Hello my friends… sending you love and a long winded message, some journaling turned letter turned rant, from Haiti. If you don’t read it all just skip to the end which is the important part…
Tuesday Feb 23rd
I am waking up to clear sunshine and hammers and wyclef and endless roosters and again the realization that I am here in Haiti.
I got on a sailboat in Key West a week ago, and against the flow of the gulfstream, and against the historic flow of overloaded boats, headed this way. We are second in a contingent of 7 sailboats of various sizes that have been loading up and leaving from Florida. It was 7 days sailing across the gulf stream down thru the Bahamas and thru the windward passage, in seas that kept me vigilant and for days focused on nothing other then the wind and the waves and the movement of the boat and who was on watch and when, please, would the sun would be rising.
Occasionally when the wind calmed down I would gratefully read my book or write in my journal and look at the crutches strapped on deck and think about where we were going.
On Monday morning we arrived with the goods donated in Key West (2 tons of rice beans and flour and 1 ton of assorted medical supplies, baby food, tarps and 2 soccer balls), We unloaded at the small harbor of a town called Anse-à-galets on the eastern side of Île de la Gonave, an island in the gulf north of Port au Prince. A small harbor of overloaded and beautiful hand painted and carved sailboats. The island was not badly affected by the earthquake. Like so many other places, they have been receiving those fleeing from the epicenter. And while there was not nearly enough to feed everyone here before the earthquake, now there is even a more pitiful less.
We brought the food to a pastor here, whom the sailors in Key West have worked with before when they delivered supplies after the hurricanes, and who will distribute it. We are staying in the rectory of his church, a thirty minute walk up the hill from the harbor.
On our first walk yesterday we didn’t go far before making friends with a group of men halting through the thoroughly complicated English instructions of how to pitch a large donated tent. Together we stumbled through it laughing and then went inside the small children’s school they are running with big hearts and a wind generator that has not worked for the three years they have had it. There are no tools and no experts to hire and no money to buy either.
I have been as usual hyper-critical of the many white people that come here and get involved with what becomes their pet project, an orphanage maybe, or school, that they support missionary style. Standing in the AME school, laughing with 10 young men putting up a tent, I am having a little more understanding. When you see projects so full of heart, of which there are so many, where a relatively small flow of money could change the course. And when that is the privilege you hold, access to that small flow… it makes so much sense. So I remember to refine my skepticism to be more laser focused on the fact that most of these unequal power relationships do not hold the intention of looking deeper. They skim the surface of immediacy and are not interested in where this poverty beyond madness comes from, and what will actually challenge it and make it something different. And clearly nothing will ever change if we keep skimming this surface. We can feel good about ourselves for rowing in one direction while the tide is steadily pulling us farther and farther off course.
Walking up the road here at night… the streets are dark except for occasionally small lights coming out of the backs of housefront stores or storefront churches, or occasionally candlelight in a bucket. There is music though, blown out speakers blaring haitian hip hop. Goats and roosters and a crowd at the water pump arguing. Some have walked for hours and will walk hours back in the night with their bucket of water. There is an old tractor (feels like home) except it is speeding down the dark street with a trailer and no lights and zig zaging as motor bikes narrowly avoid it and everything else in the street. There are rocks the size of basket balls regularly throughout the streets.
We came home last night to our privilege and a hot meal made by the rectory and slept well, happy to be on solid ground…while all around us people could not sleep as they remembered that the ground was not solid at all.
Since our arrival we have been in the company of a young Haitian pastor from a church in key west. He is from Léogâne, just west of Port au Prince and the epicenter of the earthquake. He is connected with the community in key west organizing donations for the sailboats and came to Île de la Gonave for a couple days to see if he could bring a couple of the bags of rice and beans back to Léogâne. He came home to Haiti in order to organize cooking and serving 1 meal of rice and beans per day at a camp in Léogâne for the short 5 days or so that he will be here. He is trying to figure out how to safely travel the boat and bus trip with a few heavy sacks of rice. To be traveling so many hours to pick up some donated sacks of imported US rice in a land that used to grow it’s own rice until the U.S. dumped it’s surplus and ruined the rice market, is vicious absurdity.
We talk for hours over lunch and a walk to the boat and late after dinner with the pastor. We talk about Preval and his complete lack of leadership, about Aristide and the disillusionment of his last term, about not seeing any good leaders on the horizon, and about how on a national level it is impossible for leaders to maintain their integrity when they are under the choking international pressure to put the interests of foreign countries and trade agreements ahead of the interests of the people. There is little faith that any one with a compass set towards justice can survive at this level. There is the history to show how leaders have continuously sold out or been taken out when they didn’t sell out quickly enough.
I am struck over the past weeks with the many people in the U.S. I overhear saying how they don’t understand how Haiti has been the victim of so much hardship…hurricanes, poverty, and now this. The magnitude of pain from the earthquake I don’t begin to understand, having not lived it. But it is clear from one minute being here, or from clear voices telling the history, that this mountain of pain is only piled on top of a much larger mountain of pain. And that mountain is not the work of god or mother earth, but the work of humans inflicted on other humans. And that is a completely unnecessary, avoidable mountain piled up for over 500 years.
In 1804 the Haitian people won their 12 year slave revolt, heroically claiming their freedom and independence from France and inspiring those enslaved throughout the Americas.
In return France demanded that Haiti pay them today’s equivalent of $21 billion for money they would have made off of their sweat and blood as slaves had they not been defeated. It is farcical absurd except that it has altered the course of so many human lives. France threatened a military invasion if it wasn’t paid. Over the following years Haiti would take out loans and sacrifice the building of their own country to slowly work on paying the debt.
And that is just one small piece of a puzzle full of military occupation, U.S. and European supported coups, trade embargos, manipulative loans and overwhelming debt, the flooding of the Haitian market with under-priced food from the U.S. ruining their agricultural system, ongoing hostility, violence and blatant disrespect. It would take a long time to understand all the intricacies, but only 10 minutes of reading a historical outline tells you that something awful, unnecessary, and human-made has been unfolding over many years.
On the radio in Pere Soners dark office with turquoise blue walls the radio is a staticy and funnily comforting smooth jazz rendition of Ritchie’s “Im never gonna dance again”
One of our crew from the boat is interviewing the pastor for the article he is writing for a magazine. He is finding out what the system is for distributing food. He is happily surprised to find out that the church has a system of distributing cards and making sure food is given out to only those with cards in an organized way. I am shocked that he is surprised. His expectations must have been quite low. He asks Pere Sonare how they know for sure that the people receiving food are the ones that need it. Soner says just look at their face. He asks “do people ever come to get food that do not need it and then what would you do?” Soner simply says “that is not a problem.” He asks “why do you do it…why do you give away food?” Soner doesn’t understand the question and asks a few times for clarification. Then he gives a look as if to say “is that really the question?” and laughs and says “I think you can answer that. We do it because the situation asks for it.”
I am staying quiet in my seat remembering all of the food pantry days out of Arise. Thinking about how every other pantry in Springfield required multiple forms of id and proof of poverty. Wondering how we got so obsessed with someone getting an extra cup of rice. We are trapped in the choice of either fighting over the scraps or trying to regulate and control the fighting over the scraps. Im definitely not dismissing the need for good organization. Im just saying it is an inhumane trap this dynamic.
Tuesday night the four of us crew from the boat and a few of our new friends from the school tent set-up, walk down the street to get a beer. As the one woman around I get one of the two chairs on the edge of the street. As four of the very few white people around we stand out dramatically and get a lot of attention. For three hours we are a tight ball of mostly young men and small boys. I spend most of the night happy to play charades with the boys since I cannot speak creole. I am at the same time loving laughing and goofing around with them, watching the interactions between our sailing group and people that stop to talk, watching the overwhelming jumble of dynamics that come from our whiteness, and feeling the complicated history that has created this complex web. In between playing with the boys I talk to Samuel who earns the other chair by being a leader at the school and the charismatic character that has brought this group together. He is one of those people that I occasionally meet in life that I trust completely and immediately and I am wishing I was going to be in this town longer for that reason.
Wed Feb 24
My coworker and friend Bev has extended her 2 week trip indefinitely and is still in Port-au-Prince. She is writing and recording everything she can about the ways people are organizing their own methods for survival, and for building a society of respect and justice. She is interviewing women of KOFAVIV the organization of women survivors of rape and child slavery, members of peasant associations working to rebuild an agricultural system, community leaders in the workers rights movement, and everyone she meets on the street. She is blogging about what she learns and sees and is being published on the websites of Michael Moore, Yes magazine, the Guardian and many others. She is reuniting with friends and finding out who is ok and who is not. (Her blogs which are a good window on what is happening here, are all stored on our website at
www.otherworldsarepossible.org . Go to the link that says “A Just Alternative for Haiti”)
I wake up at 3:30 am to arrange traveling with the two pastors by boat and truck from Île de la Gonave to Port au Prince. I have decided at the last minute to go with them so as not to have to negotiate the travel on my own. I call Bev at 5am to ask if it is ok to come stay with her tonight. She answers wide awake and when I apologize for calling so early she says “no worries, I was awake…no one sleeps in this country.”
I take the 2 hour ferry where everyone holds their life jacket in their lap. There is a staticy little tv at the front of the boat that switches back and forth between news clips and a U.S. Christian concert of people belting out the song“This is how we overcome.” A few hours later I am dropped off at the apartment in Port au Prince where Bev is staying.
Thur Feb 25
Yesterday afternoon Bev and I catch a ride into downtown. We run into some friends of hers and one of them spends the afternoon and evening with us walking through the streets.
I really don’t know what to say here. If you could try and picture the worst thing you can imagine people having to survive through, and survive in…
Every block has numerous houses or buildings that are completely collapsed and each time you look at one you think about how there could be people in there. You walk by a flattened school and someone tells you there are 200 people there.
Everyone has a story of their brother, their mother, their best friend, their heart.
We had dinner tonight with two of Bev’s good friends. Brilliant organizers and thinkers working for justice. One of them is laughing and smiling and being so incredibly warm and welcoming and I find out that she lost her mother Jan 12th. They lost their house and are sleeping in a tent in the backyard. She says she won’t go back inside for a year.
No one will go inside even if their house didn’t fall. The apartment building where I am staying, people are sleeping in their cars in the parking lot or in tents on the patios. And they are the lucky ones.
There are camps around the city, together holding 770,000 people. Some have tents that have been donated but many many of them have made their shelter, with sticks and a tarp, and many with only sticks and a sheet. So last night when it began pouring rain people are literally sitting in the rain with their few possessions and their children, everything getting soaked to the bone, or huddled for hours under some small awning. And the rainy season is beginning now and I have no idea how people are going to manage.
We went to Champs de Mars yesterday. It is the largest camp in the middle of the city, with 60,000 people, near the collapsed palace. You may have seen it on tv. We also went with Bev’s friend to the stadium, another camp, where he and his family are living. The stadium camp was better…it had astro turf instead of concrete and didn’t smell as much like sewage. The moments of sweetness were watching the kids who are miraculously still doing cartwheels and running around laughing and giving out hugs. At the stadium folks had set up a barbershop and a place to watch movies. Our friend said they are getting occasional coupons that allow them an allotment of spam.
I know some food is being distributed because a few people have told me so. Rice only, I have heard about USAID giving out rice. But in all of yesterday, and all of today I have not seen a single person giving out any food. I have seen donated tents (shout out to coleman tents who has a heart and has been donating many) and about 3 tanks of water, but the only food I have seen anyone eating is the food that they are buying from others on the street. And I have no idea how they are pulling together the money to buy food as they have just lost everything and everything has crumbled and there is no way of making money.
There is one area of town we walked to that used to be super busy bustling market streets lined with women selling their goods. It was rubble. Thick clouds of cement dust anytime a car would drive by, small piles of burning trash, sewage in the gutters, and meager few people walking through the streets looking tragedy stricken. There were no laughing children here. Only rubble and trash and sadness for blocks and blocks and blocks.
Many many people (they are estimating 500,000 people so far) have gone to the countryside seeking refuge. They are living there in tents, with family members or with strangers that have taken them in. Villages, families, and peasant associations are stepping up to provide for the new arrivals, stretching what was not enough for their own families to provide for more. There is word that farmers are using up their seed stocks and killing their animals to feed more people, putting them in an awful position to begin the growing season here in March.
There are regional and national farmer's networks, made up of smaller groups of farmers in different villages. They have been responding and coming together to coordinate their short and long term plans. They have set as their priorities: taking care of the immediate food, shelter and water needs of the new arrivals, purchasing seeds and tools, workshops to construct grain silos and water catchment, training trainers to provide technical support to new farmers, cultural activities like theater, music, story-telling, and sports to ensure the villages can sustain people, reforestation projects to build the soil, and in the long-term 10 farmer centers to serve as organizational centers.
With a lot of resources and spirit this exodus from the city to the countryside could have a glimmer of light in rebuilding the rural communities that have been decimated over the years. One of the many person-made tragedies that has compounded this tragedy is that for many years people have been moving into the city, as imported food has made agricultural life unviable. Sweatshops set up by multi-nationals on the outskirts of the city are there to receive them. Almost all state services (eg universities) are in the city. If you are a student and want to go to university you have little choice. So the city has grown beyond its capacity increasing the extent of the loss on Jan 12.
Solidarity from those who care about food sovereignty is needed in a couple of ways. Firstly, money to replenish the seed stock, buy tools, and pay for technical assistance. Second, political pressure to prevent the corporations (and their allies in foreign governments) from swooping in to further take advantage of and capitalize on the Haitian food system.
Most of what needs to happen here is for the world to respect what Haitian people say needs to happen here. Most of what needs to happen here is for foreign governments (the U.S. being a main culprit) to begin to treat this land, and all lands, and all people with respect. For corporations to find a real job, some dignified work that doesn’t rely on exploiting people. Most of what needs to happen if for us to begin understanding and refusing to buttress an economic structure that is crushing people, and to instead build our own structures with love and respect.
And in the midst of these bigger goals, there is the need for solidarity in the moment…
One of Bev's blogs on our website is about the peasant associations. At the end there are a couple places to give money that will go to seeds, tools, etc. These include:
* Agricultural Missions, which together with other U.S. groups, is working directly with FONDAMA the Haitian network of farmer’s groups that has recently formed. They are raising funds to purchase seeds to replace the peasant groups’ seed stocks. To make an on-line donation, go to
www.agriculturalmissions.org, or send tax-exempt checks made out to Agricultural Missions, to 475 Riverside Drive, Room 725, New York, NY, 10115. Mark ‘Haiti Recovery’ in the memo line.
* The Lambi Fund of Haiti is funding forty peasant associations in rural areas to help them care for the influx of family and others moving in from Port-au-Prince, and to reinforce their production. You can donate on-line at
www.lambifund.org.
A couple of my friends have asked me to carry some money with me to deliver to someone who needs it, in order to have their gift be delivered in full without overhead costs. If any of you are still wanting to give money, whatever the amount is, and want me to deliver it directly, I can do that. I can front the money and you can pay me back. If it is a larger amount you can send it thru Other Worlds and we will wire it down via western union (which is still doing free transfers to Haiti at the moment) and pass it on here. You can tell me where you want it to go.
My plan at the moment is to be here for a few more days. We are hoping to go to the countryside tomorrow. Then in a few days I will head by bus to the Dominican Republic, stay there for a bit, then head back to Miami for a few days before heading north for the planting season.
I’ve met a lot of warm, generous people in these few days. I’m amazed at their spirit to smile.
Big big love and gratitude to you all,
Tory