End of Another Trip

Once again I find myself sitting in a Florida airport contemplating the trip I've just returned from. This one-week trip absolutely flew by as compared to the past few where I've spent three weeks down there and usually had at least a bit of down time to process some the things that I'd been through and experienced.

First off, and on a totally different note, I should say that it's extremely unfortunate that Brazil just lost to the Netherlands 2-1 in the World Cup. Haitian people are completely obsessed with Brazilian football and the country has been in a fervor as they've been winning over their past games. It really seemed like it was one of the few things keeping many of those people upbeat. The first night we got there, we almost couldn't get to our house because of the parades and parties in the streets that thronged late into the evening. The past wins and future predictions were on everyone's lips and I'm sure the country feels like they've just suffered another huge letdown. It sounds strange to say but anyone who has experienced the World Cup outside of the Unites States will know what I mean.

Ok, back to my contemplation in the airport...

The big question on all of our minds during this trip now that we are nearing the 6 month anniversary of the earthquake was, "are things any better now than they were 5 months ago when we first got down there?" On the surface, it appears that they really are not. The tent cities seem to have grown even bigger since the last time I was there. Actually, a 'tent city' doesn't really describe it very well but I'm not sure what else to call it. Basically any open space the city has to offer, from the park in front of the collapsed presidential palace, to the median in the center of the highway, to ravines where the rain water flushes thru after any heavy rain, has turned into a place where people have either put up a tent or a tarp so they can have a place to sleep. For the first few months, there often weren't toilets or running water for these people to use so the hygiene was appalling. Typhoid has now broken out in many camps, as has outbreaks of scabies and TB. Violence and rapes are on the rise and families have taken to sleeping in shifts so they can keep watch for each other.

Six months on, the larger of these camps are much more organized and sanitary now because most of the larger tent camps have been taken over my at least one NGO that usually provides water, toilets, and possibly a health clinic. However, the fact remains that it has been 6 months and people are still living in appalling conditions.

Food provisions have been cut off so as to limit dependency yet there are almost no options for employment (aside from the "cash for work" programs for which the lucky few Haitians can earn $5 a day cleaning the streets, piling rubble, or cleaning the latrines in the camps). Schools are back in session but they are asking parents to pay for the 5 months that they weren't operating. And hospitals are functioning again yet many facilities are so poor that patients are required to not only buy their medicines and pay the doctor visit, but also buy the latex gloves the doctor uses to examine you with or the needle and syringe he uses to treat you with.

Rubble removal throughout the city is almost non existent, and since the government has been so slow to provide any help or guidance on rebuilding people's homes, people have begun to do it on their own using whatever wood, concrete, and bent rebar they can find.

So yes, things are still quite bad and it's both appalling and tragic that the government remains basically silent in the aftermath of this tragedy when they possibly could have galvanized the support of the entire world to rebuild Port au Prince and encourage decentralization by upgrading the infrastructure of the outlying cities. As it is, the opposite is occurring. People who initially left the city to live with family or friends around the country are now moving back into this city that was built for 500,000 that now hosts over 2 million people and counting. It seems that no matter how bad the outlook is in Port au Prince, prospects for jobs outside the city are worse.

However, despite all of this, I truly don't leave Haiti discouraged. To be quite honest, I don't think you can expect that after the largest natural disaster in the Western Hemisphere in the poorest country in the same region that things will be better, or even back to normal, within 6 months. I'm fairly certain that some people in New Orleans were still living in asbestos filled FEMA trailers years after Katrina hit and it took almost four years to start clearing out and rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward. It might be overly optimistic to think that Haiti, with the host of problems the country was already facing, should be able to move people back into their homes in that amount of time.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I've gotten to meet and spend time with some incredible and dedicated Haitian people who are absolutely committed to lifting their country up from it's current state. These doctors, politicians, philanthropists, and activists have not given up on their people or their hopes for a better Haiti. They are frustrated by the Haitian leadership and by the soaring budgets of many of the large international NGOs in Haiti who are not focused on sustainability or empowering the Haitian people. But they are encouraged by the sad fact that as a result of this event, many of their hospitals are now better equipped, their schools are being rebuilt better, and the world may actually remain focused on Haiti for years to come.

Sacramento Bee Article

Hello out there,

I'm heading back to Haiti today for a week to visit sites and start putting together a six-month post earthquake assessment. I'll try to send out a couple notes while I'm there but in the meantime, here's an article that I wrote for the Sacramento Bee, my new hometown paper, that was published today.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/27/2850473/future-remains-uncertain-in-quake.html#none

Violence in Haiti

During the past four months that I’ve spent in Haiti, I’ve gotten lots of questions from friends and family (mostly from my loving and worried mother) about how safe it is for her child to be staying in the outskirts of Cite Soleil in Port au Prince. And I’ve had a difficult time answering that question. It turns out; Haiti is a hard country to stereotype.

Haiti has long been declared the poorest and most violent country in the Western Hemisphere; with Cite Soleil the largest and most dangerous slum in this country. Cite Soleil borders the city of Port au Prince on Route 9, which is next door to where my colleagues and I have been staying over the past four months. However, during the time we’ve been down here, we never been attacked or really even felt threatened in any way. We’ve seen some fairly violent fights break out at food distributions and gas lines. We’ve driven behind a truck filled with food that got hijacked by young men who jumped inside the trailer (unbeknownst to the driver) and emptied all the food to their friends waiting in the street. True, we are rarely greeted with smiling faces as we drive past the newly erected shanty towns on our way to our apartment. And yes, people do get quite upset when you take a picture while driving past in a speeding car. But how can you blame them? They are living in the poorest city in the western hemisphere; have just been through the worst natural disaster for the area in history; are aware of the $1 billion has been raised on their behalf yet are still living in tents (if they’re lucky) without any hopes for immediate improvement.

However, while we didn’t ever experience it firsthand, we have heard many stories of kidnappings and shootings during our time here. There was a well-publicized case of the two Medicines sans Frontiers workers who were kidnapped (and later released) upon leaving their clinic. And we also heard from a colleague at St. Damien’s Children’s Hospital that two U.S. aid workers were shot outside their facility near the U.S. Embassy earlier this month, although I have yet to find any documentation of it. And many of the NGOs that we work with in Haiti wouldn’t even venture over to our office/apartment off Route 9 because of the violence and widespread reports of shootings and robberies during the Aristide years five years ago. Indeed, a couple Haitian citizents who had come from the states to work with us for a short time were unwilling to even come with us to our office.

I’m sure that Haiti can be and has been a violent place over the years but I’m always puzzled by these accounts because I just have not seen it during my time here. I’ve seen small acts of aggression due to unimaginable desperation. But those acts pale in comparison to my interactions with some of the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life. In fact, on the same day I heard that the two people were shot outside the Embassy, a Haitian man I didn’t even know literally gave me the shirt off his back because I said I liked it.

Like I said, it’s a hard country to stereotype.