I'm Not Bougie

As many of you know, I went to Haiti for two weeks with Habitat for Humanity. The goal of the organization is to make sure that everyone across the globe has safe, affordable housing and over the summer, Habitat began forming the first team of volunteers to head back into Haiti since the earthquake that ravaged the country on January 12th, 2010. The epicenter of the 7.0 earthquake was near the town of Léogâne, which is 16 miles west of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. In order to get to Léogâne, we first had to fly into Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and then drive by bus across the border into Haiti. As the first team, we didn’t know what to expect but we were all prepared to be flexible and to take the experience in stride. It took over an hour to cross the border and in total about 8 hours to get to Port-au-Prince where a demonstration was taking place and hindered us from being able to visit the Presidential Palace which, visually, for many represented the level of destruction that was caused by this natural disaster. We stayed at a Christian Mission that was close to the build site and made it convenient to go back and forth on a daily basis. The goal for our team was to see how quickly a team could construct two houses. Later this year, there will be a Jimmy Cater build with 400 volunteers and Habitat wanted to ensure that the construction could be completed with a certain number of volunteers and within the time frame of their visit. The land that we were constructing on had been where many displaced families had set up their tents after the earthquake. The community members told us stories about how they lost everything when the earthquake hit and how they couldn’t stay where they were and picked up what was left of their belonging and started walking until they found some land to set up their tents on. Once the plan for the neighborhood had been established, they were moved to the other side of the road so that Habitat could clear the land and start constructing. This is my 6th Habitat build and I’m never prepared for the things I see. Everyday we drove through their neighborhood and all you could see were rows and rows of tattered tents. As someone who works in the news business and followed the story closely for over a year, I was still unprepared for what I saw. All of the ‘aid’ that we sent hadn’t done much to help the people who survived the storm. A year a half later, families were still in tents, still had no clean, running water and there were large amounts of debris that still had yet to be cleared. It reminded me of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. On one of my trips down there, we were gutting houses and piles of debris remained on the streets for months. I also had the impression that the tents that were sent to the Haitian people after the earthquake were providing a livable, safe shelter for those who were displaced, but one look at the ‘tent cities’ made it obvious that this was not the case. One of the community members explained that the tents don’t keep out the rain when there’s a storm. It rains quite often in Haiti and the tents would flood and be unsafe for people to stay in. Then there’s the unbearable heat; the tents get so hot that it’s impossible to stay inside of them on most days so they didn’t provide much shelter to anyone. These tents that were supposed to provide relief are actually unlivable for the people that they’re supposed to help. During a town hall style meeting that we had with the community, I got very emotional hearing their stories and seeing how they’ve perservered through it all. One of the woman used a translator to tell me that, “Mwen renmen-li anpil..Mwen sent-li andan po mwen” which translated to “I like her a lot. I feel her in my skin.” This bond we created grew over the week that I was there. She showed me her home (tent) and introduced me to her son. We chatted everyday on the work site and she brought me a watermelon to show me that she appreciated me being there. Interacting with the community and working alongside future homeowners renewed my team’s commitment to get the two houses completely built as quickly as possible. We were successful in our goal to have 2 houses constructed before we left and after we finished building on the last day, the community members came over to the finished houses to surprise us with a going away party and to thank us for the work that we doing. We all prayed together, sang together and blessed their new homes. They brought us gifts and baskets of fruit and it meant so much to me because these people had lost everything… everything! And they still found a way to express their thanks to us and bring us tokens of appreciation. This trip was a life changing experience. It’s always a blessing to be able to see how other people live in other parts of the world so that I always keep what’s important in perspective. The Haitian people may have lost physical possessions, but it didn’t change who they were, their love for one another and their love for their country. Haiti will forever be in me and I pray for those that I met while I was there. With the houses that I built side by side, hand in hand, I hope that I’ve left a positive mark in their hearts and as they’ve left in mine.

So I went on a date with this civil rights attorney a few years ago. I was feeling his vibe because he was all about grass root causes (right fist in the air) and obviously fighting for the rights of all people (or why else would he become a civil rights attorney?). He took me to a popular seafood restaurant downtown and he snagged a prime table next to the live band that was playing that night. Needless to say, the date started out positively; there was a lot of smiling, laughing, etc… exactly how you want a first date to go… that is, until the food arrived. I ordered fish and he ordered steak, I mean it was a restaurant known for its seafood so that seemed to be the logical choice to order a seafood dish, right?. When the waiter delivered our meals, my date goes, “I got the fish” and the waiter proceeded to place the fish dish in front of him, then I corrected him and said, “No, you got the steak,” so then the waiter switched plates and walked away. Then my date goes, “well your fish looks better than my steak so I didn’t think you’d mind if we swapped.” I thought he was joking until he grabbed my plate and tried to switch with me again… I strongly said, “No, I don’t want to swap,” and grabbed my plate back and then he goes, “Ok, can I still have some?” I replied, “Of course,” and before I knew it, he had speared my fish with his fork and took like 1/3 of it and had the nerve to swish it around the plate, sopping up most of the sauce. I didn’t say anything… I was just thinking to myself, ‘we’re at a seafood restaurant and you ordered a steak…but yet I have to suffer…’ So the awkward moment passed and we continued our conversation and I thought the worst had passed until I saw that he was still eyeing my plate and he goes, “Can I have another piece?” I said, sure and I was NICE ENOUGH to cut him a piece and give it to him, then he goes, “If you don’t finish it all, can I take it home?” I seriously started looking around for the hidden camera because I KNEW this dude couldn’t be serious… I mean really? Why don’t I regurgitate what I already ate and you can go home and fricassee it to your liking? So I said, “Well, I plan on finishing my meal,” and he said with a straight face, “Why would you do that if you knew I wanted to take it home?” I was done. I stopped eating and said, “You’re right.” Even though the man took me on a date and wouldn’t let me eat the food I ordered, THIS WAS NOT THE REASON WHY THIS WAS THE WORST DATE OF MY LIFE. The reason that this date will forever be ingrained in my mind and has scarred me for life is because of the proceeding conversation we had. Since I obviously wasn’t going to eat much more, we started talking about the pending Prop 8 legislation and how he was working on opposing the amendment and we got into this great conversation (that distracted him from my fish momentarily) about the civil rights of people and how our jobs are somewhat intertwined with him working on defending their rights and with me covering the story in the news. He asked me why I personally supported gay marriage and civil unions and I explained that when I was growing up, my mom had friends that were in same-sex relationships and it never struck me as wrong or different-that’s just who they were with and seeing that as a child made it acceptable as an adult. I told him how I thought it was despicable that people couldn’t be at the hospital bedside of their loved ones because they weren’t recognized as family or as a spouse and how I thought it was wrong for anyone to determine for another who they could legally be bound to or share their life with. While I was going off on my spiel, he kept nodding his head in agreement and I was glad we were on the same liberal page… or so I thought… then he asked me, “What do you think about gays raising children?” He threw me off with the use of ‘gays’ and I was slightly confused, but I responded, “What about it? I don’t have a problem with it.” He screwed up his face and said, “I don’t think gays should be parents.” I immediately laughed it off and said sarcastically, “So how are you going to control the wombs of millions of women? You can’t stop people from having children.” And he totally ignored what I said and continued, “I mean let them get married, let them share benefits, but letting them be parents? That’s too much.” Letting? So I said to this fool, “Ok, there are plenty of children out there with heterosexual parents who don’t give a damn about them, who are abusive and who are horrible parents overall so good parenting has nothing to do with sexual orientation. What’s wrong with a homosexual couple providing a loving home?” He responds, “Because they’re going to mess those kids up. What I think we should do is let the gays have the crack babies, the mentally disabled kids or the terminally ill kids SO THAT IF THEY MESS THEM UP, IT WON’T MATTER BECAUSE THEY’RE ALREADY MESSED UP ANYWAY.” My fork was midway to my mouth (trying to sneak a piece of MY fish) and at that point, I kid you not, I dropped it on the table and just stared at him. I don’t think I had been privy to that level of ignorance and bigotry so close up and personal-it was like a smack in the face. Just like with the fish, I looked to my left and looked to my right because I KNEW this had to be a joke and that Bob Saget was going to jump out and tell me I was on some ridiculous dating show where poor, unsuspecting women were set up with ridiculous men and forced to endure a torturous night to win $10,000 if they made it to the end. That was it for me, $10,000 or not. I pushed my plate away, turned my chair so that I could face him directly, then proceeded to tell him how IGNORANT his statement was and how offensive it was to homosexuals, crack babies, the mentally disabled, the terminally ill and just regular ‘ole folks like me. I was disgusted to even be in this man’s presence, I mean you have to be a really hateful person to think of something like that and to believe that you’re actually saving all the ‘normal’ children from the hands of the oh-so-dangerous ‘gays’ by sacrificing all the allegedly unwanted children to their homosexual whims. I also told him I thought it was slightly hypocritical for him to fight for certain rights of a group, only to deny them certain liberties that a lot of us take for granted. I told him I was ready to go and sure enough, he got the rest of my food wrapped up to take it home (weirdo) and then had the nerve to stiff our waitress on her tip so much so, I had to slip her a $20 on the low to make up the difference. With all that said, it was the worst date of my life because it showed me that ignorance flourishes in every realm and that when you least expected it, it will knock you down… and I’m still mad about that little piece of fish he brolicked from me!

When I first moved to NYC, I really thought I was doing something… I had my first job, my first apartment and in my head I imagined that my neighbors and I would be like the Harlem version of ‘Friends’ and my social life would resemble ‘Sex in the City.’ As naïve as I was, I was fortunate enough to have some normal and friendly neighbors, but I learned quickly that my door wasn’t going to be left unlocked and that we wouldn’t be cooking any dinners together. As for the social life part, I was pretty much right on, but I digress… So I had spent my first few paychecks traveling, shopping and just kicking it, but then my mother said she was going to be in New York on a business trip and wanted to stay with me instead of in a hotel so we could spend some quality time together. It was at that point that I realized I had to get my apartment in order… I had been sleeping on a pallet on the floor amongst my designer bags and shoes because I was too lazy to buy a bed – besides, who wants to spend $2,000 on a bed when you can buy a Louie? (obviously I was misguided in my early 20’s). So I went out, got a bed (I was able to talk the guy down by $400 AND get the delivery fee waived – woop! woop!), went to Crate & Barrel and pretty much furnished my apartment in a day.

Mom already said that she didn’t want to go out for dinner so I went downtown and got her favorite meal from her favorite gourmet Chinese restaurant, then I went to the liquor store – and people, this is where I went wrong – My mom is somewhat of a wine connoisseur and I figured I would impress her and show her how GROWN I was by having some wine for us to drink with dinner… *pause* … yeah… *pause* … So I go around the corner to the liquor store and I ask the guy where the wine is and if there’s a good one he could suggest (visualize me asking this of a guy who works behind plexiglass – naïve, I know). So he points me towards a fridge and says, “Our strawberry wine is really popular.” This is where I should have turned around and went home, but instead, I go check it out because I’ve never heard of strawberry wine and since I wasn’t much of a drinker back then (we know that’s not the case now!) I assumed that this strawberry wine was something exotic that I hadn’t been exposed to in my short 21 years of life. So I check out the bottle and there’s a big orange sticker that reads, “2 for $5.” This was another point in which I should have given up my plan to impress, but I was a shiny faced, recent college grad with very little money who needed to impress my mother with my maturity and my deep knowledge of grapes so all I could think was, “Wow! I can get TWO bottles for only $5! That’s better than the Arbor Mist we used to drink in college.” So I bought my wine and went home to wait for my Mom to get there.

So my Mom arrives – she loved my cute little apartment and loved how I decorated it (win!). As I prepared our plates, I’m in the kitchen telling her I also picked up a bottle of wine (it sounded so cool to say at the time) and I poured her a BIG glass and brought it to her. She looked at it a little funny, (and this is where I should have aborted the mission) but probably just assumed my pink wine was some form of “blush” (yeah, not so much). She didn’t really sip it and it wasn’t quite a mouthful, but she drank enough to spit it back out and looked at me incredulously and said, “What the hell is THIS!?” (note: My Mom doesn’t curse) I said, “It’s strawberry wine!” and then she said, “What the hell is strawberry wine?” I was so flustered by her cursing and confused about what was wrong with the wine that I said, “I don’t know! I got it from the liquor store around the corner.” (should have kept that part to myself) She then gave me the tiiight sideeye and told me to bring her the bottle. I wasn’t smart enough to remove the big orange sticker that read, “2 for $5” before I handed it to her, but that didn’t matter because she was really just concerned with the label because she damn near yells, “BOONE’S FARM?!? You gave me BOONE’S FARM!?!” I’m scared at this point and I said, “What’s Boone’s Farm?” and she’s like, “It’s what the winos used to drink when I was a kid – see, 2 for $5? Straight wino.” As she went to the kitchen and poured both bottles down the sink, she began to laugh uncontrollably-to the point of bringing herself to tears. Needless to say, I was embarrassed and quickly poured her a replacement glass of water – no lie, she barely made it through our meal because she was laughing so hard. It’s been a couple of years since then and every once in awhile when I break out some wine, she says, “It’s not Boone’s Farm, is it?” and then starts to chuckle to herself.