Premiers jours

Our business is treating the poorest of the sick. So when it rains, we have a lot of business. That’s because a huge portion of the sicknesses, like acute respiratory infection, diarrhea and fever of unknown origin, are coming from lots of damp, lots of standing water (which breeds mosquitoes), and inadequate living conditions overall. When you look at this pathology, you wonder what prevents folks here in Haiti from having solid shelters and functioning water/drainage systems. Even before the earthquake. But it’s quite clear, in-your-face, that the earthquake exacerbated, exponentially, the realities of poverty, bringing with it crises-level health cases.

Initial impressions of Port-au-Prince are confusing, especially when I am trying to formulate them in my foggy, coerced French. There are many similarities to Sri Lanka, the streams of people in every direction, small-scale vendors crowding the sidelines to earn a meager living, the random gestures, daily actions, and deeply scarred looks in people’s eyes that suggest that every breath and movement is for sheer survival. The earthquake certainly thrust together everyone but the uber-mega-nauseatingly rich. Yet you can still see class distinctions within the refugee population. Perhaps by those folks better dressed, or being able to send their children to school instead of fetching water, or seeing some women care for their hair and makeup, or braiding their girls’ hair with intricate patterns of bows and plastic clips, or men wearing freshly pressed suits when going to church. But why bother grooming at all?

To hold onto their dignity.

Which is continually eroding even after the earthquake. Not that over 200 years of occupation, internal conflict, really shitty governments (consorting with our own shitty governments) and absolute destitution hadn’t already kept the country and its people from catching a break. But somehow, after everything impoverished Haitians have been through, and knowing the unimaginably vast destruction of the earthquake, it is the continuation of the horror stories, maybe that are not visible in the media, that make this place even more difficult to work in and understand. It is these horror stories that really urge me to seek out or latch onto any behvioural nuance that suggests people are trying to make it better for themselves, and say ‘fuck off’ to the various international actors and corrupt government leeches, which take advantage of the plight of poverty to attain power and political ends.

So when I hear other NGO actors complain that Haitian authorities or health agents or other focal points are “difficult” to work with, I wonder if it isn’t really instead the presence of a boatload of foreign workers? The neo-colonial aspects of this kind of NGO work, indeed, has followed me, even been amplified. First, I must live in an immaculate villa with pristine pool overlooking the destitution below. I can’t complain, of course it’s comfortable, but I wonder how this separation and detachment is doing any good at understanding the needs just outside our compound. Our team consists of amazing people, all with good intentions, but for some this is their first experience working abroad and maybe they are already caught up in the privileged lifestyles, the ability to vacation, have bbqs, acquire cirrhosis of the liver, with beaucoup de disposable money. Of course, for security reasons (rampant attacks, thefts, rapes, kidnappings of Haitians and NGO workers) we abide by curfew laws and lock ourselves away after working hours. We must leave Cite Soleil by 330pm to avoid interceptions with gangs. But this quarantined lifestyle puts us in a position to look the other way, ignore extreme desperate requests for help (such as by panhandling children) and maybe not take back what we do in the field into our own personal lives.

With this, I have a problem. I am fresh-faced, eager and ready to attend to whatever is needed. And I know my limitations and privilege, as someone coming from the Miami area – a place already with some disconnect, or blind-sightedness to the plights and turmoil of Haiti. I know I cannot understand fully the degradation and continual hopelessness, nor the conditions of extreme poverty. I can only listen and hope to integrate some demands into our work, as a medical NGO worker, striving to provide primary healthcare services, with focuses on maternal/child health, HIV treatment and malnutrition, in an already overlooked part of Port-au-Prince --- the slums of Cite Soleil. Yet I still yearn for that connection outside my imposed palace walls. Maybe it is easier to be a “blan” man, with more mobility to ask these questions and manoevre through the city, maybe without as much confrontation by Haitian men?

Some initial observations include the immense strength and ability to survive by folks in Port-au-Prince. On my first day, I saw a girl barely over 12 carrying a huge oil barrel on her head. Even if it was empty, I have no idea how she could carry it. And the young boy, during school hours, fetching water from the public water pump. And the women cautiously entering the public showers, which are situated in the middle of a round-about intersection, immediately in front of a massive tent city existing in a public square, of sorts. These folks could be anyone that we know, if we were hit by an enormous quake, with 95% of the buildings crumbling and land-sliding down on top of each other. What would we do? Would we be able to survive in the amazingly strong way that Port-au-Prince folks have? Would we be able to have the same smiles, dancing and gyrating lasciviously to techno-ized Creole music at the public beaches, create magnificent art to sell in between all the small vendors, donkeys and chaos? Would we have the capacity to look after our neighbour and see them as comrades in this struggle?

So, indeed, these first days, there is a lot to adjust to, on top of struggling to work completely in French, but the most difficult thing is integrating again into the expat lifestyle with all its contradictions, privileges, and disconnect. But also I am persevering, knowing that we are providing essential medical services and that we have good relations with the folks we are serving.

Will keep sending my thoughts, as things evolve…