7525 Re: 7434: Groups going to Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jedidiah <his_voidness@yahoo.com>

Last week I was exploring the lost coast of the
Cape of Saint Marc. This is about 35 kilometers
of the old MacDonald railroad bed which follows the
coast around the barren headlands of the Cap.

I was on my Super Cent ( or Super 90 plis ) moto
with Lickman, a carpenter of the neighborhood.
I was exploring the old railway line, I'll do
a web page about it.

The roadbed turns into crap just past Ravine Seche,
which is really a god forsaken place for a village,
located on an old switching yard.

About 10 klicks past that the map shows a village
almost out to the lighthouse at the Cap. I wanted
to see what a Haytian lighthouse looks like, but
discovered the village. 

When we got there a truckload of missionaries
was unloading used clothes at this village,
which is actually the remnants of the SHADA
plantation. I thank my reading of Heinl for
some foreknowledge of that operation.

I felt some indignation at seeing this truckload
of blan, having spent probably $10,000 to come to
this spot with no drinking water, where no one
should be living at all, to drop off the most
expensive used clothes imaginable.

Then I read Papa Corbetts defense of travel groups,
spring tours to visit the deprived.

I must admit that I was being self righteous
in my indignation, snobbish about my living
on Avenue Fatra with the Pov.

I do think that buying used clothes here from
the street merchants would be a lot better
investment than filling up trunks in Mississippi.
It keeps the street merchants in food as well,
and the transport costs for a container of used
clothes are considerably lower.

A couple of days later I went back to visit
that lost coast by myself, with a fresh role
of film in the Lomo. Upon returning to Fami Mwen
house on Ave Maure-Fatra I was amazed to see three
young white kids in the vacant space next door,
surrounded by kids of the neighborhood.

I asked "ki moun blan yo?" and was told that
they were missionaries from the Mission Jenesse
down the street. I gather that groups of young
people come there to experience just what the
original poster was asking about.

The neighborhood kids were polite I think.
They did think that these were friends of mine
but I told them I had no idea who they were.

So then we talked a little bit, they were on a 
'mission trip'. I didn't ask what they did on
such a trip. I did suggest to them that the
mission consider building a public toilet
between their 15 foot wall and the street.
I told them that folks in the neighborhood
appreciate the basketball hoop which they put
up last year and the light at the gate which
the kids study under.

But then I told them that folks were beginning
to resent the amount of land which they are
buying up and taking out of plantation and
behind barriers.

I told these young american folks that most
of the poor people on the street do not
have toilets as their plots have fallen into
the sea. When they did have plots the toilets
emptied directly into the sea of course.
Now they shit on the beach if they don't have
friends within a block willing to share their
outhouse.

So, I told them to suggest to the director of
the mission that building a public outhouse
would be a nice cheap gesture to the neighborhood
after enclosing two carre of plantation.
Someone could have a job keeping it clean even.
Charge a gourde to use a clean toilet!

They liked the idea, and were suitably appalled
at the idea of caca na plajla. 

So, maybe this visit will have some long term
value to the pov living on the former roadbed
of the railroad MacDonald in St Marc.


=====
Jedidia Daudi Lyall,
http://www.lyalls.net

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