Monday, April 28, 2014

Some things you may not know about Haiti

-Married women in Haiti are referred to by their husband's name rather than their own. The Haitians call me "Madam Jimmy", which literally means "Jimmy's wife".

-Haiti is about the size of Vermont. However, it's population is around 10 million whereas Vermont has a population of approximately 620,000.

-If you live in Haiti for a few years, your 2 year old will probably start checking her underwear for ants before she puts them on. Ours does anyways.

-80% of schools in Haiti are private and due to poverty only about 40% of school aged children can attend school regularly. There are annual school fees and all students must have special uniforms and money for school supplies. Many children are also needed at home for tasks like pumping and carrying water. On average most girls in Haiti attend just 2 years of school. You do not advance through grades in Haiti by age, but rather by passing a test at the end of the year. Since many students' schooling is interrupted, it is common to have older students still in primary school and students graduating high school sometime in their 20's.

- Pretty much every store or gas station or restaurant in Haiti (not to mention most of the nicer houses) have guards with very large guns stationed at their gates or doors. If you live here fore a while this becomes very normal. Aren't big guys with shotguns more effective than security cameras anyway?
For the first year we lived here we kept the shotgun and shells that our night guard used  in our apartment either under our bed or in the corner of the room. There would be a knock at the door at 6pm each evening for him to pick them up, and another knock at 6am each morning for him to return them. The morning knock would always be preceded by the loud clicking sound of him unloading the 5 shells outside our door. Once Abbi was born we passed the gun storing duty on to someone else.

-Haitians love to gamble. There are small lotto booths all throughout the country. Haitians will ask the gods to reveal winning lotto numbers during their voodoo ceremonies. Most of these lotto huts, as well as most of the local bars and taxis all have words like "God is good" and "Praise Jesus" painted on them. These little slogans are thought of somewhat like good luck charms. There are several lotto booths right next to our apartment and one of them often writes it's winning number up on our gate.

-The largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere, the Citadel, is located in Haiti. It was built in the early 1800's as a protection for the newly independent country from French invasion. We have not made it to visit the Citadel yet, but you know my history loving husband cannot wait until we have the chance.

-Haiti is the most mountainous nation in the Caribbean. From our house we can look to both the North and the South and see mountains. The temperature in the mountains is about 15 degrees cooler than down in the city. It probably averages is in the low 80's rather than the high 90's. We think this is wonderful and love chances to get up into the mountains. However the Haitians that live in the mountains think this is very cold and go around bundled up in coats and hats.

-A common Haitian proverb states "Deye mon, gen mon." This translates "Beyond mountains there are mountains". It can mean both that their are always more troubles and problems as well as that there are always hidden meanings behind things.

-If you live in Haiti for a while your children will start to think that Texas is cold. This is evidenced to by the fact that 2 of our younger students who recently wrote a report on Texas started it with "Texas is a very cold place." We had to laugh. Just goes to show that everything is a matter of perspective.

I could write many more - maybe there will have to be more installments of this post later.

For now it's time to sleep. The same way we always do in Haiti - with the fridge turned off to save power, the fan pointed straight at you to keep you cool and drown out background noise, and with the mosquito net hanging overhead to keep away malaria carrying mosquitoes. :o) Oh yes, and I don't have to worry about setting an alarm clock before bed - that's what roosters are for.
(Although currently our girls usually wake us before the roosters.)

2 comments:

  1. This is sooooooo awesome!!!! Encore! Encore!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for this glimpse. Love to hear how you're life.

    ReplyDelete