Some shout-outs: the first of 2010

I have been majorly sucking at getting shout-outs posted. That’s all the more shameful because I keep running across amazing crafters. So without further ado, here’s some good stuff to peruse.

• SpingirlFiberarts: She has merino. She has silk (handpainted, to boot). She has sock yarn. The colors are vibrant and really “pop” together – my favorite is the Loudmouth Lime merino top.
• If you need stitch markers and like ‘em plain but elegant, check out Gnomespun Yarn. I’m going to have to make do with rubber bands for right now, but when I get the chance, some of those sets are calling my name.
• International Fleeces is a relatively new fiber source for spinners – I’ve been chided and praised in the same breath for passing along this link. Need a fix of yak down? Yeah, they’ve got that. You can blend it with some recycled sari silk if you’d like. (No child labor is involved in processing the saris, and the factory pays a standard wage. YAY!) Personally, I’m tempted by the merino-camel-alpaca-bombyx silk top blend. It’s 25% of each of those fibers, which adds up to YUMMY YUMMY spinning.
• Finally, the source for all three of my 2010 sweater projects: Suvi Simola. Here’s a link to her pattern store on Ravelry.

Enjoy!

Haiti: 3 weeks later

The earthquake in Haiti was 3 weeks ago yesterday. It’s been good to read that the aid machine has slowly been racheting up in terms of organization… and frustrating to read about the church-sponsored “babylift”.

Libération has a special section on their website with the title of “Haiti, after the earthquake.” If you read French, I highly recommend that you visit the section for the exceptional feature, “Je t’écris Haïti.” (In English, it’s interesting to think about the translation: if there were a comma, you might argue that it means, “I’m writing to you, Haiti.” But the lack of a comma makes it more “I write you Haiti” – to me, that implicates the reader in the essays that they are about to read, along the lines of the now-infamous “Nous sommes tous Américains” – we are all Americans – headline from Le Monde on September 12, 2001.) The introduction is especially touching: “[...] The idea was to publish literary texts. Most of the texts in these [...] pages were sent to us from Port-au-Prince between aftershocks, attempts to retrieve the bodies of buried neighbors, blackouts and expeditions to find water, by men and women who felt that they had miraculously survived.”

Apart from that, though, the news stories are getting buried deeper and deeper in the newspapers. Most of what I’m seeing in the French papers now parallels more or less what we’re getting in the American media. I lucked out and found a link to Libération’s section on Haiti in a flash banner about halfway down their front page yesterday.

Monetary donations are still absolutely necessary. If you’ve not donated yet – or if you’ve got a little change hanging around – the relief efforts could use it. You can donate to Médecins sans frontières/Doctors Without Borders via the image in the right sidebar if you’re so inclined.

In which she proposes some comic relief

I am not particularly gifted at home repairs or home maintenance… or home cleaning. I was doing laundry this evening when it struck me: I washed the kitchen curtains back sometime in the summer, and they never got hung back up. They got very neatly folded and stuck out of my reach on a shelf in the laundry closet. Since it’s been cold around here lately, I decided it’d be a good idea to hang them back up, providing some more insulation and privacy – the old white sheer curtains that the owners left up are up year round, but we usually have them overhung with the big, bright, stripey curtains.

The curtain rod has curtain rings hung from it, but we’ve never had – or been able to find – the requisite clamps that go in the eyelets that are connected to the rings. I had previously jury-rigged our tab curtains to the curtain rings by putting safety pins through the folded-over tabs and threading the safety pins through the eyelets on the bottom of the rings. “I am a domestic engineer now,” I said to myself foolishly, “and I want these curtains to be on that curtain rod CORRECTLY. This cannot be that hard to achieve.”

Upon further inspection of the curtain rod, I found out that I’d have to unscrew the finial at one end of the rod…. and it’s the only finial. Like so many things in this remodeled home, the person who did the renovation seems to have misjudged the width of several doorframes and windowframes by the length of one finial. You don’t notice until about 18 months after you move in, at which point you say, man, I should really clean those curtains. The cat hair is obscuring the pattern on the drapes on the bottom ten inches of the drapes. So I unscrewed the finial. No dice – the curtain rod didn’t budge.

Upon even further inspection of the curtain rod, it was screwed down at both ends. So I unscrewed one end, and the track that holds the sheer curtain up fell down at one end. It was at that moment that I discovered the curtain rod upon which I wanted to hang the stripey, heavier curtains actually is attached to the sheer curtain’s rod by brackets that slip OVER the brackets holding the sheer curtain’s rod in place. I popped the first one off the leftmost end of the curtain rod assembly. Easy.

The middle one didn’t budge. It was firmly locked in place under the narrow lip of the trim surrounding the doorframe. I got it about a quarter of an inch up, and then noticed it was cracked along one side. I pushed it back down, and the left corner of the bracket snapped off and tumbled to the floor.

I gave up at that point. I’m going to have to go get a rubber mallet from the garage tomorrow, bang the underside of the brackets to get them off (which will scratch and groove the trim above the curtain rod assembly), then unthread the curtain rings, put the curtains on, and put everything back together. I love being a homeowner.

15 days later…

I was so disappointed – but sadly, not surprised – to hear this piece on NPR this morning. Long story short, from what NPR has seen in an “unscientific, informal survey”, there are “severe problems with food distribution” in Haiti. People in the U.S. seem to be getting all up in arms over how slowly aid has been getting sent out there, but what they don’t seem to understand is how awful the roads and infrastructure were BEFORE the earthquake; imagine the worst dirt road you know, make it the equivalent of a major interstate for your state/country, and then wash it out in a couple dozen places and put blockades up with angry, very hungry and meagerly-sheltered people. That’ll give you an idea of what Haiti’s dealing with now for a transportation network.

Le Monde has an interesting op-ed piece on the future of Haiti; it’s entitled “Haiti, Year Zero”. It pretty much hits all the nails on the head. To wit:

• The success or failure of the rebuilding of Haiti depends on the Haitians themselves, and on their “aptitude to construct a country that is less corrupted and better-performing.”
• A large reason for the “amplification of the disaster” is that everything was over-centralized in “The Republic of Port-au-Prince”.
• Agricultural subsidies – especially those of the U.S. for rice – ruined the economic situation for poor farmers, sending them to the capital in desperation… the numerous shantytowns in which those farmers ended up being forced to live were destroyed, adding to the huge death/injury toll in Port-au-Prince.
• [And now for what will be inevitably termed "America-hatin'"...] The U.S. is there not to occupy, but to stem the tide of “boat people” leaving to look for asylum in the United States, and also to keep Haiti from becoming a failed state that will be left to the drug traffickers. The Dominican Republic knows it has to get things right in helping redevelop Haiti so that the “poisoned relationship” between the two countries.
• Long story short, everyone needs to get their act together and get serious about holding up promises to help Haiti.

In Libération, an EXCELLENT article on how African countries – often receiving substantial humanitarian/financial aid themselves – are chipping in however they can to help out in Haiti. The Democratic Republic of Congo has pledged $2.5 million; the Côte d’Ivoire, $1 million; South Africa sent 2 teams – one with 40 search and rescue personnel, the other with forensic examiners to help identify the bodies. Liberia will give $50,000 and Sierra Leone will give $100,000 – not remarkable unless you know that they’re both just now recovering from civil wars. Among the interesting ideas: Senegal has offered some tracts of land to Haitians looking to leave the country. Finally, Bénin has plans to hold a telethon for Haiti – Bénin is “often considered one of the probable countries of origin” of the slaves who settled Haiti.

In which she reminisces

As I rocked Baby Girl to sleep this morning, I happened to catch sight of the clock. A year ago today (by day of the week), almost to the minute, I went into labor with Baby Girl. I was in class, headed across the classroom to answer a question from a group, when I had to stop in my tracks and grab the edge of a desk. I figured I’d play it by ear, and ended up being able to finish out the rest of the day. (According to the doula, I was in labor for most of the weekend and didn’t realize it. I felt like crap on the school district inservice day following the MLK Jr. holiday and ended up skipping out on the afternoon half of a really inane and stupid meeting.) I’ll spare you further details, but the next day, twenty-one hours after labor started, I was in the birthing center with a beautiful Baby Girl in my arms.

I won’t be able to post any more until after we return from a wedding this weekend, but suffice it to say that I’m all kinds of misty-eyed right now.

Happy birthday a little early, Baby Girl. You amaze us every single day.

A knitting post for once

I haven’t had time to do research/reading on Haiti today – we had a slow start to the day, then a tutoring session, and then we had to get naptime underway. So I thought I might write a quick post on knitting.

I used to knit backwards. (As in through the back loop. All the time. In my defense, the book from which I taught myself to knit has jacked-up illustrations. One of my knitting friends looked at the illustrations and pronounced them “totally confusing.”) I got that straightened out this past summer, thankfully, and my knitting sped up noticeably.

Then, in a book that I got for the holidays, the author wrote that she had done herself a disservice by not learning how to knit Continental first. The same knitting friend mentioned above has been harping on me to learn Continental knitting, so I said to myself, “Fine. I’ll try it.”

Yep. Totally faster to knit Continental. I’m making nice progress on a gnome hat for Baby Girl, using the brown acrylic tweed that my sister-in-law got me for the holidays to go with the book. I was a little doubtful at first, but it really is soft and is knitting up very nicely. I’m hoping to have it done for this weekend, when we are venturing north to attend my little sister’s wedding.  Pictures forthcoming.

News from Haiti, Day 4

Turning again to Libération for news instead of Le Monde. This will have to be quick today.

• A slideshow of photos from Jacmel, the fourth-largest city in Haiti. They still have no heavy equipment available to help move the rubble, and the main road from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel is out, so that will make any efforts to get the equipment and relief supplies to the area that much more difficult.
• The French government is not happy with the way the American military is running the Port-au-Prince airport; they lodged an official protest when a French plane carrying supplies for a field hospital was turned away because of the backup/saturated airspace.
• New estimates of dead, injured, and homeless from the Haitian government: 50,000 dead; 250,000 injured; 1.5 million people homeless. The Haitian prime minister said that more than 15,0000 bodies had already been buried. Some 6,000 prisoners escaped from destroyed or badly damaged prisons after the quake, and violence is starting to escalate. The American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is pretty much sending out constant  helicopter flights to drop bottles of water and energy drinks;  Rear Admiral Ted Branch said that the supplies being dropped off and stored at the airport are “under the control of other administrations, and we’re not yet coordinated to drop those off.” Thousands of Haitians are trying to head out of Port-au-Prince.
• A PDF file showing the location of the principal buildings that have been destroyed, and also a map showing the range of severe, moderate and light damage. (You will need to read French to get most of the tags/balloons, but you’ll be able to figure out the building names.)

Also, Pat Robertson needs to check his history.

Direct from his statement of “utter stupidity”: “They [the Haitians] were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever.”

Aside from the fact that apparently all French leaders can be referred to as [Name + Number] “and whatever,” um, the Haitians declared themselves free in 1804. Napoléon III WASN’T EVEN BORN until 1808. Pat, the person you’re trying to place as French leader in 1804 is Napoléon I.

You’re welcome.

Recap of Haiti news, Day 3

Again, @jendeaderick passing on good links and advice: it seems like a great idea to donate clothing to people who have lost everything. However, that is not so, for reasons of customs and manpower. Read more here.

It was somewhat frustrating to find that Le Monde seems to have discontinued its news ticker for following news from Haiti. Libération.fr, another French paper, has more coverage today, so that’s what I’m using for the source.

From Libération:

• The OpenStreetMap community has a map of Port-au-Prince up that shows where people have made encampments, where there are streets blocked by debris, and which buildings have been destroyed.
• Non-profit organizations based in France have received 6.5 million Euros in donations.
• An eyewitness report from Chantal Regnault,  a French photographer who was in Pétionville at the time of the earthquake; first part is here with a second part here.  (Both parts in French – I’m providing a very quick paraphrase/translation here.) The second part is chilling from the very beginning, as it has the title “The smell of death is spreading.” She describes walking through the area around Port-au-Prince as an “apocalyptic spectacle on all sides”. “Dozens of corpses are on the sidewalks, waiting to be collected and taken to common graves… massive camps set up [in the major plazas of Pétionville] where the living and wounded are together…” She made it to her neighborhood in Port-au-Prince proper and found it to be completely devastated – “most houses have been flattened like galettes [a type of flat, dense cake]“; her house had also crumbled, but thanks to the guard who stayed through the night, no looters got into the ruins and she was able to save her photography equipment, papers, and dog. She writes that she can’t escape to her small house in the south of Haiti – it and the surrounding area (the town of Jacmel), as well as the southern part of Haiti, suffered tremendous damage and the road is out in several places. She’s beginning to think of making a request to the French government to be evacuated, but is torn – “How do you abandon all those left behind, abandon this country when it’s in the middle of living the worst…”

From Voice of America in kreyòl:

• Stories on Haitian communities around the world looking to send assistance to Haiti.
• The Dominican Republic is getting help assembled to send to Haiti (no small task, even though the two nations share the same island – according to an NPR report that I heard yesterday, there is one road going to the border with the Dominican Republic, and it’s no better than a series of ruts in the dirt in xome places).
• They’ve established a place for families to look for loved ones via their website.
• Looks like the airport at Port-au-Prince has been provisionally reopened.

Recap of Haiti news, Day 2

Great news for making a donation – Wyclef Jean’s foundation’s website crashed under the number of people trying to reach Yéle to make donations. They got to work, put up an interim site, and you can now donate via their website. It’s at www.yele.org. ALSO – it looks like the call to donate via text message from cell phones has made an incredible difference. Here are two VERIFIED AND OFFICIAL ways to donate via texting:

• Text ‘Yéle’ to 501501 to donate $5 to Yéle Haiti (again, Yéle is Wyclef Jean’s organization).
• Text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross.

The quickest way to get the news from Haiti in some instances is to speak Haitian creole or French. I’m seeing a lot of small updates on lemonde.fr before they hit American papers/media outlets.  (I tried searching for Haitian newspapers that have relevant stories/updated sites – obviously, with power out and Internet spotty, there’s not going to be much “official” stuff coming out on those sites. Any news in Kreyol is going to be by what I’ll call – probably inaccurately – expat/made for emigrant sources.) I should note that I do NOT speak Kreyol; however, in its written form, it is close enough to French for me to sound things out reasonably.

Some luck via Voice of America’s site in Kreyol; also, it looks like Le Monde (France) is going to keep their news ticker application up and running for the next little while.

From VoA:

• They’re going to broadcast four times a day on 1180 AM in Haiti, as well as by Internet streaming audio at http://www.voanews.com/creole/webcasts.cfm.
• The UN is sending Edmond Mullet to Haiti to replace the special representative, Heidi Annabi, who, at this point, still has not been located; his hotel was totally destroyed in the earthquake.
• Other than that, it’s a good laundry list of who’s promising to send aid and when.

From Le Monde:

• The Haitian ambassador to Spain is saying that it’ll be at least 8 days before they can get a good idea of the death/injury statistics.
• An Estonian UN peacekeeper was rescued – apparently uninjured! – from the ruins of the UN offices in Port-au-Prince. 36 UN workers have thus far been declared dead.
• At least 1500 bodies have been brought to the Port-au-Prince morgue.
• According to the US, no more aid/rescue teams can land at the Port-au-Prince airport; the airspace is “saturated.”