Application Information

Due March 11: Make an impact in Haiti as part of the W&M Haiti Compact alternative break! The W&M Haiti Compact will be returning for its third year of service on an alternative break in January 2013, and we are looking for new members of our team. We partner with Sonje Ayiti, supporting their work in small business and education with a women's cooperative in Limonade, and also with Grace Children's Hospital, doing public health outreach in Port-au-Prince. If you're interested in building capacity in a sustainable way in Haiti, while learning about the country, its assets and challenges, apply to be part of our team! Apply with this application online, including the Haiti Compact supplement questions in a Word doc; then send it to branchoutinternational@gmail.com with the subject line reading: the name(s) of the trips you're applying to (first choice, second choice), Last Name, First Name. Deadline is March 11. Contact Katie Fottrell,kdfottrell@email.wm.edu with questions.

Returning from Ayiti

It’s been almost a month since our plane touched down onto the runway on a cold, rainy night at Dulles after eleven rich days in Ayiti. I have found myself returning to many of the moments we spent there – some funny, some tragic, some challenging, some centering – and have been grateful, above all, for the trip.

I usually compile a list of lessons learned after each alternative break I do, so I have something to say when people ask that inevitable question: “How was your trip!???” Here’s what I’ve found myself telling people this time around:

International aid is even more complex than I thought… and I thought it was pretty complex before. After reading The Crisis Caravan by Linda Polman this Fall, I was sort of braced to see the work of some international NGOs with a skeptical (and perhaps even judgmental) eye. Nothing about our trip changed that: we saw many instances of well-intentioned help fall flat, either because the aid was not community-based, or was not comprehensive enough to really meet need.

We sought to do our best by our friends in Limonade, Cima and Port-au-Prince, and we found that the only way we could do so was through building capacity, strengthening relationships, and sharing knowledge with each other. And that led to good things; but I realize too how much more there is to be done. The work we did with RAFAVAL, a vibrant group of women who are using everything they have to make their business and school succeed, was gratifying. Still, it struck me again and again that while the tasks we had were challenging, their independence, livelihoods and their children’s futures were all dependent on their tasks ahead, and what they were able to make happen.

Speaking of relationships: this was my fourth trip to Ayiti; my third in the past 19 months. And it felt, finally, like a visit to friends rather than an adventure in a new place. So many hugs! So many “how’ve you been!?”s. Visiting people whom I’d met before not only proved to both of us that this commitment is for real; it also allowed me to get to know them, their families, their community, better. And that is a gift and will only make our partnership stronger and more productive in the future.

Speaking of the future: others on this blog have mentioned our conversation with the ICC Director in Ayiti, Wesley Romulus. One of the things I’ve known since my first full-time volunteer gig in Philadelphia – and then learned hard-core while volunteering long-term in South Africa – is that you have to be steeped in the community before presuming to address any community needs. But this can be frustrating for us hurry-hurry-go-go North American types. I have often had to remind myself and students that community work is a process, with a heavy emphasis on developing relationships, but Mr. Romulus said it so beautifully. He said something like this: “Imagine you are preparing a beautiful banquet for your friends. Would you consider the time you spend at the grocery store a waste? Of course not! Well, the time you spend here, getting to know people and what we are like, is your time at the grocery store.” Well said.

And, speaking of getting to know people: the Ayitian worldview has been so important for me to learn about and soak in a bit. Coming back was like whiplash – not in the culture shock sense where taking in disparity is so hard to do – but in remembering how much of my life I spend interacting with people through this nutso medium of the interwebs. Screen time and the urgency of emails sometimes feels like the bane of my existence, and after 11 luscious days where internet access was infrequent and urgency was focused on things other than timeframe, I have struggled to adjust. I long for a shift in our culture where getting to know people, sharing time face to face and a trust in the process can come more to the forefront.

As a side note, our conversation with our friend and cultural interpreter, Djaloki, has continued to blow my mind. I’ve been digging into Celtic, Buddhist and other kinds of spirituality and worldviews lately, and it is so stunningly simple, how connected they all are to the Ayitian lens and Vodou ways of being in the world.

Next up for the W&M Haiti Compact is to continue our work, strengthening our partnerships and preparing for our next trip. For now, though, I am also content to continue letting Ayiti remain with me. As I drove into work this morning, the sun was just brimming over the horizon: this mammoth, glowing red sun, slowly becoming smaller and more yellow as it rose in the sky. It brought me right back to our last night in Port-au-Prince, when we watched the moon rise from the roof of our guest house: mammoth, deep orange, and slowly becoming smaller and more yellow as it rose. Even with the 1350 mile distance between us, a part of me is still there on that roof, in that room with the women of RAFAVAL, in the church in the tent camp. And just as truly, Ayiti walks with me here.

(photos of the moon never do it full justice. trust me: it was awesome.)

Haiti: My "One" and Only

(Disclaimer: I'm going to put some pictures in this post because I feel like it. They aren't related to my writing, but hey, they're cool, so why not?)

So I have been thinking about Haiti a lot over these past couple of weeks since we've been back, but to be honest, with schoolwork and workwork picking up, I have been so busy that sometimes the memories blindside me at random points in the day.

Tonight for example, I was driving home and my ipod (on shuffle) started to play a song that distinctly reminded me of our trip and really brought me back to specific moments. Now, don't judge, but the song was "You da One" by Rihanna. I know if my life were a movie or a novel, it would be something really poignant like something by Enya or Stevie Wonder or something super classic, but "You da One" happened to be a song that I enjoyed listening to on those long (*bumpy*) Haitian car rides, and by the end of our ten days, Kylee and I were playing it in the mornings and inadvertently singing to it in daydreams. Where am I going with this you may ask? To be honest, who really knows? I've just always had a fascination with how our brains can attach emotions and extremely vivid memories to senses and how, when these specific conditions of the senses are replicated, it's as if you're right in that moment again. And that's how it was. In my '94 Honda Civic, driving home from work, listening to Rihanna. I felt like I was in Haiti again, and I felt alive and happy.

I so value all the time we spent and all the work we completed in Haiti, because I got a kind of satisfaction from our projects that I've never really felt before. I felt like what I did mattered.And I got results every day, whether they were tangible numbers written on a ledger or smiling faces shaking my hand and asking me to come back soon. I find it hard sometimes to connect the studies I do and the work I do here in the states to something bigger, to my life's purpose so to speak, because they don't really seem to be fulfilling anything but emptying and refilling my bank account as I plod along trying to find my place. Don't get me wrong-I love everything about W&M and my job at the Rec, but now that I'm back, I really feel like Haiti and Sonje Ayiti and ICC gave me that extra something that makes me want to go back.

Who knows? Maybe, save all of the extra lyrics that have no relation to anything about this post or my purpose in Haiti, Haiti is "da One" for me. Maybe it's the place I'm meant to be.

In the meantime I plan on continuing my exploration, something I believe I will forever be indebted to Haiti and it's beautiful people for opening me up to. This experience has shown me all the beauty that can come out of so many different situations, and I thank it [and Rihanna] for reminding me.

Until next time..

HaitiLove,

Katie