Haiti H2O

This was my first time in Haiti since the earthquake. We walked off the plane–not down the steps and across the blazing hot tarmac as on past trips, before the airport was destroyed by the earthquake, but through a jetway, inside an air conditioned building and down the escalator! We were then quickly rerouted to a crowded little van that shuttled us to a nearby hanger, which served as the baggage claim and customs area. We waited, watched and sweated. Garage doors rolled part way up and luggage was scooted under piece by piece.

The broken and fallen buildings were like a bread crumb trail, winding through the streets of Port au Prince and leading to the epicenter at Leogane. Watching the coverage on television, I could imagine that the images were a series of disconnected shots strung together to emphasize the destruction. Driving through the actual streets was much more overwhelming. Yet there were still whole buildings interspersed among the fallen, and life had returned to the sidewalk markets as well. Ladies had set up their little wooden tables piled high with household items for sale. On the ground were little pyramids of oranges, mangos and potatoes. People walked everywhere. Two men cutting a tire apart with a kitchen knife to make gaskets yelled at me for taking their picture. They said I’d make money off the picture and they wanted to be paid. If a picture is worth a thousand bucks, I later thought to myself, I’d pay off Haiti’s odious debt tomorrow.

It was almost as if when you squinted your eyes, it was just another day downtown. But then we’d drive by one of the tent cities that had mushroomed into existence wherever there was an open flat space. Then, even if you squeezed your eyes closed, you couldn’t erase the image emblazoned on your retina. Conditions are bad and they are only going to get worse during the rainy season .

The quake was centered just 15 miles outside of Port au Prince, however the reverberations are still being felt throughout the whole country. Not only was PAP the capital of the country, it was the main artery, everything that came into the country flowed through its port. PAP was the destination of all who had any hopes of higher education, a professional career, or even just a job waiting tables, pumping gas or working in one of the few remaining factories, anything to get beyond subsistence living.

The community of Baissin Caiman is about 100 miles west of PAP. We talked to several people who literally felt the ground tremble, but mercifully the church, school, bread oven and outhouse, which we had helped construct, stood firm. Their economy, however, was shaken. The main occupation of the people in this community of about 7,000 people is to make charcoal, which is sold in the city. After the earthquake, the trucks that came to fill up on charcoal diminished. The engine of Port au Prince had sputtered, and with everyone concentrating on rescue and recovery the demand decreased. Times that were lean before January 12 have become even tighter for rural Haitians.

As we walked around the community, Pastor Celonde explained that they had received much more damage from the deluge of rain that caused flooding the previous week. We talked to Sainmillia who told us that th

e rain had stripped the clay stucco, leaving exposed woven thatch for the entire wall of her 13-foot by 18-foot hut. The hut doesn’t have a foundation, so water flowed right through her house, smoothing out the clay floor. As I looked up, I saw a termite nest about two feet in diameter built into the thatch roof. “How can people live like this?” This refrain grows louder in my mind with each new sight.

In Les Cayes, Pastor Paul Touloute, another one of our partners, described the affects the earthquake has had on the South, and on his ministry in particular. “Ministering in Haiti has always been a challenge,” he says, “and many people will go to the Pastor for family problems, house problems, health problems, school problems—all kinds of things, and they expect the Pastor to meet all of their needs. Since we have so little resources, it has always been a challenge. What the earthquake has done, it has just made matters worse.”

Our group surveyed a soccer field in Les Cayes, which was home to about 80 tents, all of them filled by people who had left Port au Prince in droves in hopes of reaching some medical attention, which wasn’t easily available in Port au Prince. The flooding then drove them inside Pastor Paul’s church.

Pastor Paul notes that local families have also had to take in many more people – relatives and others fleeing PAP – than their homes are built to handle. “They have to crunch themselves up to accommodate all these people who are from PAP. And since they came with nothing, [the pastor] has to provide food, clothing, all kinds of things.”

“And this is not the worst,” he adds. “Some of them may be in hospitals here, Les Cayes, in City Lumiere, and in Bon Fin. And since they have no one to provide for them, their family has the obligation to borrow money, to do whatever is possible to provide for these people. And when this happens with my parishioners, what do they do? They come to the Pastor. So it has put us, in the church leadership, in a very awkward situation.”

Fortunately, Pastor Celonde and Pastor Paul and other local leaders continue to serve, even if with limited material resources. They’re the ones with the natural capacity to lead here, with the community roots and connections necessary for addressing peoples’ needs. I’m reminded again that as a partner, Haiti H20’s role isn’t to lead these communities, but to come alongside these local leaders and support their work.

“Thank goodness,” Pastor Paul adds, “most of the time we have been able to help. Most of the time we cannot meet the financial, the economic problems, but we can talk to the person and help them see things from a different perspective.”