it's for you

Dusk

multiple manifestations

I came back to Port-au-Prince two days ago to discover that multiple groups have been staging protests (known locally as manifestations) in the downtown area over the last few weeks. It started with medical students protesting shortages in classes, then came others protesting the president's delay in approving a bill from the senate calling for a more than 200% increase in minimum wage, then general dissent over the ongoing UN MINUSTAH force presence in country and as of yesterday, there were mourners for an exiled activist Haitian priest who died recently in Miami. By now there are so many different causes being represented outside the palace that I heard a radio commentator say that the students should start wearing orange so we can distinguish them from the others.

From what I can tell, the protests are being confined to the downtown area - not more widespread as the "food riots" were last year. While I haven't been near any active demonstrations we pass remnants of burning tires and streets blocked by turned-over vehicles on our way home. The UN troops have used tear gas on more than one occasion, and couple days ago a UN vehicle was overtaken by a crowd and burned (the troops got away without harm). Yesterday there was a report of someone being shot and killed - rumors quickly started that it was a UN troop who fired but really no one knows.

We had gone more than a year without any notable manifestations happening.... but this still feels very familiar. As usual, my day-to-day life is hardly affected - up until now it doesn't seem to be keeping patients away from the clinic - although that is always a possibility.

It's so hard to say whether or not the protests are in any way a positive thing. In the face of a totally ineffective government, some degree of protest/activity by the population could be a good/necessary thing. The problem is that this hardly feels like a movement of the people - organized protests with paid-off demonstrators are frequently used by politicians and other people in power here to create instability for their own benefit. The run-off/repeat Senate elections are scheduled for this Sunday so the timing is very likely politically motivated. The majority of Haitians I ask about what is happening roll their eyes and sigh with resignation.

under african skies

I spent the last week in “the warm heart of Africa”– Malawi. The tourism board’s tagline is sincere – Malawi is truly one of the most all-around lovely places I’ve ever been to. The people I met were noticeably gracious, the landscapes beautiful, the crime low and the roads newly paved. It was just one-week post elections and everyone I spoke with commented on how well they had gone and how happy they were to re-elect their president for another term. Hope for the future was tangible – quite a contrast to my current island home.

The visit was a homecoming of sorts for me. I lived in Kenya in 2002-2003. My last trip to East Africa was in late 2004. So many things in Malawi made me smile– the taste and feel of nsima (a stiff maize porridge just like ugali in Kenya), seeing chubby baby feet poking out from the colorful cloths that tie them to their mothers’ backs, speaking English, drinking thick sweet milky tea, listening to women sing in incredible harmony, hanging out with the daughters of my long-time WR co-worker SK But above all it was the sky - the wide open East African sky – that made me feel like something I had lost was being found again.

Malawi is situated at the southern end of the Rift Valley – a huge glacial formation that runs from Ethiopia in the north to nearly Mozambique in the south. It’s mostly flat open land covered in tall grass and spotted with Baobab, Acacia, and other distinctive trees. In Malawi, there are some hills/peaks sprouting up here and there with large flat expanses in between. Sunsets over the Rift Valley will take your breath away – and the most incredible thing is that they happen like that day after day after day.

Just yesterday (Saturday), we drove into the setting sun as we returned from a day at Lake Malawi - home to an incredible number of unique fresh water fish species. As I watched the sky change from blue to red to a sliver of orangey pink and then shades of grey I started to think about other favorite sunsets. There was the sunset over Lake Michigan I saw one summer in college -everyone standing around broke into spontaneous applause as the last bit of sun dipped below the horizon. I remember another one I watched from a ridge looking over the Badlands in South Dakota. Then there was the huge rising moon over Lake Superior as some friends and I drove up towards the Boundary Waters in Minnesota back in 2000.

While my last several years have been spent among the rolling hills of upstate New York and amidst Haiti’s mountains beyond mountains, I was born and raised a respectable Midwestern / Great Lakes flatlander. I still feel most at home surrounded by flat land/big sky/large lakes. Maybe that’s why the warm heart of Africa felt a bit like America’s Heartland to me.

Sept 2009 update: Finally posted some more photos of the trip here. Not my best organized album but at least it's something!