If I occupy this room during the afternoon, as I do today in my stomach rumblings and fatigue, I fling back the mosquito net surrounding my bed—it obscures the small relief from the overhead fan, and mosquitoes have mostly retired til dark. I scratch violently at the bites peppering the backs of my thighs. Last night I mistakenly trapped one insect in my cocoon, and it feasted on me throughout the night. This is my penance for being relatively unsweet-blooded, compared with my friends, and I thi… Continue

I started a blog a while ago.
Visit http://yesolinhaiti.blogspot.com/ to see my posts so far.

The rhetorical dangers of culture clash (comments from local women made through a translator)

“Is she yours?”
--woman to Sahil, about Katherine

“Are you Muslim or Hindu?”
--(I still don’t know how to answer this question)

“Chicken?”
--Manzhu, our translator, at every single meal, still disbelieving that we actually do not want meat

“But if you get tired from this walk you won’t be able to finish the rest of the day!”
--Manzhu, regarding a 1 km stroll, for which we insisted a rickshaw was unn… Continue

After identifying a village’s poorest people, a BRAC interviewer visits each poor household to determine if its mistress qualifies for the TUP program. As he loudly accuses one woman of involvement in another NGO program, she smiles and protests friendlily in front of a smirking crowd. I shudder to think what a poor Yankee farmer would do if a man in business clothes appeared, asking to see food stashes and evidence of furniture. Even if the farmer only ate twice a day and desperately needed sup… Continue