Day 11: Delmonte Shapes Up

Previously on the NU Haiti trip...

Delmonte had not worked at all. He passively stood while the team and Macles (the other translator worked their butts off. However, when word reached his supervisors about his work ethic, he had but one choice: shape up or shape out...

After the some one had a conversation with Delmonte's supervisors, his behaviour drastically changed. He worked a lot harder and even broke a sweat. Clearly hard work is in Haitian culture, just Delmonte needed some gentle reminders. Delmonte is actually a very talented young man and demonstrates what Paul Colliers in The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, calls the "brain drain" or that when a country falls behind and all the talent leaves to more prosperous areas. Also, we worked on fixing up a small field and planting 4 different types of wheat seeds in it. 

Despite the focus being on work today, one of the interns still managed to annoy me. I don't know if he would normally annoy me, but it was just the right amount of me being tired, him being both arrogant and overly talkative, or that he didn't work very hard.  I later observed that what I perceived to be arrogance may have just been his nervous reaction. That is, that he may have talked arrogantly about himself and his family and everything he's ever done because he was nervous. I hope it was a nervous reaction.