My first impression of Haiti was jaw dropping. Literally, I was whipping my head around taking it all in. Trash piled up everywhere along the beach. Public urination. Random goats. Children rinsing feet in a random sidewalk pipe. A mule caravan. Decorative traffic signal. All while in a taxi blaring Creole hip hop.

Even though my initial shock faded, there my trash sensitivity remained. Lots of Styrofoam, plastic bags, food waste piled up on corners and littering the roads. Wealthier neighborhoods had much tidier streets, but I don’t recall any public trash cans.

So the average person lives off $2 a day in Haiti. Consequently, cheap labor abounds in Haiti. You know how we have airport luggage carousels in America? And you buy a luggage cart from an automated kiosk? Welp, Haiti has a guy holding the buggies that your pay instead of the kiosk and one guy that brings you your luggage from a pile instead of the carousel. Where we’re used to automation and convenience, over there there’s a guy. Stoll outside of Hugo Chavez International Airport (yes, that Hugo Chavez) and there’s a gauntlet of Haitian taxi men just staring.

And unfortunately, because of the presence of poverty, it effects the socioeconomic mobility of many. Namely, education is not free for all. It’s not free, so it’s not for all. Many children cannot afford the tuition, uniforms, and school supplies. So many do not get to attend school – at all.

I’m an artist. I look like one. Artists’ appearance usually has dead giveaways. My hair snitches on me regularly. People were respectful and didn’t outright stare, and generally minded their business, but I got surreptitious looks when I wasn’t looking their way. I later found out that my friend Jessica had had a conversation with our tap tap driver regarding my aforementioned loquacious hair. We were returning from the Citadelle, so while they were rattling off in French, I was in a tropical heat stupor. Stupored, but still grateful to be sitting in the front seat of an un-air conditioned tappity tap as opposed to the back. She later relayed their conversation. He’d ask, “why is her hair like that . . . is she part of a group or something?”

Inside the tap tap in the early part of trip. Later 18 of us were inside and hanging off the back. Good times!

Everyone seemed monochromatic, with less color diversity than I’m used in my African Americans community. Er, Haiti, like many countries, has its own racial construct, which I cannot do justice. But I did understand that I wasn’t considered black because Haitian = black. So if I’m not Haitian, I’m not black. Not Haitian = blan. Blan literally means white. Like black is applied to people with a spec of black blood in America, blan is universally applied to foreigners - black, white, and points in between. Foreigner=blan. When my translator was attempting to explain my ethnicity to my Haitian students, I was indignant, “I’m not ‘blan,’ I’m black!” I knew enough French to deduce that the Creole word blan means white. I even pulled some receipts on my blackness by showing pics of my father. To which they responded, “Is he Haitian?” (face palm) No. He’s not. So, I remained a blan.

(reposted from previous blog)

Haiti Artventure Part 2 - The Bad & Ugly