Like many of you, I was burrowing last night, just another nightly edition of the weeks’ long effort to avoid the cold here in the frozen Northeast. Flipping from channel to channel couldn’t relieve the boredom (though I’ve got access to about 2,000 of them). Even the classic movie channel failed me, as I have seen most of its offerings lately over the holiday. Then the news got my attention. A massive earthquake had hit very close to Haiti’s capital Port- au-Prince.
I know from experience (a college friend of mine is from that country) that even in what passes for ‘normal’ times down there, the infrastructure and everyday abilities to cope are limited – Haiti has stagnated on the list as one of the poorest nations on earth for years. Even before any additional trauma is inflicted, access to sanitation and clean water, medical care, and education is precarious at best. To be blunt, there are not many worse places on earth for this sort of disaster to strike.
Haiti itself is not prone to earthquakes, so while its citizens are randomly challenged regularly to withstand the effects of hurricanes and flooding, this sort of calamity is somewhat new to them and very unwelcome. There are few capacities to move the massive amounts of rubble that now lies throughout the city. Telephone service, which relied mostly on local cellular carriers, is handicapped. The government there is one usually euphemistically described as unstable or fragile. (Glass is fragile, Haiti has the same ingredients for volatility as hydrogen – a low boiling point, resulting from decades of miserable poverty, illiteracy, disease and disenfranchisement). Many of those who would normally be called upon to lead recovery efforts are themselves missing, buried, or presumed dead.
Whatever deficiencies the political system and lack of daily conveniences bestow upon Haiti, they have not infected the people. Haitians are a warm, open, welcoming people that automatically greet you with a wide smile. Their culture shines through the deprivation and surrounds you with color, music and an island oomph! that cheers you long after you have left the little country’s embrace. Maybe one of the reasons I’ve always like Haiti is that, like their local patois, they seem to effortlessly mix and blend all sort of influences to create a mini United Nations of experiences.
Aside from contributing to this site, I work for one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations. We’ve worked in Haiti for over 50 years. It remains one of the most intractable of areas, in terms of pushing through progress, yet progress has been made steadily, even as the hand of help has gotten slapped back, time after time – in 2008 alone the country suffered from 4 hurricanes. So, I fear for my colleagues, I fear for the people of Haiti, even while I long to return.
In the coming days, after the first assessments have been made, the real work will begin. In a place where clean water was already sometimes difficult to find, dysentery and disease will strike the survivors. Hospitals, already ill-equipped, are overwhelmed and likely to grind to a standstill, as those still emerging come forward for help. Weeks out, shelter will be a difficult priority in a city where initial reports say half or maybe more of all structures have been lost. My agency sent me to Indonesia two years after the tsunami hit, and the destruction was still starkly evident – unfortunately I foresee the same for this poor Caribbean nation.
Haiti was never a destination for the traveler expecting sophistication – landmark spas and almost sterile hotels, but it has been an excellent choice for the sophisticated traveler – the ones who are hip to the world’s realities and can survive amidst a little chaos in order to experience a breathtaking sunset, undisturbed beauty (the mountain sights are phenomenal), some of the world’s most hospitable people, great food, gorgeous beaches, and a genuine sense that you can still go back in time, somewhere. My hope is that the day will come when the country is recovered from this most recent insult and I am lying on the beach enjoying the luciousness of Petit Goaves, or trekking up to the mermerizing view from the Citadelle Laferriere perched atop the mountain.
Please give now, and return later.
Here is a list of aid organizations compiled by Fox News.
