Footprints

The People of Haiti…

Posted on 21 March 2010

Today was honestly one of the toughest days of my life. There are so many emotions going through me. We held the Food Distribution at Christa College today. This was the elementary school that MTHC supports. I walked through the building and I was completely floored by the state of the classrooms. However, the most disturbing image was seeing a math lesson on the blackboard with the date being January 12…

There were about 300 families of children that attended the school that were present. They knew they had to come to the school but had no idea that they were receiving food. They were so very excited and grateful. The MTHC did a phenomenal job with the distribution.

Distributions are nothing like what they are made out to be. There is a right way and a wrong way of running them. The wrong way is throwing bags of food at the people. The right way is to have a line up and tickets. When we drove to the College we saw a food distribution line hosted by World Food Program. There easily were about 1000 people in line. Everyone was very patient and no one tried to “jump” the line or attack anyone to get ahead. There were men and women lined up.

As we walked through the streets to get to the College, a little boy grabbed my hand and would not let go. The one little boy quickly turned into a group of 13 kids. They did not want anything – they just wanted attention. I brought them with me to the College and the police were quick to try to get rid of them. They were street kids and they did not want them anywhere near the Relief Workers. After much arguing, I told them they were not going anywhere because they were with me. They agreed and let the kids stay. I snuck them some rice and beans they could take home to their families. They were so pleased with that. The kids ran home, dropped off the food and quickly ran back. They found me again and wanted to take me to their homes.

It was such a strange feeling walking through the alleys with these kids. They were hanging on for dear life. They were very proud of their community and wanted to show me everything – where they played, where they lived and where they have been displaced to. They encouraged me to go into their “homes” and check out where they lived. Many of the houses were broken down shacks. Their families were working on trying to rebuild the homes. I went into all 13 kid’s homes. Honestly, I cannot even put into words what it was like. They were just 13 of the greatest, strongest kids that I have ever met.

The kids, all they really wanted to do was play. So we went to a field and kicked an empty Sprite bottle around as we were playing “football.” The kids got right into the game and enjoyed it. They laughed so hard and ran around full of energy. They decided that my hair was a mess so they sat me down on a block of concrete and fixed my hair for me and pinned it back. Then, they literally all sat in a circle around me and just stared at me with a big smile on their face. I have never sat in the middle of a circle and had 13 boys stare at me!! I let them play with my camera and they went all over the place snapping pictures. They were so proud that someone had trusted them with a camera. One boy took complete ownership and made sure that it was returned.
Leaving the little boys behind was really hard. This, however, was not going to be the toughest thing that I would experience today.

We drove to the epi centre of the quake. Along the way we drove by many more tent cities. It is pretty sad as they are just so common for us now. Our comments are no longer “oh my, there’s a tent city.” The comments are more like – “oh wow that is a really nice tent city” – or “look, that tent city is made of cardboard.” Pretty sad that this is what is the norm here.

What was not normal for me was visiting one of the largest one of these communities. It was by a square where the city had buried over 1000 bodies from the quake and then established a tent city that housed over 200,000 people!! I looked over the railing and all you could see were tents everywhere. It was such a difficult site – but here I go again, the great thing about this tent city was that it was wheel chair accessible. There was concrete poured so that the amputees from the quake were able to manoeuvre easily, and there were a lot of these people in wheelchairs and crutches everywhere you looked.

I met a man named Charles. He quickly discovered that I did not speak Creole and French so we communicated in English. He was a proud man. He did not want a hand out. He wanted a job. He wanted to help us serve his people. He said he would do anything – pick up garbage, translate, move bodies, drive us around. The list was endless. He just wanted to be a part of the relief efforts and help a charity. This was so inspiring and motivational. He did not have computer access because electricity is limited but he did a working cell phone. I took his number and I hope to return one day and provide him with that opportunity.

The Epi-Centre

This was, in a word, devastating. We saw the palace – it was in shambles. Everything had crumbled and fallen vertical. There were Asian Delegates visiting the grounds so there was tons of security everywhere. There were also tons of makeshift housing set up right across the street as well. I continued to walk down the street and saw one of the most disturbing images I have ever seen in my entire life.

The building was The General Direction of Duties/Taxes. It was a three story building that housed all the important personal government documentation for the Haitians. The building was demolished – there is no way that you could possibly imagine what this structure looked like prior to the earthquake. They had not even started to clean up the remains of the building – what that translates to is that underneath all the rubble are dead bodies. Scattered amongst the street and the rubble were official documents of people. I just stared at the books and paper work. It made it even more real. I don’t know what else to say as I cannot even find the words to say what I want to say. I think that is pretty much the feel of the day today. I took one of the pages as a reminder for myself of this experience. I will never forget it and always look at these sheets as a reminder of the plight of the Haitians.