We were standing in front of the Fonkoze office in Twou di Nò at about 7:30 Sunday evening when a shout went through the town. Twou di Nò is a small city in a valley, about halfway between Okap, Haiti’s largest northern port, and Wanament, a city near the Dominican border. I was there with a group of Fonkoze literacy supervisors. A week-long introductory workshop for beginning literacy teachers was to start the next day.

I wasn’t at first sure what the shouting was about. The excitement of a street fight? A political demonstration? A Brazilian soccer victory? Political news? Another coup d’état? Then I saw a flickering streetlight, and someone explained that it was the first time municipal electricity had gone on since February. The excitement for what promised to be an evening of electrical power was both general and intense. It seemed auspicious.

And a good sign was more than welcome. Planning for the workshop had been complicated in a number of ways. Until the last moment, for example, I had not known for certain whether I would be working with 20 teachers or 60. Also, the materials we had planned on using had not been produced in time to make the long drive from Pòtoprens with us. And it wasn’t clear how many of the 28 teachers who we were planning for would in fact be able to sacrifice five full days to a literacy training. These prospective teachers were market women who had agreed to take on the challenge of helping other market women learn to read. They would be giving up five days of work, which was especially hard for them because it was coming at a moment when payments on their Fonkoze loans were due.

But Frémy and I had committed ourselves to working with Fonkoze, and since he had to be away in the south of Haiti, I was with the Fonkoze literacy team by myself.

I’ve written about Fonkoze before. It’s a remarkable organization, providing micro credit to the small merchants who are the backbone of the popular Haitian economy – such as that economy is. It is the largest provider of financial services to rural Haiti using a non-for-profit/for-profit hybrid structure that allows it to establish banking services where commercial banks would not bother to go.

One of its most important services is micro credit. Fonkoze borrowers, almost exclusively women, use small but ever increasing loans as they develop their businesses. And Fonkoze doesn’t limit itself to simply lending them money. It provides educational programs that support the women in their work and in their lives. There are basic literacy classes for non-readers and classes in business and reproductive health for those who already read.

Planning for the workshop had been difficult in part because it had been rushed and in part because we had tried to work around a schedule that had the four members of the team in different parts of Haiti almost all the time.

It had, on the other hand, been made easier because we were adapting the program Fonkoze already had in place rather than inventing something whole cloth. The core of the program would still be Jwèt Korelit, the literacy game invented by Fonkoze’s founder. We would add regular Wonn Refleksyon discussions to help the participants open up to the habit of thinking critically together. In addition, we would create simple lesson plans that would help inexperienced literacy teachers run the classes. Fonkoze would provide an experienced literacy trainer, Renand, to develop the Jwèt Korelit part of the plan. Frémy and I would help with the Wonn Refleksyon part and with the process of writing lesson plans that combined both. Elysée, Fonkoze literacy supervisor in Twou di Nò, would coordinate, format, and type the work.

The lesson plans were particularly important. Fonkoze had made a decision about the kind of literacy teachers it would recruit. In the past, it had recruited those most willing and able to do the teaching. This meant that the teachers were mostly men working with groups made up exclusively of women. Sexism is intense in Haiti, as it is in many places, so that literacy classes that should be liberating would end up simply reproducing the oppressive conditions that many of the women experience all the time. They would end up sitting quietly while their teachers explain the world to them, even repeating the philosophies of equality and liberation that they would be fed. But they would be unlikely to develop much of their own initiative and they would be slow to talk frankly about the issues that they face ever day.

Fonkoze had decided to try something new: to recruit all women teachers from among the same groups of borrowers that the literacy students would come from. But this meant that the teachers would be unlikely to have any teaching experience at all, so lesson plans that would help them decide what they needed to do in the classroom each day, written simply enough as to be easy to follow, seemed like more of a necessity than an option.
The group creating the plans met rarely through the early spring, just often enough to have some sense of the progress we were making. By late March, we had decided we needed to begin implementing by mid-May. We knew we would need to start with a workshop, so we chose a week based on what we thought was the schedule Fonkoze would be working with – it turned out that our information was inaccurate by a month – and on the other commitments we each had, and scheduled one.

This is where the complications started. I had initially believed from conversations with Fonkoze staff that this initial workshop would be for Twou di Nò literacy teachers. My understanding was that there would certainly be fewer than 30, probably by a lot, and so it I figured that it would be easy enough to do the Wonn Refleksyon part of the workshop myself. Leading a Wonn Refleksyon workshop has a lot in common with teaching a Wonn Refleksyon class, and large numbers make it hard. About a week before the workshop, I learned that teachers would be added from two nearby cities, Fò Libète and Wanament. They would bring the numbers up above 60.

I panicked, but I needn’t have. Within another three days, I got word that Fonkoze hadn’t been able to arrange for the other teachers to participate.

Even so, when I got to Twou di Nò and figured out that we didn’t have the materials I had planned on using, I had to try to improvise. I had a USB drive with a couple of images that I thought we could use, but only one of the images turned out to usable, because the places in Twou di Nò that could print an image didn’t have the software that the others were stored with. So we printed the one image and made copies. When we tried to get photocopies of a second image I had with me, the copy store declined. It was too dark, they said, so it would use up too much toner. Between the image, a pair of Haitian proverbs, and the theme of literacy, I had enough material to lead a day’s worth of introductory activities.

As the day’s activities opened, another problem emerged. In addition to the 28 women who came as prospective literacy teachers, there were six Fonkoze literacy supervisors, all men. The two parts of the group had wildly different characteristics, and through most of the morning it was all I could do to prevent the supervisors from dominating. They had all participated in Wonn Refleksyon before. What’s more, part of what made them literacy supervisors is their outgoing, talkative natures. They had a lot to say, and it was interfering with the 28 teachers’ getting involved. By midday, that problem too seemed somehow to solve itself. The literacy supervisors withdrew as they themselves saw that they were imposing.

That first day spent participating in discussions gave the women an initial sense of what Wonn Refleksyon discussions are like. Tuesday afternoon, I led another session, adding a lot of explanation as to what the role of the discussion leader is at each of the discussions stages. Thursday morning, the group split in two and four of the women volunteered to try their hand at leadership. My sense was that one was quite good, two were managing, and the fourth has a long way to go.

We don’t know exactly what we can expect of the program here, but a lot is at stake. Fonkoze’s funding for the program involves a lot of pressure to meet very specific goals at very specific times. By changing its approach to literacy at such a critical moment, it has chosen in a sense to shoot itself in the foot. Things could go wrong, and a lot would be at stake.

But perhaps shooting oneself in the foot is the wrong image. It’s too violent, too destructive. Maybe it would be better to say that Fonkoze has painted itself into a corner. The institution has decided to meet or miss its goals with literacy teachers of a sort that it has not generally engaged before.

Painting oneself into a corner could be a problem. But if you’ve chosen the corner carefully, and the corner is just where you want to be, painting yourself in might be the right thing to do.

Here in Haiti, I think of myself as being part of a long-term exchange. The people I live and work with have a lot of experience that I don’t have, and so I learn with and from them constantly. At the same time, I bring them experience of my own that’s quite different from theirs: most importantly, perhaps, the different types of classrooms I’ve been in, whether as teacher, student, or observer. As a student or an observer, I’ve seen a lot of very good teachers working in a number of different ways, and I have colleagues here who show a lot of interest in learning from what I’ve seen.

When I think of the exchange possibilities that my presense here opens up, however, it would be a mistake for me to focus to exclusively on what I myself can and cannot share. My work here brings me to different parts of the country. I travel within Haiti much more than my Haitian colleagues can, and so I have the chance to see and learn from a wider range of them than they themselves normally could. I can thus serve as a resource for my Haitian colleagues not only by sharing what I have, but by making it easier for them to share with one another. One way for me to do this is by helping to organize vizit echanj, or exchange visits – visits my colleagues make to see one another at work.

“Toma” is a nickname, but it’s the only name I’ve ever heard Abraham use. He is a veterinary worker from the mountains outside of Darbonne. It’s not that he’s a full-blown veterinarian, but he has had considerable training over a number of years. He gives vaccinations and first aid to livestock in the area he lives in and gives advice and information to the farmers whose livestock he treats.

And that’s not all he does. The farmers he works for can’t really pay very much for his services, so, like many Haitians, he stitches together a living for himself and his family with a range of activities. He does a little farming. He teaches science in a local primary school, and literacy in an afternoon school for adults.
It is because of this last piece of his work that I am getting to know him. He participates every Saturday in a workshop that my colleague Frémy and I are leading for literacy teachers in the countryside outside of Darbonne. For Toma, it’s a two-hour hike each way to participate, but there are no roads that lead to where he lives, so he’s used to walking, and the hike doesn’t seem like very much to him. He can be counted on to arrive early for the 8:00 AM literacy team meeting before our weekly, two-hour workshop begins at 9:00.

From the very first, Toma inpressed me with the frankness and the seriousness of his contributions – both the questions he would ask and the comments he would make. So when I mentioned one day that I visit the Matenwa Community Learning Center almost every week, and he said that he had heard of the Center and was interested in how it works, I was happy to ask him whether he would like to join me on one of my trips. He would get the chance to see how the school works – visit classes, a faculty meeting, a discussion group – and to talk to the teachers about what he sees.

He jumped at the chance, and there are good reasons why he would. On one hand, the Center is rightly developing a reputation in and even beyond the circles that I travel in for doing something quite remarkable. It is a school that works without the belts, paddles, humiliating words and other painful punishments that characterize most Haitian schools. Even Haitian educators who are attracted by the idea of teaching without hitting or humiliating their students can have a hard time imagining how it really works. It’s something that they have probably never seen. Toma specifically mentioned his questions as to how the Matenwa teachers maintain discipline as one aspect of their work that interested him most. On the other hand, the trip from Port au Prince to Matenwa and back is a little bit complicated and, in Haitian terms, rather expensive. It would have been hard for him to arrange the trip himself, and hard for him to finance it.

And there was another barrier as well. Though we in the States may think of Haiti as an island, and though it’s full of lovely beaches, most Haitians live away from the water. Separated from it enough that they cannot swim. Toma can’t. He smiled to me as he described a trip to the beach in Jacmel and showed my the spot low on his calf that marked the depth of the water he was willing to wade in. He was therefore nervous about the trip across the bay to Lagonav and pleased at the chance to make it with me.

So we met in Pétion-Ville one Sunday afternoon, in the one place there he was familiar enough with that he could easily find, and we hiked up to Ka Glo to spend the night. We left for Lagonav Monday morning.
The trip to Lagonav has become more complicated lately. We used to simply go to the Okap bus station in Port au Prince, where we would board a bus to St. Marc that would take us all the way to Carries, where the old Duvalier seaside mansion that now serves as the passenger wharf to Lagonav is. But the Okap station is right next to Cité Soleil, and I’ve beed strongly advised to avoid the area as much as possible for safety reasons. So I’ve been take a series of rides from Pétion-Ville, through Croix de Missions, to Cabaret, to St. Médard, to Carries. It’s six different rides to get to the wharf.

Toma and I got there without much trouble, and we walked onto the bow of the sailboat, where I generally sit, as the boat was just beginning to fill. The sea was extremely calm, but as we stepped onto the bow, it dipped and rose, and I looked to Toma to see how he was. He seemed calm nough to me, but when I suggested that we get back off the boat to grab a bite to eat – we hadn’t eaten before leaving in the morning – he was very quick to agree. We ate, returned to the boat, and were off in a few minutes to Lagonav. From Anse à Galets, it’s one ride, but a hard one, up the hill to Matenwa. We arrive just in time for the regular Monday evening faculty meeting. We sat with the teachers for over two hours as they discussed various pieces of school and community business. The next day, Toma spent the morning observing classes as I worked in Todd’s house, the house in Matenwa that has come to be my home. Wednesday, Tma watched more classes, then he participated in the discussion group for teachers that I lead there almost every week.

Todd’s house is small, with one large bed that Toma and I had to share, so we had lots of time to talk over the course of the couple of nights we were there. It was instructive to watch how a curious and thoughtful Haitian reacted to seeing the school in Matenwa that has grown so dear to me.

He was especially impressed by a couple of things. First, that at the faculty meeting it would have been had to guess which of the teachers is the principal. The whole faculty speaks so comfortably, so informally, with one another, they speak as such equals, that often the only sign that Abner is in charge is that he’s a lot older than the others. Toma was struck that this was a group of people that really works together. He also paid close attention to all the little disciplinary techniques he saw the teachers use: counting to five, sitting a disruptive student in a time-out chair, making students stand. He saw, however, no corporal punishment and no humiliation, and a school full of students who were nevertheless busily at work. And he was impressed by their work: they way even little ones already read Creole well, the way the read for understanding rather than just to pronounce the words.

Wednesday afternoon we strolled over to Bòs Wolan’s wonderful vegetable garden, where Toma was inspired by all the very many little things Wolan is doing to make he garden grow. He decided on te spot that he would try to start a similar garden of his own, a decision that Wolan generously supported with a gift of carrot, cucumber, zucchini, leek, and other seeds. That evening, Abner came by to talk to Toma about the visit. Toma got a sense of the history of the school, and Abner got a sense of the impression it made on a thoughtful Haitian observer, seeing it for the first time.

We had an easy voyage back to Carries the next morning, delayed by the long, wonderful rain that finally came to Lagonav Wednedsay night. Toma and I parted in Port au Prince. He headed straigt to Darbonne. I would head there after spending a short night back in Ka Glo first.

It’s hardly worth saying that Haiti is full of wisdom and experience. As a foreigner here, however, I can have the tendency to distract the people I’m around from sharing and developing what they know. For all sorts of reasons, they can tend to focus too much on what they think I might know instead. And I can easily slip into the same mistake, even though I, of all people, should surely know better. Cultivation exchange among my Haitian colleagues can thus be an important part of my work. Both for them and for me.

1. Once I was strolling in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. I passed a seafood restaurant that was holding a promotional event that involved boiling a lobster. An animal rights group was protesting in front of the restaurant. I walked over to the protesters and chatted for awhile. Though I had already been a vegetarian for almost ten years by that time, it had never occurred to me to protest the consumption of meat by others, even when that consumption involves boiling a creature alive. I find it hard to think of lobsters as anything but big bugs.

What I remember most about the protesters was the one I spoke to who was wearing leather. He thought it wrong, I suppose, to put a dead creature in his mouth, but not to put one on his feet.

I stopped wearing leather several years after I stopped eating meat, and though I’ve ended up with leather on me several times in the years since – a belt, a pair of shoes – for the most part the principle has held just as my decision to eat no meat has held for the most part as well. My decision was helped a few years ago when one of my former students from Shimer, perhaps pitying the embarrassment I felt at wearing black sneakers as the Dean at a Shimer graduation, sent me wonderful dress shoes from a company called “Vegetarian Shoes.”

Avoiding leather footwear in Haiti has be easy so far. I wear sandals almost exclusively, rather fancy American ones for the most part. I had a pair of Tevas for several years, then I bought a pair of Chakos. I’ve liked them so much, and they’ve lasted so well, that I haven’t had to give them another thought.

Until recently. Over the last months, it was growing ever clearer that my Chakos were just about done. So I began thinking about what could take their place. I had been very reluctant to buy another pair for two reasons. On one hand, they are expensive. I live around people who struggle to get by, who struggle to send their children to school. Under the circumstances, it seems odd to spend $100 on shoes.

On the other hand, I wonder whether either Chakos or Tevas are the right shoes for me. And this is where my objection to leather gives me problems. My Chakos, for example, are not leather. They’re made of what appears to be a high-tech synthetic material. Several high-tech materials, actually. And they are made to last. Though they were getting very close to uselessness, the very great majority of the material they are made of remained intact. It’s trash. And it’s hard to imagine what it can ever be but discarded plastic in a country where trash is a problem too easy to see.

So I waited. When I came here in January, I almost decided to buy a new pair, but I didn’t. When I was in the States in April, I almost bought new sandals once again, but I decided not to. I suppose I was hoping without quite telling myself so that the last damage to the sandals would never quite be done.

But I was walking down the steep hill from Mariaman to Malik on Friday and I slipped on the road wet from a night’s rain. I caught myself well before I fell, but I felt my foot move in an odd way, and I knew what happened without looking. The last threads that were holding the right sandal’s strap together tore through.

The sandals were finished.

I was in a bind. I made it from Malik to Darbonne, and then borrowed sandals from a friend. They got me through classes on Friday and Saturday, and then back to Pétion-Ville. When I got to the market there, I went by to see Madanm Jean-Claude, a sandal merchant who’s the mother of several of my friends. I spent a little less than three bucks on a temporary fix: a pair of plastic Chinese bath sandals that I can at least keep to wear around my house and to offer to guests.

Tomorrow I will wear my bath sandals down to Port au Prince. I’m going to a street corner where Haitian cobblers sell sandals that they make. The sandals are leather, but they’ll cost a lot less than my American Chakos, and the money I pay will go to a Haitian craftsperson rather than the stockholders of an American manufacturer. They should last well, but that remains to be seen. Because they’re made here, they should be reparable here as well. At least I hope so. And as the leather rots, it will return to the earth it came from. Ashes to ashes. Though I’ll be sorry to have another creature’s skin on my feet, it seems like the right thing to do.

2. Today I joked with Frantzy that he and I would have to schedule a reyinyon gran moun. A “meeting of the adults” is part of the traditional process leading towards marriage in Haiti. The parents of a man who wants to marry pay a visit to the woman’s parents’ home. The meeting can involve more than parents as well. Aunts, uncles, older siblings or godparents might be involved. My friend Saül has told stories both of his parents’ visit to his in-laws and of the role he’s played in such meetings for his younger brothers as their times have come. If the meeting goes well, the adults decide that the marriage can go forward and the set a date.
My joke had to do with Frantzy’s male puppy. It had been chasing my Lilly all over the place for at least a couple of days.

Lilly’s not just a little puppy any more. She’s nearly full grown at ten months, and the array of male dogs that follow her around our yard day and night shows that she could start producing litters of puppies any time now. So she has an appointment with a veterinarian on Wednesday. She will be spayed. I should have had it done long ago, but I never quite got around to it. It can’t wait any longer.

Just as it seems strange to buy leather sandals, it feels odd to take my dog down to Pétion-Ville to be spayed. The operation will cost 3250 Haitian gourds, or about $85.00 US. It may not seem like much, but most of the people I know here make less than that in a month. Not only that, but few of them have simple access to good medical care. So I feel as though I’m doing something for a dog that I cannot do for the people who are my friends.

My neighbors all approve of my decision. Then I tell them how much the operation will cost, and they smile. Or even laugh. One older women was especially amused. Then I pointed out that the are people we both know who could profit from better acess to medical care, and she agreed with a frown.

Even so, the lives that most dogs here lead really bother me. Litter after litter is born. A few puppies survive; most either starve or die other rotten deaths. They are beaten with sticks and with rocks, treated as thoroughly expendable, feelingless beings. Some of the dogs I’ve come across in Haiti are among the most pitiful beings I’ve ever seen. The last thing I would want is to see puppies born in my yard, with no prospect of finding a home anywhere, with no prospect of living well.

So I will spend the money on the operation. And live with the fact that I’m offering better quality care to my dog than many people in Haiti would be able to afford.

And I’ll continue to buy her dog food as well. She’s my responsibility. In for a penny, in for a pound.