To Haiti and Beyond! Part 1

Last Monday I left for my sixth trip to a country I truly love: Haiti. 

My trip to Haiti this time around, can be divided into three separate parts: Part 1) Observing and learning in Jacmel, Part 2) Implementing a patient record system in GCOM’s mobile medical clinics in Port au Prince, and Part 3) Updating educational sponsorships in a rural, mountainous region of Haiti on behalf of Moses Lake school students’ compassion and generosity.  Today, we pack up our stuff, and leave Part 1 of our trip in the beautiful Jacmel, and head to Port au Prince for part 2 of our trip.

During this trip, I have the great privilege of having my very dear friend, Emily Fry, along for the journey with me!  Emily currently works as an ER scribe in Bellingham’s St. Joseph Hospital, making her the PERFECT addition to my efforts implementing medical record systems into clinics in Haiti.  BUT, more on this next time!!

Emily and I on top of our tap tap.

Through working in Haiti the last few years (this is my 6^th trip), I have come to have an outlook on humanitarian aid VERY different than your common person.  You see, while most believe that additional aid and help of any kind is good, I do NOT believe this to be the case.  I was in Port au Prince just weeks prior to the January 2010 earthquake, and I remember well what the city and nation was like then.  The last two and a half years, I have watched as aid groups (mostly American) have poured into the country, and I have watched as Port au Prince, and the attitudes/mindset within, has continually digressed.  I am by no means saying that we should not aid impoverished nations, but I DO think that additional thought needs to be put into the WAYS we are helping, as often times we are not truly helping at all, and may indeed be hurting a nation.   I like the way Kevin Taylor put it in a recent article he wrote about my view point, "as visitors we often don’t see – or we mis-see – the local realities."

I wish I could just bundle you all up and take you on a tour with me, allow you to speak to the Haitian people, and understand things over time.  But for now I must settle with these next few posts, and ask that you do not take offense as I re-examine the good intentions and unintended consequences of certain types of aid.

Today, part 1 of our trip in Jacmel wrapped up.  Jacmel is a medium sized city on the southeastern Haiti coast, and is one of Haiti’s original trading colonies from the 1800’s.  I was not entirely sure what to expect in traveling there, but a three and a half hour drive south from Port au Prince later, I was pleasantly surprised to find beautiful colonial-era buildings (our hotel was built in 1888) and a breath-taking coastline.  But beyond that, the people are an INCREDIBLE people!  Where the people of Port au Prince may seek to take advantage, individuals frequently treat one another with a great lack of respect, and the streets are always dangerous; here the people are incredibly genuine and kind, the citizens respectful, and I have not felt as though I were in a compromising situation once, despite having walked all across this town with just Emily and myself.

With Owens on the Jacmel coastline.

After a day on our own, Emily and I were able to meet up with a contact of mine: Owens.  I met Owens at the Clinton Global Initiative University meeting in Washington D.C. last March, at which he represented Haiti’s USAID SEED program.  Owens just returned from the states earlier this week, and while I felt badly taking him away from his family while the reunion is still so fresh, it was great to hear his reverse-culture shock, and have him so openly discuss with me the failings and successes of the area he has spent most his life in.

The point?  Jacmel receives incredibly little outside aid.  Yet the people are better off both in spirit, and in physical wealth and health than what I have seen anywhere else in Haiti.

For me, Jacmel represents the Haiti ideal.  I wish I could give to all of Haiti what the people of Jacmel naturally have.  And so I have spent my days simply watching and listening to the stories and thoughts of the people here.  Again, the point?  I believe you can be of so much more aid to a place, if you can first truly understand a culture, the true needs of a community, and what works and does not work within a culture.

I wish I could say so much more right now, but at the moment Emily and I are supposed to be loading a bus to head to Port au Prince.  The problem?  We are having tummy issues, and looking at a hot and VERY stuffy 5 hour ride (think people piling on one anothers' laps in a large, dark, covered truck), in which the vehicle does NOT stop for any reason….we are trying to figure out what to do.

More later!!!

One of the natural wonders to be found within Jacmel.