So, I'm almost a week into my two month post here and have actually made some headway with regards to my actual work here (I'll get into that in a second), and learning Creole. The sisters here at the convent/health clinic have been my saving grace, not surprisingly. You see, I'm living about 1 hour away from the University of Fondwa (I use that term loosely) and anybody else I would ever need to actually speak with for this project. It's also a 1 hour hike, uphill. So naturally I haven't been in too frequent contact with the students and other community leaders, unless they work for APf and happen to also be right next door, which some are.

A few days ago I made the trek up to town by myself. Passing the school children, I noticed that they take much smaller steps and do zig-zags all the way down and up the road, which itself winds in and around steep plots of farm land. I thought that was pretty neat, but I'm also very stubborn and just did the whole climb head on. Anyway, I met with most of the university students and had a chance before our actual meeting to just sit and chat. Most spoke French, and some even spoke Spanish. They'd explained to me that they'd had the pleasure of hosting professors from Cuba, France, Canada, and the US in the past. So we talked. We talked about futbol, about how Argentina is better than Brazil, about the upcoming World Cup, about women, about why I'm still single, and we drank a few beers in the process. All in all, I loved it. Laughing in any culture cuts tension like a hot knife through butter.

The actual meeting itelf was between myself and the interim president of the university and its director. The director is a larger man, and looks more Dominican than Haitian. In fact, he'd studied in Puerto Rico and Kansas for Agronomy, so we could communicate without much of a problem. The actual discussion, though, was tough.

You see, development from the perspective of the developing world is much different than development as implemented through the occidental powers. So, when they started talking about what their concerns were, I knew immediately where they were going. They figured us for a group of students who wanted to go to Haiti and help the poor, lolely Haitians plant trees and feel good about it. Essentially, the White Man's Burden in a nutshell. This idea of top-down, one-way development has a long history in which the US has played a central role, so I didn't blame them. I explained that we wanted to sit and discuss development in Fondwa with the students and come up with a comprehensive plan through which we can, together, impelement sustainable projects that will help develop the region.

So here I was, a graduate student, planning out a grandeous project with no actual assurance that anything was going to work. I have no idea if we'll have students next summer who want to come down to Haiti. I have no idea where we'll get the money. I don't even know what the next month is going to look like. But this was my job, to initiate the conversation and to start a relationship wherein we can have students from both countries leading development initiatives. The walk down was nice. Beer in hand, now flat and warm from the descent, I looked at the mountains all around me and felt a little more at ease.

Every evening I have dinner with the sisters. Two of them, Sister Judy and Sister Cathy are from the US, and its such a relief to have them there, both to help me in my Creole, but also just to talk. I'm alone here otherwise. I'm trying to keep myself busy, but I've never been one to spend long periods of time by myself in a foreign country. Last night I made a new friend, an 18 yr old student from the school nearby. We actually had a pretty long converstaion in Creole. It was raining and were standing under cover just outside my door. He wants to go to Cuba to learn to be a doctor and then come back here to help the poor. He also thinks Argetinian women are hot. The laughter helps the time go by.