On January 25, 2012, I set out on an amazing adventure with 2 old friends and one new one to Haiti in response to the cholera outbreak that took place 2 years and 12 days ago. The journey was long getting there, and their were many unexpected twists in the plans. But one thing I will never forget is how absolutely important human life is, no matter where it is, or where it is from.
Port-Au-Prince Haiti
Joly Guibert, Haiti
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicenter near the town of Léogâne (Ouest Department), approximately 25 kilometers (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince,Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.[7][8]
By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded.[9] An estimated three million people were affected by the quake.[10] Death toll estimates range from 100,000[6] to about 160,000[5] to Haitian government figures from 220,000[11][12] to 316,000 that have been widely characterized as deliberately inflated by the Haitian government.[4] The government of Haiti estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged.[13] There has been a history of national debt, unfair trade policies by other countries, and foreign intervention into national affairs that contributed to the pre-existing poverty and poor housing conditions that exacerbated the death toll.[14]
The earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other settlements in the region. Notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were Archbishop of Port-au-Prince Joseph Serge Miot,[15] and opposition leader Micha Gaillard.[16][17] The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission's Chief, Hédi Annabi.[18][19] -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010Haitiearthquake
“As Albert Camus wrote, the doctor’s role is as a witness – to witness authentically the reality of humanity, and to speak out against the horrors of political inaction... The only crime equaling inhumanity is the crime of indifference, silence, and forgetting.”
We landed in Port-au-Prince after two full days of travel. Landing into the city was exciting, but the excitement stopped once we got off the plan. Chaos was everywhere. Standing in line at customs, people were being herded like cattle through wooden shoots. Armed police kept the incoming guests in order. After our passports were stamped and incoming fees payed (cash only), we were greeted by a hailstorm of aggressive attendants in red shirts. Never have I ever seen people so aggressive and forceful to take bags out of my hands and cary them for me. With our many bags of medical supplies we needed help, it was Rais who yelled at them and chose two to take our bags and a third to call the rest of them off. The scheme succeeded only in us having to pay the three of them instead of all 15.
Through the bumpy and dusty city, evidence of the distraction was immediately apparent. Tents lined the road exiting the airport, and in the down town as well. Busy streets shuttled thousands of cars and taxies, and rubble lined nearly every street.
We arrived at New Live Children's home, a compound funded by churches from the US as a home for children with hydrocephalus and other congenital abnormalities. Their grounds was open, clean, with a garden and fish pond for sustainable food. Our host Merium has been running this place for many years. She has seen the best and worst in Haiti, even hauled out at gunpoint by the military and told to never come back. Well, come back she did, and the children are all the better for it. Part of the financial structure of New Live is they offer housing for missionaries and aide workers visiting Port-au-Prince (PaP). We will bed down here for a night and prepare to leave for Joly Guibert tomorrow.
The next day we were escorted to the airport and met our pilot who will take us to Les Cayes. We chartered a plan from Mission Aviation Fellowship, a non-profit christian mission who supplies air transport for aide workers. We will fly to Les Cayes where another friend in the development world will pick us up and drive us the 4 hours of bumpy road to Joly Guibert. The flight began with a flat tire, something that would have worried any traveler in the US, but here the pilot and the passengers all worked to gather to get a new tire on. This was my chance to meet Dole. Dole Jean Romain is a medical student that Rais had worked with when he came to Haiti the week of the earthquake for the initial response. Dole then was an interpreter and very interested student of medicine, and the relationship between him and Rais was set after that. Now 2 years later, Dole and Rase are together again. Dole had never flown in a plan until today. Though he said he was nervous, he did not let it show; and as we lifted over the destruction of PaP he was starring out the window with the rest of us.
Flying over Haiti's rural country side, the deforestation is severe
From the air, Haiti was a very different place. On the ground, natures distruction of homes is everywhere as the rubble of the earthquake remains uncleared. The suffering of people seams everywhere. But from the air, its a very different story. From the air, we see mankind's distraction of nature. Acres and acres of land is deforested throughout haiti. The topography is beautiful. As the Hatian proverb states, "Beyond the mountain there are mountains", here there are lots of beautiful mountains. Each valley, each meadow, each passable hillside ravaged for vegetation as the people harvested for firewood and housing. In a country who's history reads like an abused child growing up in abusive foster care, the local people have had to do whatever they could to survive. For that, no one can fault them for cutting down the trees.
After we landed in Les Cayes, the trip transformed. This was the first time I ever traveled to offer humanitarian aide of any kind. Planning, packing, flying to florida, arriving in haiti, even spending the night in an orphanage was all like being in a train watching the world go by. The moment we stepped off the truck in Joly Guibert, I was no longer a passenger. These people, and their problems, were now right next to me. Their dirt, their disease, their food, their tears now stain my clothes. My first night I stayed up with a man to give him IV antibiotics every 6 hours, over an hour, by hand. Children, orphans were everywhere. Before the earthquake, 15% of all children were orphaned or abandoned, the day of the earthquake that number doubled. They were everywhere, everyday.
Children walk home from school along a typical road in the mountains of Haiti.
The experiences, the lessons, the heartbreak was truly beyond words. Political injustice, non-profits that operate as silos creating inefficiencies and waste, corruption as a form of survival. In a maddening rush to decompress the experience I made a short film about the experience, though I still can not share what this trip opened up to me. In life, there are things that you know and things you don't. And there are things that you can't ever un-know. The reality for these people is unlike anything I have ever imagined before. Standing beside them for 2 weeks gave me a perspective I am both grateful for, and horrified by. How thankful I am for running water. How thankful I am that healthcare is available. How thankful I am that I can learn and read dream and work toward my goals. How embarrassed I am that I waste more in a day then what sustains a family in a week.
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