Carnival and itching

Well Carnival has come and gone. Lots of really loud music, people in the streets, and in the morning: really beautiful painted masks and costumes. I got to see the supposed future president of Haiti--Michel Martelly --speak, which was very interesting. Someone like him would never have a chance as a political figure in the US (or would he?), but as someone here said to me, "Haiti is a crazy country, and it needs a crazy leader." He is an ex-compas playing, women's clothes wearing, crack-smoking, high-school degree holder. Generally the people love him and he's backed by Wyclef Jean....

He wants to do 3 things: #1 Recreate the Haitian military, which was disbanded by Aristide because they were basically a gang of hooligans causing more harm than good (eg murdering civilians). #2 Create a free public school system for everyone. #3 Kick out the UN. Elections are the end of the month and I just hope the place doesn't explode. Riots are inevitable if he doesn't win, and with the whole reinstating of the army and kicking the UN out, I'm not sure how that will look either...

I can't say that I'm against them kicking out the UN, as it seems that all the UN workers are doing here is getting rich. They live in extraordinary homes, drive fancy cars, go to nice bars, and shop at boutique grocery stores. Generally people respect them on the superficial level but in reality despise them. The "joke" here is how much does it cost for 1 UN worker to give out milk to people for x period of time? "the cost of 5 cows"... that is, with that salary money, they could actually be giving the Haitian people something to be self-sufficient on, but they don't want that. They want to stay and keep them in a place of dependency, all the while incurring debt, so that the industrialized world's corporations can come in and make some money--either off the people's cheap labor or by selling their products. It's disgusting and absurd and a reality here and in developing countries all over the world.

I wouldn't have maybe believed it if I hadn't seen it for my very eyes. One of the things I see very clearly and unfortunately is the advertisement of baby formula here, which is literally killing babies and costing families a lot of money they cannot afford. Because they are uneducated and have been told by big-time "health" (aka advertising) campaigns that their baby deserves formula, they forgo breastfeeding, and supplement with an inferior product, and as a result their babies die of malnutrition or become developmentally delayed, and the families continue to suffer....even though the women make perfect nutrition for the babies for FREE with their own bodies. It makes me really distraught every time I see it, which is way too often...

On another note, since the ringworm for my birthday, there was then scabies...I've gone through intense times of hating Haiti, and now I'm back to being ok with it.... I mean relatively. I found a mouse in the rice the other day and that didn't please me either, but you know...the sun is shining and the ocean is beautiful and there's coconut in all the food....

Ok, not to end on a bad note...but I also just found out that all the chicken they eat here (a lot!) is shipped from Florida. As if people couldn't be doing chicken farms here! They are buying animals who have been tortured, pumped up with antibiotics and hormones, and then taxed and shipped across the ocean. Totally absurd. Ahhhhhh!