Tag Archives: Aristide

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Awards Ceremony 101


Allow me to apologize in advance (you’ll soon see why) and assure you that, although things in Haiti seemed to be heating up a day or two ago, they’ve just as quickly calmed back down, as Aristide’s arrival has been delayed until housing and security can be arranged—several days, maybe even weeks.

So during this brief lull in exiled-former-presidents-coming-home to Haiti, I’ll finally and officially accept the Memetastic Award Clouded Marble cursed honored me with last week. 

This long-anticipated acceptance requires several things of me:

1. Displaying the “disgusting graphic” (words of the award creator Jillsmo, not mine) of the award itself—a Meme Kitty dancing among balloons and shooting stars, gleeful and glorious in award winning form. 

2. Posting 5 “facts” about myself—4 of which must be bold-faced lies.  (This will be the fun part.)

3. Passing the award along to 5 other bloggers, who will, in turn, do the same.  (This is where the apologies come into play.)

4. Linking this post back to the “Memetastic Hop,” so award creator Jillsmo can track its path through the blogosphere.  (Supposedly failing to do any of the above will cause Jillsmo to haunt and taunt me through the rest of what, I’m sure will be, a short-lived blogging career.)

So, here are some fun-filled “facts” about me.  (You pick out the one that is true.)

  1. Sara and Kathy met on a train from Istanbul to Ankara.
  2. Kathy taught English at Oral Roberts University for 6 years, before leaving to teach writing to inner-city St. Louis teens in trouble.
  3. During the 1980s, one of Kathy’s sisters served in the Peace Corps in Sri Lanka, where she still lives with her Delhi-born husband and 2 sons.
  4. Someone in Kathy’s immediate family won’t allow Kathy to mention him or her in this blog and has asked her to write as if he or she does not exist.
  5. Kathy’s father was a preacher from Ft. Lauderdale.

(Let me warn you, this list is tricky.  The fact must be entirely true to count.) 

Finally, I must part with my prize and pass it along to other entirely-worthy-of-bigger-honors-than-this bloggers I read regularly. 

(Audience cheers expectantly, while best-of-the-best bloggers cower in corners, pens poised to attack if they are indeed identified.)

And the winners are (apologies all around):

  1. Lisa at “Notes from Africa.”  Lisa’s blog was freshly pressed several weeks ago.  She writes about the science she observes all around her in South Africa.  Brilliant blog.  Amazing photos.  You must read. 
  2. Mrs. H. at “A.Hab’s View of the World.”  (Sorry, my friend, I adore your blog and want others to read, as well.)  Mrs. H. writes, sometimes amusingly, but always passionately, about her ambivalence for academia.  She is currently teaching World Lit at the university where she is finishing a Ph.D. in English. 
  3. Tori at “The Ramblings.”  What can I say?  Tori is a 23-year-old mother of one from Tennessee, who is, in fact, one of the best writers I have ever read.  As I told Sara the other day, Tori  writes like Anne Lamott, but “out-Lamotts” Lamott herself.  Tori is wickedly funny and was once freshly pressed twice in one week! 
  4. Deanna at “A Mother’s Tonic.”  Deanna is a Canadian blogger who writes poignantly about both the challenges and joys of motherhood.  She makes me think, she makes me smile, she makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.  I think you will love her too. 
  5. Terri at “Into the Mystic.”  Terri is a wife and mother, a bowling fanatic, and kidney donor, who writes about “dragging [her] feet toward empty-nest-hood.”   Terri was also freshly pressed a while back.  I know you’ll enjoy her wit and insight.  She’s sure to make you laugh. 

So there you have it folks.  I believe I’ve fulfilled my obligations according to Memetastic Award protocol.  

May award creator Jillsmo hunt me down and menace me for life if I have failed in these Memetastic duties.  I am indeed a believer in the cause. 

Thanks, again to Clouded Marble, for this great “gift.” As I’ve said before, please read her blog, despite her poor judgement in passing this prize to me. 

Long live the “Meme Kitty” !!!!

I will blog—forever—

A proud winner of the Memetastic Award!!!!

(Applause continue, even as this pronouncement is posted and Meme Kitty exits stage left————-)

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Graffiti: Inscribing Haiti’s Future on the Rubble that is Now


There’s a long-standing tradition of political graffiti in Haiti—one that began soon after the Duvalier dictatorship ended its 29 year reign of terror with the ouster in 1986 of now newly-returned Baby Doc.

 We’ve come full circle. 

Duvalier is back.  Aristide is on his way.

However, political graffiti isn’t gone.  In fact, it’s virtually everywhere in Haiti’s capital—buildings and walls defaced by political thugs given $35 (US) and some spray paint to propagandize Port-au-Prince—scrawlings in red, black, and blue—the names of presidential candidates literally littering the city in ink.

What’s different, however, is this: there’s a new kid on the block, a graffiti artist named Jerry Rosembert Moise, who began his brilliant work just hours after an earthquake devastated his city.

What’s also different is that Jerry’s graffiti is decidedly non-political.  It articulates the suffering of an otherwise silent city, whose pain is tented and tarped along rubble-strewn streets, where cholera rages and rioters react in a language of flaming tires—a solidarity of burning rubber.

Jerry, a twenty-five-year-old graphic artist by training, paints simultaneously with both hands.   By now he’s completed more than 50 pieces, beginning in Port-au-Prince proper, before moving uptown to Petion-ville where we live. 

Directly across the street from my partner Sara’s office, is a painting that looks like this:

Though getting good photos of this piece is now complicated by a billboad’s intrusion, you can still see the ball-holding boy, watching the world cup.  There’s a lot of watching going on here, the person on the street seeing the painting, the young man staring at the set.  Passively the world watches and plays games, while Haitians wait, forced to make furniture from rubble?  Who holds the ball here?  Are these the questions Jerry asks?

Just half way up the block, however, on the same side of the street is a piece that looks like this:

What’s Jerry’s message here?  The hand-holding couple walk in solidarity.  What makes them so sad, so tired?  Why do they look down instead of up or at one another?

Still further up the block and across the street from Sara’s second office is a woman leaning against the very wall she’s painted on:

Her gaze is directed over her shoulder and into the street, perhaps even across the road at the NGO where Sara works.  She wears glasses, smokes a cigarette in high heels that force her to stand on tip-toe, legs crossed—tentatively.  She’s suggestively watching what?  What does she need assistance seeing or saying?  When does “suggestively” become “suggest?” 

Not far from the block where these three pieces peer at televisions and NGOs, is an even sadder commentary of post-earthquake Haiti:

Here the boy in a wheel chair is watched by Santa Clause.  Santa, suited up in high holiday-fashion, is the passive on-looker.  The boy participates, waving a bleeding Haitian flag, popping a wheely—stunting for Santa. 

“I may be hurt,” he says. 

“I may be bleeding.  But watch me wave patriotically, while you stand idly by, hot under the collar in that stupid European suit!” 

“Why are all the ex-pats pissed?” he wants to know.

Santa may not know the answer.  We may not either.  But Jerry himself has this to say:

So Jerry’s message is one of hope, a belief that the youth of Haiti can and will make a difference, build a stronger future on the rubble that is now.

Tomorrow, an update on Jerry’s latest project! 

Stay tuned.

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Seemingly Selfish, Lesbian Ex-Pats Seek Personal Peace (and some damn, good shopping) in South Florida


Sara and I are planning a weekend trip to Miami and hoping that Haitian streets remain quiet this week, ahead of our planned departure on Friday.  However, recent developments in the news, some even in the past several hours, hint that peace in Port-au-Prince could be short-lived.  Let’s keep all selfish, Lesbian fingers crossed that we gals get gone from Haiti before politics throw an exile-returning monkey wrench into our scheme for peace.

Over the weekend we learned specifically that the Haitian Electoral Council will announce on Wednesday the winners in Haiti’s first round of presidential elections—“winners” being the two candidates with the most votes, who will run-off on March 20th.

The American government, in an effort to persuade Haiti to accept the election outcome supported by the OAS (Organization of American States), revoked the US visas of 12 top political leaders from Haitian President Preval’s Inite party.  An OAS investigation found massive fraud in November 28th’s election and recommended that Preval’s hand-picked candidate, Jude Celestin, be eliminated from the run-off.  Bowing to this pressure late last week, Preval’s party withdrew its support of Celestin, but Celestin himself has refused to concede defeat and remove himself from the process.

However, any potential unrest from Wednesday’s electoral announcement could be complicated further by what Haitian President Preval and his council of ministers decided to do on Monday afternoon—grant former President Aristide a diplomatic passport, so he can return to Haiti.

Clearly, the Obama administration was concerned enough about Haiti’s ability to transfer power away from Preval, whose term ends on February 7th, that it sent US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Port-au-Prince on Sunday to meet with the current president and the three presidential candidates fighting for top spots on March 20th’s ballot.  I suspect the US is concerned that Haiti not devolve into the same kind of political unrest we’ve seen recently in Tunisia and Egypt.  US interests in the region depend on peace being maintained in its own hemisphere, especially in a place just 600 miles south of Miami and too close to Cuba for comfort, a goal that Aristide’s return could threaten.

Cuba also came into play on Monday afternoon, as rumors spread that Aristide had already left South Africa, where he’s lived in exile since 2004, and had returned in the Caribbean, in preparation for his arrival Port-au-Prince.  Some reports had him in Venezuela, others in Cuba.  However, Aristide’s attorney has since confirmed that the former president has not yet left South Africa.

Aristide maintains a huge following among Haiti’s poor, and his Lavalas party was not allowed to participate in November’s election.

Today’s New York Times has a story that nicely assesses the Aristide situation, outlining the potential complications.

Clearly, political tensions here in Haiti seem to be heating up   Selfish as it sounds (and admittedly it is selfish), Sara and I hope things don’t boil over before our weekend escape to South Florida.  Though not returning home to Kentucky, we’re looking forward to the comforts of American television (minus Super-Bowl Sunday), foods as heart attack-inducing as McDonald’s Big Mac and fries, and some quiet time to enjoy South Beach and play our part, as gratuitous American consumers, shopping till greed and guilt get the best of us or our wallets are emptied—a little retail therapy to lift our spirits and boost the lagging US economy.

Somebody’s got to do it; might as well be this pair of globe-trotting, dog-loving lesbians, who need a little personal peace, as well. 

(Apologies for the Super Bowl snub; we expats like our football better in the form of World Cup action.)