on learning

The emotional and logistical insanity of the past two weeks – of life after January 12 – have solidified some of the lessons that I’ve been slowly learning here for the past few months. I thought I’d share a few of them.

Maturity does not necessarily correspond to age level. I have learned so much from my roommate’s 4-year-old son and his beautiful view of the world, and I have met adults close to age 50 who still don’t seem to grasp fundamentals.

There are people who may not speak your native language but with whom communication is easier than with many who share your mother tongue. Sometimes you don’t even need to speak.

There are times when the action you want so badly to take might consist principally of listening and learning. With patience you realize that these are also forms of action. Agency is multiplied by the hours we’ve spent silent, becoming increasingly aware of the scale of what we do not know.

It’s knowing how to cook that sharpens your appreciation for food and your understanding of quality, flavor, and the essentiality of eating well. I love to buy fruit off the street, especially from women, and the more food I buy, the more I love cooking. The closer I get to my food, the more I can feel it quietly affecting my health and wellbeing.

Sometimes the way we change is almost reptilian. In looking back at the past three years of my life, I don’t see a slow, gradual process; I see a series of leaps that left behind old shells to the point where I can barely relate to what I remember of my teenage self.

When we talk about love and revolutions, we can’t forget about the personal. Sharing someone’s grief or hope, being the tree of faith for another – these are integral parts of the overarching social change for which we strive.

Over the past few years, I’ve successively taken on personal work to improve my relationships with myself, with others in my life, with others not in my life, and now with the Earth and the environment. But without even realizing it, I’ve also been working on my relationship with words. I have grown closer and closer to the things that I write, so that everything I express is increasingly accurate.

I'm doing research! I mean that at the beginning of my fifth month of my grant, nearly halfway through my time here, I realize that I actually have data from which I am starting to subconsciously as well as methodically make observations, draw conclusions, and create a framework for my study in which I am beginning to fill in the pieces with knowledge. It's exciting!

And if you’re wondering about Haiti, I’m still working. I'm also learning Kreyol! I have always admired the beauty of the language, and recently I've found the means to teach myself, so that's another project I'm taking on. Please contact me if you would like details about how you can contribute.

After the initial flood of donations, however, I think the next most important thing that Haiti needs – that the world needs – is people who know their history, who understand structural violence, and who are versed in the vocabulary of global systems and their modus operandi. If you need a few titles to begin or continue your own education, I recommend the two extremely well-written books that I just picked up – Aids and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, by Paul Farmer, and Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940, by Mary Renda. The first is a rich ethnography focused on HIV as an illustrative example of how international politics and history affect the lives of seemingly “remote” or “disconnected” rural Haitians. The second is a wonderful text that incorporates discourses on gender, sexuality, race, and nationality to explore the history of the 1915-1940 occupation of Haiti by the United States.

What the world needs is people who know things. Listen, learn, and start reading.