Top 5 Smells in Haiti

For me smells are always strongly associated with memory. The minute I stepped out of the Port au Prince airport I was overwhelmed by smells I did not realized I remembered. Since that moment in the parking lot I have been thinking a lot about the smells, so I complied a list: Top 5 Most Common Smells in Haiti. (This list is 100% subjective) 

Top 5 Most Common Smells in Haiti 

1) BURNY SMELL.

To explain this smell I need to make the point that Haiti has no legitimate trash removal system. Garbage lines the sides of the roads and the rivers, and we find it while we are digging several feet deep in the garden. Without the infrastructure in place, Haitians are left to deal with their trash on their own. And no, this does not mean they have to drive it to the dump themselves. This means they literally have to make their trash “disappear”, to avoid eventually being buried in it.  So they burn it. They burn plastics wrappers and paper and old blankets and broken scraps of anything that can never be reused. So the smell of burning is not like campfire smoke; it’s toxic and sends bits of plastic and paper up into the air we breath. That is burney smell.

2) HAITIAN PERFUME

This delectable smell wafts from the thousands of volunteers, NGO worker, Missionaries etc. who come down to Haiti, a.k.a. the Republic of NGOs. It’s a mix of bug spray and sunscreen. More specifically, it’s a mix of SPF 75 and 99%deet. It’s a mix of chemicals that many of us would eschew at home in favor of the Burt’s Bees all natural alternatives.

3) THE OPEN TOILETTE SMELL

I believe this one is self-explanatory. To be fair, I had not really experienced it until this week when 100+ children invaded our compound for summer camp. Children who have not yet mastered the art of getting their pants down in time. Its tricky business.

4) FRIED SMELL

This is not specific to Haiti for most people, but I hardly ever eat fried food anywhere else so for me it’s symbolic. Fried plantains, fried fish, and something that just looks fried. I asked what was in it. There was a pause and then: ”well, not much of anything.”

5) THE LAVENDAR GILS

This is the smell we aspire to when we wash our clothes in the back yard, using my bottle of lavender Dr. Bronner’s.(Best soap/shampoo/laundry detergent ever. Talk about packing light) Essentially the lavender makes our clothes SMELL clean, even if we are poor substitutes for washing machines.

There are many more smells, involving livestock and poultry and the sweaty soccer games we play in the dirt. But that’s all for now! Everyone who can take a nice deep breath of non-burny air for me. Thanks! 

Confronting our Privilege in Petionville

This weekend we journeyed to Petionville for a classy celebration. Confronting our privilege made many of us uncomfortable. It’s easy to pretend that we are roughing it down here, that somehow being in Haiti is comparable to living in Haiti. Yea, it’s rough to smother myself in bug spray and fasten my mosquito net while choking down quinine to prevent malaria. You know what’s worse? Getting malaria because I don’t have access or cant afford these luxuries.

So Petionville. Eating an expensive small-portioned nutrition rich meal on the top floor of a restaurant called The View is not what most of us had in mind when we came to Haiti. As we played the $600 bill we made some uneasy jokes about trickle down economics. In order to feel better about flashing our wealth around we argued that spending money in Haiti was one of the best things we could do for Haiti.

The evening left us with questions and a deep-seeded need to debrief the situation. The truth is, it’s disrespectful to pretend that we don’t have privilege. Acting like we don’t have the means to treat ourselves to a fancy birthday celebration in a restaurant frequented by wealthy Americans is disingenuous and patronizing to people who actually don’t have the means.

This leads me to a bigger question of what I am doing here. There is a tendency among people doing NGO work in Haiti to get used to the reality of poverty. There is that cliché comment about people surviving hardship with smiles on their faces. This kind of attitude is a result of cultural relativism, and we don’t want to impress our cultural beliefs on the Haitian people. It’s easy to make this mistake because culture and privilege are intertwined. They may be intertwined, but there is a difference between culture and poverty.

Accepting results of poverty as aspects of culture is a dismissal of suffering. As volunteers and interns who are hoping to make the world a better place we cant mentally mitigate suffering. It’s hard to confront our privilege because it’s hard to confront the reality of people without that same privilege. We shouldn’t flaunt our wealth and use it in ways that hurt people, but living a healthier happier life because of our good luck could be a way to respect people who have not been blessed in the same way.

That being said, I probably won’t dine at The View again, it was much more expensive than anywhere I eat in the U.S. and its too formal for me and my jean shorts held together by safety pins. It’s just important to keep in mind that if I skip a fancy dinner it doesn’t mean that said dinner goes to someone who can’t afford it. The economics of globalization are WAY past that point. I’m trying to point out the importance of appreciating the gifts we have, and rather than eschewing them in an act of supposed self-sacrifice. We should take advantage of them, use them, and spread the gifts around. Share the gifts. 

Haiti; Globalization of Nutrition and Health

Dear lovely readers,

This summer I am in Haiti. I am doing a public health and nutrition internship with the Haitian American Caucus- Haiti. I am working with several other interns to complete a preliminary needs assessment for the town we are in, Croix des Bouquets. We don’t know where this will lead or what needs will come out of the woodwork, but I’m sure I will have some confused yet passionate feelings about it, so this is my outlet.

This week involved two visits from a traveling health team, Explorers Without Boarders. The women’s health clinic catered to female patients in their reproductive years. Long term untreated infections and limited access to medication dominated the discourse. I hope saying this will not damage my feminist credibility, but I never want to see a vagina again! Vaginas are complicated enough when we have the privilege to take good care of them. Home births, limited birth control, poor sexual health practices, gender roles that make it difficult to address these poor sexual health practices…you get the idea. Healthy vaginal habits are nothing to scoff at.

This week we also focused on nutrition and nutritional deficiencies in the area. I have noticed the negative effects of local nutrition in just 1 week. Everything is cooked in oil! Refined carbohydrates are the staple of every meal. I have the good fortune to eat 3 times a day, but many Haitians in the area eat 1 mega meal that is loaded with nutrient poor, often-U.S.-subsidized refined carbohydrates. The importance of local agriculture has never been clearer to me. My body is negatively responding to the affects of neoliberal economic policies, in a food market dominated by imports. This shit is personal and I have only been here a week.