Blogs - Alliance of Students Against Poverty

Ranking and Graduation

[Monday, June 22nd, 2009] We interviewed CLM Graduate at a local market day, the CLM graduate selected small commerce as one of her two enterprises. [Wednesday, June 24th, 2009] Wealth Ranking Village Meeting

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Added by Kendra Pierre on June 24, 2009 at 11:00pm — No Comments

In the middle and the end of it all

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

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 22, 2009 at 8:03am — No Comments

Yesol's blog

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

Added by Yesol Han on June 20, 2009 at 9:32pm — No Comments

Oh, the things one hears these days

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

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 20, 2009 at 12:27am — No Comments

Questions

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

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 20, 2009 at 12:26am — No Comments

Fat

I think about food and weight differently here—it’s impossible not to. People always serve us more food, more food. I wonder if I look thin to them (for a foreigner, that is) or plump. Either way, in reality, I don’t need to eat so much. I’m not in danger of future hunger. When I think about it, I realize that it would be nearly impossible to for me to starve. Even if my parents went completely bankrupt, and everyone in my extended family died, and I became crippled and unable to work, I still c… Continue

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 19, 2009 at 11:07am — No Comments

Rough Terrain

[Tuesday, June 16th, 2009] Interviewing CLM members Mercilia Boni is a sixty year old grandmother living in Ti – Jeudy, Boukan Kare, Haiti with three children and five grandchildren. The eldest child living with her is seventeen years old and her youngest grandchild is three years old. One of her children lives outside of the home. For the past 10 months, she has not seen or spoken to her eldest daughter. Her daughter does not know her economic hardship and she does not know if her daughter i… Continue

Added by Kendra Pierre on June 16, 2009 at 11:00pm — No Comments

Selection

I am sitting on a wooden chair in front of a semi-circle of village members who have settled onto straw and dirt. I dislike the feeling of being placed on a throne. A BRAC employee, an interviewer, stands over a chalk outline of the village’s borders. Today is Social Mapping day in the Targeting the Ultra Poor program schedule, and the same process repeats in each village BRAC selects. We watch the covert operation; BRAC has told villagers that they are collecting information for a government su… Continue

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 13, 2009 at 4:49am — No Comments

Surviving

Northern Bangladesh So hot. The kind of hot that kills old ladies in Texas summer heat waves, or at least the kind of hot that makes them want to die in the first place. The kind that barely cools down after dark because hot is just sitting in the air after baking the dampness all day. The weather drips so humid that my skin doesn’t dry even when I towel off because the minute I step out of the shower, I start sweating. The devil himself must have invented this kind of hot in anticipation of th… Continue

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 13, 2009 at 4:48am — No Comments

Understanding the History

[Tuesday, June 9th, 2009] We met a new Fonkoze staff member named Sabenne. Sabenne will be replacing Amy in Fonkoze’s financial records department. The job responsibilities entail writing donor reports to Fonkoze’s donors. Amy and her brother will leave Haiti in a few days so they decided to go to the waterfall in Sodo. The Sodo waterfall is the city’s main attraction. Foreigners and Haitians living abroad come into Sodo for the month of July. The waterfalls are said to have mystical blessings… Continue

Added by Kendra Pierre on June 9, 2009 at 11:30pm — No Comments

Dhaka

So we've arrived in Dhaka, here for a week before heading out into the field to do interviews of BRAC clients. It is hard to know where to begin when explaining what it's like here. 12.5 million people in a fairly small space. The weather weighs heavy, and if you're not in an air conditioned room, then you are sweating. Outside, busses, cars, auto-rickshaws (CNGs), bicycle rickshaws, and pedestrians all compete for street space that has no official lanes or even traffic lights, ususally. Riding… Continue

Added by Caitlin Morgan on June 5, 2009 at 10:13am — No Comments

Haitian-American views

[Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009] It is odd to say that I have experienced culture shock because I am a Haitian-American traveling to Haiti for the first time in my life. However, I believe that I experienced a cultural transition that begins at the JFK terminal for my flight to Haiti. The flight to Port – Au - Prince, Haiti was comprised of Haitians and a sprinkle of foreigners such as Westerners. During the plane ride to Haiti, the woman I sat next to, spoke to me in Kreyol. I responded to her questi… Continue

Added by Kendra Pierre on June 2, 2009 at 10:00pm — No Comments

All Blog Posts (12)