Race in Bayonnais

A couple weeks ago, when Yvolene and Dasmine were braiding my hair by force, Yvolene told me that I looked like Jesus with my long hair. And then she said that Peter had looked like Jesus too. And that, in fact, all white people looked like Jesus. And since then I have really been questioning how race is viewed in Bayonnais, an area of Haiti that heavily depends on the influence of white Americans.

In Bayonnais, the majority of people are hungry. To eat three meals a day in Bayonnais is an absurd luxury. Most people eat once a day, or maybe once every two days. Many children do not go to school, and the majority do not go to school past the sixth grade. They work from a young age in the fields, even those who attend school. The farther you go up into the mountains, the less likely you will find electricity and running water, which are hard to find even in the heart of Bayonnais. But here come the Americans, well-educated, well-dressed, well-fed, and they stay at OFCB and are given beds and are fed three meals a day. The people of Bayonnais know what there lot in life is. It was the lot of their parents and grandparents and will probably be the lot of their children. I am not trying to say that their lot is inferior or lesser, just that it is different. What they understand as hunger, I do not understand as hunger. And what they understand as wealth, I do not understand as wealth. But seeing healthy, wealthy, white people forces them to place their lives in perspective of lives that are vastly different.

So how do they come to understand race when being black is associated with hunger and poverty and being white is associated with an abundance of wealth? And how do they come to understand race when the only white people they meet are those that provide them funds for food and education and health care? If the clearest distinction between wealth and poverty is race, does this not create an illusion that the distinction exists because of race?

Sometimes when I'm out walking, I'll see one of the students from one of my classes working out in the fields. And more than once, they have seemed ashamed that I have seen them at work. As if it is shameful for the American to see that they are not just students but are also farmers. As if working the earth is something symbolic of their lives, and not mine. For them, I am privileged, and for me to see them covered in sweat and dirt is a reminder of that. But how am I supposed to help them understand that I am not lowering or humbling myself by being here, but that this is a privilege for me? That I am learning much more from their way of life than they ever can of mine?
















Yesterday was the last game of the soccer tournament. And Cathor, the area of Bayonnais I'm living in, won the tournament. And about 300 Cathorians (Cathorites? Cathorines?) rushed the little dirt field at the school where the game was played, shouting and jumping up and down. Try to imagine the excitement someone must feel after winning the Super Bowl, or Wimbledon or something, expanded to 300 Haitians celebrating a teenage soccer match. People love them some soccer here. And now that the soccer tournament is over, I can get back to classes and stop feeling useless.