Say my name, say my name

I felt today was appropriate to address something that has been more and more noticeable and annoying, in particular since it seems to concern mainly women.

In the last ten to fifteen years, it has become the norm to identify public figures, political or otherwise, by their full and complete names. Just not the female counterparts.

So where JFK would routinely be addressed as John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the press, his wife would only be called Jackie Bouvier Kennedy. And this goes beyond reading off some unknown's id for the first time. It is systematic.

Now, before I go into a partial, slightly rambling analysis of this phenomenon, let's do a little Local Naming Customs 101.

For a long time, it was the tradition among the predominantly Catholic population to give their children two or more baptismal names, usually that of the particular Saint the parents prayed to or the one on whose feast the child was born, or the name of a beloved (sometimes deceased but not always) family elder, in addition to what the French call the "prénom usuel" ie the given name the person usually responds to.

The name order used to be that the given name was the one closest to the family name. I have three baptismal names myself, my brother has four (parental enthusiasm towards the first born, obviously). Our names both start with Marie. As does my mother's, and most of my maternal aunts.

In the last generation or so, however, this has changed dramatically. While some people continue to name their children in this manner, whether they are Catholic or not, others have adopted a new naming style.

You see, it has become de rigueur to give birth in North America, that coveted foreign passport being seen as "giving the child a future" as a coworker once told me and so, worth any sacrifice.

Including our old naming tradition which has proved problematic to foreign immigration services.

Think about it. If you remove all the names after Marie, it is impossible, at first glance, to distinguish me from my brother based on our names alone. In order to simplify and adapt, parents now name their children in the Anglo-Saxon style (?) of First Name, Middle Name/Initial and Last Name.

These names, how ever many they may be, are all printed on your birth certificate, your id, your driver's license, passport, voter's card etc.

So how does this relate to the main topic of this post i.e. naming women?

Because the difference when addressing the sexes is so marked. Whenever the government is presented, both the President and the Prime Minister are each announced by First Name 1, First Name 2, and Last Name but the only woman "super minister", as they call them now, is listed as First Name, Maiden Name and Last Name.

This triumvirate, by the way, tends to project the image of being the "only one(s) who do any work".

Yes, several women of that cabinet are simply called by First and Last Name. Strangely enough, some of them are single, married or divorced so the logic escapes me.

Interesting fact: one of them never uses her maiden name because her parent was a high profile member of the Duvalier government. Seems as though she hides behind her husband's name even if my parents never fail to remind me of who she is Daughter Of. Given that parent's bloody reputation, I can almost understand.

However, usually, it seems, men are referred to in a way distinct from women. And given the current government's overwhelming love of photo ops and "good" press, I cannot help but notice this.

Where did this naming fashion come from? I am not sure. A friend suggests that it started with the Ex-President and that it was a way for him to fudge the issue of his real name. Yes, paranoia is rampant around here so both the thesis and the real could be true.

You might have guessed that I personally put a more feminist spin on this issue. Spitting out the entire baptismal name of someone gives their address a certain Old School flair. As if the litany of their names give the men in question more weight or more stature. For those who need it. Who can doubt that certain elected officials (and candidates) are so...unexpected in their posts that they need some measure of legitimacy that elections alone cannot give them?

As for women, I am torn. Either including their maiden name is considered the modern, feminist thing to do by not erasing their identity in favor of that of their husbands.

Or, to the contrary, it is a way of showing that she has political clout despite being a mere woman. Proving her worthiness by way of blood or marriage? That she got this job because of Who She Is (Daughter Of) and Where she Comes From (What Political or Social Sector)?

But how to explain those public/famous women who have only First and Las Name? Should I understand that they are old fashioned and cannot bother with all these verbal gymnastics? that their lineage is so obscure, it isn't worth the bother? or, worse still, that they are just placeholders who do not deserve more than their share of the limelight?

What's in a name? asked the playwright. Good question.

It's the little things

So now we are in the last days of the electoral campaign and things are getting interesting. The violence everyone had feared is starting to rear its ugly head and we are all bracing ourselves.

I confess I haven't been following the campaign as religiously as others around me seem to have. But that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion.

Instead, my days and nights and thoughts are full of my routine.

Let me tell you about my day. I woke this morning to the sound of the cola depot next door's generator. They had been stacking boxes since 3 am at least, as usual.

Then, at the evangelical church next to the depot, the prayer guy with the crappy voice and crappier bullhorn started in on his litany.

This was 5am in the morning.

I was happy to see there was electricity but I had prepared several outfits for the week, in case I didn't get any. This also meant my spaghetti lunch didnt'spoil, always a good thing.

So I got dressed and tiptoed my way throught the junk in the alley, up the stairs. The pigs were in good shape and the pile of metal scraps the local junker was amassing managed not to crumble on my head. So far so good.

I went up the stairs, dodging the dirty water pools and random litter to wait for my ride on street level.

Now, I do this every morning: I stand about a quarter of a block away from the bridge/ravine but it didn't work this morning. Some guy was already climbing over the railing with two pig carcasses. The improvised slaughter house in the ravine had been working seriously early. I'm just glad I missed the actual deed. I'm a meat eater but I don't want the details! Thankfully, he put them in a wheelbarrow, tied them up and promptly pushed off for the nearby market.

Lucky me, my ride was late today so I got to people watch: street vendors setting up their wares on little tables; moto taxis carting a mother and her two kids; what seems like hundreds of school kids in uniforms walking together, eating fried street food and drinking energy drinks; people talking on their cells, men wearing crocs and no helmet on their bikes.

Of course, leaving Petion-Ville at 6h50am means you get to enjoy a traffic jam all the way downtown. Thankfully, once you pass what used to be the school district, things clear up pretty much by the time you reach Champ de Mars.

The tent cities that cover all the squares have become part of the scenery. The prude in me is still a bit startled to see people bathing on the sidewalks, though, to their credit, people keep some form of underwear on while doing so.

The city is still busy. Junkers are still digging throught the rubble for scraps. You recognize them by the backpacks they wear. Of course, I'm not really happy to go to work. After the aftershocks on three consecutive days last week, I worry that some of the damaged buildings might be shaken loose. Nothing has happened yet but only fools drive idly under something like Hotel Nova Scotia. Of course, one is amazed by just how many qualify as fools...

Once I'm at work, it seems pretty normal. Except employee parking is now on the site of one of the fallen office buildings. And we still only have a handfull of neiboring businesses around us. But the streets are full of people.

I'm lucky that I can go on the roof and look out on the city. The view of the bay is breathtaking...until you look down. You can trace the Boulevard by the permanent cloud of dust that covers it. It intensifies further North to the point where I thought it was smoke at first.

Things are as close to normal as we can manage at work. Of course, all the electricity is from generators. But at least a number of phone lines have been reinstated by the telcom company. I stay in my office all day long but I remember going to the bookstore or the departement store fondly. Ah, the good old days.

At the end of the day, I pass by all these things in reverse and it stays the same: I'm shocked by the same things, inured to the same spectacles, worried about the same dangers.

If I'm lucky, and the traffic wasn't too bad, when I get home it's still light, they're not burning great heaps of trash in the ravine, the pigs are alive (for now), the church is quiet and Abner is leaving the colas alone for a bit.

I'm just not that lucky that often.

Stir It Up

Author's note: I had planned to post this on the 9th but the internet did not cooperate.

Here we are, almost 10 days into the hurricane season and people are actually not looking at the sky. Oh, sure, even before June started, they were scrutinizing the mearest cloud, all worried frowns and pinched mouths. May was unusually rainy. But now, they seem to have almost forgotten the seasonal threat for a more immediat if familiar one.

Students are rioting, you see. What had started months ago as a low grumble has now spread through four different colleges. Discontented voices have become angry and confrontational protesters.

At first, it was to denounce the disconcerting changes in one school's program has become a rally around the recent law to raise the minimum wage.

You know how things happen in this country. We're one year into the Hope law and nothing seems to be moving forward. And now that the law is voted, increasing the daily minimum wage from 72 to 200 gourdes ($1.85 to $4.97 USD), everybody is upset. Industrials say they will have to fire half their personnel (a meager 25,000 factory workers). The more vocal senators and representatives are talking about " social injustices being righted". Economists are reiterating their calls to caution, competitivity with our neighbors and a progressive increase rather than a one-time boom.

The government, on the other hand, is silent. But that's how Rinse Repeat rolls. Mum's the word as a communication policy. You should try it. Really.

Of course, this whole wage debate isn't recent. Back on May 1st, while at the annual Agricultural Fair on the main square, protesters in favor of a 500gdes minimum had invested the plaza. A bit scary but this nice avocado grower explained to me, sotto voce, that she agreed with them. Things were too hard, these days, she said, and people need the money.

But now, the difference is that the alleged students are throwing rocks and burning cars. I'm on my fourth day of tear gas fumes. Yes, I live close enough to one faculty to enjoy the benefits of democracy in action.There's nothing like home, indeed.

The simple truth is we are not happy. There's the fact that the patch-up school year is closing with an upcoming gas rise (on top of the last one). And that several neighborhoods in the metropolitan area are without any electricity after suspicious fires at two major plants.

And before that, there were the elections, played out to an almost empty theatre. In the capital, anyway. The rest of the country seems to have been motivated enough. If you can call more or less 10% of voter turn-out a "success". I didn't vote but I do wonder *where* the government found the 5 MILLION dollars they contributed to the 16 MILLION DOLLAR budget. Act two, scene 1 is at the end of the month. (as if we care)

And even before that, there was the gas crisis of the New Year, and before that, the 2008 hurricane victims who are still waiting for help, and bridges, around the country.

Rumor has it that the next step is to as Rinse Repeat to step down.

Nope, we're not happy. Not happy at all.

The Horse Speaks!

So, the government finally decided to address the gas issues we've all been struggling with. What did they say?

" Don't worry, there's not crisis. There is plenty of gas for everyone"

Okaaaay. Too late for me to believe them but the problem isn't there.

You see, the government is still not EXPLAINING why we started the year without gasoline. Oh, wait, that's not exactly true!

They also said it was all the Gas Distributor's fault.

What else is new?

And then they said it was because DEMAND had risen, particularly with the great number of motorcycles using up the gas lately.

Am I forgetting something?

...

Nope, I think that's it. Of course, nobody in this country, least of all the government, believes in Public Relations so I'm not surprised it took them all this time to even acknowledge that there was, not a crisis (see above), but at least public concern about energy and fuel in the first place!

But, back to the PR denial issue. The other reason I don't believe them is that a different, and, frankly, likely version of what is going on already out.

Last Saturday, an anonymous caller, claiming to work in the fuel industry, outlined for popular radio host/economist Kesner Pharel, what was going on backstage. Listen to him here. It starts at 58:50 of the recording.

(I have a copy saved in Real Player. Need to figure out how to podcast it)

For those who can't click through or in case the podcast is no longer available by the time you read this, here's what he said.

- First, we buy fuel exclusively from Hurricane Hugo's company. Meaning we are completely at his mercy. For the next 25 years, to boot. He apparently fired a lot of workers so if he can't sell us gas, we don't get gas.

- Second, the big tanker that usually brings the different fuels allegedly damaged the physical port and the owners are asking Texaco for one million USD. So Texaco doesn't have a contract with the government anymore and has stopped delivering. Shell took over but, not only do they not have a signed contract, they are using a smaller tanker to bring all the different fuels.

Bottom line: we're getting too little gas at irregular intervals.

Needless to say that neither the government nor the Gas Distributors has confirmed or denied these allegations (Boy, do I sound like a reporter/lawyer or what???)

This man didn't give his name so no way to know if this is true or not. But I like that he ended his call by saying that he spoke "words of truth". The above is soo simple, it might just be true!

The government would rather we believe that the gas distributors are delinquent and don't order gas regularly enough. Worse still, I heard on the news today that Hurricane Hugo wants us to pay cash whenever the barrel of crude falls under $50 US on the world market.

So while the big guys are [still] playing the blame game, people keep getting nasty surprises at the gas stations. Some aren't selling anything at all. My ride home from work stopped at two, one near the office, one near my house and they were both officially closed. Others have either regular or super but not both. Rumor has it that Diesel is about to dip into the red any day now.

According to the caller on the radio show, the tanker should come next Monday or Tuesday, instead of yesterday, the 27th. Meaning we're going to have another slooow week-end.

You know what pisses me off? That this same government has found FIVE MILLION DOLLARS US to contribute to the [half-way mythical] partial legislatives we're suppose to have mid-april. The international community will put up the other TWELVE MILLION needed to organize the vote.

Can't you tell how in synch we are? A real meeting of the minds.

Not.