Posts Tagged ‘Haiti’

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Join the Conversation about Haiti

Friday, February 10th, 2012

If you have been following our social media channels lately, you may be asking yourself what is this #Haiti365 stuff? It is a good thing you are reading our blog today because we are about to tell you exactly why we are talking about this and why HandsOn Network love this campaign.

For the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, UNICEF USA wanted to show the country’s resilience and bring to light the daily challenges Haitian people still face daily. UNICEF USA decided to solve their desire through the use of social media to bring attention back to Haiti.

UNICEF USA brought the voices of Haiti’s youth to the attention of viewers through their Haiti365 Conversation project. Haiti365 has become a unique forum for viewers to respond to children’s questions about various topics such as gender equality, education, and Justin Bieber. UNICEF believes that youth are central to the recovery of Haiti, and through this project they can bring current issues to the world’s attention.

How did this project get started?

Last summer, UNICEF selected a group of young people to attend a high level summit on youth at the United Nations. For most of the Haitian youth who attended the summit, it was their first time ever visiting the United States.

The children had many questions for the General Assembly and the United Nations Round Table discussion on climate change about the state of their country and its recovery.

After the children addressed the United Nations, they had questions for their international peers. That is where the Haiti365 conversation comes into action.

How can you get involved?

Interested viewers can visit the Haiti365 website to join the conversation. Visitors to the website have the option of listening and responding to one or more of the 12 questions posed by Haitian youth. Those asking the questions are either children in the range of 9 to 11 years old or young adults 19 to 22 years old.

Viewers have the option of responding to the videos by text or video recording. Viewers also have the option of asking a peer in Haiti a question of interest. UNICEF USA will also send out text messages with questions from Haitian youth that can be answered by subscribers. Those who respond to the questions also have the option of responding in Creole or English depending on preference.

This campaign is a great way to get the conversation about Haiti’s recovery started. Who knows the impact that your question or answer can make on the future! UNICEF’s campaign is a great way to raise awareness for the country of Haiti. Please join us in bringing attention to the conversation; your participation will make a huge impression especially on the children of Haiti!

About UNICEF:

UNICEF has saved more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization in the world. Working in more than 150 countries, UNICEF provides children with health and immunizations, clean water, nutrition, education, emergency and disaster relief, and more. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF supports UNICEF’s work through fundraising, advocacy, and education in the United States.

UNICEF is at the forefront of efforts to reduce child mortality worldwide. There has been substantial progress: the annual number of under-five deaths dropped from more than 12 million in 1990 to 7.6 million in 2010. But still, 21,000 children die each day from preventable causes. Our mission is to do whatever it takes to make that number zero by giving children the essentials for a safe and healthy childhood.

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Posted in Disaster Relief, Neighboring, Social Media, Voice of Change | No Comments »

What Happens When the World’s Poorest People Volunteer?

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post on November 30, 2011. Today’s guest post was written by Uma Viswanathan who is the program director of Nouvelle Vie Haiti, International Association for Human Values. She has lead many youth and adult workshops ranging from stress management to trauma-relief. She received her M.A. in History of Science from Harvard University.

It’s early November, and I’m sitting in the vast auditorium at UniNorte University in Barranquilla, Colombia, listening to Accion Social present on Colombia’s extreme poor at the International Association for Volunteer Empowerment (IAVE)’s World Youth Summit. Lesly sits across the aisle from me, now a leadership and empowerment trainer through Nouvelle Vie. His back is straight as he leans forward, staring intently at the PowerPoint presentation, listening carefully to the English translation on his headphones. “Imagine living in a small one-room house with no running water, no electricity, struggling to eat every single day,” says the speaker. This exercise is not much of a stretch for Lesly’s imagination.

Lesly and I have been invited to the conference to speak on sustainable development through personal transformation. It is the first time Lesly, age 29, has ever left Haiti. It is the first time he has experienced an environment that has smooth clean roads, shiny university buildings, and steady access to electricity and internet. Putting myself in his shoes, I can understand why the vast majority of young adults from developing countries escape to wealthier countries, never to return home.

“What did you think of the presentation?” I ask him as we leave the auditorium.

“I never knew that poverty existed outside of Haiti,” he says.

He sounds uplifted, somehow.

“People everywhere are suffering, but people everywhere are also helping. I’m not alone. We’re all in this together, helping each other rise above this.”

“How do feel when you come to a country and interact with people who have so much?” I ask him later that evening. We are walking around the pool at the Hotel del Prado, a beautiful sprawling 18th century colonial hotel.

Lesly pauses thoughtfully. “Every country has its strengths. Some are material. Some are not. I don’t worry about it. What I do know is that my real strength lies in my own mind. There are people all over the world who are unhappy and who feel powerless to do something about it. But I know that if my mind is on what I don’t have, I am powerless. When I volunteer, when I think about what I can give to others, I realize how much I do have.”

It’s easy for someone like me to volunteer. I grew up in Westchester, an affluent suburb of New York, went to a great university, and live in a warm, comfortable house with a steady supply of healthy food, clean water and electricity. But what does it mean for Lesly to volunteer? What does it mean when some of the world’s poorest people volunteer?

Volunteering or selfless service is a frame of mind. It is an attitude of continually working to improve lives and the environment around you, without demanding or expecting reward.

Most people don’t expect the poor to volunteer. How can people who don’t have their basic needs taken care of think beyond their own survival? How can they have the frame of mind to care about the needs of those around them? The burden of responsibility for taking care of one’s neighbor typically falls onto civic, humanitarian or religious institutions. But what happens when these systems fail, as they usually do, due to corruption or poor planning or lack of funds? Blame. Frustration. Powerlessness. Hopelessness. Revolt.

Unless the communities that typically receive services begin to serve, to stretch more than just their hands but their own hearts, they cannot experience the power they have to transform their own lives and own communities.

Being a volunteer, serving selflessly, is a position of power. It moves you from being a victim to being an agent of change. It makes you unshakable. Because your actions are driven by inspiration, not external motivation, you do not wait for someone to guide you or reward you. The moment you stop waiting, stop complaining, stop blaming, and start taking responsibility for the life and people around you, you begin to grow. And the seed for innovation and creative problem-solving is planted in local leaders.

Jobs aren’t available in Haiti, like in many countries with struggling economies. But that doesn’t mean that communities have to wait for a job in order to address their own needs. Like Lesly, they can grow their own food from saved seeds and compost on their rooftops. They don’t have to wait for an international health worker to run a workshop for them on the use of condoms. Like Lesly, they can develop peer sexuality workshops to explore the reasons why they are escaping their lives through sex, which leads to rampant AIDS and unwanted pregnancy. And when the resources come from the outside and are created from within, when more training and opportunities come, the community will know who should be in charge. The new leaders will already be in place to use these resources wisely, to expand and grow what has already started.

Selfless service is a practice that reinforces a set of human values that transcend culture, religion, and nationality. It builds leaders who will find a way to serve their community whether we invest in them or not. Educational background, technical skills or knowledge, though necessary, are not enough to create successful local leadership. They must be coupled with the nurturing of human values and an ethic of service.

If we are waiting for leaders and entrepreneurs to rise up out of communities, we need to raise the bar and support programs that train and support individuals to serve their own communities, not just because they may create jobs for themselves and others. We need to support people who feel so much responsibility for their communities that they must serve, and solve problems in integrated, holistic ways.

“When will we stop asking for money from the World Bank and asking for aid from NGOs and foreigners?” asked Samson, one of Lesly’s fellow Nouvelle Vie youth leaders, at the World Bank Summit on youth leadership with the Haitian government last fall. “When will we do this on our own?”

This is the attitude with which, in concert with the growing global networks of financial and support, leaders will pave their own communities’ way out of poverty.

On the way to the airport, I ask Lesly how he feels about returning back to Haiti. He responds: “I was born where I was born so that I could serve Haiti. I can now give to Haiti a vision of something bigger.”

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Special Moments, Volunteering in Haiti, part four

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

Human Dignity

I was the last person in the Tap-Tap the other day, the crowded little pick up truck used for the local transportation system, on my way back to my volunteer housing.

As usual a mix of kids were coming back from school and people were returning from work.

We all smiled at each other and talked a little.

So many people are living day to day here.

At one point, I shared the tap tap with three women and one of them seemed very poor.

Her skirt was clean but in pieces and her tee shirt might have been nice a long time ago.

She carried a big bucket of water and a plastic bag of fruits that she was probably selling in the market during the day.

She smiled at me, in a shy and sad way.

So far I have not given money to the kids that ask for it from time to time.  They don’t insist, but they figure I am worth the try.

Sitting across from the woman in tatters, the children’s requests were on my mind.

Should I give the woman money, I wondered. And if so how much would it take to change her week?

What about the other two women riding the tap tap? They look much better off but I know that life isn’t easy here and everybody is in a kind of permanent survival mode.

What if I offend the woman I want to help?

Orphanage in Port-Au-Prince

The organization I’m volunteering with is in regular contact with various Haitian orphanages.

Today I visited one of them in PAP.

I walked down a crowded street with a market on each side along high walls.

A sign from a now crumbled hotel hangs over a large, metal door.

Inside, I saw a huge, wild  field surrounded by walls.

At the front of the field there were three tents – two plastic and one large, military style fabric tent.

They were all empty.

The lady in charge of the orphanage welcomed me and explained that the orphanage takes care of forty girls aged four to eighteen.

All of the girls go to school and the orphanage staff are proud of that.

There were two showers at the end of the wild garden and an open air rest room.

The fabric tent, as it turned out, was the bedroom for all forty of the girls and the plastic tents were the dining room and the place to work on home work.

There were no beds.

There were three chairs around the long eating table and four low benches for homework.

There were no toys.

Various clothes of all sizes dried in the sun.

A small pile of knock off crocs shoes in all sizes were strewn on the ground.

The orphanages  previous building was completely destroyed by the earthquake, along with all of the items that were inside.

I was not expecting so much distress.

The list of  items that the orphanage needs is so long!

I have tears on my eyes as I stand there with my meager gift for the girls.

How can I help them?

How much money would it take?

I wonder what organization I can put them in contact with?

I worry about what will happen if the hurricane season blows all tents away.

After I left, I thought of this orphanage all day long and felt terrible.

Later, I received a phone call.

A cousin of a Haitian friend based in Paris that I met during the week-end called for news from my visit.

I shared what I saw there with him.

He used to work in the export of Haitian furniture exporting furniture and is the founder of a foundation created to increase tourism in Haiti.

He knows a lot of people here.

He promises to help me find whatever is needed for the orphanage and I feel a bit relieved and hopeful.

My little friend

She is six years old at best and wearing a lovely white dress that is too short for her.

Her hair well organized with cute ribbons and hair ties of different colors.

She comes to the feeding center every day after school because her mum helps out there.

She is shy and didn’t want to talk to me at first.

I am too white, too different I guess.

I kept smiling and talking to her and slowly we learned each other.

Yesterday we had fun reading together and reviewing numbers.

She jumps at me when she sees me now, kisses me and says, “Bonjour!”

Her eyes sparkle with fun.

I hope her Mum will continue to have the money for her to go to school.

She deserves a better life and I want to help her get it.

Quiet time

After a day spent riding a tap tap for one to two hours and another three hours working in the feeding center, all the volunteers are hot, dusty, sweaty, thirsty, tired and burned by the sun.

My hair is a battle field.

The questions plaguing us all is will we have water and electricity back at home?

Nobody knows why and how, but the electricity and water go on and off without warning.

Some days we have it and some days we don’t.

In our countries we take such things for granted, but here, in Haiti, we suddenly understand the value of it.

Enjoy your comfort today and recognize that half the people on the planet do without!

After taking a cold shower, I sat on the floor of the terrace with a beautiful view on Port-au-Prince and the surrounding mountains.

A cool wind blew.

We, the volunteers and now friends, shared  our day, our “special moments” and our questions.

We drank a little bit of wine left by a previous guest, what a treat!!!

We promised each other that we will continue to help Haiti and the Haitians, that we will find the money needed for eight to ten kids from the feeding center to go to school in September.

We promised each other that we will share how incredible the country is for tourism with the very low crime rate and beautiful beaches and landscape.

We promised each other we will continue to support the local nonprofit organizations we met here.

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Posted in Disaster Relief, Inspire, Service, Stories from the Road, Volunteer Reflection, Volunteering, Volunteerism | 1 Comment »

La Cantine du Père Jean Juste, Volunteering in Haiti, part three

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

Père Jean Juste created the foundation and the feeding center where I am volunteering in Haiti years ago.

More than 1000 meals are served once a day from Monday to Friday to the kids and young adults of a poor part of Port-Au-Prince. What an efficient and really helpful place!!!

After applying to be a volunteer, filing up 20 pages of skills and competencies, I received a confirmation saying that I would help in a kitchen.

I was quite disappointed at the beginning – would I see the kids? Would I be cooped up inside somewhere?

I decided to be quiet and wait and see… as a good Haitian would do!

I am so happy I did it.

Let me explain .

In the front, there’s a waiting area, the line area and the eating place.

In the back, there’s the food preparation, the cooking and the organization of the plates.

The feeding center is placed on a hill, located in a empty field with some goats, chickens and one or two cows.

This hill is covered with tent camps and of small houses, half destroyed or half finished.

On top of the hill sits the church of Pere Jean Juste – who unfortunately passed away one year ago. He was well loved and he is well missed.  Huge signs written on the walls in all the surroundings witness how much Pere Jean Juste held everybody’s heart and mind.

The front of the church features a large covered porch where the kids and young adults wait until the feeding center opens its doors.

Step by step, minute by minute, kids come and hang out on the benches.

Some young guys organize Christian songs.

The ambiance is fun and the kids play together in a nice way.

A small front yard is closes for a moment just before it becomes a place to pass on plates full of food.

In the backstage things run smoothly and efficiently.

At 7am, cooks and helpers come through the back yard, surrounded by high walls.

Fresh vegetables, small pieces of meats are cooked together with spices in huge metal heavy buckets.

Rice and beans are cooked in the same heavy recipients.

Fumes, smells, vapors, laughs and songs mingle during the cooking hours.

During various down times, women rest on low chairs in the back yard protected from the sun by an USAid  plastic tent.

Two showers and a restroom are available for all the feeding center’s employees and helpers, a great privilege in this country where most of the people don’t have regular water.

Around 1pm, everything is usually ready for the ball.

Young helpers without hot mitts take two of the huge burning pots full of rice and place them inside the central building where the plates will be passed on.

These two big pots are placed along a large rectangular table.

Huge soup tureens full of meat and sauce and vegetables are also placed on the table.

The ballet of the plates begins!

Along with the other volunteers, I sit around the burning rice pot on law chairs with a metal plate that serves as large serving spoon in one hand and an empty plastic plate in the other one.

We fill the plates – we give more or less depending on the age – and give it to a person who places it on the table.

Two women stand at the table pour sauce and veggies on each plate and organize pyramids of full plates on the rectangular table.

When the table is piled up, “Jean-Claude” one of the feeding center supervisors monitoring the food delivery, opens the window facing the front stage area.

While the preparations occurred, the front yard was opened and kids and adults lined up, at first in a quiet way and more and more noisily after the crowd of young adults crowd arrived.

Whenever Jean-Claude opens the window, the passing of the plates begins.

It is always fast and efficient with clear monitoring of who is getting what, with secret codes and rules for people arriving with their own bucket to fill in for families in distress  who are not able to come to the window.

Outside, additional helpers put spoons on the plates and finalize the process.

As the rectangular table empties quickly, our plates’ dance behind the table doesn’t stop.

Each time we take a full plate of rice, the next layer of rice steams up, burning me.  Who needs a sauna? Here you are… so natural!

I am red, also steaming, sweaty and tired.  My shoulders and hands ache, each plate is heavy, rice is stocked.

I am laughing and smiling, trying to understand everybody talking so fast in Creole around me. No need for music!

The rice bucket is empty? Let’s bring a new one.

Young boys bring a new one, even hotter.

(How is that possible?)

Before they return, I breathe a minute, trying to recover, drinking these little plastic bags full of good water that we can find every where through out the county.

After two hours of work and more than 1,000 meals served, I feel glad that the children will have had a solid meal at least once today.

I am so happy to have been accepted to be part of this!

I am so proud of the feeding center’s members.

I am thankful for all their extraordinary good work and this helpful exercise, repeated every day of the school week, every week of the month, and every month of the year!!!!

I will never ever forget you and will do all I possibly can to help you the most I can in the future.

Be prepared to participate!!!!!

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Tap Taps, Volunteering in Haiti, part two

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

The “tap-tap” is the common system of transportation.

One trip is 5 gouds, one goud is a Haitian dollar, a $ dollar is 40 gouds.

It sounds easy but you try learning to pay for your rides in Haiti.

Trips around Port Au Prince are not expensive, but they are always interesting.

No one uses signals and most of the drivers don’t actually have a license to drive because it is too expensive.

The streets are colorful with Christian messages in orange, yellow, red, looking as old as the many pick up trucks with low tires.

Many of the pick ups have a make-shift roof to protect the passengers from the sun, wind and dust.

“Tap-tap” is the noise of the passengers’ heads knocking on the roof, the sound of their shoulders and arms hitting the metal borders of the truck bed or their neighbor’s body.  It is also the noise of knocking on the roof or the window of the front seats to let the driver know that one of the passengers wants to stop.

The two benches along the back of the pick up can fit 6 people each… o0ps sorry make that 7… no 8! (and sometimes more).

Just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze!

I see kids in uniforms, people dressed up to go to work, women going to sell or to buy at flea market with huge bags full of chicken (some live) or vegetables or water to cook.

Everyone travels using the tap-tap system! And so do we… a 1 to 2 hours commute time every day back and forth to our volunteer project.

We have to take three consecutive tap-taps to arrive at the feeding center where we volunteer — and it is so worth it!!!

A tap-tap ride is a colorful piece of Haiti. Everyone helps everyone else.

People give you a hand to catch a moving tap-tap still, find places for the pregnant women to sit, hold children on laps, hold a neighbor’s bag, pass on the money and the change, hold you and catch you if you are standing half bent over in between seated people under the low roof losing your balance at each pothole.

The Haitian people have been welcoming and friendly to the strange animals that we are, especially the white skin ones like me, look funny and stand out here.

Sometimes very young children show me to their parents.

I find that a smile and a big” Bonjour” get’s all the passengers smiling back.  They begin to talk, shy first and then more, in French or trying in English.  It’s a perfect way to discover the Haitian’s day today’s lives.

Christian messages are everywhere, on the tap-taps as decoration, as well as in the names of shops and in Haitian’s hearts.

Some passengers read the bible in the tap-taps.

Children in uniforms go to private religious schools when they can afford it. –70 to 80% of public schools have been destroyed by the earth quake around Port-Au-Prince.

The poorest accept their misery and the earthquake as the will of God.

But is it?

Can all the small church networks help people create local projects and local jobs instead of organizing long days of prayers? Or can they do both?

I know it is easy to say and not to do, but talking to the kids, to the students, to the youth in the tap-taps gives me the feeling that if somebody believes in their country and its resources, the Haitians may believe in it again too… How can we help?

If Rwanda has been able to rebuild their country, to reunify two populations with respect and solidarity to each other despite years of horrible genocide, maybe Haiti can take the earth quake as a catalyst to reunify rich and poor, to create synergy and actions plans, to re-launch agriculture and exports and begin tourism?

I really hope so.

We need to continue to help them do it…

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Arriving in Haiti, Volunteering in Haiti, part one

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

When I told HandsOn Network folks that I would be volunteering in Port Au Prince, I was asked to share my journey with you all.

“It’ll be easy,” I was told.

I should be personal, funny and not really worried about creating great English literature.

For a French emigrant, as I am, this put me at ease and I said Yes!

So here we are…

Enjoy and share! Haiti needs us, all of us…

I have traveled a lot but I forget how different airports can be from country to country.

Departure Atlanta, arrival Port-Au-Prince…  from fresh and quiet with strict rules, it became alive, hot, busy, and noisy going through customs.

Good memories from trips in Africa came back to me.

When I arrived, so did many planes from the United States.

A bunch of volunteers grouped by colors of tee-shirts arrived from faith organizations along with Haitians coming back home or visiting family.

As early as on my plane ride, my  help was  needed -  to fill in customs forms -a good way to begin to help and talk!

I am so happy to be French today it will help me so much all along the journey!

My contact, Warner, from God’s Children Inc, the organization I am volunteering with, was supposed to pick me up.

I had no idea where I would be living but I knew it would be fine.

Warner wasn’t there when I came out of customs, but it gave me time to find my luggage full of supplies for a new school and for the orphanages.

Crossing each other, pushing each other to find luggage… it is really up to you to find it!  Got it!

(At least, I found one…the other will come later.)

Warner was still not there.

I wondered if I could continue by myself.

I followed the flow, passed the customs, people every where and arrived outside where more people are waited, under the burning sun, the hot wind brought dust… and more people but not Warner!

I wisely decided to wait in the  shade outside of the airport fence.

The concept of time is so different here, and nothing ever happens as we think it will… still, it happens  anyway… you just have to learn to wait and be patient, keep faith, find shade, smile, and say “Bonjour” to everybody.

That’s the key.

I felt so visible with my white skin, my straight, light hair turning as a bunch of straws on the top of my head, impossible to hide and stay still!

Everybody wanted to help me.

And suddenly, coming from I don’t know where, Warner arrived, welcoming and friendly.

We took a car with a driver – who, I discovered later on,  is one of our neighbors who will help us from time to time, and began my first ride across Port-au Prince, impossible to ever forget.

I was going to the volunteer housing and could grab a shower, but no…  nothing will happen the way I thought it would….

I quickly learned that not one single day in Haiti happens the way we – the volunteers- think it might.

“Are you arriving? Yes in 2 min.”  Translation? Arriving in 2 hours.  Staying cool and relaxing is key!

Still, the days often turn out  better than expected, despite the different concept of time.

After my arrival to the airport I had an incredible journey in the town.

I was lucky to get a ride in a nice car with air conditioning, a real luxury in the hot and dusty air of Haiti.

Dust flies everywhere because the roads are pitted with deep holes.

Was it like it before the earthquake? or is it because of the earthquake? I wonder.

Maybe both…

As soon as we left the airport I watched, absorbed, discovered.

Immediately outside the airport exit, I saw camps and tents full of people.

They were so close to each other.

The camps were mainly set up by USAID and the Red Cross after the earthquake in order to give a roof to people without houses.

How hot is it inside? Do they have schools? I wondered.

There were so many kids in the camps…

What about security?  Is it safe during the day? I heard that at night there are a high number of rapes.

The camps and tents were everywhere, in each and every available space, both public and private, in between destroyed houses.

USAID and Red Cross mobile showers, restrooms, and containers for potable water were also visible everywhere.

All of this was set up to be temporary, but is it?

After 6 months it all seems to have become permanent.

Hatian lives seem organized around the relief efforts.

Small businesses have opened around each camp to sale various small items, but is it enough to feed everybody?

I couldn’t help but wonder – along with all my fellow volunteers – six months after the earthquake, where has all the money the entire world gave to Haiti gone?

What kind of projects are on the way? Who is doing what? Whenever I meet Haitians I will ask these questions.

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failure to forget

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Its been over a month now since I spent 20 hours trying to leave Haiti and come home to hoodies and hot showers.

People ask me what Haiti was like.

I tell them it was unbelievably fun.

They focus on the unbelievable, as they get that puzzled, is Kate Gosslin dancing or having a seizure, look on their face.

“Is he serious, a disaster area FUN?”

For me, Haiti was fun.

It was like a dream come true in many aspects.

I played in the dirt, showered when convenient, came home every night tired and lost some lbs in the process.

I played with sledgehammers and table saws, watched people with nothing give more than I could imagine.

I saw a baby be born and a dead body lay beneath hot tin on a road and watched ordinary people sacrifice themselves for their fellow man, woman and child.

I watch gardens grow amongst the remnants of unchecked deforestation.

Haiti was a mind blowing roller coast ride of juxtapositions and I loved it.

I thrived on it.

My soul danced in the dust and heat and mosquitoes and pain and misery with joy.

I am not so naive as to believe that Haiti is “fun.”

My skewed sense of altruism was always put into perspective by the cover of my passport.

“I could leave.”

As a US citizen I could make a call to the terribly ironic, American Airlines and leave.

I could leave the tent cities, the suffering, the oppressive heat and the grinding poverty because I was born in a different country.

All the same, I loved Haiti.

My life simplified itself very quickly and I cannot stop thinking about it.

Right now I am somewhere over Kansas, flying home from another school transformation project, and I just finished editing my Haiti photos.

Each image was a stark reminder that I will fail for the rest of my life at forgetting Haiti.

I will fail at readjusting to my old lifestyle, because it kills my soul.

And so I will land in Denver in an hour and try to rescue my garden from the clutches of an evil May snowstorm, and life will go back to normal.

Well its a new normal.

My life still faintly echoes with diesel generators, children’s laughter, blaring horns and women in labor.

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20 days. 20 hours.

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

I am currently cutting through the moonlit pre dawn sky over Texas, on my way home from Haiti.

Twenty days ago I stepped onto a plane at DIA and took off to a tiny island nation devastated by corruption, political agendas and an earthquake that killed over 200,000.  A hopeless island if news reports are correct.

I had oft thought of this final blog, the blog I would write as a culmination of everything I had experienced in Haiti.

What would I say, could I say, to convey the images and feelings that have affixed themselves in my heart and mind?

Could I win the hearts of others to rally around the cries of the oppressed and hurting?  Maybe.

It turns out though, there is not much I can say, as words and pictures would never suffice.

I tried leaving Haiti twenty hours ago.

We stood in line outside the airport, the ground shimmering as the rainfall from the night before evaporated, the sounds of diesel trucks, horns, shouting and people jockeying for position in line.

It was only supposed to be a quick flight to Miami and then straight through to Denver.

Luckily, the airlines continued their stellar service and put us in four hours late and decided transferring bags to connecting flights were too big of a hassle for them, so I found myself stuck flying to Dallas at midnight and hopping on this flight four hours later.

As I sat in my comped hotel room last night, it slowly began to sink in.  I was back in the states and Monday would bring with it the responsibilities of my job.

Tuesday would find me in Boston and the following week somewhere else.

It was ironic that the in flight movie last night was “Up in the Air,” with George Clooney.

I took my first hot shower in three weeks and began to wash away layers of Deet, diesel and dirt.

I miss Haiti.

I miss the sense of purpose that came from my time there.

Decisions I made and projects I completed were immediately tangible and sometimes made a life or death difference.

Whether it was holding  hour old newborns, planting gardens, soccer with orphans, eating rice and beans for eighteen days straight or repairing a fuel pump with electrical tape and a stick of gum, it all seemed to be working towards a higher purpose.

I miss little Emmanuelle digging in my pockets and giving me a “Good Game!” pat on my backside every time I saw him.

I miss my friends I made there.  John and Beth McHoul, two people that heard the cries of Haiti and have called it home for the past twenty years.

Lise, Barbie, Alex, Jen and the rest of the medical team that fought everyday for patients to receive a level of care deserved by all humans. Treating them with dignity and giving them a chance to have a better life even sans limbs.

I miss Brian, the physical therapist, who taught people to walk again, to use their crushed limbs again, who remained in Haiti an additional three days even after he found out his son had been in a car accident, because Haiti needed him.  (His son is doing well by the way)

I miss 200+ pound Mastiffs that are gentle giants always looking for a tummy rub.

This morning, I even missed flying with other aid workers returning home.

I felt more comfortable with them, even though quite a few were  arrogant jerks, because we shared a common story.

Yet for everything I miss, I have a new found gratitude what I am returning to…

A beautiful wife who lights up my world, even when I would prefer to sit in darkness.

Team awesome, Oscar and Dakota, my amazing “children” that will greet me today with sniffing and licking and jealousy, as I am still wearing the clothes I had on yesterday in Haiti.

I will see my parents at the airport and celebrate Easter on Sunday as a family.

I am thankful for my job and the amazing people I work with everyday that are changing the world one community at a time.  A job generous enough to indulge my extended vacation in the hottest spring break destination ever; Haiti 2010!!

As I wrote earlier, it is a new perspective and I could not be more excited to start this new chapter.

Lise, the Canadian, and I were chatting the other evening.

We lay on my newly crafted pre-natal beds, watching spiders dance in the rafters, the scent of sawdust in the air, as we tried to figure it all out.

Sure we worked out NAFTA, and agreed Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever, but the curling superpowers came up with nil in regards to what it all means in Haiti.

I know we are both still ruminating on the implications of time spent doing life together with Haiti.

I guess the stories will be spoken into existence when the time is right and the words are found.

Until then, thank you for your support, prayers, thoughts and smiles.  They meant the world to me and the people of Haiti.

-be blessed

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perspective

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

My good friend Karen commented on my last post about perspective and Haiti is more than willing to deliver it.

As I write this, the rain is falling outside, a sound I love so much. Rain always seems to make things new and fresh, and it brings a sense of hope.

Rain also reminds me that tonight people will sleep in the “mud” that runs through their tent on a lonely hillside somewhere.

(Mud is sugarcoating it. It is mainly garbage and excrement from ditches.)

My hope was that Haiti would not harden me. That I would not come back jaded and frustrated about the inability for things to work here. It would be so easy to do so.

It takes 2-3 hours to get lumber at the Eko Depot and that is with light traffic.

I watched a goat being transported on a TapTap (taxi) on Saturday.  On Sunday I saw the same goat, but at the meat market.

Trash is burnt, people sweep dust mindlessly, dogs lie dead in the road for days and I have yet to figure out where the couple billion dollars in aid actually went.

I watched a mom bring her severely malnourished 18 month son to our clinic. Wide eyed, he clung to her pristine dress, his only garment a filthy shirt.

The next day, my favorite Canadian, Lise, had him in her lap, watching Sesame Street online, willing him to smile. Later that day he finally did and actually let out a little giggle. 2 hours later I watched mom leave with him because the food we gave her was not good enough and she did not feel taken care of.

It would be too easy to harden up.

I saw a body today.

I was on my way to visit the SOS Children’s Orphanage, just like Angelina Jolie last month, and on the road was a man with his bicycle next to him.

A piece of rusted tin was draped over him and a tree branch served as a parking cone to redirect traffic.

I could only stare as we drove past, my heart breaking for him and a family that will be crushed when they learn of his death.

It would have been so easy to harden up, to turn around and see about booking an earlier flight home to the comfort of the suburbs.

Had I done so, an impromptu game of soccer may have never taken place with the kids at the orphanage, kids with no families and no homes. Beautiful Haitian kids speaking Spanish to me as we kicked around a soccer ball barefoot.

The reality of death was overcome by the hope of life.

I started writing a blog last night that discussed my growing cynicism, but I had to stop because the despair became too oppressive.

I realized the world can never change if we dismiss things as, “that’s Haiti for you.”

To harden our hearts in order to protect them would be the greatest injustice we could ever commit against the hurting.

It would give us the right to look away, but we cannot.

More than ever we need to become the voice for the voiceless and the champions for the downtrodden.

Haiti can give you either perspective. Hopeless or hopeful.

What we choose can change the world.

-I still love the rain and the hope it brings, I just listen to it differently now, from a new perspective.-

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Resmond

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

I have been thinking about kids lately. Not in a, let’s make some babies sort of way, just kids in general. Today was a frustrating day, as I spent the morning listening to horrible ideas for construction projects. My tongue is still stinging from all of the biting that took place. For decompression, I wandered over to our tent hospital to focus on sketches and drown myself in oceans of Owl City. I set up shop in the operating room/ doodle spot and started in. 2 songs in, I felt small hands grab my shoulders and in a feat of Haitian gymnastics, Resmond was in my lap. Resmond and I were not always best friends. The first day I saw him, he sat head down on a cot and avoided eye contact with me.

Day 2 brought us a bit closer. You see in Haiti, the only people that have visible tattoos are deportees from the states and gang members. Yep, thug life for this blanc!! (blanc means white) Today they took me to Citi Soleil, the worst neighborhood in Port Au Prince with the dubious distinction of being number one for violence and kidnappings because nobody really looks twice at me. Google it if you get bored.

Resmond was a bit curious about this gangster from Colorado, so he shyly pointed my arm out to my friend John and John waved me over so he could see it. Carefully and gently he reached out and began to trace the cross and lettering on my left forearm. Satisfied it was permanent, he sat quietly next to me looking at his tiny pink Crocs. I reached out delicately and put my arm around him to rub his back. 10 minutes later he was sound asleep in my lap. From that day forward, Resmond seeks me out whenever I am at the hospital. “Bree-anne, Bree-anne,” is the standard Creole pronunciation for my name and Resmond calls it out whenever he sees me.

And today found Resmond curled up in my lap, content to watch me sketch and listen to one of my ear buds. The other thing to note about Resmond is that his right arm is pretty jacked. His hand bends a bit unnaturally and he is covered in burn scars all over. He has seen doctor after doctor and each time he gets a bit better, but I have to wonder if he will ever be fully healed. His scars will never go away and he may never gain full use of his hand. I know that my tattoos make me tough in the eyes of others and I exploit it when necessary. Yet, as I watched Resmond’s scarred chest rise and fall as he slept in my lap, I found true toughness and the scars that declare it loudly to the world. No needles and ink required.

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