Getting Thru/T'ru/True

When I lived in Jamaica, store clerks would always ask "Gettin' t'ru?" to find out if I had been served, or was still waiting. Here in Haiti, it's a question I've been asking myself lately. Am I "getting through" and finding the research I need? For that matter, am I "getting true" - understanding and accurately representing the realities of community organizations and local governance here?

Some days I think, yes, things are coming together for me, and other days, less so. I've been in Dezam for a month now, with three weeks to go, so at this point I should be solidly into things. Somedays I feel like I am, other days I feel like I'm still getting my bearings. In reality, 7 weeks here in Dezam is way too little time to actually get a good feel of the community dynamics, but that's all the time I have.

It's definitely a slower pace of life here, and I often feel like days are long. On the other hand, daily domestic tasks take longer. Today, for instance, I went to the market in the morning (Tuesdays and Fridays are market days here). Pushing my way through the crowds of people to buy cabbage, mangoes, rice, beans, avocadoes and whatever else I want to eat, bargaining for each item, and walking back in the hot sun carrying my heavy straw satchel takes a long time, and a lot of energy.

From Haiti 2009

After getting back home to the MCC office where I live I rested for a while, drank sugary lime juice and ate bread and peanut butter left from a meeting that happened here this morning. After checking email, taking a nap, and helping one of the staff here find websites that teach English, I thought I should probably get on to some research-related activity.

Last week, I went to the general assembly of an organization, where I made arrangements with a local official who was also attending that I would stop by his office to talk to the three officials who make up the Communal Section Administration Committee (CASEC). He told me that they had office hours from 9-2 on market days. I said I'd stop by Tuesday sometime.

So, today being Tuesday, after lunch I planned to go and talk with the three CASECs. I wasn't exactly sure how to get to the CASEC office, though I thought I'd passed it on the main road (there's one paved road that cuts through the middle of the town). I asked an MCC staff person to show me, and he took me along with him on his way home. We crossed the paved road, and went up past the marketplace to an unmarked building with some men milling around outside.

Unfortunately, it turns out my friend had taken me to the office of the CASECs from the 4th Communal Section. The CASECs I knew and wanted to talk to were from the 3rd Communal Section, and their office was on the main road. So I walked about 15 minutes in the opposite direction to reach that office. When I got there, I found the gate locked and looking abandoned. According to the woman selling fried plantain by the side of the road, the CASECs weren't there today afterall. With that, I turned around, completing the big loop I had made of the town, and walked back home again. No interviews today. So much for "getting through."

On the other hand, my day wasn't totally unproductive in terms of gathering research. Negotiating the hot, crowded and ramshackle marketplace makes me understand just why improvements to the physical infrastructure of the marketplace are so crucial and so high on women's political agendas.

Trying to talk to the CASECs and finding their office empty during their standard office hours and on one of busiest days of the week illustrates just how accessible - or inaccessible - these local elected officials are.

I'm trying hard to read between the lines and gather data from situations that seem at first glance to have nothing to offer.

Sometimes identifying reseach information is lot easier, like when I visited a women's organization a couple weeks ago. Leaning against the back wall of the room we were meeting in were these two signs, left from when the women had participated in street protests to mark Agriculture Day at the beginning of May.

From Haiti 2009

The sign on the left says "Peasants must find land to work, good seeds, and tools." The one on the right says "We haven't forgotten! It's the State's job to build the Dezam market with our tax money." It's hard to find better proof of political activism and organizational pressure on the state than that.

Am I getting through? I think so. Mostly.

Am I getting true? I can only hope.