PAWÒL APRANTI-SAJ

Djalòki ’s writings are now published on wordpress.com:

NEW YORK, Jan 17 (IPS) - A newly released investigation into the deadly scourge of Beri-beri in Haiti’s National Penitentiary uncovered evidence that the clash between the manufacturing process used in U.S. processed rice and the traditional Haitian rice cooking method has been killing poor young men behind bars and leaving others morbidly ill.

By early 2006, firefights brought on by Haitian National Police and United Nations incursions into the capital’s poorest neighborhoods had become commonplace. The raids, deemed “operations” by authorities, and reportedly designed to flush out criminal gangs, often resulted in high civilian causalities.

In a recent scientific study in the British medical journal The Lancet, done through random spatial sampling, it was estimated that 8,000 people were killed in the greater Port-au-Prince area from March 2004 through early 2006 after Haiti’s elected government was ousted.

Already overcrowded and antiquated Haitian prisons quickly became packed with poor young men, drastically worsening the health conditions inside. The national penitentiary in Port-au-Prince built for a capacity of 800 today holds over 2,000 prisoners.

Last April, the Lamp for Haiti Foundation, a Philadelphia-based non- profit organisation created to address both the health care and the human rights needs of Haiti’s poor, commissioned an investigation into the mysterious Beri-beri deaths of otherwise young, healthy prisoners in the Haitian National Penitentiary.

Staff attorney Thomas Griffin and staff physician James Morgan were given access by the national director of prisons, Wilkens Jean, to the sickest prisoners to search for clues to the source of the outbreak.

Griffin, a Philadelphia-based immigration lawyer and human rights investigator, had repeatedly visited the Haitian National Penitentiary since February 2002. In November of 2004, taking part in a Miami University human rights delegation, he found that poor supporters of the elected Aristide government had come under severe repression, showing up in “mass graves, cramped prisons, no-medicine hospitals, corpse-strewn streets and maggot-infested morgues”.

In an October 2005 investigation, Griffin met with over 80 U.S. deportees. While conducting a follow-up investigation in March 2006, he found that a deportee from the United States he had met in October, Jackson Thermidor, had just died of congestive heart failure brought on by Beri-beri. Further, based upon reports from prison officials as well as prisoners, Beri-beri appeared to be devastating the overcrowded prison population.

If left untreated, Beri-beri slowly attacks its victims’ nervous systems, eventually causing congestive heart failure. Treatment, which is almost always successful, consists simply of the correct administration of a multivitamin supplement.

Morgan and Griffin observed that many of those arrested during the administration of the post-coup, foreign-appointed government started to suffer from weight loss, emotional disturbances, impaired sensory perception, weakness, pain in the limbs, and periods of rapid and irregular heartbeat — all direct symptoms of Beri-beri.

Packed together in squalid conditions and provided meager, irregular meals, Haitian prisoners were fed a diet of rice that Griffin and Morgan discovered had lost its natural B1 vitamin/thiamin content, leading to the ultimately harmful effects. Griffin explained, “We found out that the little food they do give to prisoners is U.S.- processed rice.”

All the Haitian rice production, which Haitians traditionally grew and consumed as a staple, was a healthy, whole-grain, vitamin B- packed, and native crop. But, due to U.S. policies since the early 1980’s preferring U.S. rice producers over Haitians’ own sustainable agriculture, tariffs were forced to drop, and U.S. rice flooded the Haitian market.

It not only destroyed much of traditional Haitian farm life that was the soul and lifeblood of the nation, but it pushed farmers off their land and into the city slums in Port-au-Prince. The prisoners, Griffin observed, who must eat the U.S. rice come from those slums, and are now dying of Beri-beri.

Griffin and Morgan gained access to all 21 of the prisoners then housed in the prison infirmary. Dr. Morgan made physical examinations as Griffin questioned the prisoners on the conditions of their confinement and their backgrounds.

Among other findings, only two of the prisoners had been convicted and were serving sentences. The others were legally innocent, pending trial or release. Only eight had ever been brought before a magistrate for a hearing, despite the Haitian Constitution’s requirement of hearing within 48 hours of any arrest.

The average length of time prisoners had been detained as of the April investigation was 13 months, and one prisoner had already been locked up for two full years without ever being taken before a court. Nine of the 21 prisoners were suffering in the deep stages of Beri- beri, hardly able to talk due to chest congestion and fatigue from overworked hearts.

“None had lawyers,” Morgan observed, “they all had sunken empty unfocused eyes, the trailing step and the air of used old men awaiting death, yet they were hardly in their twenties.”

Most telling to the investigators, however, was that all the sick had depended on the prison’s “twice a day meals from a large communal bowl, rather than, like most of the more healthy prisoners, on food prepared and delivered daily from outside by family members.”

At the request of investigators, Wilkins Jean took them to the prison warehouse, where 50-lb sacks of imported U.S. rice made up almost the entirety of the food stores. Griffin explains, “On each one of these bags was written, in English: ‘Extra Fancy Long Grain Enriched USA,’ and ‘Do Not Rinse Before or After Cooking.’”

Like most mass-produced rice in the U.S., it had been polished and bleached to make it more appealing to the consumer’s eye. The process, however, removes key nutrients, including vitamin B1/ thiamine, from the grain.

To restore some of the nutrients, many U.S. rice mills routinely “enrich” the processed rice by adding back nutrients. The problem for Haitians, however, is that the nutrients are returned by merely coating the exterior of the rice grain with the mixture. Haitians, Griffin and Morgan would learn, have always scrubbed their rice before cooking it — which, according to Griffin, at the prison resulted in a meal “that had about as much nutritional value as cardboard.”

The Lamp Foundation is now embarked on an ambitious education campaign at the prison and with the national prison directorate, and plans to open an office in Cite Soleil, the poorest community in Port- au-Prince, later this month.

“The only reason the general population of Haiti that eats U.S. processed rice is not also suffering from Beri-beri to the same degree is that they must get vitamin B/thiamin from other sources. The prisoners, on the other hand, get no other food,” Morgan said. “We told Mr. Wilkens Jean this: if you are going to serve American rice, cook it like an American — don’t rinse it before you cook it.”

According to Prison Director Jean, prison authorities had tried to distribute vitamin B supplements because they already knew that the lack of it was underlying the Beri-beri epidemic. But, said Jean, the prison administration never had enough for all prisoners on any kind of regular basis.

Eunida Alexandra is a Haitian immigrant living and working in Brooklyn who hosts the television cultural awareness show “Voices of Haiti” in New York. Jeb Sprague is the editor of www.Haitianalysis.com

This is the promotional flyer of my upcoming lecture tour in the US (September-November 2006).

A better version (with a better readable bottom) can also be viewed on this blog in the “Navigating Through Chaos” album, placed just below the advertisement square at the top of the right hand side bar.

The flyer can be emailed upon request in JPG, TIFF, PDF or Microsoft Word version.

For booking dates, contact Anny A. Koffler aakoffler@comcast.net

The final title for the main lecture of my upcoming US tour is:

NAVIGATING THROUGH CHAOS WITH VODOU KEYS
Finding balance in times of shift; a non-conventional approach.

~Djalòki~

Working at planning my next US Lecture Tour: September-November 2006, with one main lecture whose tentative title so far is:

SYSTEMIC VODOU MENDING

And a possible sub-title:

Introduction to Vodou Keys as restorative tools to the fragmentary modern ways.

Comments welcome.

~Djalòki~

 

The “Professional Title” I will now use, until another one imposes itself to me is:

PARADIGM SHIFT FACILITATION

One sub-title will be:

Postmodern Keys for Global Balance and Sustainability.

While I am still open to new formulations, I will now focus on finding possible neologisms to tentatively express those ideas in one word or two. Ideas that came are:

- Transconsciencing

- Metamidwifing

- Wholikeying

- Globainment (and related Globainability) [for Global Balance and Sustainability]

- Syshamanism (for systemic shamanism)

- Key Mending

Yet more suggestions for Djalòki’s professional title
(With permission from the authors - the replies from people who have not yet expressly given their agreement for sharing their comments are not included)
____________________________________________________________
May 19, 2006

- Maybe companion is enough to say.

- I just checked out the latest on your blog and like the May 14th comments. Especially I agree with the remark that it is time for you to say how you see yourself. Also, the point that this next tour will continue to evolve and expand your consciousness and you want to leave room in however you define yourself for this expansion. There appears to be a group of supporters on this journey with you, but in the end, it is up to you to choose the direction of your path, as well as the words to describe it.

Even more suggestions for Djalòki’s professional title
(With permission from the authors - the replies from people who have not yet expressly given their agreement for sharing their comments are not included)
____________________________________________________________
May 14, 2006

I like the business card of May 13 - concise yet,
provocative. On the back, one usually ‘raises’
awareness, not ‘teach’ it. The ‘keys’ concept is
good, too and I heard from another person the title -
‘Djalòki’s Keys’ - has a nice alliteration.

It is really up to you how you want to come across.
You ARE a shaman, of a sort, but do you want to be
perceived as that, or do you want to have a more
‘professional’ veneer such as consultant? [I LIKE
shaman but it does have other connotations] What is
it you are doing - acting as A guide, not the only one
out there - so how to distinguish you? I like the
front of your business card, but are you a
transformer? You don’t look like one, no electrical
wires….. [joking] But you are a vodounist - but
that definition does not necessarily get to all the
aspects of that identity, either. You will have to
settle, and anyway, after going on this next tour, you
will learn more, change more and rename yourself and
what you do, so perhaps something broader, more
encompassing - we will create our own Dja theasuarus
by the time we’re through. Simpler is better - you
say in five words - transforming paradigms through
visionary vodou- what you do and it doesn’t need a
title. I think people will give you their own title.
For me, I would say compadre, and I do like
co-inspiritor, or even Inspiritor! Just reading
through the suggestions I can see that each of us has
our own concept of you, as will everyone you speak to,
so it time for YOU to say how you see yourself. In
ten words or less…..

Still more suggestions for Djalòki’s professional title
(With permission from the authors - the replies from people who have not yet expressly given their agreement for sharing their comments are not included)

____________________________________________________________
May 13, 2006

- Intercultural connector for the awareness of a new, peaceful and universal (or spiritual) reality

- I liked the point about taking out “cross” from cross-cultural — cultural is enough by itself, because the journey is not simply being aware of other cultures, that’s only step 1, really, but also becoming aware of our own culture and how it interacts with and affects all the others, that no culture is an island but mingles with the rest and influences and is influenced by others, both for good and ill.

- this site has some thoughts, fyi - I like spiritual midwife, but the gender is problematic I suppose, although it shouldn’t have to be… [...]
http://www.anamcaraproject.info/history.php3
-My goodness, it is a mindboggle to ‘name’ the multifaceted being you are, as the work/play before you unfolds….First thought: In private work with people, who you are is credential enough within your circle of friends and could possibly support you just as well, financially on your journey, as public events. If you have a suggested donation (which your friends can suggest, so you don’t have to), you can avoid any concerns with legalities, I would think. Here in NC, procuring one of those interfaith ministry licenses even allows any hands-on work to be involved legally. So, it is my feeling that it would be a great thing to go ahead and offer your gifts in the way you would like to proceed.

Out of all the suggestions, a merging:

front of biz card:

21 Jenerasyon
.Transforming Paradigms through Visionary Vodou

Djalòki Ntjitjagagi Jean Luc Dessables
Ayitian Peace Delegate

address/phone/email/blog information
on the back:
~ Committed to collective transformation and global justice
~ Teaching multicultural awareness and respect as keys to the future
~ Activating leadership on the cusp of new insight
~ Guided meditation & Inner Journey facilitator

To me , you are a kind of link or bridge between what I feel and apreciate about life , and the verbalization of those ideas. I felt as if you were a sculpturer who let my spiritual and metaphysic ideas show up..You were the master who was able to discover to the “public”what a student has inside and is unable to expres because he/she does not even know that it was there. You are like the masterpiece to my personal interpretation of world,live ,etc.You are like a transalator of the just coming reality , a helper, a holder of one´s hand when you wanted to cross the wild river of knowlegments.
You were the interpreter of all the information that was inside me .You opened my eyes to a new dimension, you gave shape and forms to what I had in my brain.
I would say you are a: an interpreter of the new universal reality ,The secretary for the organization of a new and necessary, universal awareness, an intercultural connector for the spiritual knowledge.

____________________________________________________________
May 07, 2006

- i don’t think a title reads well if it is too long or has slashes and such in it. eg spiritual/cultural director. “Facilitator of Cross Cultural Awareness” is so far the only thing that jumped out at me although it is pretty long. maybe switch around: Cultural Awareness Facilitator. the Cross may be redundant and isn’t always even true–you also do cultural awareness among Haitians, right?

- I in all honesty think you are way more than a coach - I like facilitator better. More depth. Like you. I also like visionary.
I think Postmodern Shaman is good (if YOU are comfortable being called a shaman…) and something else like Visionary Leadership and transformational facilitation, and healing…..

- SEE BELOW IN CAPS
[...] It is becoming clearer to me that the message I transmit has at least 3 aspects which are directed at 3 different groups of people, at different planes and with different formats, languages and focus.YOU CAN DO THIS WITH BULLETS RATHER THAN FLIGHTS OF LANGUAGE. AMERICANS READ IN SHORT BITES. YOU CAN DO THIS WITHOUT RUN ON SENTENCES. THAT FLOW OF CONNECTED IDEAS IS YOUR SEMINAR, NOT YOUR LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.
The smaller aspect is global social justice and peace, from a Ayitian perspective.EXAMPLE: - AN AYITIAN (HAITIAN) PERSPECTIVE: GLOBAL SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ESTABLISHING PEACE.
- CROSS CULTURAL AWARENESS: A NON-WESTERN VIEW, SHAMANISTICE PERSPECTIVE - RESPONSES TO A WESTERN PARADIGM.
[...] I seem to be more and more able to help them make sense of the accelerated unusual transformations occuring around them and inside them. I intend to do that more and more, on a formal basis, and I would like this to be clearly expressed in the “title” I will use to present myself.
AGAIN - THIS FLOW IS FOR YOUR SESSIONS, SIMPLIFY AND BULLET COMMENTS AS IN . . .
-MOTHER EARTH A HOLISTIC VIEW OF HUMANITY. . .

[...] IF YOU HAVE A PH.D YOU ARE “DOCTOR.” OTHERWISE WE HAVE TO “TRANSLATE” WHAT YOU WISH TO BE A TEACHER, SCHOLAR (AND STUDENT OF), GUIDE, PROFESSOR, MEDIATER???

- someone stated well my reservations to being too ephemeral in commenting that he had spent a lot of time in San Francisco and was hesitant about “New Wave” pop culture.

I still believe that there is something mille foilles (spelling?), about getting a message out. That one has to tell a focused story, adding many chapters as correspondence evolves . . . opening layers in careful timing rather than offering an encyclopedia all at one time.

- Front side: Lecturer/Consultant in Cross-Cultural Awareness Studies. Back side: a list of all your services, like Guided Imagery; Shamanistic Healing; Spiritual Transformation; Cosmic Shift Facilitator; etc…

- I find you to embody a great respect for individuality and belief, including those different from your own. I am challenged by the accountability you call yourself and others to….accountabilty to live authentic and intentional lives that integrate the complexities and uniquenesses of our personalities. Through the commitment you yourself have to grow and integrate values and practices in your own life, you embody a seeker philosophy and have developed a diverse repitoire of experiences and ideas to share which can be considered, learned and integrated by other seekers. You reach both into the past and the future to embody the complexities and simplicities of life and to apply meaningful philosophies to everyday life.
Maybe what I’m coming to is, that I understand you to be a person committed to collective transformation through individual and communal learning and listening.

- I would not use coach, facilitator or animator - not least because the people in the US do not understand animator, and even I do not find a a very good translation that encompasses its meaning in French/Kreyòl. I like Inner Shift - Coordinator? Assembler? Sorter? those are not right. Shaman is really the only term that fits, and I think Post-Modern describes where you are coming from. Post-modern Shaman, shifitng inner and outer paradigms through visionary vodou. I do try to boil it down to one sentence, long as it may be. Please continue to share these ideas, it will all come together soon!

- you don’t want to come across sounding too new age…it cheapens things. Something more along the lines of say of alan watts/krishnamurti rather than deepak chopra.

- I liked the words “shift coach” [...], and think that might be an excellent title for the 3rd piece of your work to put on your cards and correspondence. I like it because, as someone remarked in one of the responses you sent, you want to avoid New Age-sounding stuff, that would categorize you in a limiting way. But Shift Coach or Spiritual Shift Coach seem to me to be opening statements, opening the door to questions and reflection. Shaman, to me evokes sort of older, ritualistic practices and to me you are all about moving into the future while maintaining awareness of the past.

Also, some of what people responded was in true title form, labeling you as an object, Shift Coach, whatever, as I just did. I think I actually preferred the action words, defining what you do or the process, which will be changing and evolving as you go along. I like to think of you as yourself, Djaloki, who does certain things, participates in certain processes, as opposed to labeling you. But this might be too picky.

Engineering Postmodern Spiritual Healing is very nice, although do you really think of yourself as engineering the process?

I liked activating leadership on the cusp of new insight, in fact the card layout and concepts and wording were awesome and maybe you could just work with that and polish it a bit. It seems complete and only a little more wordy than you want.

___________________________________________________
May 06, 2006

- Postmodern Shaman available for shifting paradigms and psychic healing, inquiries welcome

- Transformation Specialist

- Postmodern Engineer, Transforming Paradigms through Shamanistic Healing

- Transformational Engineer and Paradigm Shifting Shaman

- Paradigm Shifting Shaman, Engineering Postmodern Spiritual Healing

- Are you ready for the jump? Come be guided by a [vodou] visionary through transformations already occuring in our world today

- Multicultural transformation specialist focusing on peace and justice

- Inner Shift Coaching

- Spiritual Shift Coaching

- Spiritual Coaching

- Applied Postmodern Shamanism

- Lectures, Workshops, Guided Visualization, Coaching

. I think Facilitator of Cross Cultural Awareness is a great title and describes very well one piece of what you do. This maybe should not change.

. Definitely “Future” should be used. Or maybe “Futurist”?

. As far as your 3rd area of focus, I think a word like companion or guide might evoke the appropriate sense of accompanying someone on a personal journey of change.

. Perhaps our language doesn’t contain the most descriptive words for these kids of concepts and we’ll have to invent some

. I still like Cross Cultural Awareness Facilitator, so maybe something like Personal Change Facilitator would work.

What keeps taking shape before me at the moment is your business card — this is my first offering to the brainstorming process (not the last). I’ll try to approximate the text/layout — not perfect via email. Would something like this work:

————————————————————————–
21 Jenerasyon
Supporting the re-creation of the world in our time,
drawing on wisdom from the primordial to the postmodern.

Djalòki Ntjitjagagi Jean Luc Dessables
Founder and Animator
Workshops, lectures, guided meditation, individual coaching:
~ Global justice and peace from an Ayitian perspective
~ Cross-cultural awareness and respect: keys to the future
~ Activating leadership on the cusp of new insight

address/phone/email/blog information
————————————————————————–

I send this off in the true spirit of brainstorming, knowing that the above might be helpful, or might be really off the mark.
Of course you can elaborate on all the points in a brochure, and provide clarity about your menu of lectures/workshops/etc., what things go together, various pre-requisites, etc — similar to your blog.

What I’m sending does not include a crystal clear description of the very critical role of facilitator and co-counselor, helping people who have been called to provide vision and special leadership — activating and accelerating their growth. All I say is “activating leadership on the cusp of new insight.” . You can write something about your coaching of people poised for important leadership in the brochure, but I think brevity is the way to go. The people who need you (and I humbly but with self-awareness include myself in this group) will be directed to you one way or another.

A thought in my head — now remember I lived in San Francisco for many years — is to avoid language as much as possible that people associate, in a largely negative way, with “new age” things. Everything you are doing is of course the best of the hope that the “new age” sensibility is longing for, groping for even. But when I think of a title for you, I want to avoid things that could turn people off who really are on your frequency, so to speak. We don’t really use the term “animator” in the U.S., but it has been in my mind and so I included it.

- “spiritual/intercultural director”. In my experience, spiritual directors are counselor sorts of people, often licensed clinical social workers or psychologists who have done a fair amount of training at a spiritual institute and then they integrate their faith perspective and insight into deeper questions of life (big scale or one’s personal scale) to their counseling.

- The phrase that keeps coming to my mind is spiritual translator, yet I don’t think that is quite right. The word shaman keeps creeping back in also, yet I think you are looking for something more “modern” - “shaman for our time” is what I actually think but that doesn’t exactly sound catchy and concise. I see you as a bridge between planes - a foot in different worlds, translating back and forth. Spiritual interpreter? It’s hard to find something expressive that doesn’t sound pretentious. Then again, people who need you will understand almost anything you call yourself.