A Letter from Haiti from our former Youth Director, Emily Welty
Dear friends,
Many, many of you have asked me to reflect on the most recent trip to
Haiti and I wish that I had the time and energy to have a long tea
during a sunny spring afternoon with every one of you to share the
story and catch up on your lives. but since I can't do that, I thought
I would sit down and try to write one reflection that would try to
capture in a few words, something that feels quite without words....My
apologies for the mass email.....
To go to Haiti is to carry the question "how is Haiti?" with you. In
the aftermath of the earthquake, those of us who travel to the region,
do so knowing that we have a moral obligation to tell the story upon
our return. I hope that this reflection begins to answer that question
as well as I am able.
Background or Why we were in Haiti:
For those of you who I have fallen slightly out of touch with, a
little bit of context may be important. Mateo is currently working as
the Haiti Emergency Coordinator for Outreach International, a
development NGO based in the US. He began this job in January and has
been spending about a third of his time based in Haiti and the other
2/3s based in London with me. This April trip was my first trip to
Haiti and I was working as a consultant doing both a gender analysis
as well as some faith-based NGO analysis for the same NGO. (The rest
of my normal life continues to be wrapped up in the seemingly endless
task of writing my dissertation in the hopes that this is my last year
as a PhD student.)
To stand in an immigration line, passport in hand is always the moment
in my life in which I feel most cognizant of my nationality - I enter
Haiti as an American, a neighbour to the north, a neighbour who has
not always been as charitable and loving as I should have been. To
board a UN humanitarian flight, for me, is to hold my nationality in
one hand and my responsibility as a world citizen in the other - to
enter Haiti with the obligation to work as hard as I am able to do
something. On top of this, my deeply-felt identity as a person of
faith, means that I also enter Haiti as a believer, as a person with a
sense of obligation to be the hands of God in the world, whatever that
means, however that can be possible.
So, how is Haiti?
Hot. I know that sounds trite and simple but it is the most
unavoidable and deeply physical reaction that an outsider experiences.
It is exhaustingly, blindingly hot - the kind of heat that wrings your
body dry of sweat and leaves you feeling dusty, dry and wrung out.
Broken. I think that I can honestly say, upon reflection that
Haiti is the most difficult situation I have ever encountered. The degree of
loss, devastation and tragedy is overwhelming. It is not often that I
think that media understates circumstances but this is one case in
which I think that is true. Everything that you have read about the
degree of loss is probably true. Haiti is street after street of
collapsed buildings, rubble and people camping under tarps next to the
remains of their lives pre-January.
Traumatized. No one is unaffected by the earthquake. During our
time there, I did not meet a single Haitian who was untouched by the
tragedy. Everyone has lost a family member, a friend or a part of
their own body. Everyone is left wondering why they survived while
others died. Everyone saw something that they are hoping to erase from
their memory. Many people cannot go inside any of the remaining
buildings, even if they are deemed structurally unsound, because of
the degree of terror and panic they experience as a result of the
post-traumatic stress of what they experienced.
Active. In spite of the losses, people are moving around on the
streets. People are selling mangoes. People are trying to clear
rubble. People are taking public transportation. During the day, life
continues - irreparably altered but still moving.
Entrenched in a history of social and political problems. It was
difficult for me to try to understand and sort out which problems that
I was seeing/hearing that were a result of the earthquake and which
were part of the already desperate situation that existed in Haiti
before. This much is clear. Haiti was already the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere and has a population which has suffered both
physical and structural violence in terms of political systems,
international debt, corruption, and the violence of poverty. Haitians
demonstrate a deep distrust of government and institutions with good
reason.
Grounded in community. While there is distrust of official
institutions, Haitians are supported by networks of friends,
neighbours and families which serve as a place of love and acceptance.
On one street, outside a two-story pile of rocks which used to be a
store, there is a broken mirror that had been hung on a nail. I
watched as a line of women formed before the mirror, each taking a
turn to evaluate and adjust their hairstyle and share the morning's
news. It was a simple and moving testament to the power of human
beings to continue to love and support one another in the midst of the
unimaginable.
Confusing. The depth and complexity of Haitian society, like any
society, would take years to fully understand. Creole, the language
spoken by most Haitians, is a blend of French and several West African
languages - a fascinating linguistic study in the ongoing resilience
of a people bent but not broken by the violent history of slavery. To
the outsider, Creole sounds musical but I confess that my basic French
could not even begin to serve as a viable way for me to understand any
of the overheard talk around me.
I don't know that I have answered anything at all by answering the
question, how is Haiti? I wonder if just sharing a few of the moments
that I experienced, convey the experience more.
Hearing the story of a nine year old girl - someone's sister,
someone's daughter, someone's cousin, someone's friend - who was
crushed to death while dancing for her mother the day of the
earthquake. Just one loss, refracted through many angles, creasing the
human heart for the loss of this individual - unable to comprehend the
magnitude of this loss multiplied by some 100,000+ people estimated to
have died in this event.
A Haitian friend asks me honestly what I study. Me stumbling and
awkward, deeply ashamed to report on so much education, so much
privilege and to feel that I have so little to tangibly offer.
Holding a community forum for women to share their experiences.
Standing at the front of 100 women, microphone trembling in hand,
translator by my side - hearing Creole shouted from all sides. Turning
helplessly to the translator for help and having him simply shrug and
say - they all want housing. Not knowing what to say. Nothing to
promise except to tell the story. Trying to ask them to believe in
their own capacity to exercise agency and choice in their lives.
Telling them that I believe in their strength. Women surrounding me
afterwards and asking me for work, not for money, not for visas, but
asking for an opportunity to work.
An enormous tension between how Mateo and I should keep
ourselves
healthy and safe and the desire to share community as fully as
possible with Haitians. Knowing that the mosquitoes who endlessly
plague all of us at night will likely not infect us with malaria due
to our access to cholorquine. Knowing that may not be true for our
Haitian colleagues. Being served a fish that we knew at the time would
probably make us feel sick later but feeling bound by humility and
loyalty to eat what was prepared, served and shared in love.
One sandwich. Me, four women and a cat. Me feeling faint and
dizzy
with hunger and yet unable to eat in front of others who cannot. A
sandwich divided five ways. A starving little bony cat begging at my
feet. Me scoffing at it, refusing it, unable to comprehend a way to be
more generous. "No," I tell the cat. "I don't feed animals when people
can't eat. Sorry. No." And then this - one woman ripping off a piece
of the sandwich and offering it to the ecstatic cat. She speaks to it,
offering her yes, her bit of grace in the midst of my refusal. Me
ashamed by my own limitations, my own bounded concept of generosity.
My tongue bound by English and theirs bound by Creole. I say something
about grace and my own limitations. The women saying something which I
imagine to be about boundless love, the ability to care beyond one's
own pain and limitations.
What do we do about Haiti?
The rebuilding and reconstruction of Haiti is a process which will
likely take ten to fifteen years. Already the world has moved slowly
on, the memory of the earthquake receding into the next disaster, the
next oil spill, the next near-miss. But Haiti will need our
commitment, our partnership for a long time. Right now, rebuilding is
still a long way off and will require the devotion of time and
resources to first clear thousands of tons of broken concrete before
anyone can even begin to think about rebuilding homes, schools,
workplaces.
If you want to help Haiti, make a donation to any agency that you
trust that is working in Haiti. Five dollars helps. Ten dollars helps.
A hundred dollars helps. My list of most-trusted agencies includes:
the Mennonite Central Committee, the Red Cross/Red Crescent society,
Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders and the NGO we work
for, Outreach International.
I would also strongly urge that unless
you are a professional architect, construction worker, doctor or are
employed by an agency already working in Haiti, now is NOT the time to
go to Haiti on a short-term mission. The resources used in sending one
well-intentioned outsider to Haiti to see the situation can be used to
employ several Haitians for several years. I know this sounds brutal
and callous but I think it is important. Hold car washes, auctions,
garage sales, fundraisers wherever you are right now. Send money.
Pray. Don't forget about Haiti. I wish that every church altar,
synagogue bimah and mosque minbars in the US had a small piece of
Haitian rubble on it to remind us to continue to hold our brothers and
sisters in Haiti in our hearts and in our prayers.