The Best of British

After a couple of days in Mexico City fighting the flu, and on the trail of artists Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera, we arrived in familiar London, with people who queue patiently and the palest skin we had seen in a long time. This was the first time we had been in an English speaking country for 6 months, and it was hard to get used to hearing our mother tongue, after speaking, listening and even thinking in Spanish for so long.

We had the most wonderful time hitting some more of the London sights, and catching up with good friends PJ, Rob, Corisha, Emma and Jacqui. We visited Westminster Abbey, the Churchill War Rooms, went to a Fulham – Norwich football match, Highclere Castle (where Downton Abbey is filmed), and Windsor Castle.

It was so good to spend some more time with Rob to get to know him, and we thoroughly enjoyed staying with him and PJ in their lovely London apartment. We had great catch ups over home cooked dinners, with bottles of wine and Cuban mojitos, and talked about future plans, travel plans, and the last 6 months.

Like Cuba, it was very hard to leave, especially not knowing when we would see some of these friends again. But of course these are all friends that no matter the distance or time apart we will always be close.

And this was just the beginning of our next adventure – Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Egypt!

Cuba – friends, carnivals, salsa – and a wave from Raul (Castro)

Our trip to Cuba was much anticipated and not even the 6 hour wait at Port au Prince airport could dull our excitement. We were picked up by our friend Roberquis in Santiago and had a great reunion with our ‘Cuban family.’ The next 10 days in Santiago were a whirlwind and despite having great intentions to catch a siesta in the afternoon (to recharge the batteries for another night’s dancing) we rarely manged it, as there was always something to do – or more than likely some home cooking round at Jorge’s to eat. (Thanks Lourdes!).

Along with two lovely Kiwi girls on their medical electives, Sophie and Alex, we had no less than 2 rooftop parties to attend complete with a blow up pool, dominoes, rum, dancing and roasted pig (that being for Jorge and Lourde’s 25^th wedding anniversary). We made the most of the Santiago carnivals and parades and spent time back out at Chivirico with Fernando’s family where we learnt to make tamales the Cuban way (and then remake them when Fernando senior wasn’t happy that they were perfect).

Whist in Santiago we also commenced our first set of Salsa classes with Rafa (not to be confused with Rafa of Cuban Fusion in Wellington). He was a perfectionist and soon had us much improved technique-wise, and tired out after our 2 hour sessions.

Following a sad goodbye in Santiago Lou and I moved onto Trinidad, a beautiful colonial town on the central southern coast. Apart from the throngs of tourists we had a good time practicing our moves on the dance floor. Also it was my birthday and Lou had organised Roberquis to come up and spend a couple of nights with us for a ‘joint birthday’ as his birthday is in August as well. A few rums and cigars later and we found ourselves on the dance floor having a great time. We also made it out to the beaches during the day and walked up to a beautiful waterfall that was close to Trinidad. And what did I get for my birthday? A Cuban Cowbell used in the local son and salsa Bands.

We continued working our way up to Havana for our next series of lessons led by Raimond and Marion. They were equally tough but a lot of fun and we ended up going to a couple of night time dancing sessions with Raimond. As luck would have it the Havana Carnivals were also in full swing and we had a couple of nights out watching the parades, one with a great (and sporting) couple from Italy, Claudia and Adriano, who came along also for one of our night time dances.

We managed to pack in heaps in our three weeks and one blog post just can’t quite do it justice. Almost certainly we will be back to Cuba as we both feel a real affinity with the country and our friends there.

Oh and the wave from Raul?? – See below…

Last Haiti Post

This blog post is the last instalment of our time in Haiti. The reason for the delay was simply that internet access in Cuba was too slow to consider an upload. So we have a bit of catching up to do. We hope you enjoy the post below that initially took the form of an email to a friend and is accompanied by two videos. The first video was put together by us for the global board of COHP so they could see what the school’s end of year graduation was like. The second is a potpourri of clips from our time in Haiti.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Northern hemisphere. Everywhere you look there are images of people dealing with extreme poverty – children carrying water on their heads, people living in tents constructed of found materials, USAID tarps and unsealed roads wrecked by rain and hurricanes. This situation was made considerably worse by the January 2010 earthquake, however it was certainly not the catalyst. Haiti was systematically pillaged by French, British and American Colonial powers at several stages of its life. Haiti has a very proud claim to being the first independent slave colony in the world following a revolt in the late 1700s/early 1800s, however the French insisted Haiti repay it not only for loss of land, but for the slaves. Essentially, Haitians paid the French for themselves, at an estimated cost of 21 billion USD in today’s terms. It is not hard to see why this country has struggled to get on its feet.

The people are of West African descent and are very dignified. They are kind and gentle but have a certain wariness of foreigners, due, in part, to the large presence of NGOs and their out of proportion security measures. You will not be able to outdress a Haitian on a Sunday and the children come to school immaculate - despite the trials of living in a tent city. Our experiences travelling and talking to them are that they like a joke, are honest and like you to know that Haiti is not represented by Port au Prince (there are many beautiful areas in the country that we were lucky enough to visit). They also have their own ideas about Haiti’s reconstruction – but it seems this is an unheard voice.

It is hot in Port au Prince and dusty. The electricity comes on occasionally as the country does not have enough to allow fulltime access. Most people cook over charcoal stoves (which has led to major deforestation and consequently land erosion), and the staples are rice, black beans and bananas. People get around by “tap taps” - on the back of brightly painted utes – aptly named as you tap on them when you want to get off, or motos. The housing is concrete made mostly of poor quality mountain sand (part of the reason so many homes were demolished in the earthquake) and people mostly spend their time outside the houses as inside is dedicated to sleeping quarters. There is however an upper class who, on the whole, do not seem too worried by their countrymen's conditions and they live in large homes, higher up the mountain where it is cooler and are driven around in the standard landcruiser 4wds.

The other large user of these 4WDs are the NGOs – approximately 560 separate organisations at its peak. Haiti is known as the “NGO Capital of the world” or the “Republic of NGOs”. Whilst the value that they contribute is immense most people we talk to are very cynical about the efficiency of these programmes, as there seems to be little co-ordination of resources, and not enough accountability for their outcomes (or lack thereof). There are all the big names here – the very strong presence of the UN (usually seen being driven around in large vehicles as security protocol does not allow employees to walk, or in the form of throngs of unnecessary UN Peacekeepers). Also are Sean Penn and his foundation, the Clinton foundation (big cigar wielding Bill), World Vision, Care, Caritas, Red Cross, Medicine Sans Frontiers, Save the Children, any number of matching t-shirt clad US mission groups. And us.

If you ask most Haitans what they want, they want a job. 60% live on $2 or less a day, and 50% live in $1 or less a day, and living here is expensive, especially food. We can't understand why - this place really has the feeling of a Caribbean South East Asia. We guess it is because they are such an import dependent economy, and the NGOs and elite families have severely inflated the prices.

Most rubble has been cleared and in a drive downtown only certain areas would suggest there had been a large earthquake. In saying this, there are plenty of empty lots where large buildings once stood, many buildings still half crumbled, and the symbolic destroyed presidential palace. There are no longer any tent cities downtown - the government paid each tent 500 USD to leave and rent or rebuild - an offer worth taking as they were going to be made to leave eventually, but certainly not enough long term.

The majority people were in the tent cities because they had no accommodation, some needed to move there because they had lost employment and could not afford the rent, some just moved there for the free water and electricity as it was a better option than their current dwelling. There were up to 1.5 million people living in tents post-quake, the number is now possibly still as high as 500,000. The camps occupied every vacant space of land – building sites, parks, the President’s front lawn, and the prestigious Petionville golf club. There are many horrific accounts of domestic and sexual violence in these camps due to the close proximity of living quarters, the lack of electricity (the tents were plunged into darkness when the sun went down), and the lack of security. We heard that in one camp there were only two latrines for 2000 people and girls are scared to go to the toilet a night for fear of sexual attack.

The camp next to the school has a real permanency to it. We visited this tent camp, the home to many of the school children. This was an extremely humbling experience. These people have lived in this “temporary” state for 2 and a half years now. Chelsea Clinton noted on a visit to one camp that the average time for people in Africa to live in this type of accommodation was 10 years. A sobering thought for the Haitians, and a reminder for the urgency to help them reconstruct their city better than it was. The camps are where the waterborne diseases such as cholera have been prevalent, but also many types of contagious skin infections, stomach bugs, and other infectious diseases.

Another issue that has been amplified since the earthquake is the tragedy of the restavek children. As the quality of education in the provinces has historically been very poor, if provided at all, parents have sent their children to live with families in Port au Prince (often people they do not know), to be sent to a city school, and in return the child will work for them. Essentially this is child slave labour, but it is entrenched as a culturally acceptable option for poor families living in the provinces. Not only are these children made to work by the host family, they rarely get to school and are frequently physically, mentally, and sexually abused. It is horrifying to think of children in this situation, and more horrifying to know that it is socially acceptable for many people.

In our minds Haiti needs a solution bigger than the patch up disparate approach that is occurring now. The things going well include a reasonable government, still a lot of resources from overseas and the potential of newly found mineral reserves in the mountain regions - something that must be carefully protected to ensure it benefits Haiti and not just the politicians and multi-national corporations that often do so well out of poor countries.

Our work at the Children of Haiti Project (COHP) School involved helping to feed the kids breakfast, snack and lunch, Lou taught an english language course, I taught computer skills (one computer, 10 students and they are VERY quick at learning). At other times we were just regular helpers and play toys for the children. The principal of the school is quite frankly amazing and has given up lucrative international school and UN jobs to continue her work at COHP. She also cares for the school community - taking mothers in to have birth control depots, sending cans of milk to the tents to feed starving children and taking her own students to the doctors if required.

Our experience in Haiti was nothing short of phenomenal. On leaving we hope we managed to contribute a little to the country as we certainly got a lot from our experiences, which will no doubt shape the rest of our lives.

COHP Graduation Ceremony

One Month in Haiti

Wedding donations

For those of you who are interested, particularly those of you who generously donated money to the Kenbe La Foundation in lieu of giving us wedding presents, we are now in Haiti teaching at the school where the money has been sent.

The Children of Haiti Project is a school that was set up after the 2010 earthquake. It provides a very high level of education to the most underprivileged children in Port Au Prince, Haiti. Most of the children are from  the local tent camp, which we drive through every day to get to work. It is like nothing we have ever seen before. The tents are cramped, the temperature is over 30 every day, and there is poor sanitation. Still, many of these tent camps (that have housed about a million people at it's worst) are being removed and little by little people are getting into more decent housing.

There are many children who have come from abusive environments, many children who have no parents and sometimes even no family left. They are being taught by very good teachers and there is a very high standard of education, food and medical care supplied at the COHP School.

If you wish to make a donation, you can do so through the Kenbe La Foundation, or through the Children of Haiti Project website.

Thanks.

Jono and Lou xx

Haiti: first impressions

There were very few Europeans on the flight to Haiti. It appeared to be either Haitians travelling home, or mission groups going to volunteer. We didn’t fit into either category. Port Au Prince was a sprawling city, encased by hills and sea. Flying in, it was grey looking, dusty and dry, but no initial evidence of the earthquake. As we taxied into the airport, the buildings themselves looked run down and a bit dire. Inside the terminal building we were enveloped into a steamy hotbed of African Haitians looking for bags and people. Eventually we gave up on our bag search, leaving our details with the American Airlines help desk, and went and met our driver.

On the way home we drove almost solely on jolty unpaved streets, through the city, past tent camps where people were trying to keep cool, and towards Jacqui’s house. We were a little surprised not to see much rubble about, but we did learn later from Jacqui that the area we drove through was not so badly hit by the quake. It was almost more devastating to realise that this is what Haiti looked like before the quake. We suddenly felt like our trip had taken a dramatic turn – we were completely off the tourist trail and were somewhere seriously intrepid. 

The other thing that stuck out from our ride home was the large number of NGO cars we saw – UN, Red Cross, UNICEF amongst others. There is a very strong NGO presence here, not always with good outcomes, and it was very interesting to be amongst it. 

We arrived at Jacqui’s house to a warm and enthusiastic greeting! Jacqui Labrom is from England but has been living on her own in Haiti for about 15 years. She runs a tourism business here, Voyages Lumiere, and is a friend of Emily Sanson-Rejouis from the Kenbe LaFoundation. Emily organised for us to stay with her, knowing we’d be safe and well looked after. Jacqui was so interesting, and despite battling tiredness, we listened to her stories and information with interest. She told us about her experience of the quake, about losing friends, about the NGOs working here.

We visited the COHP school the following day, our place of work for the next month. We arrived as the young children were eating lunch and the older ones were just arriving. Dominique, the school principal, immediately knew who we were and dropped everything to show us around then sit and chat to us. She is a remarkable woman, dedicated beyond anything we’d ever seen to the Children of Haiti Project. The children were absolutely beautiful – all African Haitian, and many with very very sad stories. One, Mackenley, had lost both parents in the earthquake, and 15  days later been hit by a car. He was injured so badly that his brain was exposed through the smashed skull. He now has learning difficulties, and is living temporarily with a carer. Another girl had been sexually abused by multiple carers. We were told about orphanages who sell children for work in the provinces, even family members who do the same. We sat with the children while they practiced their songs and dances for their upcoming concert. While we were sitting with them, some over them sidled over to us and sat next to us, holding our arms or hands, starting to trust us.

When we got home from COHP, we changed quickly and accompanied Jacqui to a function at the Petionville Club, a beautiful club for foreigners and wealthy Haitians. Every second week, people come to change books at the little library there and have a wine and nibbles. It was a lovely chance to meet some more people, mostly foreigners working for NGOs, some for a few years, and some who had made Haiti home. The people were lovely but it was a completely different side of Haiti, with large expensive Colonial buildings and European food and wine. We met people working for NGOs we’d never heard of, people working for UNICEF, the UN and other organisations. It is a little  hard to stomach so many NGOs here, all providing their staff with big houses, large four wheel drive vehicles with drivers, and often “staff” at their house. 

It is a very interesting experience to be living in an expat community for a month but to be working at a grassroots project where families still live in the tent camps. There are already many emotions associated with our time here and we have only just begun.

“You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr. Panckhurst”

Regrettably, we made the call while we were in Panama City to book a flight to Guatemala and miss a large part of Central America. This was a hard decision to make, but necessary due to our impending flight from Mexico to Haiti on June 20^th.

Unbeknownst to us, we managed to book ourselves on a business class flight between Panama City and Guatemala City, so we understandably applied the term “all you can eat” to our time in the business class lounge, and on the plane, much to the amusement of the “true” business class passengers.

Guatemala was a wonderful place to visit – beautiful and very easy to get around. We spent a week visiting the immaculate Colonial city of Antigua, the out of the way natural pools of Semuc Champay, and the jungle clad Mayan temples of Tikal.

 

From there we travelled to Belize, and spent a (mostly) wonderful week on the quintessentially Caribbean island of Caye Caulker. We truly “chilled out” in Belizan time for two days, then spent three exhausting days getting our dive certificate. Despite some initial reservations on my part, we loved diving and it was a real achievement to get through the high speed course! Unfortunately, our last few days on the island, and also on Ambergris Caye, were spent getting over “Belize Belly”. Still, our time in Belize was much more interesting than we thought it might be – we opted to go there as it was en route to Mexico and we needed a bit of a beach break, but the Afro Caribbean culture was a wonderful new experience, very different from Cuba, and a lot of fun!

 

We are now working our way up the Yucutan Peninsula in Mexico. We stopped off in Tulum to see the beachside Mayan ruins, Chichen Itza to see the grand and famous Mayan ruins and we have just arrived in the Colonial city of Merida (in time for the Gay Pride parade) before finishing our time in Mexico in glitzy Cancun.

Next desination… Haiti! 

Colombia, Caribbean + Cocaine: Part 3 Cocaine

While being offered drugs, cocaine among other things, was becoming normal when walking the streets in Colombia, our best experience with the infamous drug came in the Caribbean Islands. 

As we were preparing to leave our mooring in Holondaise (San Blas), the Coast Guard boat headed into the bay and over to another boat. We watched in interest as the heavily armed, balaclava clad men boarded the boat that belonged to Patrick, a friend of Federico’s (our captain) who had had dinner on the beach with us the night before. Of course we assumed they were doing a routine search. Federico obviously wanted to wait to see if they were going to search his boat before leaving (not a good look to be departing just as the coast guard arrives), but they were being so thorough with Patrick’s boat that we departed as scheduled for the next group of islands.

During the afternoon, the immigration boat came by to stamp our passports for Panama now that we were in their territory. After they left, Federico, looking shocked, whispered to Jono and me that the coast guard had found cocaine on Patrick’s boat in their search this morning, and he was being escorted to a Panamanain jail. We couldn’t believe it. In this Caribbean paradise there is a strong underbelly with the cocaine trade and the corrupt authorities. We knew about this, but we didn’t expect to be so close to it. It was no wonder they had taken so long to search his boat. 

The next day we discovered that Patrick had been set up – he wasn’t in fact carrying cocaine, but a yacht carrying a large amount of cocaine was discovered by the Coast Guard that same day in the bay we were in. All a little too close to home.