Women of Mizak

The last few weeks have been an interesting study in women in Haiti for me. I have not yet comprised my words all together to fully understand the depths of what it means to be a woman in Haiti. Heck I don’t even think I would have the words to tell you what it means to be a woman in the United States. A series of things have happened and I feel the need to share a few of these observations with you. A few weeks ago Lee and I started working on a project to start 2 small creative women’s groups from the Creole literacy class; one of the classes for writing and one for visual arts.


First we brought the ladies together for a meeting to talk to them about what we were going to do. We had chosen some of the more advanced students from both the 1st year Literacy students and the 2nd year Literacy students. We shared our information but this also became an opportunity to share what the literacy classes have meant to them.

“People think we have no value because we cannot read or write.”

“We are looked down on and disrespected in the market because we never went to school.”

“A friend of ours went to a church in Jacmel and a rich sophisticated women gave her a religious book to share with her about her faith. The women cried all the way up the mountain because she felt less then this other lady – she could not read the book she gave her.”

“But now we are stronger.”

“People look at us differently.”

It was powerful to hear these stories. The next week we met to introduce the class a bit to them and introduce our selves and share a bit more about ourselves. We had them share their name and what makes them unique. Something struck me as the women were sharing. I could tell who the first year students and who were the second year students. The first year students couldn’t wait to stand up and share about themselves. You could see in their faces and body language how proud they are and their confidence level. It was…

In our English class last week we had a few visitors for Drew University. They shared some English with our 2nd and 3rd year students then they shared some of the reasons they are in the community. They were here to talk about violence against women in the community. They asked the question if people saw that here. A couple men answered not really, it’s more in the city, and others agreed. We had 3 women in class that day and one shared about how a woman was beat on the way to the well. Some of the guys laughed as the woman was talking and it was also contagious laughter. When asked why he laughed he tried to say it was just the way she told the story not about the woman being beat. But you could tell there it was uncomfortable to talk about with the men and the women.

The next day one of Drew University’s professors let the discussion with women of the community to share and talk about violence against women in the community. The women talked and shared many stories. Many things they have observed and experienced in this community in Mizak of violence against women. Finally one of the women said there are just too many stories to tell you them all. The women also shared about how they celebrated International Women’s Day. At the end of telling the stories they shared a song they had wrote about women standing together.

The women in Haiti continue to amaze me with their perseverance and strength and