s gonna be some regulation to force everybody to make the quota no matter how long it takes. We’ll have to keep working all night till it’s finished.”
Then she thought about her earlier argument and decided to take a stand. “This time, I don’t care what the rest of you do. If you accept that, then go ahead. But I’m keeping my life. I’m not giving up my energy and my life to them. There’ll be no limit to what they ask of us.”
“Of course. If we agreed to stay here day and night, working, they’d be happy. But the minute that we fell ill, they’d fire us and replace us. There is no limit, like you say. Even the miserable minimum salary, we can’t make it without working overtime.”
A loud bell drowned out all the complaints. Everyone moved reflexively to the factory doors. I pretended to follow them, but that was the last place I wanted to be.
When they were all back inside, just Mardi and I were left standing in the dust. He had spoken to a number of workers and gotten negative answers in every case. No medical help. No psychological help. No food aid. The pay sucked. People told him that work covered their survival, and no more.
Mardi was surprised to see how the world looked from this perspective. He said that Haitians had long accepted the words of blan. Now, he saw that rich foreigners lied. Rich Haitians lied. Poor Haitians lied. He was discouraged to think that there was nothing but lies.
He asked me, “Who should I believe? Is this world reparable?”
I had no answer.
We found a bus back to Delmas. I shared with him the money that remained.
chapter twenty-eight
WHEN ANNIE TOLD ME THAT she had missed her period, she asked me what we would do if it turned out she was pregnant. It is not uncommon, despite the prohibition, for young Haitian men to dis-engage as soon as such news is announced. Many woman tell their partners that they are pregnant with much trepidation. Would I leave Annie to face her family alone, in shame?
I answered, “If it turns out that you are pregnant, I will marry you. If not, we should wait until we have a way to support a baby.”
She remained skeptical, I know. She knew that I didn’t have the means to support myself. It was not clear to either of us how I would support three people. She went to have a pregnancy test. We decided to leave the issue aside until we knew if there was something to resolve or not. That was the official decision. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what I would do if indeed we had to deal with a pregnancy.
The following morning, Annie and I went to the clinic. The nurse asked me to wait outside. Oh-oh!
After thirty minutes, Annie came to tell me that the test was positive. She was scared. “How am I going to tell my sisters this?” she trembled.
“Stay calm,” I said. “We have to figure it out for ourselves first and then things will fall into place.”
We went to see a ring maker — the husband of a member of our choir — to find out how much a decent ring would cost. Wedding rings are important for Haitians. We explained the situation. He told us that the ring would cost 15,000 gourdes ($372.00 US). The price of gold had gone up. Neither Annie nor I said a thing. Our jaws dropped in unison. That helped him better than words to explain our situation.
“Try to find 10,000 gourdes ($249.00 US). I’ll do what I can to get some gold and we’ll leave it like that.”
I called Paul to explain what was happening. I asked him if we could write an article for our website to see if some readers might be willing to offer me some help. We had never used it to ask for something, but just to discuss conditions in Haiti. After a week, no one had responded. I asked Annie if she would tell her sister, Mme Bolivar, the news. But Annie said no, that it was up to me to do it.
One afternoon, as I left the church, I dropped in to Mme Bolivar’s home. After a short while, I asked to speak to her in private.
After some awkward preliminaries, I blurted out, “Your sister is pregnant. I have been thinking of how I can deal with the situation. We have spoken together and I would like to marry Annie.”
Mme Bolivar cried out, “What!” She shook her head. “The country is in such an awful state and I know that you aren’t in a position to marry.”
“I want to do it, not just for Annie and to keep the respect of her family, but also that of my church.”
“Well, okay … congratulations. You have courage. Just … Annie is my little sister. She should have told me before you. You are an outsider.”
I replied, “Annie and I have decided. We just have to tell the pastor of the church and then my father.”
Mme Bolivar said, “I will have to explain the situation to my mother and sisters. I’m not the head of the family.”
A few weeks passed. I had stopped going to my activities at the church. No one asked me why. I was ashamed to present myself to people. The idea of telling the pastor was daunting. He was a middle-aged man with a severe disposition. He didn’t joke. He was heavy, both physically and in temperament.
Each time the pastor passed me, I felt uncomfortable. But, one Sunday, I resigned myself to telling him.
“Pastor, I have something to tell you.”
“What exactly?”
I explained, “It concerns my girlfriend Annie. She is pregnant.”
“I’m busy at the moment. Come to see me on Tuesday at four o’clock … with Annie.”
Monday morning, I started to search through the rubble of the main house in the courtyard where I lived for decent wood, with the idea of transforming it into furniture. Furniture is a necessity to begin a marriage. Without furniture, people don’t view the union as serious.
Jelo was watching me. I had been nervous about addressing the issue with him.
He followed me quizzically, “Ti bòs, what are you doing?” Parts of the big structure were standing tenuously, and I was crawling around under massive sections of the second floor that hadn’t yet collapsed like the rest of the house. These parts were held up by crooked and fissured supports. Without a very good reason, what I was doing was bordering on insanity. I had what I thought was a very good reason.
/> “I’m thinking of making some furniture with whatever I can salvage from this wreck,” I said.
Jelo lit up, assuming that I would be building some furniture for sale. He was happy to think that some money would be coming into our little household.
He came closer, “Ah Jelo … listen … uh … Annie is pregnant.”
“What?” he exhaled.
I explained the situation. I watched the life drain out of him. I have seen, and felt, that response when people have received news of the unexpected death of a loved one. He remained in that state for a period of time.
I watched this deathly sadness descend upon him. It only grew more agonizing as the day passed. It was as if the moment of our separation had arrived with this news. He said nothing to me for the rest of the day. I knew what he was feeling. It was impossible not to see and feel his sadness. And so I was drawn into it. It was painful. However would he manage to get through the actual wedding?
He walked around the courtyard to avoid being close to me. When I looked at him, I could see his hands trembling. His sadness had taken over his body. He couldn’t have controlled himself if he wanted to. Even while he was avoiding me, I tried to get his attention to talk to him, to engage him in conversation and, hopefully, to make him smile. Not only would it be good for him, but it would free me so that I could continue to find my wood and plan the furniture.
I tried to pose questions that would provoke a conversation. Jelo answered with one or two words. He could not pump enough air out of his lungs to make a sentence. Finally, I decided to leave him to adapt to the new situation in his own time. I had to plan for the wedding so that I could erase the shame that our unplanned pregnancy could cause.
The next morning, Tuesday, I was talking with my friend Josué in Delmas 19 when another cabinetmaker came by to ask him if he would be interested in working as a carpenter for a group that was building temporary shelters in the neighbourhood. Josué agreed, although he had another small job to complete first. So I represented us both at a meeting that morning at the home of Mme Nicole, who was acting as the local agent for Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF; now called Global Communities), a subsidiary of USAID.
I went with Josué’s friend to the property of Mme Nicole, not far away. Out in front, a number of young Haitian men had assembled with their own tools, ready for the day’s work. After thirty minutes, a foreman appeared telling us to enter for a little talk before heading out. I joined the meeting, even though I was not yet officially accepted onto the project.
The foreman began by welcoming everyone. He tried to sound formal and managerial, but he was miscast in the role:
Dear friends, I have to talk to you about your complaints. I know that things aren’t going very well for you, especially since many of you are fathers of families. Others have responsibilities even if you aren’t fathers. I know that many of you don’t live nearby; you have to take the public transport to get here and you leave nothing at home for your wives, children, and others. I also know that many of you work all day with nothing to eat as a result of having no money. But listen, brothers: try to build a bridge by borrowing some money from your relatives or your friends to get through the present period. It might take a few months, but CHF will not disappoint you because it’s a reputable international NGO. Even if it takes a few months, you will receive your money and you will realize your dreams. The problem is that CHF has a lot of responsibilities beyond just this project of building shelters, like stabilizing the area and so forth. You understand the situation and I think that with patience you will be fine.
When he was finished, an engineer took over and carried on in the same direction. It was clear that they had got their story straight. He said that each shelter cost $2,000 US, including materials and labour. Labour included three people: two bosses and one worker. Each boss was to receive thirty American dollars and each worker ten dollars a day. The workers had to build one shelter a day or risk losing their jobs. But after months of work for CHF, funded by USAID, no Haitian worker had yet been paid. Not one cent. I don’t know how much the Haitian managers were getting.
When they had finished, one of the workers who was a foreman took the floor. He raised his hand and asked the committee to examine it:
There are five fingers, but they are not all the same length. Similarly, we do not all have the same financial means. It’s true that we all have neighbours, but all neighbours are not the same. A neighbour may be able to help you for a couple of weeks, but not for several months.
He summarized the situation with a saying familiar to all Haitians: woch nan dlo pa konn mizè woch nan solèy: rocks in the water don’t know the misery of rocks in the sun. He asked whether CHF would behave as it does if it were in the place of the homeless Haitian workers. He said that even half of the pay that was due to them would be enough to relieve the suffering.
Mme Nicole took the floor to explain to the workers how foreign NGOs function, from her perspective on the inside of CHF. She told of a worker who had worked for months for a foreign NGO with no pay whatsoever. Finally, however, the worker received, all at once, $3,000 US that he then used to buy a plot of land that he had had his eyes on for a long time. She continued, “My dear friends, I’m not saying that you have the same goals as that man, but rather that you must suffer in hope. When your wife and children ask what you’re doing with the money, explain the situation to them and they will understand.”
Another worker, not convinced, asked why CHF didn’t have committees organized to deal with the various things that they were involved with in Haiti. Why the mismanagement? The spokesmen and Mme Nicole had no answer.
It was eleven o’clock. I went to find someone in the neighbourhood who was living in one of these CHF shelters. I found a local woman who had one. She told me that people had to say they liked the shelters because it was the only thing offered. But in reality, she said, people slept uneasily in them. They were plastic and robbers could enter them with a knife. If only they had been given the money that it cost to build them, she said, they would have been able to make themselves decent homes.
It was getting late. I went to pick up Annie to go to the church to face the pastor. We went into a private room to talk.
He opened our little meeting with a prayer. He asked Annie what she thought about my idea to marry. Annie said that she was wholly in favour of it.
“Joegodson, you have done me much wrong. You are a young man in whom I had placed a lot of confidence. I am very disappointed.”
I said, “But Pastor, I have chosen to marry Annie to do the right thing. I accept the error that I have made and we have found a response so that no one will suffer from it.”
I had seen a number of youths leave the church when confronted with these circumstances. They knew the response they would receive in the church and they chose to simply absent themselves.
“Okay. Given the situation in this country, how are you going to support a family? Do you have a profession?”
Did this pastor have any faith? Any empathy? I had thought that he would be happy that I was acting in the interests of those concerned and the church. I thought I was tracing a path that he should have appreciated. Instead, his thoughts were purely materialist. How much money did I have? What kind of job did I have? He was not addressing any spiritual aspects of the marriage. I thought that was his job.
He continued, “What do you do for money?”
I was stumped because he knew that I was a furniture maker. But, to not be rude, I told him that. Then I told him that I had a project with a Canadian to write a book.
“A book?! A book about what?”
I responded, “About society and the economy and spirituality. About life in Haiti and our place in the world …”
“Okay,” he cut me off with the hand gesture that people use to brush flies away from a plate of rice. “I know that you are a furniture maker. It’s hard to find jobs now. Get in touch with some bosses and see if you can get s
ome work. As you should know, there is an expert furniture maker in the church. He went to school to study. He has worked for me and is very competent. Sometimes, he has a lot of work and needs some help. Go to him and explain your problem. He’s young like you. He should be able to understand. He might be able to help you prepare for the marriage. You’ll need furniture.”
It didn’t seem that the pastor understood how furniture workers operated in Haiti. I did. The pastor was suggesting that I work for the furniture maker to make some money. I knew I would be paid enough to eat and no more. But as long as I was working for him, I would not have the time to make my own furniture. The pastor’s advice would lead me to the worst of all worlds. Also, he spoke as if I was incompetent. I was burning inside but couldn’t say anything. I was really much more talented than the guy he wanted me to work for.
There was no use in responding. This was not a conversation. He was issuing orders.
“Okay, I’ll call the furniture maker and tell him that I’m sending you over.” He took out his cellphone. “Hello, Gilles? I have Joegodson here. He needs some work.… Okay, then, I’ll send him over to you. Okay, thanks.”
Apparently I had nothing of any importance to say about my own life, about my own marriage. It seemed more like a funeral. But I, not the pastor, was going to have to live with these choices.
He closed his cell phone. “Okay. It’s all set up then. That’s it.”
He meant “that’s it” in the spirit of “you can leave now and follow my instructions.” In fact, he told me that I should go over to see the furniture maker right away and get started. He said Annie should remain at the church while I went to get a job. I shouldn’t waste a second. “That’s it.”
I left his office like a zombie. I walked down the stairs acting under the will of the pastor. What was the difference between my pastor and an houngan? What was the difference between the pastor and a lwa who controlled the soul of his victim? I was actually walking toward a taptap to go to see the furniture maker when, somehow, my own soul asked for re-entry into my body. “What am I doing?” I said to myself. “Who is in charge of my life?”
Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti Page 22