Many of you have been emailing me, tweeting me and simply asking me in person about my trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The question typically starts off – “How was your trip?” – My answer remains the same – “I don’t know how to answer that question.” I have been on so many mission trips in my lifetime, but this one was different. Every trip has been different, but this trip disturbed me in a different way. One that may not get a happy reaction from some, but everything I am about to say is the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts.
It was the first time that I have ventured into Haiti. Even when I lived in the Dominican Republic for 2 years – I never crossed the border. I was appalled by so many things. Yes – the destruction is still everywhere – that in and of itself is disturbing to any human being. The news cannot portray a million people in tents. The news cannot show how over 3000 convicted murderers and rapists (set free by the damaged prison during the earthquake) are killing and raping people to take their tents away from them. The news cannot show how children are no longer going to school for fear of another earthquake. The news cannot show naked women running in the street after losing their minds having their families killed by buildings. None of it makes any sense. There is no real government to speak of. The situation is unspeakable, more people will die…tents were not made to be permanent residences.
The photo below is when we first got off the bus and walked around the national cathedral in Port Au Prince – a couple of blocks away from the destroyed National Palace. The destruction is reminiscent of the earthquake that took place in Nicaragua in 1972. When I went to Nicaragua in 1991 – I saw the national cathedral in Managua – still gutted, no roof – but the place where one would go to find prostitutes. I am wondering what will become of this structure, which was built in the middle of the 1800’s. The history of this city is beyond words. I thought I was going to vomit as Nuris (our missionary guide and friend of my family) explained how she drove by the cathedral 3 days after the earthquake and saw bodies at the door – half inside and half outside. It took 6 weeks for the cadavers to be picked up off the streets – but there are buildings everywhere that have not been cleaned up – meaning bodies still remain under these flattened edifices. I did not see a ton of construction equipment. I saw maybe 3 cranes off in the distance in this relatively flat city. Bulldozers could only be found in the areas where they were making new space for a new tent area.
I don’t see an easy solution for Haitians. Here are a few of my thoughts after hearing about various issues as translated from my friend Nuris. 1st – they need to amend their constitution which states that no foreign investor can buy land in Haiti. Which means there are no well-known brand name hotels in Haiti – leaving tourists scared to even come and visit – never mind the tremendous amount of growth and tourism that could arise from it. Amending it would be easy to do – but I feel the government does not like change – which is certainly evident in the way the country has been run for years. 2nd – there needs to be a better solution than tents. Several years ago the earth sunk inward after a terrible earthquake in La Vega in the Dominican Republic…you know what they did? They moved everyone to a different part of the Dominican Republic and named it La Vega. They need to do this in Port Au Prince. Yes – that sounds crazy – but another earthquake will come. The earth did not open with this last earthquake – which means another one is coming as the pressure is still building underneath. More people will die – some already have in the aftershocks. Damns were broken, roads were washed out near the border – it is only a matter of time until the one road they have going into Haiti from the DR will be gone. The UN cannot be the government and the current government is doing nothing. The United States is running the airport. Several countries are guarding and providing food for various tent cities – Canada, Japan, US, etc…Time, money, food and tents will fall short. What will happen then? More people will die. People are bathing in the streets while others are defecating in the streets at the same time. Disease, murder and rape are rampant right now – how much more can they handle? I am telling you – they are on the brink of another natural disaster or civil war.
I am not saying I know the answer…I am saying if you have forgotten about Haiti – don’t! Find an organization that you believe in and donate to it regularly. Don’t just stop at a $10 donation from your cell phone! What does that do? Do you go to Starbucks every day? That’s probably costing you at least $20/week! Just make a commitment to whatever organization to donate $10/month or $20/month and have it taken out of your account every month along with your insurance payments. I am committing to helping Nuris (pictured below here) buy her new mini bus. She has one now – but it does not work well and she needs a better one to help take more items into Haiti and to take people like me into Haiti. She needs about $10,000 to get a good used mini bus. She protected us, translated Creole into Spanish for me to translate into English. She knows everything there is to know about the history, culture and information needed for work teams into Haiti. I will be going back in December to bring her stuff and to spend time with my family in the Dominican Republic as well.
I am not allowing comments on this post as I don’t want this to be a political forum and I don’t want any accolades for doing this trip. Going back to the first statement of this post – this trip was hard for me – I am still processing. I am longing to be there to help…knowing at the same time I am not in a place in my life that I can be a missionary again. Will I be a missionary again when I move back to the DR in about 10-15 years to retire – maybe. Will that whole island be on my mind every day? Yes. I am watching organizations and reading all that I can. But I am asking you not to forget that an unspeakable amount of people are still suffering in Haiti and it is only going to get worse as more and more people chose to forget about it to numb the conscience. Don’t give up on sending more money for tents, water, clothes and just plain admin help to get stuff to Haiti – which is a freakin’ nightmare. If you want to know more, I will sit down with you to talk about it. My experience was unique in the fact that I had to translate the entire time and grieve while doing it…so it was not until I came back that I actually had time to really think through things. Maybe together we can come up with solutions. We helped in our own small ways by being with children in orphanages and helping a small church in Santo Domingo that is reaching out to refugee families. We also took 10 suitcases worth of small medical supplies, toys, baby clothes, over 700 toothbrushes with toothpaste and other small bathing sundries into Port Au Prince. Did we even make a dent? A tiny one…but most of all – we brought some hope to some desperate people. And now…bringing information back to people like you. Thanks for reading this long post. Thanks for your support and my hope is that you will continue to support the people of Haiti! I want to give a big thank you to Neezar Samara for providing the images in this post!
Katie
