Zorbing though Haiti

Boing! Boing! Boing! Boi-oi-oi-oi-oi-oing!!! The ngomobile recklessly snakes it was through a sea of black. It cargo safely locked on the inside. Occasionally bumping into a local carrying 10 gallons of water on their head but carrying on regardless. Labelled security measures as opposed to a hit-and-run and quelling all semblance of innate humanity. This is how we manoeuvre through Haiti sometimes. Neglecting to fully engage with the people we hope to serve. 10 years ago I wrote a thesis manifesto about including the people we build for in architecture to the nth degree, yet now when we have this opportunity at our disposal we stand behind a collective fear of immersion.

Every so often our bubbly Zorb will find it’s was to the NGO Party Docking Station or compound. The only place the pre-programmed codes will allow the machine to hiss and squeal open. Pristine white blans emerge from their chrysalis to interact with other pristine white blans. Perhaps there are hidden cameras from the set of The Island hidden behind tropical banana trees observing our curious insular behaviour. Despite our shiny existence we still pale in immaculate cleanliness when compared with our Haitian counterparts who live in the river of dust and grime of the city yet remain unscathed.

We are not alone in our collective isolation booths. The fabled bourgeoisie have bullet proof steel reinforced Zorbs with tinted glass windows to obscure even more of the reality. I have been lucky to meet some people in the higher echelons of Haitian society who worry incessantly about the excess of green leaves in their staff prepared soups or worse travail over the ennui of life despite living in a world of complex abundant intrigue. Not wanting to accept that to change the fabric of Haiti they first have to change themselves and how they live. Why would you want to change a luxurious habit of a lifetime? Why would you want to know that people defecate in plastic bags because they have no other option? Why does anyone want to look upon problems from a place of blissful comfort? This is not a problem endemic to Haiti but true of home where I have just landed too. The only difference being the level of disparity makes the contract all the more stark. Bling! Bling! Bling!!!

I stopped at Saint Christophe last week, a mass graveyard created on the northern road out of Port-au-Prince following the earthquake.  It’s a remote monument to the pain people suffered, marked only by a small lonely sign on the road leading to the beaches of plenty. It’s was an ethereal desolate place to stop and remember what brought me to Haiti in the first place. Constant efforts are underway around the country to move forward, to rebuild, to forget, but our greatest steps forward are often taken with a firm desire not to repeat the mistakes of the past. There is suffering here in every black cross. Anguish made beautiful by voudou ritual and art; made beautiful by its place on a hillock overlooking the sea, made beautiful by its silence. The key is how you channel the pain productively - whether a heartbreaking song or a delicious tasting flapjack you can choose to use your hurt to create wondrous things.

And in Haiti WE are choosing to rebuild, create a new vision for the future. WE being everyone there right now making the efforts regardless of any perceived segregation. It’s time to burst the animated Zorb. It’s time to combine collective healing energy from every source. There is hope. You can begin to see the slow rise of the phoenix from the ashes and rubble as the good living souls push themselves forward on the strength of fond memories of the dead.

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering” - Ben Okri