AS HAITIAN MEN PROTEST, WOMEN, CHILDREN SEEK QUIET REFUGE
(AOL) - By Emily Troutman, Contributor
PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Haitian President Rene Preval declined to step down from office today, originally the end of his term, after the Senate previously passed a bill that allows him to extend his stay for three more months.
That meant more protesting, especially around the palace, where 50,000 people are in a shantytown of shacks and the president remains wildly unpopular.
In front of the palace, a few dozen angry protesters demanded his exit, threw rocks and overturned trash bins to create barricades. Today's was a dangerous but meager crowd, notable mostly for who wasn't there.
Tear gas is par for the course. Rubble dodging, nearly sport. Inside a honeycomb of handmade houses, women and children are now inured to the insanity.
Haitian President Rene Preval extended his term by three months on Monday, sparking a new wave of protests in the nation's capital. Here, a protester in Port-au-Prince calls for the ouster of the wildly unpopular leader and the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Eight-year-old Fritznel kicked around a half-deflated ball. Long-abandoned fountains, 2 feet deep, are the soccer field of choice in Champ de Mars.
When suddenly a fight broke out and the crowd approached, he hopped out of the fountain and slipped quietly, like the ghost of a happier child, into his family's aluminum shack.
"Why did you stop playing?"
"To avoid my feet being broken," he says.
I first met Fritznel in August, "I'm almost 9 now," he's quick to remind me. And despite the near-constant unrest and calamity nearby -- "I've lost count of all the protests," says a neighbor -- not much has changed for him or his three sisters.
He shows me into his home.
"What happens when it rains?" I ask Fritznel.
"We get rained on," he says.
Five-year-old Patricia and 7-year-old Lovely, two of his sisters, spend all their days the same way -- playing, watching, running, hiding; playing, watching, running, hiding.
"I don't have any toys," says Patricia, unprompted.
She doesn't have a house, really, or a bed, either. But these are the priorities of children.
"When you come here again, bring a little purse. And a doll," she says.
Micheline Christoph, their mother, was selling bottles of water six months ago to support the family but ran out of inventory and, swiftly, money as well.
"We had to eat," she said of her meager profits.
The family moved to Champ de Mars from Village de Dieu, where their house collapsed. The children say their father is dead, but Micheline says he is merely "gone." Same difference, they all say with their eyes.
When we met in August, Micheline was reticent to talk politics. Women in Haiti are often less informed, less confident and more cautious to share their views.
Where men in Haiti run hot and ready for battle, women set themselves on a survivor's pace -- slow and steady wins the race.
But another six months in, and Micheline's family has little to show for it. "You might have more to say now, huh?" I ask, with a grin.
Micheline falls apart in unselfconscious laughter, as the war drums beat nearby and gunshots ring out above us. "Yeah, now I can answer you."
She knows there are few misfortunes greater than hers, though some.
"These kids don't have a father," she says, "but a lot of kids don't have a father or a mother.
They don't have anywhere to stay."If she were in charge, she says, she'd find homes for the homeless.
Of politics, she says, "The power belongs to the people. And only the people can give you power."
Other women in the neighborhood are divided on the usefulness of protest, though. Especially where every real issue has been co-opted by violence.
"No, it's not a solution," says Carmelite, 46. She would never take to the streets herself, she says.
"We believe in God and we believe God can turn things around."
I also met 40-year-old Vierge Dely in August. She told me then, of politicians, "Lave men siye ate. You wash your hands, then wipe them on the ground."
As she watched the men run around her neighborhood today, she sat, unshaken, next to her basket of candies and cookies. She says she is throwing her hat into the ring with presidential candidate Michel Martelly, not the female candidate, Mirlande Manigat."I don't know if she's going to succeed," she said.
When people around her began to sprint in fear of gunfire, Vierge stayed stock-still. She said if something bad actually happened, she'd get up, but not until then.
Getting away while carrying a basketful of merchandise isn't hard, she tells me.
"I just grab it, put it on top of my head and run with it."
None of Micheline's five children has ever been to school, but her daughter, Lovely, says instead of a purse to carry her belongings, she'd like a book bag.
"I already have a bag to go to school," Fritznel says. "But I didn't get to go yet. Will you bring me a soccer ball?"
Showing posts with label ARTICLE - A NEW ROLE FOR HAITIAN WOMEN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARTICLE - A NEW ROLE FOR HAITIAN WOMEN. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, July 26, 2010
ARTICLE - A NEW ROLE FOR HAITIAN WOMEN
OUT OF THE RUINS, A NEW ROLE FOR HAITIAN WOMEN
(Seattle Times) - By Jacqueline Charles
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Cendra Guillaume walks into the dusty depot of manly machines, passes fellow female workers, and steps into the front office with a familiar look of determination.
Not one to sit around and wait, the wife, mother and heavy-equipment operator gets right to the point: "Where to today?"
In the months since the Haiti earthquake claimed an estimated 300,000 lives, women like Guillaume have been on the front lines of paving the way for this broken nation's reconstruction.
Theirs are the anonymous hands that steered the dead to unmarked graves in black and white government dump trucks, tunneled through the rubble for foreign rescue teams and cleared debris from hundreds of blocked roads.
In the process, they are challenging the notion of a woman's traditional role in this machismo society, and restoring what many thought they had lost in the rubble: faith in the future.
"It's a beautiful thing," said Guerino Noel, 44, a father of two daughters who ekes out a living scavenging ruins for copper wire, as he watched Guillaume deftly maneuver her giant yellow excavator.
"As a Haitian male, I was personally offended the first time I saw a woman driving one of those trucks," he said. "But when you are living in such a deplorable situation, where even eating is difficult, and you see a woman sitting behind the wheels of one of those trucks, it means something in the country is still working."
Guillaume works for Centre National des Equipments, or CNE, the government's road-building outfit. Formed in 1997, it has deliberately filled its employee ranks with women. They serve in every capacity from dump-truck driver to loader to excavator operator to trainer.
"I was first concerned about my equipment," said Jude Celestin, CNE founder and executive director. "We always had a problem with drivers stealing fuel, stealing parts from the trucks. It's a fact that we have this problem in Haiti. With women, it's different.
"When I give a woman a piece of equipment, I am sure she's going to take care of her family; she will take care of her children," he said. "Women have something else inside them that they don't even realize is there: a need to prove to themselves that they can do the same thing as a man."
Before the catastrophic quake hit Jan. 12, most of CNE's employees had been working in the outskirts of the capital, building roads as part of President Rene Preval's effort to transform the lives of farmers.
Within hours of the disaster, amid the death and chaos, 85 trainees — 65 of them women — arrived on foot from the nearby Cite Soleil slum. They immediately climbed into the cockpits and began to clear major roads and downtown of debris.
"They are leading the demolition of the ruined structures and because they are personally living it, they know better than anyone what the reconstruction can be," Celestin said.
Guillaume had just stepped out of a brightly colored Tap Tap truck in the city of Carrefour when the ground buckled. Buildings toppled and a mother's adrenaline kicked in as she ran home to her 7-year-old son, Olivier.
Over the next 24 hours, her husband, a police officer, would try to dissuade her from leaving. She stayed until this radio announcement: All CNE technicians and operators must report to work immediately.
"I said, 'No, I cannot stay at home. If I don't go, it's like a doctor who has a lot of sick patients and he's refusing to treat them,' " she said. "My first thought, 'What if there are people still alive underneath the rubble?' "
She arrived at the worksite less than 48 hours after the hemisphere's worst natural disaster and immediately went to work.
Guillaume and the other women felt the strain.
"There were days where I just cried and cried," said Guillaume, 39, who was assigned to one toppled building after another. But every morning, she would awaken in her modest home with the washing machine and unfinished second floor, kiss Olivier goodbye, and don her courage before heading out.
"I am lucky enough not to have lost anyone dear to my heart," she said. "I always said, 'If God has saved my own, then it's my duty to go and help others.' "
Women have long been the backbone of Haiti's informal economy but lacked real power in this conservative society. Their schooling was often sacrificed for that of their brothers.
Most of CNE's women find their average $312 monthly salary, plus as much as $150 a month in per diem, exceeding their partner's, and Celestin's first warning to all new recruits is that CNE will test their relationships.
"I tell them, 'All of you will leave your husbands,' " he said. "The men develop a complex because the women now have money in their hands."
Guillaume's husband of seven years cleaned out their joint bank accounts recently following a violent fight over money, she said.
He kicked her out of the house without her son, and she's temporarily seeking refuge at a friend's home.
Celestin has offered a transfer to a new job, but daily migraines and depression have, for the moment, kept Guillaume from accepting.
In the ultimate irony, she's unable to perform the job that has for so long defined and empowered her.
(Seattle Times) - By Jacqueline Charles
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Cendra Guillaume walks into the dusty depot of manly machines, passes fellow female workers, and steps into the front office with a familiar look of determination.
Not one to sit around and wait, the wife, mother and heavy-equipment operator gets right to the point: "Where to today?"
In the months since the Haiti earthquake claimed an estimated 300,000 lives, women like Guillaume have been on the front lines of paving the way for this broken nation's reconstruction.
Theirs are the anonymous hands that steered the dead to unmarked graves in black and white government dump trucks, tunneled through the rubble for foreign rescue teams and cleared debris from hundreds of blocked roads.
In the process, they are challenging the notion of a woman's traditional role in this machismo society, and restoring what many thought they had lost in the rubble: faith in the future.
"It's a beautiful thing," said Guerino Noel, 44, a father of two daughters who ekes out a living scavenging ruins for copper wire, as he watched Guillaume deftly maneuver her giant yellow excavator.
"As a Haitian male, I was personally offended the first time I saw a woman driving one of those trucks," he said. "But when you are living in such a deplorable situation, where even eating is difficult, and you see a woman sitting behind the wheels of one of those trucks, it means something in the country is still working."
Guillaume works for Centre National des Equipments, or CNE, the government's road-building outfit. Formed in 1997, it has deliberately filled its employee ranks with women. They serve in every capacity from dump-truck driver to loader to excavator operator to trainer.
"I was first concerned about my equipment," said Jude Celestin, CNE founder and executive director. "We always had a problem with drivers stealing fuel, stealing parts from the trucks. It's a fact that we have this problem in Haiti. With women, it's different.
"When I give a woman a piece of equipment, I am sure she's going to take care of her family; she will take care of her children," he said. "Women have something else inside them that they don't even realize is there: a need to prove to themselves that they can do the same thing as a man."
Before the catastrophic quake hit Jan. 12, most of CNE's employees had been working in the outskirts of the capital, building roads as part of President Rene Preval's effort to transform the lives of farmers.
Within hours of the disaster, amid the death and chaos, 85 trainees — 65 of them women — arrived on foot from the nearby Cite Soleil slum. They immediately climbed into the cockpits and began to clear major roads and downtown of debris.
"They are leading the demolition of the ruined structures and because they are personally living it, they know better than anyone what the reconstruction can be," Celestin said.
Guillaume had just stepped out of a brightly colored Tap Tap truck in the city of Carrefour when the ground buckled. Buildings toppled and a mother's adrenaline kicked in as she ran home to her 7-year-old son, Olivier.
Over the next 24 hours, her husband, a police officer, would try to dissuade her from leaving. She stayed until this radio announcement: All CNE technicians and operators must report to work immediately.
"I said, 'No, I cannot stay at home. If I don't go, it's like a doctor who has a lot of sick patients and he's refusing to treat them,' " she said. "My first thought, 'What if there are people still alive underneath the rubble?' "
She arrived at the worksite less than 48 hours after the hemisphere's worst natural disaster and immediately went to work.
Guillaume and the other women felt the strain.
"There were days where I just cried and cried," said Guillaume, 39, who was assigned to one toppled building after another. But every morning, she would awaken in her modest home with the washing machine and unfinished second floor, kiss Olivier goodbye, and don her courage before heading out.
"I am lucky enough not to have lost anyone dear to my heart," she said. "I always said, 'If God has saved my own, then it's my duty to go and help others.' "
Women have long been the backbone of Haiti's informal economy but lacked real power in this conservative society. Their schooling was often sacrificed for that of their brothers.
Most of CNE's women find their average $312 monthly salary, plus as much as $150 a month in per diem, exceeding their partner's, and Celestin's first warning to all new recruits is that CNE will test their relationships.
"I tell them, 'All of you will leave your husbands,' " he said. "The men develop a complex because the women now have money in their hands."
Guillaume's husband of seven years cleaned out their joint bank accounts recently following a violent fight over money, she said.
He kicked her out of the house without her son, and she's temporarily seeking refuge at a friend's home.
Celestin has offered a transfer to a new job, but daily migraines and depression have, for the moment, kept Guillaume from accepting.
In the ultimate irony, she's unable to perform the job that has for so long defined and empowered her.
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