Return to Haiti after the world’s eyes have turned away
At last, my only pair of boots has dried out. The sultry tropical sweat, combined with three days of rain had left them awash.
Easy for me in a rudimentary but comfortable hotel off the Presidential Square in Port-au-Prince. From my window, I can hear, but not quite see, the hubbub from the tented encampment in front of the earthquake-crazed Palace – the tell-tale stark division between those who have in Haiti, and those who have not.
This is a society riven with the inequalities of minority super-wealth and majority abject poverty. You see it wherever you go. The 30 seconds of world-shattering thundering of earth’s inner core of 12 January have only served to exacerbate the divisions further. The moneyed links of the middle classes to their diaspora of relatives in America have seen to it that they have survived.
Our own meagre collective efforts in the North, to aid Haiti’s poor through collecting buckets, have so far born less fruit for those poor.
I am here to try to find out why. A big part of the answer lies in the strange place that was Haiti even before the quake.
I am also monitoring what the UN regards as an inevitable spike in the cholera epidemic. There are estimates for the first time of between 90 and 120 unconfirmed new cases in Port-au-Prince itself in the dense slums of Cite de Soleil. The battle is no longer to contain the outbreak in six departments here, but to reduce deaths with instant re-hydration efforts.
So I am returned to this strange and beguiling place that is Haiti.
When I attended mass beyond the rubble of the Cathedral here in Port-au-Prince on Sunday I noticed the “Magic Men” doing their ablutions mingled inside the crowd. They come up to you – the womenfolk too – in their strange dark garb, their tassled dusty hair, ringed fingers and small chains. They gabble in Creole and await a response.
Then there are the smack heads who rule great sections of wrecked street frontages. One who took vague exception to our white presence flashed a gun. There are apparently many guns here. There are places, especially around the docks, that it is especially unwise to venture. Indeed our local guides don’t like you hanging around anywhere for very long.
But one does not sense that the gangs will sort the country out any faster than the often-compromised Ministerial elite, or the huge UN and NGO community here itself. This is a country whose development stalled a century or more before the blast.
“We are not talking re-construction,” the head of the UN humanitarian effort here – Nigel Fisher – tells me. “We are talking construction…from the ground up and for the first time. This will take more than a generation.”
I’ve been on the ground here for five days. I have met again some of the survivors that I met when I came in the immediate aftermath of the quake. One, nine months pregnant when I met her, has had a miracle baby – Bama – after masonry fell on her during the quake that crushed her home. Another – Marizeta – with a desperately-infected, battered eye, has now lost that eye, but is well. A third – the pastor whose church fell in, traumatically wounding him – died two days after we left him.
I marvel, in all this rubble, that we have found them, or word of them. We also talk to the UN’s Nigel Fisher about the whys, and why nots.
Related posts:
- Haiti thoughts from abroad
- Haiti: no doctor, no medicine, no hope
- The UN's top man in Haiti: his last poignant words
- Haiti: the toughest, most harrowing assignment ever
- Haiti in the eye of the storm
There are 17 comments on this post
In some ways, it is good that we have an update on the Haitian situation.Any right minded person with an ounce of compassion, feels for the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Then cold realism takes over.As dreadful as the situation is,it is repeated many times world wide.In some cases following natural disasters, in others the result of wars and mans inhumanity to man.
As you state it is not a case of rebuild as for many there were no buildings as such there in the beginning.That is why we have not seen huge piles of devastation.So where does that leave us? Should our government be pouring government aid into the rebuilding?My view is no .Not until they have sorted out this country.By all means those who wish to be charitable,give to any Haitian fund available,and anyone wishing to go there to aid , do so.Beyond that we become interested spectators,and no more.
As interesting as the report is , you are now taking valuable resourses away from the Haitian people ,by living in the hotel there
Haitia is a failed state, as bad as any in the world, and it is also true that the Haitian people must learn from this disaster that they cannot afford (in monies and lives wasted) to tolerate the bad government that only serves the rich minority, otherwise we are just saving people today for them be killed tomorrow.
That said, we really are not in a position to judge partly because we are an recently ex-empire, and mainly because we can’t say that our government is without the same sins as those in Haiti, e.g., why are the poorest and the less able taking the heaviest hit for the financial excesses of bankers, wannabe developers, greedy investors, etc.
We should give all we can, but we should be ensuring that education is among the aid (teach someone to fish for themselves and all that), and that security (pity we waste troops fighting phony wars) is in place until Haitians can do for themselves.
Jon,Please can we have more informative reporting. Haiti,like several other flashpoints in the world is a case study of a country caught in an ecological and economic downward spiral, from which it has not been able to escape. Like Afghanistan, Somalia and the Yemen, it is a failed state, a country with a rapidly expanding population, sustained by international life-support systems of food aid and economic assistance. Desperately poor, this small island country of 9.5 million people has one of the lowest consumption footprints in the world. Yet it has already wrecked much of its ecological assets and relies on emigration to USA, Canada and the neighbouring Dominican Republic as a safety valve on population pressures.
Once largely covered with forests, high population growth and subsistence farming has stripped the landscape,leaving forests standing on scarcely 4 percent of its land. First the trees go then the soil. The population is projected to leap,according to the US Population Reference Bureau,to over 15 million by 2050, because of culture and poor access to contraception, due to opposition from the dominant Catholic Church. Aid agencies and media ignore all this. Why?
On Haitis unstable ground, the construction will need to be tough and resilient against further quakes. Hit with disasters one following another, then the likelihood of further devastation is ever present.
The Carribean Plate , Peter Spotts writes in The Chrisitian Science Monitor, is a mini ring of fire. The Tectonic plate is continually morphing and moving and has all the same volcanic features of the much larger plates. Then my mind wanders to global warming and polar meltdown : the freeze releasing those rocks which were hard bound to one another into potential movement.
Mammals/humans suffer in all of this, yet I suspect that they love their home as much as we love ours.
So in survival and Creole terms’ Kisa pi nou fe?’
First I disagree with Adrian Clarkes viewpoint – re not helping until”Not until they have sorted out this country” – who are ”They ”- and I wonder if he would have same opinion if say UK was in same mess – or would he be thinking – surely help is being organized .
The US went in – made sure their interests were secure – and little else . This appears to have gone way beyond the scope of ” charities ”. If a fraction of the effort that goes into Wars – and ” Defence Budgets ” – and the Urgency and speed with which same are pursued – went into Haiti – surely there is opportunity for employment – building , creation of services . I doubt if this will happen – but if we lived in a society where human life was ” special ” – it would . The R C church once agin rears its ugly head . Haiti faces the same probelm that Planet faces – massive population increase – so best if Haitins got some ” education” – or copped on the sheer badness that is the R C church . Time spent in prayer etc – is time wasted . If Haiti were a dog – it would be put down – so if help from the Rich is not coming — maybe the kindest thing 2 do is Bomb it – end this non life misery.
Of course the Haitians were forgotten about…there is nothing left to take for peanuts!!
Weapons everywhere? Of course!!
Jon you were staying in a hotel there because you were working on the island, staying in a tent would have been more human but that’s not how the cookie crumbles in this day & age.
adzmundo The Venus Project
The third world including haiti needs fraud proof voting systems. And what a shame that preval and clinton barred wyclif jean from running for president. Alex weir. Harare
Alex.
We’d rather like to have a fraud-proof voting system here in the UK – our once-proudly honest method has become as much a ‘banana republic system’ as many others.
Fake postal votes are cast by the thousand, proxy votes are cast for folk living thousands of miles away, or indeed not even living, family-votes are traded for cash and favours, the ballot is no longer secret, so influence can be applied – need I go on ?
But none of our leaders has to courage to address it – probably because all the political parties are up to it, so it maybe levels out. But that’s no the point, it’s no longer a valid reflection of individual’s views. Sad, but true.
The UN man, Nigel Fisher, came over as an honest pragmatist – no point setting unrealistic expectations of timescale when there’s a whole country to rebuild, and especially when it’s one with limited government functionality, that’s going to take a long time, with many stumbles along the way.
The most common fault of emergency aid is to throw careless billions at the immediate relief aspect, but nothing towards the longer-term redevelopment. True, any resources diverted to longer-term projects will make the immediate suffering worse but, without that distant strategy, it’s only ever sticking-plaster.
As they always say, when you’re fighting off the alligators, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that your real objective is to drain the swamp. At least Nigel Fisher seems to acknowledge that.
having experienced being homeless myself i can confirm that the novelty quickly wears off.
throw the majority of a country not having a stable roof over their heads into the equation then it is remarkable they haven’t revoluted, yet.
guess those troops serve two purposes. an outer coat of concern and a deep inner core of enforcement.
this past decade has been a bumper crop of (popular apparent) naturally induced tragedy. from tsunami to hurricanes to earthquakes and floods.
some of the tinfoil hat variety would point the finger at “haarp”- the notion of technology artificially underlining the futuristic portents of that oh such a good book.
others would suggest our orbit around the sun is in fact a slow but ever inward spiral that will eventually consume every planet in our system of solar.
we may not know what the future holds but we certainly can plan to counter a smorgasbord of possibilities. but first we must unify- not at the whim of dark shadows pulling invisible strings, but by the majority taking back this planet which by virtue of birth upon it should be shared equally.
Jon,
I am willing to bet – though I am not a betting man – that in 20 years somebody of conscience in the media will be saying the same things as you say now.
When a natural disaster of this type happens I never fail to be thoroughly ashamed of how the West – particularly its bribed lower middle classes – react to the horror. Dumbed down and in thrall to their monthly mortgage and credit card payments many of them have lost touch with plain human sensitivity and decency…thanks too to propaganda from the likes of ineffable Rupert Murdoch. Somehow the awful consumerist society we have created always manages to turn the tragedy back on its victims. It is the ultimate in cowardice, particularly when you take into account corrupt American historic manipulation of that unhappy country.
I hope the Haitian people manage to survive this latest horror. I hope too they manage to rebuild their society as best they can. But I won’t hold my breath where Western establishments are concerned; after all, they are institutionally racist in composition and policy.
Meantime, wonderful organisations like Medecin San Frontiere will continue valiantly to assuage lower middle class guilt.
thumbs up indeed – but waht cahnce have MSF or any otg/ ngo – the problem is horrific . Personally I was not impreessed by the UN spokesman last night . Would it take 5 years – at least – as he said – to sort out starting a war costing billions .There are masssive opportuities here for employment – would US building workers b prepared to work there – for good pay – - would construction companies get buildings up – and have even all the ” promised money ” be delivered – often it is not .
What advice has Jon Snow been given to avoid the choloera epidemis himself;
Unlike Chery cole we don’t want him off sick for weeks on his retunr to the UK do we?.
He onky works 4 dyas as it is;
For God’s sake will you get him to wear another shirt whern reporting int eh filed;
Gicven he sold his meoirs for 600000 and can spend 800 on a suit can’t he buy more colourful shirts and thinner trosuers that show a visibkle boxwer lining! he brags he likes looser styles;
If capitalism works and creating a wealthy elite brings about a situation that benefits the poor, why is it not so in Haiti?
If the wealthy church cares about its people, other than as providing more cash, why is none of the Vatican’s vast fortune being pumped into rebuilding?
If there is a god, why does it keep picking on the poorest nations to deliver its natural disasters, and if it can’t do anything about nature, why is so much time effort and conflict spent on worshipping and arguing about it?
Good points – I think the answers are obvious . Looks like the thumbs are gone ‘
you are doing a good job, as for staying in a tent that is not practical, drink bottled water, in this situation you do not have to please all people.
Is there really a god Saltaire,that he would allow such suffering .The Churches certainly seek to promote the fact for that is what gives them their power.The belief that they control and can call on their God.I do not believe there is the Church God , but i do believe there is ones own faith that helps one through adversity.
The Church are just as bad capitalists as the bankers and use their congregation and followers for their own benefit.It is only in mainly secular societies like ours that they have lost their power