seattlites.

it's our first real day in c-@-uhl. ever. but its our our new-to-us corner of the world. our new habitat. and i don't feel much like writing, as much as i feel like documenting this day before i forget the freshness.

it's a strange thing to be both a tourist and resident in a new city. it's strange to me because its new and unfamiliar and a little scary. and shares much likeness to the untraveled road ahead.

will i find meaningful and fulfilling work? will fin love his job? will we find a cozy place to make our first (or third) newlywed nest? will we find a family to call friends?  will we remain committed to our friends and family in Texas and Haiti in our use of time, travel, and thought? what will we learn of faithfulness? will we jump in or dip our toes in the newness of it all? will we find korean tacos in Seattle?

these things we shall see... atle.

new year. new dreams.

we're back stateside. what a difference an ocean can make. an absurd and mystifying and unsettling difference at times. settling back in and searching for jobs. it's a new year.

and... we're embarking on a shared life. we're engaged!

articles and a re-count.

+ Haiti Protests Erupt as Presidential Candidates Advance

+ Haitian Vote Results to Be Reviewed

So, there's a re-count in the works, though I'm not sure yet when we can expect the re-results to go public. 

Also, since being in PAP for the last several days, we've had the pleasure of meeting some folk at the Mennonite Central Committee's Haiti office. They have been most fun and sweet. Here's a blog entry from one such gal we've met. She and her husband live near the epicenter of the protests, up the hill in Petionville. She's said it better than I could.

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Not only do UN troops continue to rain teargas and rubber bullets on protesters in Petionville, but it's also literally raining. An off-season morning rain is unusual on both counts. I can't help but wonder if the rain is intentional - Creator and Creation trying to keep things calm. The sound of the rain mostly masks the noise of a protest taking place in the Petionville market, about 500 feet from where I sit, also protesting.

I may not be out in the streets, but as a foreigner that cares about this country and whose job it is to advocate for structural justice, I protest too. From my couch and on my laptop, I protest election results that maintain the status quo in direct opposition of the will of the Haitian people. I protest the morning's headlines that read, "Haiti protests blocking relief efforts" and "Demonstrations in Haiti Crimp Northwest Aid Efforts," as if this story is about us, unable to fix Haiti because the Haitians that we're here to save won't stop burning tires. I protest the headline that reads "Supporters of losing Haiti candidate take to the streets," as if Michel Martelly is a sore loser; whereas from my perspective, this isn't about Martelly at all. It's about the right to vote. I protest the narrative that insinuates that it's somehow Haitians' fault that they have no voice. To be fair, I also protest the narrative that insinuates that the situation in Haiti is entirely the fault of NGOs and donor countries and multilateral institutions (not that we don't have a lot to do with it). I protest the perception that all of the demonstrations taking place are violent. I also protest that many of themare - and not just when provoked by UN soldiers - and this makes me sad.

In the midst of all of this protesting, I feel pretty powerless. And yet, as a foreigner with a laptop that works for an NGO and has access to advocacy offices in DC, Ottawa and at the UN, I sadly have a hell of a lot more power than the thousands of people in the streets who are being disparaged by the international media while they face tear gas, rubber bullets and flash grenades in the rain to fight for their right to make their voices heard. And so do you.

We need to try hear beyond the news headlines and join in these protests by demanding that our governments (who funded 3/4 of these elections) assist in efforts to review election fraud and pressure the Haitian government to release legitimate final election results.

from here.

status update.

thanks so much for checking up on stephen and me; i'm assuming that's why you are reading this. be assured that stephen and i are doing just fine here in Port-au-Prince, despite having had our return flight home this morning cancelled.  you can chill, mom, we've got one for saturday :) (thank you Mr. J!)

last night, as you may have read, the preliminary results of the presidential elections were released here in Haiti. contrary to international observance, the results favored the outgoing president's hand-picked successor rather than the candidates for whom the Haitian people hand-voted. there is a long and deep backstory to what is happening today, and it reaches back far before this election. 

if you and your people had again been held under the hand of a ruling political class of 5% of the population for the better part of 200 years, what sort of reaction would you have? 

today, we feel removed from the actual events, holeing ourselves up in the home of one of stephen's classmates here (she is the most sweet and most gracious), making it impossible to feel any sense of solidarity with the protesters.  even if we weren't holed up, our nationalities and appearances would still make participation impossible.

instead we pray for justice and wonder where it is. for electoral integrity and find it hard to see. for responsible reporting that would side with the WHOLE story and not merely photos of inappropriate mobs and the UN peacekeeping heros (only furthering the justification of their unwanted presence here). 

for that is not the story!

if you're interested, check out this piece. i know i'm constantly citing HP articles, (sorry, dad), but they most align with what we're hearing, observing, and experiencing in-country. *can't link it now, as our internet connection is crawling.

and, yet we pray for our own well-being. God, help us to seek love for every human life. for those we find it easy to love and those we find it nearly impossible. 

in hopeful anticipation,

w 

ferrier fotos.

one of the funnest (that should be a word) things to do here is show someone a photo of themselves. there are photo studios here (think haitian glamour shots), but going to one is usually not a high priority and mostly done in necessity (for a name badge, id card, etc.).  the reactions at seeing one's photo on the camera usually come in the form of a shriek, hoot, or a mouth dropped open. before i left ferrier, some of my closest friends let me steel their photos. 

okay, she's not really one of my closest friends, but she looks like a fun one. caught her just after she saw her photo on the camera...

some of my 2 favorite timoun yo (kids). rose's sons. 

rose. rose. rose. she took SUCH phenomenal care of us. oh, and if you could only hear her laugh.

the sweetest girl friends. we ran together, laughed at my creole together, and sat around talking for more days than we didn't. boy, i miss them.

the facial expressions range pretty dramatically. love it.

stephen and our homeboys. there's too much to say about them. i have NO idea what we'd have done without them. our haiti time would have been lackluster for sure.

we had to say good-bye to ferrier and our most incredible friends saturday morning. until we get to see them again in person, these photos, phonecalls, and mail (by way of other ferrier travelers) will have to do. i still can't believe they let us be their friends. i feel so lucky.

today in history.

this morning i woke up early, not because i tried to or because i have the will of an olympic hopeful, but because the sunlight streaming through the window was holding my feet to the fire of another new day.  so i gave in and ventured outside. we're back in Leogone, where an inescapable relative silence filled the air. it was an eerie sort of calm that filled the streets with only the sound of an early morning church service faintly floating through the air. 


today is election day.


supposedly.


in recent weeks leading up to today, a handful of presidential candidates have made a stop in Ferrier as part of their campaigns. i've been both impressed and disgusted by this. 


i want to think this is brings power to the people, but it has also functioned in an opposite way for some of the candidates. for example, ont of the 'frontrunners' in the election, Jude Celestin, has led an elaborate campaign and made a showy display of himself. not forgein to any campaigh anywhere, right? but he's been taking advantage of the economic postion of many haitiens by paying them to wear t-shirts with his face plastered on them, paying for local bands to play in the streets to generate excitement right before he makes his arrival, and paying people to cover the streets with his campaign materials. i'm not sure that this sort of thing is the rule, but it sure makes the international community think he's got the honest support of the populus in a way that might make it less critical of the vote count if he 'wins'. 

campaign budget beneficiary. 

(also one of my favorite kids in ferrier. i miss him already.)

when i've asked friends in ferrier who they'd like to become their next president, most to all of them have answered with, 'none of them'.  i've come to better understand this with the help of more conversations with those friends and some revealing books about hait's history (this, this, and this one, inparticular). it's almost frightening to realize the strength with which the US has excercised its power in favor of its own geopolitical interests rather than in favor of 90-99% of the Haitian population.


this article sheds a some light on why today's elections are anything but 'free and fair'. some excerpts:


First, Haitian elections are supposed to choose their new President, the entire House of Deputies and one-third of the country's Senate. But election authorities have illegally excluded all the candidates from the country's most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas -- and other progressive candidates. Lavalas, the party of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has won many elections in Haiti -- probably the reason it was excluded. If this were the US, this would be like holding elections just between the Tea Party and the GOP -- and excluding all others. Few Haitians will respect the outcome of these elections.


...Fifth, the United States has pushed and paid for these swift elections hoping to secure a stable government to preserve its investment in earthquake reconstruction. But, as Dan Beeton wrote in the LA Times, "If the Obama administration wants to stand on the side of democracy and human rights in Haiti, as it did in Burma, it should support the call to postpone the elections until all parties are allowed to run and all eligible voters are guaranteed a vote." By supporting elections that exclude legitimate political parties that are critical of the current government the international community is only assuring the very social and political unrest it hopes to avoid.


Haitians are saying that no matter which candidates win on November 28, the political system that has failed them will not change unless there is an election that is fair and inclusive. They are also asking that the country undergo a reconciliation process that includes the voices of more than just the Haitian elite and international community.


is there hope for these elections? only, time and responsible reporting may tell. until then, let us find a way to be a part of what Dr. King called 'the arc of the moral universe's bend toward justice.' 

riots.

*FYI: i meant to post this last week, but time got away from me. i pulled it out of the trash and tweeked it a bit. it's a little soggy, but mostly still edible.
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the streets last week were abuzz with the news of the protests in Cap Haitian. you have probably seen or read the news stories yourselves about the riots. or maybe you haven't. interestingly as the events unfolded last week, we watched the mainstream news' version of them unfold as well, and after doing so i might just never trust the media machine again.  

from the start of the protests in Cap Haitian, the motivations were clear and consistent among the people we asked here, all of whom were Haitian. coincidentally, by and large, the press's coverage has not coincided with the answers our friends have given us. strange.

we've watched as the media has quoted twitter feeds and blog posts again and again. even if these sources are from the 'front lines,' which makes sense, 140 characters is a difficult, if not impossible way to extend full and robust coverage to the masses. we've watched as the same news story gets shuffled through all the big sources, oft with the same narrative i've mentioned before.

another twitter fumble occurred this week, mis-locating another outbreak of cholera and causing quite a ruckus. is this the kind of reporting upon which we're basing our perceptions of the rest the world?

as for the protests, or manifestations, it was really no surprise that they finally erupted. UN bases seem to be all over the place. the closest base to us is only about 5 miles away and it seems like we live in the middle of nowhere. since we've been here, we've seen the UN's MINISTUH in action only after the flood hit. they were seen hovering briefly over the delivery of aid to the displaced peoples at the school in town and shuttling groups of people to dry land by motor boat for an afternoon.  far more often than that we've seen tanks driving down peaceful, unpaved, torn-to-pieces roads, at other times driving through town in huge trucks filled with 20-something armed soldiers, and without fail guarding their compounds with armed villigance everytime we pass one.

How would the public feel toward MINISTUH had things have been different? if there had not been an alleged murder within the gates of a UN compound in Cap recently? if they had spent even half of their time building roads or hospitals, water distribution systems, or public schools? or what if they hadn't brought along cholera and then refused to acknowledge this even after having been proven? 

who is telling those stories? who is honoring those tragedies? who is holding MINISTUH accountable?

if you're interested in what's really going on here, watch this  Democracy Now piece. of course, it's not perfect, but it's one of only pieces that seems to align with the explanations our friends have shared with us here. 

it's also no surprise that many people are also upset at the exorbitant amount of money being drained into the campaign trails rather than addressing the cholera outbreak that has affected at least 23,377 lives (with the possibility of an additional 400% having never been officially reported). But the UN wants to pin this all on the count that the 'ungrateful hatian population they are so dutifully serving' is simply 'taking out their election frustrations on the innocent, benevolent, peace-keeping MINISTUH forces'. Come on.

as for the homefront, we're safe and sound. somehow. the technicians have been tirelessly giving cholera prevention sessions in all the schools and churches. we've been accompanying them and we're all hoping cholera will stay at bay.  

over and out. for now.