March 25th, 2010

Haiti is starting to recover. Not so much physically-- there are still hundreds and hundreds of flattened buildings, rubble in the street and large formations of concrete and rebar dangling from tilted houses like man made stalactites. No, the recovery is in the people. There are smiles again. As I greeted our staff at our guest house, the one remaining building HHHIF has, I was met with hugs, smiles and just a bit of the old familiar sparkle in their eyes. It did my heart good. The people are why I keep coming back to Haiti. They have a spirit of resiliency and even joy in the face of living conditions that would drive the average North American right over the edge. Every single person that I greeted today had lost a family member --Every single one. Either, an aunt, a cousin, niece or nephew, father, mother, brother or sister. "Min, moua memn te sove, gras a Die" (But I was saved, thank God). Most of us would find it hard to thank God for anything after what they have all been through.
We showed the new members of our team around our compound. The 70' tall trees are still standing and beautiful. If you go to the bottom of our compound you can't see the collapsed 5 story apartment building or the precariously teetering clinic building. Our MASH tent is set up underneath the trees in the grass. There is enough beauty left for our first time team members to get a glimpse of how nice our clinic compound was before the quake. If you squint your eyes, look up through the trees, and avoid looking at the garbage strewn in the river below our feet, you can imagine a Haiti that could be: tropical foliage, hibiscus and bougainvillea, bright blue skies and an even bluer ocean off in the distance. But, if you open your eyes you will see that the people who lived in the bidonville across the river from our compound have crossed the river and erected new wooden shacks with blue tarp roofs right up next to our fence. We have had to put up razor wire to keep them out. This represents one of the moral headaches of Haiti. We feel badly about keeping the children off of our property. They used to come over at dusk and play on the grass under our trees. Gail, our volunteer team coordinator had a stable of 16 who would come over in the morning, help her open the tent, pick up garbage and do other errands in exchange for a vitamin tablet and a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast. Since we put up the razor wire they don't come over anymore. If we didn't put up the razor wire, no doubt one bold soul would have put up a shack, then another and over night we would have 200 squatters on our property. When it came time to rebuild, we would be faced with destroying the homes of hundreds of people.
I went to a meeting of all the groups focused on rehabilitation in Haiti this afternoon. If they stay in Haiti (there are rumors that most will be gone by the end of July), then working together, we can make a real dent in providing rehabilitation to those thousands who need it. If they don't stay, then Healing Hands for Haiti will do the best we can with what we have. We always have.