This blog is about my summer as an
intern with an agricultural foundation in northern Haiti. Its purpose is mostly
to keep my family and friends updated on what I’m doing, and to keep a record
of the things I find interesting. This means it will contain a tedious amount
of detail about both big things (history, religion, development, etc.) and
little things (what things look like, complicated processes for simple tasks,
etc). Be prepared.
It is likely to be uninformed in
many places, since I have little previous experience with Haiti and agriculture
in particular. I try to do my homework,
but my limited internet access makes fact checking particularly laborious, and there are bound to be gaps. Don’t cite me on anything.
I have
chosen to leave out the name of my organization, my coworkers, and some of the
people and institutions I’ve come across. Development is political in Haiti, as
it is everywhere, and I want to be free to make my observations while “doing no
harm” to the people I work with. This creates some narrative awkwardness, so
please bear with me.
The title
of the blog, “Christine Andeyò” means “Kiersten in the Countryside” in Creole.
I’ve found that my actual name is almost impossible for Haitians to pronounce,
so I’ve taken to introducing myself with the more manageable Christine in order
to keep conversations moving. “Andeyò” comes from the French word for
“outside.” It is both a literal term for the people and places outside the
capital city and a symbolic indication of how political power lies with urban
“insiders” at the expense of the rural peasants.
No comments:
Post a Comment