Almost Famous Grows Up and Now I’m Old

Posted on 04/21/2012 by paulefallon

I have lots of good reasons to feel old.  I just passed my 57th birthday, a number so uneventful it barely deserves notice.  I sleep more than I used to, and have less energy when I am awake.  I run so slow that technically I jog.  Gravity is cruel to my sagging eye lids and downright sadistic to my chest.  I’ve lost two inches in height and gained two shoe sizes.  My ankles are elephantine.  And if I stay home on a Saturday night, like tonight, I don’t even think of myself as a loser.  But even adding all these things up, I consider my slowing down a harbinger of prudent maturity more than a fact of being old.

Time marches in an exorable pace of continuous diminution, but we do not comprehend it that way.  We do not notice the microns of daily wrinkle growth.  We don’t see any wrinkles in the mirror. Until one day there they are, fully formed, long and deep. Maturity is a graceful gesture; getting old happens in crude, giant steps.

This week I got really old.  Thanks to Kate Hudson.  You know Kate, the bubbly star of dozens of romance films I have never seen, as well as the amazing star of Almost Famous, which I saw and loved.  Kate’s a kid, right?  Lovable and goofy.  And her mom, Goldie Hawn, is a kid too.  Goldie was goofy in my youth, popping in and out of the joke wall on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In when I was a teenager.  But even though Goldie is not on the joke wall anymore and she won an Oscar and had a daughter and her daughter is a movie star, that doesn’t make me old.

What makes me old is that Kate Hudson has moved from being almost famous to being almost matronly.  There she is on every bus stop poster in the city of Boston, all decked out in a saffron dress with tiny pleats forming a billowy, undefined bosom, her hair pulled taut behind her head, exposing sensible earrings peering into the camera for Ann Taylor. I suppose that the marketers angle was for Kate Hudson to make Ann Taylor speak to a more youthful clientele, but propping Kate into that slightly aggressive, ankles-crossed-and-tucked-behind-the-seat pose reminiscent of Wellesley College Donor Appreciation Luncheons will not make the Urban Outfitters crowd flock to Ann Taylor.

No, it is only going to make Kate Hudson look old.  Wherever I pedal I cannot escape the knowing gaze of this woman who was never supposed to stop being a silly girl. The math is simple.  If Kate Hudson is a mature woman now, and I grew up with her mother, that makes me old.  Older than any sags or droops or shuffling jogs have ever made me feel.

I think it’s time for me to have a makeover; pop over the Newbury Comics and pick up a poster of the real Kate for my bedroom wall.  Back when she was almost famous and I was almost young.

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Cabaret Reconsidered

Posted on 04/15/2012 by paulefallon

Yesterday morning, as I cycled past the cherry trees budding along the river, I drifted into a Kander and Ebb state of mind.  I sang “How Lucky Can You Get’ and really meant it; I sang ‘Marry Me’ and really didn’t.  I do no justice to their canon, rasping their percussive melodies and grinding their piercing lyrics while enduring the startled glances of passing runners who realize, just a moment too late, “Hey, that guy is singing.”  By the time I reached the Fiedler Footbridge I was in a Kander and Ebb trance, channeling Cabaret.

My first Cabaret was 1968 summer stock at the Beach Haven Playhouse. I am sure that my mother had no idea what she exposed me to; no Daughter of the Holy Name Society takes her thirteen year old chubby sponge of a son to theatricals that celebrate decadence and fascism.  But she was starved for culture along the Jersey Shore and I was always her willing companion, especially if live actors, song or dance were involved. The emcee was a rail thin, incredibly tall man-child with eerie white makeup, hollowed cheeks and maraschino cherry lips that turned every smile into a leer. He wrapped his spindly legs around the Kit Kat girls with an angular suggestiveness that gave me night shivers for weeks.

The imprimatur in my teenage mind that Cabaret represented the epitome of debauchery was permanently established by Bob Fosse’s brilliant 1972 film that sharpened the outlines of the love story between Sally Bowles and Cliff Bradshaw.  When Liza Minelli’s solid thighs caressed that Thonet chair I understood that homely people can paint themselves up in the search for love, but that love might get a little twisted.  At the same time, beautiful, ambiguous people, like Michael York, can dip into the underworld for a stimulating diversion but can always retreat to the comforts of wealth and aquiline breeding. Being no Michael York, I embraced Cabaret as a thrilling but cautionary tale.  I developed a haunting rendition of the title song on my guitar; I sang it in a minor key.

For forty years Cabaret has titillated my heart strings. When people ask where I would most like to visit in the world, I always answer Berlin. Yet I have never gone.  The raw brutality of The Kit Kat Klub intrigues me, but I preserve my distance.

Then last night I went to the graduate cabaret at The Boston Conservatory.  April is high performance season at TBC; in the two weeks I am in town I have five different gigs on my calendar.  As a passionate supporter of TBC, it would be enough that the students are so talented and their productions so fresh.  But my love runs deeper, for I project a bit of myself on every student, that past of me that was too tentative and too conventional to nurture, that craved a life of theater yet bowed to the ruthless odds against success.  TBC is so vital because every student ignores society’s insistent rants about money and employment and material success.  They have a dream grand enough to stake their future on.

The MFA students develop 30 minute solo acts of song and story, just a stool, a mic, a piano, and themselves under the spotlight, facing an audience in a black room.  I imagined that compressing your cumulative talent into a single act would result in majestic, sweeping performances, yet the vignettes were quite the opposite.  Each student worked a story line close to their heart, and since they are young, the stories revolved around personal family experiences.  Mike Maloney’s trip to Disneyworld at age six inspired a wonderful journey across the Magic Kingdom, Marissa Roberts brought a perceptive edge the challenges of being a fashionista and Leora Bernstein convinced us that after school escapes into Jedis and wizards are not only the fantasies of little warrior boys, but also gawky girls with too big voices.

Each set distilled a wide emotional range, included pathos and humor and a songbook that highlighted their particular talents.  What impressed more than the talent, which was evident, was how deeply these people understood themselves.  They were not twenty-four year olds gaping platitudes, but fully formed adults revealing the contours of their hearts, and through their specificity they tapped universal human experience.  By the time Mike tells us the inspiration he derives from his handicapped brother or Marissa agonizes that her thighs rub or Leora strides back into high school after a Facebook thrashing, they have drawn us into their world with such generosity that we care. And by revealing themselves so perceptively, their performances stir the particular joys and wounds of our own hearts.

I left the performance with a new appreciation for cabaret, an art form based on soul bearing which, when done right, nurtures our own souls.  Perhaps in 1930’s Germany life was so brutal that the only sane response was ‘admitting from cradle to tomb is not very long a stay’.  But cabaret can inspire higher aspirations as well.  After all, “Fate is kind.  It brings to those who love, the sweet fulfillment of their secret longings.”  Riding home I let Kander and Ebb slip from my mind; Jiminy Cricket guided me through the starry night.

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A Tale of Two Babies To-Be

Posted on 04/11/2012 by paulefallon

Tomo and Brad are having a baby.  That is the correct terminology among liberal, upper middle class couples in the United States, where having a baby is a scrupulously planned, much anticipated, and widely shared event.  Tomo and Brad are two of the three owners of Bikram Boston, a trio of yoga studies that offer upwards of twenty yoga classes a day at a cost of up to $22 per class. They teach yoga, they take yoga, they are healthy and vital, engaging new-age entrepreneurs. Tomo, a slight woman from Japan, and Brad, an alum of the University of Colorado with all the hip good naturedness that implies, have been married for several years.

Right now Tomo is at 25 weeks.  Brad teaches the Sunday morning class I attend and has a penchant for inserting personal revelation into his dialogue.  These days that means a baby update at some point in the class.  We all know it’s a boy, that Tomo craves seaweed, and that Brad likes to rest his ear against her tiny swell of a belly.  His excitement and pride is palpable.

Tomo teaches on Saturday mornings, and though she also infuses her class with personal vignettes, hers is a more acerbic humor.  She tells us things like, “Here is my status report.  I can no longer reach down and tie my shoes.”

We regulars enjoy hearing about the baby.  At check-in and check-out, when I see them one on one, I inquire how Tomo is feeling, whether her family from Japan will come when the baby is born, and their move to a larger condo in South Boston.  The entire Bikram Boston community has a vested interest in this baby.

When I am in Haiti, every day I walk from the orphanage to the MoHI School.  Near the base of the dirt road is a collection of a dozen or so houses, some concrete, others just sticks and tarps.  One woman sits in front of a woven platter of packaged snacks for sale, though I have never actually seen her sell one.  The rest of the women squat on their stoops and chat. There are many children; I do not know which belongs to whom.

Two of houses share a narrow exterior gallery, no more than three feet wide, with a covered roof.  One woman sits there, absorbing whatever draft filters through the space.  She is silent, never acknowledging my ‘Bon Soir’ as I pass.  Children clamor over her hugely pregnant belly as if she were a rock, some obstacle to their merriment.  Sometimes another woman occupies the passage with her, equally mute.

One day when I walked down the hill, the woman was not sitting in her space; she was standing along the side of the road with her hands clasped tight and high on the trunk of a flimsy tree, her hips shot out behind, her belly hanging free.  She swayed imperceptivity as the breeze, her eyes blank, teetering with fear.  I did not speak to her; her body language announced her private agony, as if trying to rid herself of the burden of her belly.

In a few months, if all goes well, Tomo and Brad will be parents.  A child will be welcome into this world, surrounded by love and a community of avid supporters.  We will follow the little tyke through his first steps and his first tooth and where he goes to kindergarten.  We will hear about his birthday parties and his first sleep over, the agony of middle school and every trophy he earns in high school.  He will be nurtured for twenty years or more, given every opportunity to become as fully formed as his potential allows.

In a few weeks, if all goes well, a baby will be born in Haiti to a silent mother with no evidence of a father.  The burden of her belly will be shifted to her breast. She will nurse it as long as she can, then find food for it as best she can, until it is big enough to let roam on its own, another face in the hordes of children of Haiti.

How we enter this world is the most arbitrary fact of life.

 

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Cambridge Spring

Posted on 04/08/2012 by paulefallon

I arrived back home at 2 am on Saturday morning, these days the bankrupt American Airlines serves up more delays than they do pretzels.  The air was brisk but the same full moon that I woke to in Grand Goave greeted me as I hauled my bag out of the cab, though the earth had spun a full circle  east to west while I had traveled north.  Sleep was sparse and I rose to go to yoga thinking that I would be a tottering disaster after so much time at 35,000 feet.  But the bike ride to Bikram woke me in new ways.

Spring on a Cambridge morning with just enough clouds to give definition to the glorious sunshine is a symphony of color, a complete contrast to our bleached out winters.  In my own yard the forsythia is blinding and the flox already creeping over the stone walls.  Along Huron Avenue the flowering pears are virgin white as the snow we never saw this winter.  Brattle Street’s stately mansions are festooned in brilliance, daffodils and pansies and lilies carpet the ground, azaleas and weeping cherries, dogwood and crepe myrtle are all in bloom, the magnolias are magnificent, pink and white, pale peach and plum, and a few towering willows have let loose their long hair, kernels of gold giving over to green. At bicycle speed Brattle Street becomes an impressionist canvas, a 3-D enfolding me just as Paris enveloped Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception.

After yoga (I balanced quite well after two weeks gone and little sleep and air flight, thank you very much) I made my weekly pilgrimage to the Cambridge Public Library, our city’s $100 million crystal palace of learning.  I picked up some books and videos and marveled at the families with their one or two children, all sporting jackets bright as Easter eggs, checking out stacks of picture books, playing in the adventurous playground out front, earnestly debating among each other the latest findings of the child care canon.  As I ride up Observatory Hill past the runners and the strollers, everyone glows in good health.

The rest of the day Paul and I prepare for our Easter brunch that will encompass the best the world has to offer.  We will be eight, starting with appetizers while we color a few dozen eggs, then move on to  roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, French green beans, Asian cole slaw, potato salad, organic yogurt dappled over fresh fruit, Armenian Easter bread baked around colored eggs, wine and champagne and Indian lassi, Russian cheesecake and a fruit tart for dessert.

I have to pinch myself to remember that 24 hours ago I was in Haiti, where the single purple pendant of a banana tree provides the sole color relief from the overriding tawny grey, where four year old boys roam the countryside in packs, barefoot, fending for themselves with no idea where their next meal might come from, where picture books are rare, where libraries do not exist, where there are no strollers, or runners, and although some people have a healthy glow, more have scars, scabs and blisters, and where my last meal, as a well-off missionary, was potato, yucca and bois (boiled dough) with a side of carrots.

As I pedal my way through the Cambridge spring, abundance overwhelms me. I not too big on god, and abhor religion, but I do believe there is something larger than us out there, and that we have a responsibility to acknowledge the gifts in our lives.  For the moment we take our wonders for granted they whither, and once they stop flowing generously, they become points of complaint. Unappreciated abundance leads to complacency, which leads to considering the resources of this world as entitlements rather than gifts.  That is why my experiences in Haiti are so valuable not only when I am there, but as a gauge to our incredible wealth when I am here.

Happy Easter to everyone; may your lives be rich in blessings and may you treasure every one.

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Haitian Spring

Posted on 04/05/2012 by paulefallon

Spring in Haiti means increased humidity and frequent evening rainstorms.  During the day the heat may be mitigated by cloud cover, but the breeze dies to nil in the midafternoon, which makes the place sticky as glue.  I feel like Pig Pen here; I am filthy and gritty from morning to night, while the locals all still look clean and fresh.

The vegetation here blooms year round, but it is more robust in the spring.  Mango trees are flush, coconuts plentiful, the papaya are immense and bananas are everywhere.  After living in the United States, where almost all of our food passes through many hands before reaching our mouth, I am still surprised by how easy it is to reach up and pull down a mango, and enjoy.

The bananas intrigue me the most.  They grow very fast and create huge clusters with dozens of fingers that can weigh up to 100 pounds.  Bananas don’t grow on trees; rather they are the world’s largest herb, their trunks composed of layers of stiff leafed ‘pseudostems’, that nest tight to each other.  Each stem produces one cluster of bananas and then shoots off babies.  Bananas grow in more than 100 countries, produce fruit in less than one year, and come in many varieties of color, shape, and sweetness. They are mostly starch (30 g vs.1.5 g protein vs. 0,5 g fat) that satisfies their important role as ‘filler food’ in subsistence societies, since they are available year round in the tropics.  What I like best about them is the amazing purple inflorescence that is the genesis of each cluster.  It is the most vibrant color I see in Haiti.

Spring is also a time when animal life is very prevalent.  Kids and chicks, puppies and piglets scamper after their mothers everywhere.  Their dispositions are remarkably consistent.  All goats are skittish and whiny, all pigs ponderous and wise. The puppies look varied at first, some are round and furry, others all bones, but within a month they develop the characteristic short hair, long snout, lean legs and medium height that define the Haitian mutt.

This weekend is the apex of Haitian spring, Easter.  Everyone gets two days off, Good Friday and Saturday; the only three day weekend of the year for those few people fortunate enough to have a job.  Our work sites closed early today, the workers got paid for a full week.  People are pretty happy with their plenty.

Banana Infourescence

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My Guide on the Long Walk Home

Posted on 04/04/2012 by paulefallon

I have reverted to my habit of walking home.  Lex and Renee and Gama all tell me it is safe, but do so with a shrug that contradicts their words.  If they advised against it, I would not walk, as I know they value my safety not only for me but for them; one incident with a volunteer could compromise much of their work. So I interpret their body language as ‘another weird blan thing’ because anyone who has access to a ride in Haiti and doesn’t take it is just a fool, and off I trek.

With the water high I cannot shortcut across the river bed; I must cross at the road bridge.  The walk is much longer and takes me through neighborhoods removed from the main axis of MoHI properties.  The time does not bother me; I have no after work plans; and the longer walk is delightful.

I am constantly aware of my personal security.  Haiti is a dangerous place and as a blan with a backpack, I am a target.  A few weeks ago a young woman, the sister of a MoHI staffer, was abducted in Port au Prince, robbed and murdered.  She was on a buying trip and had a good amount of cash on her.  Her murder was not random, but it may not have been premeditated either.  Someone might have seen her, realized she had money, followed her, and the rest is a tragic tale.  I am in the country, not in Port au Prince, and even though I carry only a few dollars in my wallet, a potential thief does not know how much I have.  The only thing certain is that I am carrying a lot more valuables than anyone I meet.

On the other hand being so obvious protects me.  Anyone in Haiti who messes with a missionary suffers severe repercussions.  Not from the police, who are notoriously ineffective, but from local vigilantes, who are notoriously effective.  A few months back a Haitian killed a missionary a few towns away.  Locals skunked out the murderer, dragged him to the side of the public road and burned him alive for all to see.  Yes, you read that right, they burned him alive.  In many of these towns the missions are the primary source of economic activity.  The vast majority of locals want us here and value our contribution.

Neither of these stories bring me joy, they reinforce the reality that if I go walking by myself, I need to be prudent.  I remain keen to who is in front, behind and next to me.  I am careful not to bump into anyone, which is difficult in this crowded place.  I initiate a bon soir or salut to everyone who meets my eye.  I do everything short of whistling a happy tune, which any Rogers and Hammerstein fan knows is the surest way to diffuse fear.

I sidestep the zealous tap-tap drivers who try to shepherd me into the back of their trucks (now that seems dangerous).  I engage the gang of guys sitting on their motos in front of the machine shop outside of town before they get a chance to look at me with suspicion.  I carry a full water bottle with me and offer a drink to anyone interested. They would rather have a dollar, but no way am I going to pull out my wallet.

I turn off the road and follow a narrow path along the dry concrete irrigation channel that some aid organization laid years ago as part of some forgotten scheme.  I walk past fields with a scrawny cow and feeble looking corn.  It is at least ten degrees cooler off the road, and I love the dense vegetation.  There are fewer people along this stretch, so I can greet everyone, and if they engage in chat, I get a chance to practice my Creole.  I tell them I work for Pastor Lex and am on my way to Mirlitone.  That diffuses tension immediately.

Except the only person who bears any tension on these walks is me.  My psyche is braced with horror stories, but the reality of walking through the Grand Goave countryside is that I am welcome.  The little children shout ‘Give me one dollar’ out of habit, though they would be shocked if I actually did.  Everyone has their story. One guy with a big machete tells me he is looking for work to feed his ten children.  I ask him if he knows construction, and when he says yes I tell him to see Boss Fanes. People answer yes to everything here, so I have no idea if he knows construction, or even if he has ten children. He smiles, happy just to have someone listen to his tale of plight.  Deep along the channel there is a clearing where a dozen or more young men play marbles with the enthusiasm of a World Cup match, their elegant torsos and long arms arched against the tiny spheres of glass.  The blan passing through is no more than a curiosity in their game.

The path merges with the dirt road that goes to Mirlitone.  A spry man in a pair of jean shorts, no shirt, no shoes, comes out of the driveway of what I consider to be a prosperous Haitian farm; he has a horse a pig, and four goats.  We exchange greetings. He walks along beside me.  I offer my name.  His is Palido.  We walk further.  I tell him I am going to Mirlitone.  He nods.  We keep on.  We come over the rise to the gate of the Mission House.  He stays in step with me.  He walks up to the gate, slides it open and gestures for me to pass through.  Theo, Mirlitone’s caretaker, comes to the gate and nods to Palido, acknowledging the handoff of my safe return.

I am sure that it is wise for me to be cautious on my walk, but it seems most unnecessary.  The eyes and feet of this countryside are always looking out for me.

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! CONCRETE !

Posted on 04/02/2012 by paulefallon

We finished pouring the foundation at the MoHI School today.  I hope that you enjoy this photo essay of the days work.

Here is the site at 7:00 am Monday morning.  The last area to be poured is the upper left portion of the building.

For the past three days we fabricated and installed the formwork and reinforcing.  We measured and measured and measured to make everything square.

Boss Pepe is out leader.  We controls the amount of water in the concrete to ensure a high quality mix.

Huguener is my translator and right hand man.  He is studying construction science in nearby Leogane.

Boss Leon and the rebar crew tie off the last remaining pieces of reinforcing.

I double check their work.

We had 350 sacks of cement delivered yesterday, which we stored in the Depot to keep dry.

 Carrying the sacks to the staging area is a heavy task.

The cement is opened in a wheelbarrow, a very dusty job.

Five truckloads of sand and gravel are scooped into buckets.

Each batch of concrete is composed of six buckets of sand, six buckets of gravel, three buckets of cement, and two and half buckets of water.

The dry ingredients go in the mixer first, fifteen buckets per batch, and we made over 100 batches.

Then we add the water.

The mixer churns for three to five minutes, then the green concrete gets dumped into the batching bin.

The bucket guys wait in line for their first fill of the day.  After that, they never stop moving.

The guys in the batching bin, up their their shins in concrete, fill the buckets.

The bucket crew carry the concrete to hard to reach places…

…which is very hard work since the buckets can weight up to 100 pounds.

They prefer to set up a bucket brigade whereever they can.

Sometimes they sing as they work, sometimes they dance.

Adnel thinks it is all great fun.

The crew places the concrete between the formwork.

The concrete is vibrated to improve consolidation and consistency.

The concrete is leveled with the top of the forms.

The trowler makes the final finish.

The bucket cleaners have the coolest job in the ninety degree heat. They rinse the buckets and get them ready for another round.

Repeat for 13 hours, about 2,000 buckets worth, and 33 cubic yards of concrete are in place.

Night falls by the time we are finished, but we are all proud of our effort to create a solid foundation for the MoHI School.

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Christlove

Posted on 03/31/2012 by paulefallon

Somewhere along their path of benevolent deeds, Lex and Renee picked up Clara and her two children, Makenlove and Christlove.  I cannot imagine what possessed the single mother to tack ‘love’ on the end of her children’s names, but it adds a dash of romance to what could have been a tragic tale.

The three of them came to live at MoHI, residing right in the middle of the compound.  Clara cleaned and cooked for large groups while the boys learned how to work the blan to win sweets, trinkets, and affection.  After the earthquake other children lived at MoHI, but eventually moved on to established orphanages, leaving Makenlove and Christlove as the resident objects of missionary affection.  Last month, Be Like Brit built Clara a house of her own and moved her halfway up the hill between MoHI and the orphanage, but there is little action on the quiet hillside, so the boys can usually be found hanging around one of the construction sites.

Makenlove is six now, thin and bright skinned with perfect teeth and a ready smile.  Of all the children Len Gengal likes to fawn over, Makenlove gets prime attention, including a gorgeous portrait of the boy on the cover of a book that promotes BLB titled, A Lot Like Me.

As someone drawn to the quirky and less obvious, I am in the thrall of Christlove, whose charms are more obtuse than his older brother’s.  Christlove is Matt Damon to Makenlove’s Ben Affleck, a leading man in his own right though hardly a matinee idol.  Christlove is three, stout for a Haitian, with a large head and a solemn expression.  He seems wise beyond his years, like the stone heads on Easter Island.  Not because of what he says or does, but because of the gravity of his presence.

Christlove does not talk.  He hums about and mumbles a bit, but I have never heard an actual word emanate from the sage youth.  He is just tall enough to stretch up and open the shanty door, slip through, and close once inside he always pauses and presses the door tight behind him.  He is a careful child.  He toddles over to the work table and shuffles the chair on castors until he gets it where he likes.  Then he stands next to it until I reach down, pull him up, and tuck him to the table.  Once settled he motions towards a pad of paper and a pen.  I supply him.  He flips to an empty sheet and begins to draw.  Christlove draws tiny ovals, dozens of them in a pattern all over the page.  Sometimes he will draw B’s and to me, his labored breath sounds like ‘Be Like Brit’.  But I could be mistaken.  BLB mania has captivated Grand Goave; here the letter B floats on the breeze.

Christlove’s breathing is labored because the child has a permanent runny nose.  A mass of shiny goop occupies the space between his nose and upper lip. If you wipe it away, it reappears instantly, if you let it be, it gathers force until it either drips away or gets swallowed by his tender mouth. Maybe it is due to allergies or a chink in his sturdy constitution.  He’s had sporadic medical attention, not enough to determine the cause of his over productive nose but enough to determine he has HIV, a diagnosis that is hard to get the treatment he deserves as a poor three year old Haitian.

Christlove may not speak but his lungs are first rate.  He has an ornery streak, and when he doesn’t get his way he screams almighty hell.  Yesterday he was in the office silently punching buttons on a calculator. Makenlove stopped by and started playing with one too.  Then Job, their cousin, joined the accountant team.  Three boys, three calculators, perfect harmony.  Until Christlove decided he wanted two, took his older brother’s, upset the equilibrium and wailed without end when Makenlove reclaimed that was his.  Order evaporated until I kicked them all outside. “Tout deyo.”  Makenlove and Job scampered down the hill but Christlove took his sweet time exiting, carefully putting the sandals back on his feet and then standing outside the door of the shanty, his stocky body pressed against the glass, channeling his best Dustin Hoffman from the closing scene of The Graduate, screaming against perceived injustice.

His cries finally gave out (my own children can attest that no scream has ever bent my resolve).  Later I headed down the hill to work at MoHI.  He followed me.  I slowed down.  He caught up with me.  We walked, silent, two misfits in this strange land. He slipped on a rock and landed on his bum. He cried out.  I reached down and helped him up.  He tottered a few more steps and fell again.  I gathered him up and held him tight to my chest until his weight relaxed into me.  After a few moments I set him on a pile of rocks outside his mother’s house and walked down the hill.  He screamed, but I kept on.  He is a survivor I thought, he will calm himself.  And sure enough, an hour later he showed up a MoHI, standing silent and wide eyes before Renee until he snagged a snack.

Christlove pens circles

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Haiti Washing Away

Posted on 03/30/2012 by paulefallon

Midafternoon clouds came over the mountains from the south, the sky turned black, the construction crews scrambled for cover and we had a fifteen minute deluge.  It ended a quick as it began, the sun returned, and everyone went back to work.  I finished up around five and decided to walk home; driving the pick-up is a thrill but is not my everyday style.  I had scouted out enough options along the far wide of the river to know that I could cross the bridge and find a path that would lead me home.

The Grand Goave River is wide, and it gets wider every year.  Renee says it has doubled in width in the twelve years they have lived here.  When I first arrived here three years ago there were three houses between the Mirlitone compound and the river, now there is only one.  The river has not grown because it rains more, but because when it rains, the runoff is so much faster.  Water eats away at the banks and high ground yields to its power.  With every rain the mountains give up more of themselves, more bare earth is exposed; more top soil is washed away. The cycle feeds on itself. Erosion is epidemic in Haiti.

After this afternoon’s rain the river was a turbulent swirl of mud as the mountains became just a little bit shorter, the river grew just a little bit wider, and Haiti gave up a just little bit more of itself to the sea.

Grand Goave River after an afternoon rain

 

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Making the Corner

Posted on 03/29/2012 by paulefallon

Here is the way that Haitians determine where to locate the corner of a building.  You take a group of guys, at least six, eight is preferred.  You run a nylon string along the length of one wall, about a foot off the ground to correspond to the top of the footing.  You run the string past where it will meet the adjacent wall, and tie it to a stake, a length of #5 rebar.  Then you repeat the process along the adjacent wall, setting another stake where you think it should go.  This creates an approximate right angle between two lengths of string.

Next you take a framing square and place it against the string.  It is important to realize that a framing square is 18” long x 24” long, while the corner we are setting defines the outline of a building that is 54 feet wide by 94 feet long.  In other words, a framing square error as little as 1/32” could translate to the building being out of square by more than an inch.  Three men balance the framing square, one at each end and one at the fulcrum.  They suspend it in the midair along the two lengths of string and shout at each other whether or not it is bon.  The guys holding the sticks twist and turn their rebar this way and that depending on who seems to be winning the argument over the accuracy of the floating framing square.  The boss man, or two of three, stick their hands in the mix and point and give loud opinions.

Finally after much deliberation and, to my eyes no real change, everyone agrees ‘bon’ and the trio remove the framing square.  Then the guys holding the sticks push them in the dirt to make a divot, set the stakes aside and go get a hammer (a Haitian with a ready tool is a rare sight).  They come back with mallets and pound the stake in the ground at the depression they made.  All of the deliberation over the floating framing square is pointless given how casually they actually place the stake. When both stakes are in place, they check the strings with the framing square again. If it is off they wiggle the sticks some more.  If they wiggle them so much that the stake comes loose, they jam rocks into the voids in widening hole to stop the stake from wobbling.  Any adjustment is acceptable except actually resetting the stake, which would amount to an admission of defeat.  Finally, everyone says ‘bon’ once more and there is general satisfaction.

The process takes anywhere from five to fifteen minutes, which I use to advantage as time to do meditative breathing.  I have no confidence in their system but have learned to be patient while they act it out.  Then, after they are all satisfied I announce that we will check the diagonals, a method of determining squareness that actually measures the entire building rather than relying on a floating framing square.  They look at me in tragic disbelief, as if the say, why does this blan doubt us?  But just as I humored them through their shenanigans, they humor me in mine.

We make a diagonal measurement from opposing corners of the building.  When they vary by six inches the crew gasps, distrustful of mathematics. We move the stakes; they go through their deliberations again, than I check diagonals again.  We do not stop until both the group consensus and the Pythagorean systems are satisfied.

We start laying out the last corner of the MoHI School and the remaining dozen or so foundation points and 8:00 am and do not finish until after noon.  We have lunch and then take another two hours to slide the strings up and down their stakes to get them all a the proper elevation per the laser transit.  It takes almost a full day to place about a hundred feet of string.  Instead of shaking our heads over the gross inefficiency, the crew seems pretty pleased with itself.  It is not my place to argue with success, however painful to achieve.

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