Haitian parenting, gender roles and the story of dimples

Since noon, a tropical storm has perched its horrible, languid self over Montrouis and buried Canaan in somber grey. It’s the kind of idle day I long for at home. Staying indoors, reading, taking naps. But in Haiti, it’s miserable not being able to get out and explore.

Especially when it’s Friday when work is finished, and the beach is a 15-minute walk down a mountain.

Since beach-destined paperbacks and my iPod’s indie rock genre were re-routed to my bunk bed and absorbed most of today’s boredom shockwaves, I’ll share a few things I’ve been saving up.

Last week, we drove a mother and her 8 mo. old daughter to St. Marc for an X-ray. Tired bodies crushed together in the truck, cramped with our mobile Mamba clinic supplies.

Haitians stuck out their thumbs like hitchhikers or waved at us with both arms as we passed, asking for a ride in the empty truck bed. Younger children jumped in as it bumped along, some naked and careless and not bothering with any gestured formality.

The young mother breastfed her daughter and shielded her baby’s eyes while the truck lurched up and down the mountainside. After working the Mamba clinic for the past two weeks and seeing so many young mothers or female caretakers detached from their children, I was struck by the tenderness of the gesture. Cradling the tiny girl’s head under her breast, clucking softly to the baby, and of course the willingness to cram herself in the truck alongside strangers to drive to a far-off hospital, seemed almost beyond the call of duty for the typical mother.

Affection is often treated like it's impractical.

My first week here, Elsie told me a “good” mother provides enough food for her children to live without starving; that’s all that’s required to meet that guideline. I refused to believe that can be true, at least not entirely.

She told me a story about a young missionary woman who went to the beach and saw a Haitian toddler alone. She played with the child while the parents watched not far away. When it was time for the missionary to leave, the parents emerged and, seeing the young woman absolutely adored the child, put the baby back into her arms and asked her to “keep.” Shocked, the young missionary refused.

However, the next morning, the parents arrived at Canaan with the child dressed neatly in her best clothes, clean and perfumed, to ask the missionary to, please, take their child. For real. To keep. The parents had discussed it seriously all night and decided they wanted to give their baby to the missionary. They did not love the girl, and knew she would be better off with someone who did. Once again, the missionary refused – she couldn’t just put a baby in her carry-on back to the states – but Elsie said it was a lesson in Haitian parenting.

Detachment is a survival mechanism. Show someone else’s baby love, she warned, and they might just try to give their child away.

But there are exceptions for everything.

Single mothers make up the bulk of Haitian family units from my experience in Montrouis. Women of some relation raise the children, commonly older daughters or grandmothers, while the mothers are at the market during the day, bartering and selling. Fathers are absent from the picture, some working their cattle under the banana trees, some in odd-jobs in Port-au-Prince, while the kids grow up.

The women at Canaan hired to take care of the babies at the nursery are my age. Early 20s. No experience with children. Yet they’re living like many Haitian women that age— 24/7 single moms.

It’s been rare from my experience so far, but there are some fathers actively raising and loving on their children. For example, every week, this adorable Haitian dad proudly totes his all-pink bundle of a 5 mo. old girl. The baby’s mother died shortly after giving birth of infection. Malnourished and sick, she was enrolled in the milk program at CESANOJE – open to infants under 6 months who do not qualify for the peanut-butter based Mamba. This dad, however, took all responsibility of child rearing. The baby’s finally alert and putting some chub on her little cheeks, only months ago hollowed with starvation.

Most of the “orphaned” children at Canaan are actually just motherless. Many have fathers or older siblings that live in Montrouis and the surrounding towns. But without a mother, the family unit crumbles. Just this week, a father asked us to take his little boy and presented us with his mother’s death certificate.

Dead mothers make orphans. Dead fathers make hungrier bellies.

Working at Canaan, I’ve noticed distinct gender roles. The men are laborers, in charge of maintenance and construction around the orphanage, clinic and school. The women do the cooking, the cleaning, and all the laundry. None of the men here do their own laundry, not even the boys in the orphanage – the girls inherit that chore. Ironically, the women at Canaan hold the powerful leadership positions when it comes to leading incoming missionary groups and negotiating donations with non-profit relief agencies.

Even the clothes here are gendered. Men wear pants and jeans, while women wear dresses and skirts paired with Ts and the occasional tank top. Some of the bolder 20-somethings wear tight Capri pants. I’ve never see shorts, except on hairy white legs of missionary men and on young girls chasing through slums of Port-au-Prince’s.

Just yesterday, Doctor Jean Robert and I were sipping our black coffee after breakfast, when we received a call. Without a goodbye, he shoved his dirty dishes in my direction and walked off, leaving me fuming. Was he handing me his dirty dishes because I was a woman? Everyone took care of their own dishes and did their own washing, and I pointed this out to the doctor later that day. He seemed unruffled, and I decided to resign myself to cultural norms. If I didn’t pick up his dirty dishes, one of the overworked Haitian women would have to do it.

Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow without resentment.

The gender distinction is particularly interesting when Caroline and I are on Mamba duties. Two white woman driving through town to pick up food is met by laughing men, partly in surprise and more in rude amusement, following us in a herd as we load up the 50 lb sacks of white Texas rice and pinto beans. Women, in our festive skirts and poker faces, carrying our heavy loads to the truck bed while they shake their heads and grin as if to tell us, this ain’t no women’s work.

Cute Haitian Folklore: The Origin of Dimples

The Haitian doctor working at CESANOJE (nickname for Canaan’s community clinic, Center de Santé Nouvelle Jerusalem), shared with me some cute folklore: The story of dimples.

When Haitians talk about dimples, they also point to their lower backs, where the spine curves into the buttocks.

To get dimples, a mother has to push her fingers hard into her baby’s cheeks and lower back during those formative days. Then, voila! Dimples. If someone doesn’t have dimples, their mother either didn’t take an active role in the dimple making, or push hard enough.

Every time I see a Haitian with dimples, I can’t help but smile and imagine a mother’s fingers prodding the cheerful indentions.