Haiti, Love, Courage and Lords of the Flies

Love and Courage in Haiti

My journey to Haiti began improbably in Damascus as I watched Al Jazeera’s broadcast of the earthquake, and then received a message from a friend, “We have a plane going to Haiti can you come for medical work?” On my return from a month in the Middle East, I booked my flight to Florida and hooked up with a homeopathic medical team to Port Au Prince. Words are too anemic to hold the immensity of this tragedy that has shattered the very brittle foundation of Haitian society. The catastrophe is not only the humanitarian crisis, it is the story of a people who overthrew slavery, were oppressed by colonial powers, suffered from decades of dictatorships and misrule, and who remain trapped in poverty and ruled by a tiny elite. Nevertheless, out of the tragedy there is, however bleak, a tomorrow founded on the strength, courage, and dignity of the Haitians as they endeavor to rise above the catastrophe.
I arrived on Wednesday night in early February a few weeks after the major earthquake demolished 90% of Port Au Prince. I expected the worst. I packed water and food for seven days, a back up water filter, kazoos for kids, balloons, flutes and whistles, homeopathic medicines, a sleeping bag, a ground cloth, 165 pounds of medical supplies, my guitar and extra strings, and miscellaneous items. I felt like I was preparing for an Army excursion instead of a humanitarian mission. There was support, money, and help from many friends and neighbors. Haiti has inspired so much love and support from around the world, and my earnest hope is that this love will endure and engender a genuine transformation for all Haitians.
The next day we awoke at 5 a.m. and drove north from Santo Domingo to the Haitian border. Lush mountains and fields pass by in an idyllic reverie. Convoys of supplies creep up to the border and we inadvertently join a Canadian military contingent of jeeps, construction equipment, medical supplies, soldiers, security, and the thousands of other components that make up a relief mission. How does anyone coordinate any of this? How are the myriad of aid agencies, with all their noble intentions, making a cohesive and coordinated plan? Here in this former paradise, now a desert of need, every drop of help and assistance is a blessing.
There are no passport controls at Haiti’s borders; instead, total chaos, brutal survival, no running water, children bathed in buckets of brackish water, an open ditch on the side of the road is the toilet, human life stripped of all dignity except for the dignity to survive. Several thin children with swollen bellies are playing in a puddle of sewage and other kids dressed in worn and soiled shorts. The fetid smell of sewage, sweat, and unwashed bodies permeates the air. It is hot without respite of trees or shade. The roads are the most basic tracks carved into the dirt, whatever was a road has long disappeared, cavernous pot holes every few meters is a reminder that you have now entered a Fifth World country; not a Third world country, but a Fifth World hell of abject poverty, except for the tiny elite who rule. Cars broken down by the side of the road and stripped of anything useful and piles of trash and garbage. It is as if a giant airplane dumped humans and cargo from the sky and left. Even in the best of times, Haiti is the poorest of poor countries, and now it has slipped even further away.
At the border, a vast new salt-water lake is creeping further in land. No one knows where this is coming from. In a country of disasters, this is only one more disaster and it has to take its place in a long queue of problems. Devoured by an earthquake, drowning from the sea, air polluted by burning garbage and human waste, open cooking fires from scraps of wood, a recipe for hell in the midst of what was once an island paradise.
The white chalk and salt hills to the south, fields with weeds and scrub grass, but there are no signs of sugar cane or other cash crops. People dressed in threadbare rags till the fields by hand with wooden hoes, the same tools their grandparents tended these fields. Ninety percent of Haitians work on fields like this or in a similar degree of servitude on some of the larger plantations. However, there is an even lower level of desperation, another lower circle of hell, thousands of children sold to peasant families as slaves, restaveks. Restaveks “one who stays with a family,” is an old Haitian tradition, an irony in this a country who freed themselves from slavery, and then created this new form of slavery. Thousands of children are enslaved and there is an organization working to free those children. (http://www.restavekfreedom.org/).
Driving to the epicenter of the quake in Port Au Prince, the cracked and fallen buildings become more numerous, masses of people wander the streets. The further you drive into Port Au Prince, the more intense the devastation. Though the city had over two million living in abject poverty in shacks like the sprawling slum of Cite Soleil before the earthquake, it is difficult to imagine a situation more tragic and grave. The Presidential Palace looks like a wedding cake tossed to the sky, akimbo, and broken. The pride and culture of Haiti destroyed: Parliament, Museums, government buildings, 90% of the city, and most of the schools and universities are gone. The once elegant park across from the Presidential palace now completely filled with tiny huts built with scraps of wood, plastic, cloth, or anything remotely resembling a home. People wash in buckets, pee in the streets, nurse babies, every aspect of life is jammed into this park. Tens of thousands of people are everywhere, some selling bananas, offering shoeshines, fruit juice sold on top of a crate, anything to make a few cents. Others are building shanties, tending babies, and children play everywhere. Wherever the tiniest space exists, another cluster of tents and shacks appear. Haiti offers us a new lexicon of wretchedness, but also dimensions of faith and courage.
This morning we met our host, a very wealthy Haitian, the Patron. His palatial modern office is sumptuous, adorned with exquisite folk art, and refreshingly cool after the ten-hour journey. He is the epitome of graciousness and offers us coffee, water, and a fine bottle of wine. He is one of the 1/10th of 1% who reigns in lordly splendor. His mother’s magnificent house; she’s left for Miami for one of their town houses to wait out the earthquake, while some of his employees sleep in the street.
Though Haiti was the first slave colony to over-throw the French, under threat of invasion in 1824 they had to pay their slave masters restitution until WW II. Yes, kidnapped from Africa, sold into slavery, worked for the French, overthrew them, and then had to pay them back! Haiti dutifully paid over 50 % of the national budget annually for a hundred and twenty five year period. Former President Aristide calculated, adding interest and adjusting for inflation, France owes Haiti $21 billion dollars.
IF is the operative word here: if there had been some building codes, if people had not skimped on rebar in building, if the concrete had not been of such an inferior quality, and if people had spent a few cents more, much of this destruction would have been spared. The neighborhood we are working in is a working poor neighborhood, but the earthquake took away the thin divide that separated them from the abjectly poor. At the end of the street, a partially destroyed Catholic Church from the late 1800’s still stands, its tin green roof torn off, the broken plaster walls holding crosses, and other walls barely standing. Church services on Sunday will be outdoors. The political dimensions of power and poverty are always apparent. The Catholic Church has staunchly opposed birth control, condoms, and the result has been AIDS, high birthrate, and high infant mortality. The Catholic Church has been part of the power structure and elite since the founding of Haiti and their culpability in this misery cannot be underestimated.
I walk down the alleys past the main streets and the labyrinth of poverty intensifies. The poorest of the poor use a tarp or scrap of wood or plastic to create a rudimentary shelter or home. A long cement channel choked with stagnant raw dark green sewage bakes in the sun, and a man sits by the side and defecates into it. All illusions of privacy ripped away. I’ve traveled around the globe in almost one hundred countries and have never seen poverty this stark that denies all levels of humanity.
One scraggly bearded man in rags sits on the street corner talking to himself. Even before the earthquake, there was no assistance for the mentally ill, unless taken in by a family. How many seriously mentally ill people are walking around without help?
Our medical team was supposed to work in an orphanage, but it had been completely leveled and their orphans are now homeless and wandering the streets. How many more new orphans are there? In a city of disaster and ruin, whom do you attend to first?
One of the few intact buildings is the French Hospital, a private hospital managed by our wealthy Patron. We began treating patients in front of one of the most exclusive HMO’s (Health Maintenance Organization) on the island, and none of those we treated could have afforded treatment here. A few wealthy Haitians come to the HMO, but the elite go to the Dominican Republic or Miami for their health care. Part of the older hospital had collapsed, but the new clinic survived.
Our “clinic” is a large tent in the parking lot of the hospital. We have two long tables and a few homeopaths, and without advertising, a steady clientele appears. We have the simplest of supplies, bandages, remedies, and willingness to spend time with the patients. Truly, the word “patient” was never more accurate; “patient” in Latin means “to suffer.” The patients, mostly poor, their hands thick with calluses from years of hard manual labor, tell similar stories.
“How long the problem? The illness? The insomnia? The fear?”
“Depuis de tremble terre …Since the earthquake.”
I manage mostly in French with a bit of Creole. With eye contact and gestures, it is easy to discern what they’re saying. Most are still in shock. If they have a home, they’re afraid to return, and almost all are living in the street. The health problems are chronic and most have parasites, many appear malnourished from years of poverty, untreated hypertension and diabetes, infant diarrhea, and few have the money to get help.
Our team offered five to ten minutes visits to hundreds of patients per day. In the many patients I saw and served, the miracle was not necessarily the medicine, but the willingness to be here and look into the eyes of the people, to hold their calloused hands and say, “We/ I care about you. Bless you.” Love always is the best medicine. However, it is also invaluable when you have the right homeopathic remedy and supplies, and the allopathic resources. I saw patients for hours, but did not tire as the Haitians’ consistent love and courage revived me.
Frequently they said, “Thank you for coming.” After I treated one adorable six-year old girl, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Her almond eyes bright and filled with life, how can we in the international community not help this next generation? How can we allow a nation to sink further into poverty?
I liked our portable clinic, less then five meters from the road, open gate, so that anyone could come in; first come first serve, no insurance or fee, no paperwork. People queued up as properly as an English bus stop. It would have been grand to have a full clinic with other specialty services, but this shade tree health care was refreshing. The challenge now is can we create based on clean water and sanitation, good nutrition, use of botanical plants, homeopathy, wholistic and allopathic medicine, and, of course, love? Imagine if this model was in the USA, we could have genuine health care reform. I met so many people, international medical, religious, and church groups, and our homeopathic cadre who offer something more than aid -- a precious gram of hope. Perhaps, the tiny homeopathic dose of love can be the seed to create a new Haiti. Where is the future of Haiti? Two hundred thousand are dead, unaccountable wounded; the hospitals and all the important public buildings and institutions destroyed.
Part of the answer and problem lies in the wealthy, who have ruled and lorded over Haiti since independence in 1804. A Haitian friend said, “Our country never escaped slavery, because the wealthiest enslaved the population, kept all the power and land, and allowed the people to slip further and further into poverty.” Now Haiti is the poorest of all the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The wealthy Haitians who have not left for Paris or Miami are unaffected by the earthquake. Invited to a very wealthy man’s house, I was going to refuse. I have a weak stomach, I didn’t want to puke on the fine china, but a perverse voyeurism compelled me to join them for dinner. After a forty-five minute drive through a devastated city, amongst people living in absolute squalor, we arrive at the most exclusive part of town. One minute we are in squalor and ruined roads, and the next moment, we have changed worlds. The cobblestone roads are meticulous, there is not a spot of garbage, and even the gutters swept clean. Stout walls and metal gates surround their estates. Our host was quite agreeable and pleasant; how can you not be agreeable when the worst disaster in recent history happened and you’re immune from the affect? They keep drums of diesel in their homes, and their generators work efficiently, even when the rest of the island is without power. Sitting in their manicured garden and oasis of privilege, my mind reels from this surreal experience. Our hostess wears pearls and a well-pressed décolleté evening dress. The air burns with the smell of burning garbage from Port Au Prince, and despite the walls and the distance from the city center, the smell still wafts over the wall. If the situation becomes “too difficult,” they fly in private helicopters or planes to their townhouses in Miami. While the city festers and burns, they are the lords of the flies, lording over this once paradisiacal island. Like flies dancing on a pile of excrement, their light winged dance soaring above the pile, touching down to feast, to regurgitate, procreate, and ensure that the rotting excrescence remains to feed them.
The rich are a metastatic cancer of avarice that has devoured this country. This cancer is like seeing a beautiful woman devoured by the disease… her face and appearance still has a regal elegance, but when you remove the threadbare worn silk nightgown, the gaunt emaciated ravages of the disease is evident. Her clear eyes that flirted under moonlit nights are limpid sclerotic pools. The vital organs devoured, the liver swollen with bile, the bones brittle as dried straw, and the will to live and even to survive seeps away minim by minim.
Despite all the wretchedness, their subjugation by the ruling class, and this recent catastrophe even the poorest Haitians I met possessed a quiet powerful dignity. Their courage and faith is inspiring. One night after a long day of work at the clinic, I sat on the outside steps of the hospital to rest. A family with mother, father, children, and grandparents were living on the sidewalk. Although I am not a Christian, their prayers at night, singing songs to Jesus, and asking for his blessing, touched my heart. I sat in the shadows, and took out my Spanish guitar and softly played along. We were less than four meters away from each other. They read their bible with a feeble blue flashlight. Around us were the fallen ruins of buildings, churches, homes, and rubble in the street, the stench of burning garbage. In the midst of this chaos, their beautiful voices rose up and asked Jesus for his blessing. At the last “Amen,” I walked over to them in the dark and gave the father money. I said, “Merci.” Strange, why I should say thank you, but I had been blessed by their dignity, courage, and grace.
The following morning across the street from the clinic, Sunday church service at 6 AM, in an open courtyard surround by ruined buildings, as thousands overflowed and filled the streets. Though many had lost homes, loved ones, and most of their worldly possessions, through some miracle, they dressed in clean and pressed clothes, suit and tie, polished shoes, and pressed dresses. They greeted each other with a sincere handshake, a smile, and a hug.
Songs and prayers in the midst of destruction, apartment houses with the doors and windows intact but lying upside down, at improbable angles. One building intact from the front, but the rear of the building is sheered off, furniture still in place, even a picture frame on the wall. A cement building sliced as if a wedding cake cut with a hot knife and the other half almost perfectly preserved. It is the imperfect logic of nature. The voices of the people rose above the rubble. The evangelical Minister screamed out “Jesus, give us mercy! Jesus, give us courage! Jesus, bless us! Jesus, hear our prayers!” It is an inspiring tent revival service, but there is no tent, only the sky above with blue skies and white puffy clouds serenely pass by.
“Amazing Grace,” sung in Creole by thousands filled my spirit as I treated patients. I gave each patient a homeopathic remedy and felt the remedy itself potentized, made more powerful, by the love and prayers next to me.
I had expected a difficult journey, but despite the lack of water, cold showers when the water was on, voracious mosquitoes, and a few other inconveniences, overall, it was so much easier with the good spirit of the Haitians and my Dominican companion Ruben. My small inconveniences don’t even compare to their lives; I can leave this poverty, they can’t. I had seen hundreds of patients during this stay and though they had lost everything, they opened their hearts and told me a bit of their suffering and lives. I didn’t feel overwhelmed with the devastation; their courage strengthened and fed me. It touched me on a more profound level of humanness– dignity. There is little that is noble about poverty; perhaps, only the courage to live in the present moment, unbowed by the circumstance.
I gave the children a few kazoos and flutes, some crayons and paper, and their faces lit up with surprise. A handful of plastic kazoos, flutes, or penny whistles; it’s as if you gave a violinist a Stradivarius. I played on my guitar they followed on flute and kazoos, a rambunctious chaotic blues! It was delightful to see the adults smiling at this funny scene – this white guy playing guitar and trying to create an orchestra from kazoos, flutes, and penny whistles. The following day I received a present. The kids came over to the clinic area, and gave me two small hard candies in wrappers and said, “Thank you!” Their smiles alone would have been a present enough, and I carefully wrapped the candies in a paper to preserve that memory.
A disaster like this earthquake brings out tremendous kindness, charity and love. My Haitian friend Joe said, “The thing Haiti needs is love! This love, is about changing the character of the country, where the rich and powerful can open their hearts and souls to the people. When we embrace our past and the pain, the power of Agape (love) can heal.” From a former US Army Major turned humanitarian these are powerful words to embrace.
As much as Haiti needs economic assistance, it sorely needs justice as well. The pernicious colonialism of France extorted money from Haiti for 125 years. The United States has a long and sordid history in Haiti: occupation from l915 to l935; active support for the brutal and rapacious dictatorships to follow; its endorsement of virtual slave plantations up to the present, and the US government’s profound allergy to any kind of genuine independent democratic leaders like Aristide. Though the US and international communities are ostensibly generous, it needs to engage in a profound change in the way that it supports and aids Haiti to true economic, political, and social independence. False aid, like charity, robs people of the means to transform their lives. For decades, the US government and the EU, inadvertently or not, funneled aid to the wealthy and well connected who perpetuate their fiefdom.
Haiti is a ravaged beauty: the immense forests have all been denuded, watersheds compromised, top soils depleted by generations of plantations and ignorant agriculture practice. Desperate for fuel and wood, people are still cutting down forests, and less than 1% of the national forests are left. It is difficult to fathom how this desperately impoverished country with very few resources, a high birthrate, generations of poverty and malnutrition, pervasive illiteracy, and the largest pool of the best-educated Haitians living abroad, can make a new tomorrow. Tragically, a law in l987 said that if you have another passport, you lose your Haitian citizenship, and so the Haitian Americans who can be bedrock of a transformation, are not even citizens anymore. Is there a viable future for Haiti and if so who will create it, and who will profit?
The real heroes, if one can use this battered and soiled word “hero,” are the Haitians who wake up every day, feed their children, and sweep the sidewalk in front of whatever place they are sleeping. Haiti has barely survived. There is a tomorrow, but the foundation of tomorrow is tenuous, unless stabilized by a sustained international commitment of resources, money, and investment, and a true commitment to a democratic and pluralistic process.
On the way back to the US I spoke to a young Haitian-American woman from the World Bank based in Washington and asked her if her if she would work in Haiti with all the corruption, dysfunctional governance, etc., and she said, “Maybe, if there is the right project.” Her reticence indicated it would be very difficult to entice this extraordinarily talented woman to work in an environment of such monumental problems and chaos. Those who can leave Haiti do. Where is the talent, vision, spirit and money to genuinely lead this country out of the miasma of this pervasive poverty?
The dignity of faith, courage and love must be part of the necessary vision to guide and create a new Haiti.