Haiti is a tough place

I am currently back in Haiti to do an assessment on violence against women in elections (VAWIE). Conducting an assessment means millions upon millions of meetings. I have been meeting from sun up to well past sun down and have a ton of information that I have to sort through. Except I can’t because in a short while, I have to go for more meetings. Today’s meetings start at 8am and end at 5pm. With the heat and humidity, I am reduced to nothing by the end of the day.

However, I would be so sad not to blog once. I would love to take a moment and try to describe Haiti. This would take a lot more time. Instead, I’ll sum it (Princess Bride!)

Whenever I am not in Haiti, I always say, “Haiti is one of the most difficult places I have ever been to. I think Haiti is right up there or not too far from South Sudan.” South Sudan! I think I am being dramatic, and then when I return, my pithy summary does not do justice to this complex and catastrophic place.

Because I have been meeting so many people, I now have absolute clarity about how true that statement is. I don’t have time to unpack it though, so I will tell one story.

We arrived at a Ministry which I won’t name. We had two meetings scheduled. One with the Secretary General of the Minister and one with the Minister herself. We were escorted to a waiting room and then the Secretary General came and got us and moved us to her office, which was outside this main building, in the back of the compound. We crammed in (4 of us, including our interpreter Edwich.)

After introductions and protocols, she began to answer my questions. She started with “Violence is everywhere in Haiti,” which is how everyone begins talking when I ask my first question. She told us that every Monday between 30- 45 survivors of sexual violence come to the Minstry for service. The Ministry!

We continued talking and then were interrupted when the Minister herself came in. Ana, my colleague, and I were like, “wait, that’s the Minister? Why is she coming to get us? She walked all the way here? Huh.”

Once we get to the Minister’s office, we make introductions and then she starts telling us about her work. It was all fluff. She kept saying she had a vision and that we all needed to follow it, but didn’t say what that vision was. A few minutes into it she starts complaining about the other woman to us and how she should not have met with us before the Minister met with us. It got awkward. I asked Edwich to stop translating at one point. We talked a little longer and then the other woman walked us out. The Minister smiled and shook our hands.

A few hours later, we met my other colleague at another Ministry and she told us that the Minister we met with in the morning was extremely angry that we met the other woman first. Huh? She was on a rampage and as a result of her wrath and our disobedience of protocol (huh?) she was pulling all of the participants for our two day meeting that was starting the next day. Wait, huh?

Our team in Haiti explained to us that they absolutely followed protocol and asked for a meeting with the Minister and that it was her office that scheduled the meetings the way they did.

I won’t go into all the details, but in sum, apparently she’s known for her “personality” and apparently she and this SG have been battling during her short and fiery tenure. For me, this is emblematic of the failure of governance in Haiti. This woman lost it over a misstep in protocol (made by her office) and not only couldn’t let it go, but then, with furious vengeance, made her best effort to torpedo the rest of our visit.

It doesn’t torpedo it. What it does do is tell us that we’ve lost a vital partner and that Haiti has lost yet another opportunity for good leadership and on such a critical issue.

So it’s a minor incident in Haiti, a minor one for us, but it is unfortunately indicative of the one step forward, two steps back approach to democracy that plagues the country, along with extreme poverty and violence.

This is a tough place.