A Day for Education

Haiti, currently, is like a game of hid and seek.  Being the seeker, aka me in this situation, is the worst part of the game when you are kid, because not only are you alone, but looking around for people always kind of felt like work to me.  However, as you get older the emotions you feel as the seeker add another layer of fun to the game.  And I mean running around trying to find people is way better than having to wait in possibly an comfortable position for someone to find you.  As the seeker, you feel excited about the chase as you want to find as many people as quickly as possible so you become frenzied in a way, but there is also that sense of fear.  What if I cannot find anyone?  Or what if I open up this closet and one of the hidders jumps out at me? Let's just say that I see the game of hid and seek as a much more complex than most people.

As I experience Haiti a little more everyday, I feel this constant excitement towards my new life and this fascinating country around me, however I am definitely hesitant, scared in a way about learning too much too fast.  What if something bad happens that sullies my current perspective of Haiti?  What if I commit a huge faux pas that damages the perception Haitians have of me? All of these emotions are contributing factors to why I have not gotten behind the wheel of a car before today.  In my defense, driving in Haiti is an intense experience.  If you are able to avoid being swallowed up by the enormous pot holes than you are in good shape, but the pot holes while treacherous do not move as the dogs, children, and countless amount of other people do along all the road ways here. It is said by Haitians that in America you look straight ahead to see where you are going, but in Haiti you look side to side so you do not hit anything or anyone.  Definitely a unique experience. 

Finally today, I embraced my fear and drove Elizabeth and I to the gym.  To be honest it was at 6:30 in the morning so the roads were not that full, the perfect time for me to try maneuvering through the streets of Petionville. I did well and learned that the horn is my friend and that the biggest vehicles always have the right away.  To my dismay, when I went out later with Enock, one of our staff, to get some hanging folders and some baby asprin for our really old, deaf guard dog Sheba.  He made me drive.  I was fine going through Petionville, but when he said we had to stop by his house to pick up his son, Billie, who was sick and needed to go to the clinic, I became a little nervous.  Well that apprehension was well founded as Enock leaves in a small slum out side Petionville built into a very steep slope.  Lets just say there were no other cars where we went.  When I got back to the house feeling very proud I survived, Dom, another staff member, laughed at me as he says those are some of the worst roads in this area and that it must have been quite a challenge to navigate on my first day of driving.  Knowing this made me feel even more triumphant, because not only did I not hit anything, but I also took on some of the meanest roads in Petionville.  

While I thought I had had a very educational morning. I learned about a peaceful manifestation taking place in downtown Port-au-Prince (PAP). This demonstration was brought on by a statement made by the Secretary of Education today regarding the FILO exam, the national exam students have to take to get into college, it is like our SAT. The way this exam works is students have to get at a 800 out of 1400 in order to pass and get into a university.  However, if you get no lower than a 700, you are able to retake the exam 3 months later, while all other students have to wait until next year.  Only 16% of the students in Haiti passed their FILO the first time around this year, so the Sec. of Education decided to open the retake to students that got as low as a 600, which is quite the generous exception. The only problem is he made this announcement today, which happens to be the same day as the retake exam, so the students the exception was made for were unable to participate in the retake this summer.  This led to students taking to the streets and marching to the Palace in downtown PAP.  Unfortunately, what started as a peaceful manifestation soon became unsafe as police shot tear gas into the crowds and rumor has it that they even shot one student dead.  Do not worry I am safe and the rumors of a student being killed have not been proven.  In my opinion, the students definitely have a right to be upset and we will see what happens in the upcoming days.

Back to my hid and seek analogy.  If I was trying trying to carefully find people to try and prevent any of them from jumping out and scaring me, I failed. I need to remind myself that I live in Haiti and that to try and limit my experiences good or bad is just not possible.  As this country is a living, breathing entity and certainly cannot be control by a 5'5" 120 pound white women.  It is just an interesting contrast, here I am holding some learning experiences at arms length because I am nervous while the students in Haiti fought for their rights to be educated.  Let's just say a learned a lot today.

Emotional state:  Embarrassed by my fear, but confident I can over come it.

Goal:  to drive my ass off and thrive off the lessons I am learning about myself and about life.