And then the newness wears off...

I've been here a month now. This was definitely the week when the newness wears off. Don't get me wrong. I don't regret being here at all. But I've reached the point where "exotic" turns into "bizarre" and cultural differences that were interesting or amusing before become frustrating. The frustrations mainly come in two varieties:

The first is simply my difficulty understanding the rules here. Sometimes if someone tells you a time, it actually means that time. More often, each minute seems to translate into somewhere between 90 and 180 seconds, but I don't really know how you know which applies in any given moment (Do be honest, I'm not convinced Haitians really know either, half the time).

The same applies for a number of social rules and courtesies. The rules never seem to be uniform; I know this probably just means I don't grasp the complexity, but I don't feel like I'm making progress figuring it out! Creole also falls in this category. I can communicate some things well enough, but there are a lot of things I can't understand or say, and it's incredibly irritating sometimes.

The other type of frustration are the differences that I link to the perpetuation of poverty here. Communication seems to be hit or miss: "I know I was supposed to come here yesterday, but..." You can fill in the blank there with any number of things, like someone's birthday, lack of gas, another missing item, holiday, etc- often things that aren't a surprise and could have been announced beforehand. It's also very common to hear "I didn't get that email" and later see that an email has been opened, or "Yes, I got your email a few weeks ago," with no explanation about why they never responded with any of the information you've requested.

Sexuality fits in here as well. It is quite open here, and I'm constantly surprised at the fact that no one seems to think twice about men around town having a wife and a few girlfriends. No matter how you feel about sex itself, the results here are destructive. It is not uncommon for women to have eight or nine children by any number of fathers. Birth control measures may be available (I'm not sure how available for everyone) but the advantage of having a man's baby is that he may be a little more likely to stick around for a little while. That logic doesn't seem to pan out so well, though, as many men still don't stick around, and the mother has another mouth to feed without support. And you can forget about school at that point. Sometimes I want to shout "What about a little self-control, or PLANNING?!!!" I wish there were more legally-enforceable paternal responsibility.

My aggravation in this is compounded by how aggressive the men are here with female foreigners. I can't count how many times a day I'm chased down and told I need a boyfriend here. It's very blunt: "It doesn't matter if you have another boyfriend," or, "I think you should have my baby." Tempting, but no. I've stopped feeling the need to be polite (surprising, I know). Each day I am consistently thankful for guy pals at home, and for a few respectful friends I've made here.

There are a number of other things as well. In each instance, I can see why and how a pattern may have developed, but it's hard to just sit back and accept behaviors that keep a society from progressing. Worse, I think a lot of behaviors would change if there were economic stimulation, but there's no promise of that in the near future, especially as the violence escalates in Port au Prince.