Yesterday, I got an invitation to a Super Bowl party. Yes. A Super Bowl party in HAITI! I could hardly believe it myself, ha! Some American's from our church work as pilots here in Haiti. So, they have a pretty "American" home and lifestyle. I actually didn't even know you could have cable TV here!
They borrowed a projector from someone and we got to watch the game on a BIG screen. The party was an open invitation to the senior high youth group and members of the church. I think there were close to 40 Haitians and Americans there. It was lots of fun. It was, however, strange. During the game I felt like I had somehow teleported to the US for a few hours (except for when the power went off for a few minutes). As fun as it was, I have to admit I was bummed that the Steelers lost. :(
The Super Bowl party was not in my neighborhood. So, rather than get home late and have to wake Dorothy to unlock our gate, I spent the night at Keziah's house. Kez calls her house "The Shoebox". I have to agree with her. It really is a shoebox. She lives alone on the bottom floor of a small house. She has no running water, a small mini fridge for her food, and an exam table as her couch. It was SO nice for me to just get out of our crazy house for a night. Kez and I ended up staying up late talking about "Haiti stuff" and praying together. It was just a really nice escape for me.
In the morning, Kez had to see patients at her "Shoebox" so we got up, ate a quick breakfast, and then I headed home. Because we only have one vehicle, and because Dorothy needed it while I was gone, I walked home. I didn't mind though. I like to get "out" on my own. Kez has no vehicle so she walks or takes a tap-tap everywhere she has to go. It was still early when I left Kez's so it wasn't hot out yet. It was just really relaxing to be alone praying as I made my way up and down the rocky dusty roads. When I was close to home, I ended up striking up a conversation with a young pregnant Haitian woman who was on her way to see a doctor. I love that my Creole is finally getting good enough that I can carry on simple conversations with strangers. After about 45 minutes, I made it home and back to my kids.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
ARTICLE -- Rape flourishes in rubble of Haitian earthquake
Rape flourishes in rubble of Haitian earthquake
Los Angeles Times - Tracy Wilkinson - February 4, 2011
Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti ‹ Halya Lagunesse thought she knew despair. Nearly seven years ago, the soldiers who had killed her husband and gang-raped the Haitian woman and her daughter Joann, who was 17 at the time.
But that pain pales in comparison to the torment of learning last March that her 5-year-old granddaughter had been raped.
The attacker gave the child about 50 cents to go and buy rice. On her way back, he intercepted her and dragged her into a cemetery.
"How did that happen? How did that happen?" Lagunesse, 50, cried, wringing her hands. "This situation does something to their minds and makes people sick," she said. "Their hearts are bad."
Hers is a tragedy of rape compounded: Her granddaughter, now 6, was conceived in the gang rape of her daughter. Rape wasn't even considered a serious criminal offense in Haiti until five
years ago.
The women who pushed for the legislation making it so also built Haiti's first shelter for abused women. Next they had hoped to make fathers legally bound to acknowledge their children and pay some support.
Haitian women are the poorest and most disenfranchised in this poorest of nations in the hemisphere. And yet, through the work of a spirited coterie of feminist activists, real strides were being made.
Until Jan. 12, 2010.
Haiti's cataclysmic earthquake killed hundreds of thousands, left this capital in ruins and sent more than a million people into a life in crowded, squalid camps. It also devastated a strong and surprisingly successful women's movement, which, a year later, struggles like the rest of the nation to recover, even as women are being subjected to horrific sexual violence.
So much has been lost.
Magalie Marcelin, the indefatigable activist with the gap-toothed smile who founded one of Haiti's most important women's advocacy organizations, Kay Fanm. Crushed to death as she mentored an aspiring feminist.
Myriam Merlet, broad-faced, cheerily abrasive and endlessly effective, whether in her position at the Women's Ministry she helped shape or lobbying for the rape law she helped enact. Died in her home under a ton of concrete.
And there were so many more, equally and less famous, midwives, nuns and professors, peasant leaders and government officials, all who worked for women. All gone.
"It was a very big loss," activist Danielle Saint-Lot said. "We cried
together. We are mourning together."
::
The young men were watching Fania Simone. They had picked her. Picked her for rape.
They went to her tent and seemed to know she would be alone. Her mother had left for the countryside in search of food.
Three of them. They wore masks. They threw her to the dirt floor. They kicked her in the ribs and slapped her face.
"If you tell anyone," one of her attackers threatened, "we will kill your brother or your sister."
After the rape, Simone, 23, sought medical attention. Then an organization that helps rape victims, Kofaviv, took her under its wing and gave her psychological counseling.
But she still lives in the plastic-tarp tent, and her attackers lurk, murmuring their threats, watching her.
"I feel very unsafe," said the young woman, whose bright eyes widen as she tells her story. "I have nowhere else to go. I am tortured."
Rape has long been a scourge in Haiti. It was used as a form of political repression in 1994 and in 2004, periods of upheaval when military dictators and their brutish gangs of enforcers seized power. Men who opposed the regime were abducted and killed, women raped. An entire generation of
Haitians is filled with children of rape.
The earthquake generated new shockwaves of sexual violence. Hundreds, maybe thousands ‹ there is no comprehensive count ‹ have been raped. Some of the assaults are crimes of opportunity, but increasingly they seem a calculated, predatory form of stalking and attacking.
Only a few of an estimated 1,300 tent encampments that are spread through this shattered capital have nighttime lighting or significant police presence. Tents do not have doors or locks. People are jammed together in dehumanizing density without privacy.
Social networks and family unity have been destroyed by death and flight; children are often alone and unsupervised as their parents, if they have them, spend days searching for sustenance. The institutions of law and order, to the extent they ever had influence, have crumbled.
Young women are easy prey for uneducated, unemployed men who populate the camps, often stoned and with time on their hands. They see women and girls as fair game. Many women have denounced camp leaders, always male, for demanding sexual favors in return for tents, food and building materials.
Activists are bracing for a jump in teen pregnancies and HIV and AIDS cases, whether from rape or unprotected sex, since clinics that dispensed birth control and advice were also destroyed. The United Nations estimates that Port-au-Prince needs at least 1,000 maternal-care clinics. There are
10.
"We started receiving reports of rapes from the very first day after the quake," said Jocie Philistin, one of the women who run Kofaviv. "At first we thought, this can't be true! But it was."
::
"Women, I know you lift a lot of buckets of water. It's not enough. Work your arms!"
Murielle Dorismond, one of Haiti's top judo masters, is leading a self-defense workshop for women in the camps. Upper-body strength and self-confidence are the most important tools she tries to teach the women.
Several women's groups are taking action to confront the violence. International and national organizations have joined forces to arrange training sessions, psychological counseling and legal advice.
Kofaviv, which lost about 10% of its membership as well as its headquarters to the quake, sends "agents" into the camps to find women who have been attacked, averaging two cases a day. (And that, all involved say, is but a tip of the iceberg.)
Women have been given whistles and taught to use them.
Three short toots means, "I am being attacked."
One long toot: "I have found someone who has been raped and needs immediate help."
Before 2005, rape was considered an offense against honor, or "crime of passion," meaning it was a minor infraction in which the perpetrator would go free if he agreed to marry his victim. Then it was elevated into a serious crime with penalties. In addition, victims were allowed to seek care at any health facility, instead of the main state hospital, and no longer had to pay for the examination.
Still, victims are stigmatized, abusers rarely caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Malya Villard-Appolon, a founding member of Kofaviv, recalled how police leered at her 14-year-old daughter when the two went to a police station to report the girl's rape. One officer said girls and young women get raped because they're "in heat."
"Some of these men have the same old mentality," said Valerie Toureau, a doctor who works with rural women. "The woman for them is an object, one more piece of property. We've tried to change the mentality, but the effort has been nearly completely lost."
::
The voodoo priestesses thumped drums and lighted candles as they chanted the names.
MagalieŠ
MyriamŠ
"They were real fighters," Philistin, the activist, said. "Every woman in Haiti knows about these women. They gave their time and their souls for the progress of our struggle."
At this memorial ceremony on the first anniversary of the quake, huge photos of Magalie Marcelin, Myriam Merlet and others flanked the makeshift stage. Marcelin and Merlet, in their 50s when they died, were trained as lawyers but did their work in the streets and homes and government offices.
Merlet also wrote, collecting stories about Haitian women and campaigning to have streets named for some of the prominent ones. Marcelin once packed a courtroom with angry women to pressure for a guilty verdict against a politically connected man accused of beating his wife. Both had fought
against Jean-Claude Duvalier's brutal regime, and each had spent time in exile or in hiding.
"Every day we try to recover and to replace them," said Yolette Mengual, chief of staff in the Women's Ministry, who was overseeing the memorial. "We can't. We are still searching. We have to keep fighting."
Los Angeles Times - Tracy Wilkinson - February 4, 2011
Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti ‹ Halya Lagunesse thought she knew despair. Nearly seven years ago, the soldiers who had killed her husband and gang-raped the Haitian woman and her daughter Joann, who was 17 at the time.
But that pain pales in comparison to the torment of learning last March that her 5-year-old granddaughter had been raped.
The attacker gave the child about 50 cents to go and buy rice. On her way back, he intercepted her and dragged her into a cemetery.
"How did that happen? How did that happen?" Lagunesse, 50, cried, wringing her hands. "This situation does something to their minds and makes people sick," she said. "Their hearts are bad."
Hers is a tragedy of rape compounded: Her granddaughter, now 6, was conceived in the gang rape of her daughter. Rape wasn't even considered a serious criminal offense in Haiti until five
years ago.
The women who pushed for the legislation making it so also built Haiti's first shelter for abused women. Next they had hoped to make fathers legally bound to acknowledge their children and pay some support.
Haitian women are the poorest and most disenfranchised in this poorest of nations in the hemisphere. And yet, through the work of a spirited coterie of feminist activists, real strides were being made.
Until Jan. 12, 2010.
Haiti's cataclysmic earthquake killed hundreds of thousands, left this capital in ruins and sent more than a million people into a life in crowded, squalid camps. It also devastated a strong and surprisingly successful women's movement, which, a year later, struggles like the rest of the nation to recover, even as women are being subjected to horrific sexual violence.
So much has been lost.
Magalie Marcelin, the indefatigable activist with the gap-toothed smile who founded one of Haiti's most important women's advocacy organizations, Kay Fanm. Crushed to death as she mentored an aspiring feminist.
Myriam Merlet, broad-faced, cheerily abrasive and endlessly effective, whether in her position at the Women's Ministry she helped shape or lobbying for the rape law she helped enact. Died in her home under a ton of concrete.
And there were so many more, equally and less famous, midwives, nuns and professors, peasant leaders and government officials, all who worked for women. All gone.
"It was a very big loss," activist Danielle Saint-Lot said. "We cried
together. We are mourning together."
::
The young men were watching Fania Simone. They had picked her. Picked her for rape.
They went to her tent and seemed to know she would be alone. Her mother had left for the countryside in search of food.
Three of them. They wore masks. They threw her to the dirt floor. They kicked her in the ribs and slapped her face.
"If you tell anyone," one of her attackers threatened, "we will kill your brother or your sister."
After the rape, Simone, 23, sought medical attention. Then an organization that helps rape victims, Kofaviv, took her under its wing and gave her psychological counseling.
But she still lives in the plastic-tarp tent, and her attackers lurk, murmuring their threats, watching her.
"I feel very unsafe," said the young woman, whose bright eyes widen as she tells her story. "I have nowhere else to go. I am tortured."
Rape has long been a scourge in Haiti. It was used as a form of political repression in 1994 and in 2004, periods of upheaval when military dictators and their brutish gangs of enforcers seized power. Men who opposed the regime were abducted and killed, women raped. An entire generation of
Haitians is filled with children of rape.
The earthquake generated new shockwaves of sexual violence. Hundreds, maybe thousands ‹ there is no comprehensive count ‹ have been raped. Some of the assaults are crimes of opportunity, but increasingly they seem a calculated, predatory form of stalking and attacking.
Only a few of an estimated 1,300 tent encampments that are spread through this shattered capital have nighttime lighting or significant police presence. Tents do not have doors or locks. People are jammed together in dehumanizing density without privacy.
Social networks and family unity have been destroyed by death and flight; children are often alone and unsupervised as their parents, if they have them, spend days searching for sustenance. The institutions of law and order, to the extent they ever had influence, have crumbled.
Young women are easy prey for uneducated, unemployed men who populate the camps, often stoned and with time on their hands. They see women and girls as fair game. Many women have denounced camp leaders, always male, for demanding sexual favors in return for tents, food and building materials.
Activists are bracing for a jump in teen pregnancies and HIV and AIDS cases, whether from rape or unprotected sex, since clinics that dispensed birth control and advice were also destroyed. The United Nations estimates that Port-au-Prince needs at least 1,000 maternal-care clinics. There are
10.
"We started receiving reports of rapes from the very first day after the quake," said Jocie Philistin, one of the women who run Kofaviv. "At first we thought, this can't be true! But it was."
::
"Women, I know you lift a lot of buckets of water. It's not enough. Work your arms!"
Murielle Dorismond, one of Haiti's top judo masters, is leading a self-defense workshop for women in the camps. Upper-body strength and self-confidence are the most important tools she tries to teach the women.
Several women's groups are taking action to confront the violence. International and national organizations have joined forces to arrange training sessions, psychological counseling and legal advice.
Kofaviv, which lost about 10% of its membership as well as its headquarters to the quake, sends "agents" into the camps to find women who have been attacked, averaging two cases a day. (And that, all involved say, is but a tip of the iceberg.)
Women have been given whistles and taught to use them.
Three short toots means, "I am being attacked."
One long toot: "I have found someone who has been raped and needs immediate help."
Before 2005, rape was considered an offense against honor, or "crime of passion," meaning it was a minor infraction in which the perpetrator would go free if he agreed to marry his victim. Then it was elevated into a serious crime with penalties. In addition, victims were allowed to seek care at any health facility, instead of the main state hospital, and no longer had to pay for the examination.
Still, victims are stigmatized, abusers rarely caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Malya Villard-Appolon, a founding member of Kofaviv, recalled how police leered at her 14-year-old daughter when the two went to a police station to report the girl's rape. One officer said girls and young women get raped because they're "in heat."
"Some of these men have the same old mentality," said Valerie Toureau, a doctor who works with rural women. "The woman for them is an object, one more piece of property. We've tried to change the mentality, but the effort has been nearly completely lost."
::
The voodoo priestesses thumped drums and lighted candles as they chanted the names.
MagalieŠ
MyriamŠ
"They were real fighters," Philistin, the activist, said. "Every woman in Haiti knows about these women. They gave their time and their souls for the progress of our struggle."
At this memorial ceremony on the first anniversary of the quake, huge photos of Magalie Marcelin, Myriam Merlet and others flanked the makeshift stage. Marcelin and Merlet, in their 50s when they died, were trained as lawyers but did their work in the streets and homes and government offices.
Merlet also wrote, collecting stories about Haitian women and campaigning to have streets named for some of the prominent ones. Marcelin once packed a courtroom with angry women to pressure for a guilty verdict against a politically connected man accused of beating his wife. Both had fought
against Jean-Claude Duvalier's brutal regime, and each had spent time in exile or in hiding.
"Every day we try to recover and to replace them," said Yolette Mengual, chief of staff in the Women's Ministry, who was overseeing the memorial. "We can't. We are still searching. We have to keep fighting."
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A family in my cupboard
If you've been reading, you all know that I recently moved into a larger bedroom in our house. Along with my new room, I also have my own bathroom now! Before I lived in this room, it was our infant room. The nannies used the bathroom for bathing the babies and rinsing cloth diapers. While I was moving in last week, I unknowingly opened the cupboards under the bathroom sink. Let me tell you, that is a scary place!
The combination of tropical spiders, mice, and water damage turned the shelves under the sink into a very terrifying sight, ha! So, I quickly closed the cupboard doors and chose to postpone exploring that area until another time.
I decided for no obvious reason that today was the day to brave the cupboards. After I worked up enough courage, I began gingerly pulling things out of the cupboard one at a time. As I went, I realized that the nannies had unknowingly created the perfect breeding grounds for mice. I discovered a large cardboard box, tampons, and what was once a gift basket full of soap and decorative shredded paper. When I quickly pulled the cardboard box out onto the floor, I realized that there were not one...not two...not even three...BUT SEVEN blind mice living in my bathroom cupboard!!!
I discovered an entire family of tiny mice! The mama mouse had ingeniously used the shredded paper from the gift basket, the cotton from the tampons, and the big cardboard box to create a cozy mouse condo. Of course, my natural reaction was to scream as they all fell out of the cardboard box and began crawling around the cupboard. Dorothy came over to my room to see what the commotion was all about. I wasn't quite sure what to do about the 6 baby mice squirming around in front of me. As much as I dislike mice, I did feel bad for the little babies. We decided the humane thing to do would be to scoop them up in a dust pan and free them outside. Unfortunately in my hesitation, our dogs beat me to the mice. I do have to admit, I was a little relieved that they handled the situation.
Oh the surprises that each day bring! Why does it seem that so many of the daily "surprises" involve rodents and small critters???
The combination of tropical spiders, mice, and water damage turned the shelves under the sink into a very terrifying sight, ha! So, I quickly closed the cupboard doors and chose to postpone exploring that area until another time.
I decided for no obvious reason that today was the day to brave the cupboards. After I worked up enough courage, I began gingerly pulling things out of the cupboard one at a time. As I went, I realized that the nannies had unknowingly created the perfect breeding grounds for mice. I discovered a large cardboard box, tampons, and what was once a gift basket full of soap and decorative shredded paper. When I quickly pulled the cardboard box out onto the floor, I realized that there were not one...not two...not even three...BUT SEVEN blind mice living in my bathroom cupboard!!!
Oh the surprises that each day bring! Why does it seem that so many of the daily "surprises" involve rodents and small critters???
Friday, February 4, 2011
So many kids and so few of me!
Sometimes I get discouraged because we have so many kids, and it is just so difficult for me to spend quality time with all of them. Right now, we have 26 children. We have a staff of Haitian women that work for us to help care for all the kids. The nannies basically keep our house running. Our staff are wonderful, but to them this is a job, not a calling from God. So, they do not necessarily always give the children the affection and love that they really need.
Anytime that I am around the kids, they swarm me for attention. There have been times when I've had 6+ children sitting on my lap or hanging off of me. I love spending time with them, but it is physically exhausting because they crave the attention so much. It is too difficult to explain all the cultural differences between the Haitian nannies and Americans, but I will say that they raise children MUCH differently. Our young children are not very mannered and can be quite a handful. I've been trying to come up with a way that I can spend more time with them and teach them proper behavior without running myself ragged.
Our "big kids" (Mich age 14, Chacha age 6, Rosa age 5, and Claudine age 5) spend most of their time playing around the house freely. However, the younger children are always together in a group with a nanny. I've decided to starting bringing one or two of the younger children upstairs with the "big kids" each day. It will be easier for me to play and work with them in a smaller group setting. By no means is this ideal. I would LOVE for each child to get the one on one attention that they deserve each day, but with the amount of kids that we have, it just cannot be done. So, I am trying to do the best that I can.
I started my plan today by bringing Lovensky upstairs in the afternoon. It was a blast to see him having so much fun. I got to see his personality better, and I loved being able to give him special attention. We played outside and had a small water fight. Then after we dried off, we had a little snack and played with the toy food in my room.
I've also decided to try and get more of an evening routine set up for the kids. I would like to read them a short Bible story, and one or two other picture books each night before bed. I think that will help them to learn English and get them interesting in reading. It can be difficult to get them to sit quietly and listen since they cannot really understand what I'm saying. Sometimes with simple stories, I actually read it in Creole rather than English. I started trying to establish the routine tonight. Since it was Friday night, I made the kids popcorn and we watched a movie. Then, I brought them all onto my bed to read a Bible story. They were really enjoying it until the story was over and I told them they had to go downstairs for bed!
Each day here is a learning experience. My parenting skills are a work in progress. I'm trying to figure out how to balance time to myself with time for the kids. That can be very difficult with so many children who want my undivided attention. I'm learning, changing, and growing right alongside the kids.
Anytime that I am around the kids, they swarm me for attention. There have been times when I've had 6+ children sitting on my lap or hanging off of me. I love spending time with them, but it is physically exhausting because they crave the attention so much. It is too difficult to explain all the cultural differences between the Haitian nannies and Americans, but I will say that they raise children MUCH differently. Our young children are not very mannered and can be quite a handful. I've been trying to come up with a way that I can spend more time with them and teach them proper behavior without running myself ragged.
Our "big kids" (Mich age 14, Chacha age 6, Rosa age 5, and Claudine age 5) spend most of their time playing around the house freely. However, the younger children are always together in a group with a nanny. I've decided to starting bringing one or two of the younger children upstairs with the "big kids" each day. It will be easier for me to play and work with them in a smaller group setting. By no means is this ideal. I would LOVE for each child to get the one on one attention that they deserve each day, but with the amount of kids that we have, it just cannot be done. So, I am trying to do the best that I can.
I started my plan today by bringing Lovensky upstairs in the afternoon. It was a blast to see him having so much fun. I got to see his personality better, and I loved being able to give him special attention. We played outside and had a small water fight. Then after we dried off, we had a little snack and played with the toy food in my room.
I've also decided to try and get more of an evening routine set up for the kids. I would like to read them a short Bible story, and one or two other picture books each night before bed. I think that will help them to learn English and get them interesting in reading. It can be difficult to get them to sit quietly and listen since they cannot really understand what I'm saying. Sometimes with simple stories, I actually read it in Creole rather than English. I started trying to establish the routine tonight. Since it was Friday night, I made the kids popcorn and we watched a movie. Then, I brought them all onto my bed to read a Bible story. They were really enjoying it until the story was over and I told them they had to go downstairs for bed!
Each day here is a learning experience. My parenting skills are a work in progress. I'm trying to figure out how to balance time to myself with time for the kids. That can be very difficult with so many children who want my undivided attention. I'm learning, changing, and growing right alongside the kids.
Check it out
Just wanted to share an awesome sermon with everyone! Take a listen!
http://h2church.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=118
http://h2church.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=118
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