12 January 2010 earthquake, Culture, Haitian history, January 12 2010 Earthquake, News, Paganicon 2017, Thoughts about Vodou, Vodou

Nou la (we’re here)

January 12, 2017 By andezo

I don’t use this blog nearly enough. This year, I hope to change that. If there are specific topics that you might be interested in me posting about, please contact me (andezo at gmail dot com) and let me know! I’m collecting ideas to make this a much more regular space. Social media, which is useful for short-term and breaking news, is becoming increasingly less useful for talking about bigger subjects, and it’s time to return to the long form.

Today marks seven years from the major earthquake that killed many people in Haiti, including some of my own family members. Time continues its march forward. Some things change, some things don’t change. Haiti has (yet another) new president, but no less controversy. The US continues to meddle in Haitian affairs. The UN, which suddenly issued an apology for its causing the cholera epidemic post-earthquake (but most likely only because the outgoing secretary is thinking about a presidential run in Korea and wants to look good), sent more peacekeepers to the country this week, but didn’t bother to vaccinate them against cholera until a public outcry was made – and now only they are treated. (Nothing at all has been done for the Haitians who live where they are).

It’s heartbreaking and frustrating and rage-inducing to know what’s going on in Haiti (to be fair, we’ve got those feelings about places outside Haiti currently as well, don’t we?). It becomes a serious effort to stay focused and not let it get you into a pit of despair and anger that does nothing at all except feed on itself.

But that effort is important. It is perhaps even more important when the stakes are this high. Stay informed. Read from many sources. Check your sources. Check them again. Learn about what’s going on behind the clickbait and the headlines. Get out of your comfort zone. To borrow a phrase from the justice movements in the US: stay woke. Remind yourself and your world: we’re here. We’re not going anywhere. We will continue. Strength makes them see.

PS: I’ll be appearing at Paganicon 2017, and am also one of the sponsors of the Pagans of Color & Allies suite that will be open during the event. We’ll have Vodou programming among many other things. Join us if you can.

12 January 2010 earthquake, Haitian history, January 12 2010 Earthquake, Links, News

Five years on: m’pa pi mal

January 12, 2015 By andezo

It was five years ago today that everything changed for Haiti. How is it now? The idiom, m’pa pi mal, couldn’t be more appropriate. Though this is usually what you say in Kreyol to the question koman ou ye or “how are you,” it doesn’t exactly translate as “I’m fine.”

Literally translated, it means: “I’m not any worse.”

Good things have happened, and bad things have also happened, since that terrible afternoon. I can’t say that there is much change in the grief for me, beyond that its jagged shapes are now known rather than lurking and unknown. I don’t wake up from nightmares of bodies under concrete as often as I once did, but it still happens. And I was thousands of miles away at the time. I can’t even begin to imagine how much more intense these feelings are for those who were in Haiti five years ago today.

Five years on, there is still far too much to be done. For those who lost family or home, or often both – and for the 80,000 (!) people still living in “temporary” shelters, tonight will not be magically different from the last five years of nights. Other than a day on a calendar, it is no different and things must still change. There is so much to be done still, and the pace at which my country and the rest of the world has offered its assistance, yet again, is shameful. So too is the response of the United Nations (don’t even get me started) and of Haiti’s government itself. As if there weren’t enough problems with thousands of people needing somewhere safe to live, there is still much political disruption to contend with, including a (potential) return to dictatorship as early as tonight, if Haiti’s parliament can’t get its act together in time.

How do you know what’s happening, if you don’t have family you can call? Here’s an aggregation of various reports on what’s going on, good and bad, in the Land of Mountains. Be aware of context. I’m trying to avoid the worst of the “disaster porn,” but I want to make sure I cover different contexts and angles.

Today’s news from Haiti Libre – many articles here.

Today’s news from the Haitian Times (aggregated from many sources) here.

ABC: “Five Year Anniversary Approaches” video (from 2010) and story here.

Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates): “Haiti Pays Tribute to Quake Tragedy’s Dead” article here.

Boston Globe: “Hope links Haiti, Boston 5 years after quake” article here.

Fusion: “Five years after the Haiti earthquake: protests, voodoo, and rock and roll” article here.

Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates): “Haiti Pays Tribute to Quake Tragedy’s Dead” article here.

Miami Herald: “Tens of thousands still living in tents 5 years after Haiti earthquake” article here.

NBC: “What Does Haiti Have to Show…” video and story here.

Reuters: “Haitians learn to live with disaster upon disaster” article here.

For my Haitian family, I have nothing but love. I miss you every day, but especially today when some of us – far too many of us – went to the angels.

12 January 2010 earthquake, Haitian history, January 12 2010 Earthquake, News, Vodou

Four years later

January 12, 2014 By andezo

It started with a text.

Hey there was just a bad earthquake in Haiti, is Mami Marie OK?

I was in the car that afternoon, waiting for my downstairs neighbor to come out of the appointment I’d driven her to. One of my initiate daughters, ti-Marie, pinged me with the text. Immediately I phoned my Vodou mother, Mambo Marie; I knew that she had returned from her trip to see the family in Port-au-Prince only a few hours before. I managed to catch her.

“I’ll call,” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

I turned on the car, and the radio news.

None of the news was good. A massive, shallow earthquake had hit near Leogane, right before dinnertime. The only thing the reporters seemed to know was that the airport was “damaged” and that there were reports that the cathedral – and the palace – The Palace? – had fallen down.

That was when the panic set in. The family lakou is in a neighborhood very close to the Palace. And if that big, fancy, well-built thing had fallen down…

My neighbor came out of the building. I drove home, went upstairs to the apartment I had two floors above hers, grabbed both my phones, and started making calls.

January 12 2010 Earthquake, Rant

Show us the money, part 2: Senator Coburn responds

October 15, 2010 By andezo

Senator Coburn’s response to allegations that he is holding up all the Haiti aid in the House bill on his desk can be read here.

Perhaps I am reading this incorrectly, but I don’t know that I agree that we are “mischaracterizing” anything in saying that he is holding up aid to Haiti.

Yes, there has been other aid to Haiti, and yes, there are things about this bill that aren’t good and should be worked on. Yes, his copies of letters to Mitch McConnell look good, AND yes, if the bill is an authorization for 2011, it’s not for 2010 as has been suggested and it’s “new money” as opposed to money already promised.

However, a basic fact remains.

Whatever kind of money it is, whatever year it’s promised for, whatever he wants to believe about his intentions – a bill was passed by the US House of Representatives authorizing money to be sent to Haiti and Senator Coburn is using his Senatorial powers to hold on to it and keep it from being passed.

From the standpoint of Haiti? Promised aid is not coming until Coburn stops his hold.

So can we stop splitting hairs and remove the hold already, Senator Coburn? You are a medical doctor. “Do no harm” certainly applies to holding up the delivery of much-needed funds to help those in Haiti that you claim to care about. Focus your spending laser beam somewhere where people won’t die while Senators and Congressmen get around to making up their minds. Remove the hold.

January 12 2010 Earthquake, News, Rant

Show us the money

September 29, 2010 By andezo

My blog is suffering a similar fate to Haiti; it was destroyed by a force outside itself and nobody seems to want to help me get it fixed. Yes, that’s a petty comparison and it’s probably silly for me to be making it, but it is something that just occurred to me right now that blog is mirroring life. But that’s not what I’m here to write about today.

What I want to write about is a follow-up on a conversation that many of us have been having, on and off the Internet. It’s been just short of nine months since the earthquake destroyed Port-au-Prince. Yes, destroyed. Have you seen the pictures? Have you heard the stories? This is not just a small inconvenience with a couple of houses down the block that got their windows broken out. This is a major catastrophe with literally millions of people displaced, thousands dead, and a majority of the landscape pulverized into rubble. NINE MONTHS LATER people are still living in tents (and mind you when I say “tents” I am not saying the latest and greatest pop-up camper from Erewhon, I’m talking about a sheet or a tarp tied with some strings to the next sheet or tarp, like the “tents” you might’ve made in the kitchen when you were a kid with some chairs and a blanket.

The people of Haiti are expected to go through hurricane season like this. Yet people all over the world poured their hearts out in January and gave money, and many governments promised lots of money to help. The government of the country I currently live in was no exception; Hillary Clinton promised more than a billion dollars for rebuilding the city of Port-au-Prince alone, back in March.

But where’s the money?

Word’s out today that ALL this US$1.15 billion is still sitting on someone’s desk waiting to be freed. Heads should roll, you say. Someone should make this stop, you say. One person should not hold millions of lives hostage, you say. I agree. Who is this person? Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Because he disagrees with one provision of the massive bill, he’s been holding out on this bill, and thus stopping any U.S. aid from getting to Haiti, for NINE MONTHS.