Loja, Miami, Haiti…January 2014

Loja monument to independence (like Mom!)

During my mother's five weeks in Ecuador we toured Loja by bus, traveled through the Andes to the picturesque town of Zamora, played lots of scrabble, and found molasses to make shoofly pie, a Pennsylvania Dutch heritage favorite.  Mid-January Mom and I flew to Miami.  She went on to Colorado while Sally Lincoln (sallylincoln.com) and I headed to Haiti, where a book was waiting to be written.

Loja has many beautiful parks

We found molasses (melaza) at an animal feed store 

City of Zamora, an hour's drive from Loja

Journal entries

January 10, 2014:  Chomsky Connection

Fellow vacationers in Zamora named their son Noam, his Brazilian grandfather having studied linguistics with Noam Chomsky at Berkeley. I told the family about Chomsky taking time recently for email dialog with my nephew Gabe (21). Young Noam's parents are trying to live communally with some Americans near Cuenca.  They sold all, left France a year ago, and want to be self-sustaining, but said, "We just spend money; we aren't making any so far!"

Young Noam (front right) and family at our Zamora resort

Cascadas on road to Zamora

January 15, 2014:  The Internal Journey

Reading Psalm 27 about how, as we praise and seek God, our heads are lifted up above our enemies...whether internal, external, imagined, or real!  This is why we must carve out time to "behold the beauty of the Lord"…even on the busiest of days.  I must do this while in Haiti to know how to proceed amid many uncertainties.

Connecting with Sally at Miami International Airport

An unexpected invitation to Haiti, with partial funding of expenses, was too good to pass up! When I called Sally in Colorado to suggest a joint trip, I learned she was already booked to fly to Ecuador, where she has a home/studio. But she wanted to paint and I wanted to write about Haitian women, so she rearranged her schedule, repacked, and stored stuff in Miami.







January 19, 2014:  Women of Gonaives

Women batik/students observe as Sally paints in Haiti

En route to Haiti…to capture the essence of my friends in Gonaives…their
Strengths:  fortitude, perseverance, hope, joy in community and simple pleasures
Struggles:  lack of opportunity for income, so poverty of material resources for food, education, health care; perpetual trauma of weather (hurricanes)

Sally and me with my friends/her portrait subjects in Gonaives, Haiti

January 27, 2014  Brenda Euland's If You Want to Write

"The true self is always in motion like music, a river of life, changing, failing, suffering, learning, shining.  That is why you must write freely and make mistakes--in writing or in life--and do not fret about them but pass on and write [and live!] more."


January 27, 2014  Motorbike Adventures

Friend Clibert got us safely to our hotel after ride to the countryside to visit friends in Bayonnais

Sally drawing in Bayonnais, Haiti

I'm on a motorbike again…fourth time this trip on the busy streets of Gonaives, plus yesterday's 40 minute ride over a rugged, rocky road through the countryside to visit friends…me at the back behind Sally who squeezed in behind (our very careful) driver Clibert with Sally's bag of drawing supplies around his neck.  I'll not take that risk again without a helmet and skin guards!

My young driver today is weaving very close to other vehicles and going too fast!  I pull my arms against my side, envisioning elbows scraping on metal.  The vehicles ahead are slowing. "Manifestation"(demonstration), says my driver, as we are mobbed by uniformed students shouting, jumping on top of vehicles...pounding on the roofs.  My heart pounds as I jump off the motorbike and head to a side street. The students are protesting because government school teachers are on strike, not having been paid for months.

In the photo Sally completes her 11th portrait as students mill around Independence Plaza.  This balcony at the Episcopal compound has been a great place to watch street life over the 15 years I've been visiting Haiti.  Gonaive's Catholic cathedral, at right, faces the square where Haiti proclaimed independence from France in 1804.