3 dudes straddling each other on a moto = really not so tough

I am endlessly annoyed with the stupid, misogynistic men here. Always cat-calling and making kissing sounds, yelling BLAN!, leering, or otherwise being barbarians...

I've tried to think of what I can do when such things occur, specifically when guys make kissing sounds my way. I just don't understand what they possibly think could come of such behavior...that I would run over and kiss them? Do they actually think that I might actually enjoy when they do that?? That maybe I'll come talk to them because I think it's so witty/complimentary? It's totally absurd! I don't want to demean monkeys by saying this....but they're like monkeys! So what I initially came up with, was that when they make kissing noises at me, I will stick out my tongue and make farting noises at them. This seemed hilarious and unattractive and perfect, but I kept forgetting, and when I remembered: they were often already harassing someone else or were laughing with their friends about what ladies men they were or something.

So tonight, three dudes on a motorcycle (yes three dudes straddling each other) slowly rode up beside me all making kissing noises. Honestly disgusted by them, I spit on the ground between us. In retrospect...maybe a bad idea.... They stopped the motorcycle and one guy hopped off. I was a little scared for my life, I admit.... He yelled at me and spit on the ground by me. I couldn't say anything I'd like to say in their language, so I just muttered in English....yes: good job, you spit on the ground, that's what everyone does here, big deal, and clutched my purse to me, walking quickly down the single road (nowhere to dart). They drove a little way and then waited for me to pass again, and yelled out BITCH FUCK BITCH FUCK as I passed by... clearly knowing those were bad words but not exactly knowing how to use them....They also spit in my direction and drove away. I continued walking and they waited for me again a little ways ahead. I was really quite scared at this point, but there were a lot of people around, and so I hoped that meant they wouldn't do anything too stupid. I passed by and they just looked at me, then drove away quickly (straddling eachother). Thankfully I got back to my house safely, without seeing them again, but it was scary as there aren't so many people out in the streets around my house.

All I can say is that I F'ng hate Haitian men (I'm sorry!) and in fact: the general culture between men and women here. Women here are so powerless. It's disgusting. Women have to prostitute themselves here regularly just to feed their families and buy things they need, because the men are often off having relationships with other women--buying them things or having babies all around town they can't support. And they can't even charge much because it's so commonplace here! Despite the fact that things cost about the same in the grocery store here as in the US, you can pay a woman $1 for sex!! You can tell that women are used to being unempowered in their interactions with us as "authority figures" (even though we try not to be like that in the clinic) and with their FOBs (father of baby)...that is, if the men even come. We had one guy come briefly to see his baby, drunk, and then was turning to leave even though we encouraged him to stay since his lady needed to spend the night with her high blood pressures; he refused and then in front of her he asked for condoms to go party...

Ugh........ I look forward to Guatemala more and more every day....

As for good news, we had two healthy babies today and both dads came :)

a tribute to spiders

We had a fairly hilarious, fairly disheartening MTV Real World moment in the MHI house today. We were all hanging around since it was pouring rain and there was nowhere to go, nothing to do—motos don’t go in the rain, and anyway it was Saturday. Someone spied a spider and everyone freaked out (Glenda, Ninotte, Melinda, Marianne, Ena, Tata)....

I pointed out calmly that it isn’t poisonous and is in fact helpful in eating the pesky malaria/dengue-carrying insects and other actually scary or annoying pests.Alas, in their irrational panic, Ninotte was encouraged to kill it. She took off her shoe and lunged at it. I literally jumped on her and was actually wrestling with her. She overpowered me and whacked the beautiful tarantula (endangered in some parts) into oblivion. I ran to the bathroom and stayed there for five minutes or so—busying myself with brushing my teeth, hand-washing, etc…. I heard Ninotte call out that she was sorry and that she couldn’t help it. I came out to grab the keys to go up to the clinic—still upset and not really wanting to face them. We had a last tense talk on the way out—each side justifying their opinion—that they supposedly get bitten while they sleep sometimes—being their only reason—mine being that I’ve never been bitten by spiders here, yet have had a million other insect bites and would appreciate the work of the spider in killing those bugs. Not to mention its other values on the planet. I went to the dome and worked on other things for several hours, including an appropriate insect relocator for the house. J haha, ohhhhhh the drama

Mind you—I have no problem with killing the mice and rats who are actually breeding and bringing disease into our kitchen/garden, destroying things in the house including clinic supplies, etc. But the cliché, irrational fear of spiders (the vast majority of which are not poisonous to humans) is intolerable to me. Please—I lived in New Mexico where there are saucer-sized tarantulas that people swerve to miss in the road and black widows that dominate homes/garages. Yeah, sometimes people get bitten by spiders, and that’s certainly good to avoid--especially by poisonous ones, but contrary to popular belief, even being bitten by a brown recluse or black widow doesn't automatically mean death or decay! Thus: I cannot condone the killing of such beautiful, artful, and helpful creatures....especially in this case as it was not of the lethal/limb-destroying variety.

Upstairs at the clinic, my mood was vastly improved by 3 adorable little girls—Anis, Marojolie, and Naiko—who came over from the tent camp adjacent (or rather the squatting grounds upon the clinic’s grounds) to talk to me. I love how unafraid they are to talk to me, even though I suck at their language and they know it. They played with my hair and kissed my head and giggled a lot, which was awesome. As they rolled all over me, I repeated in my head: I do not believe in scabies, I do not believe in scabies, I do not believe in scabies)…

(Yes I see some irony in my distaste for the work of scabies mites vs. spiders, but I’ve been bitten by both, and I’d take a necrotic spider bite (rare anyway) over a tenacious bunch of scabies mites which can result in a several weeks/months long battle any day!)

Carnival pictures

Night: Large semis, loaded with too many speakers and with a band atop...

keyboard, guitar, dancers, etc...

preceeded by a dancing crowd

and followed by a dancing crowd

Afternoon Mardi Gras:

hey, what's that monkey doing??

Costumes and Masks and SUN

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!