Complacency or Action

The scene at Port-au-Prince airport is always a place that seems surreal to me. You get on a plane in Miami, one of the wealthiest places in the world, and arrive in a place where some people don't even have enough money to buy a stick of gum. I saw people line the gates gazing in at the newly arrived foreigners with blank stares and such a deep sense of hopelessness. They imagine where those planes have come from and wish that they had the same opportunities to provide financially for their families as these people who are just a plane flight away.

After leaving the airport I rode in the back of a truck, taking in everything that was around me. A collapsed building that still had not been removed and probably had rotting bodies under it, street children washing traffic stopped cars for pennies, and bodies that looked frail and clothed with what would pass for rags back in the U.S. After having been gone for five months now the city still looks just as bad as when I left. This way of life has now become common and many cannot see the solution to the problem without more help, which frankly many will not receive. Yet how can starving people be normal! How can we allow for a child to live without parents or anyone on the planet to care for them! That cannot and is not normal. What I want to portray is that in Haiti, there has been so much suffering and pain that it seems almost impossible to break the cycle of poverty that exist there, thus people have learned to accept it. For example, we were driving back from delivering supplies to tent cities near Delmas and as we weaved through the unpaved and pot hole filled roads we turned a corner and came to a sudden screeching halt. We backed up and and took another road. We did not take that road because in front of the car lay a white linen sheet covering a dead body with a pool of blood beside it. No words were said about the incident. We just continued on as if nothing abnormal had occurred. Wait, a person is dead and their body is sitting in their blood, laying under the sweltering Haitian sun! That is not okay! It's not okay that a father in a refugee camp cannot provide his family with shelter from the lashing rain! It is not okay that a mother has to worry about getting food for her malnutrition children! Although the world may have become accustom to extreme suffering, we cannot allow ourselves to be comfortable with it. Their has to be a sense of urgency to do everything we can to fight poverty. If everyone tried as hard as they could to alleviate poverty image what we could do. Too often people feel they cannot make a large enough difference with the resources they have and will not even try. What I say to that is do what YOU can, don't worry about others. I know others will refuse to help, but you and I are not like them. Do not be complacent with evil. We must continue to fight with all our energy and pour all our resources into helping others who are in far worse situations than our own in order to show our love for one another. For love, not money is the most important thing in life.

Now I do not mean to say that Haiti is some type of hell, for to do so would be very incorrect. The people here, although financially poor, are some of the nicest and most kind you will ever find. For example, Wistnell, a Haitian living in Cap Haitien, will sit with me for hours teaching me Creole without an ounce of frustration or boredom. Furthermore, Tony, who is staying with me in the Cap Haitien house, walks with me wherever I need to go in town without even asking what I am doing it for. Dr. Maklin, a Haitian trained doctor, includes the line in some form or another “Oh, you are so special” in every e-mail I receive. Everyone in the house I am staying at is unfairly kind to me in a way that I like to refer to as “recklessly loving.” I enjoy waking up to their kind faces and being able to say “ou domi byen” (did you sleep well) and get the response “M' domi tre byen, merci. E ou memn.” (I slept very well, thanks. And you yourself) They'll always ask what I am doing today and care very much about my well being. I feel very lucky to be with each and everyone.

I would like to leave you with a quote from the Bible of when a women says to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” The Haitian people do not ask to be rich, they only ask to live with dignity. Is that too much to ask for. Is dignity too much. Please let us come together, and together we can let them live with dignity.