Peanut Butter, only clogging the herringbone tread on the bottom of your shoe
My first visit to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, I was such a rube. I didn't even know if I was going to get there, the flight from Miami aborted on the runway because of fear for the safety of the pilot and crew (this because of an upswing in burning tire roadblocks and armed street gangs in Port-au-Prince, which makes me think it could have been as late as the winter of 2010-11). I had tens of homemade (not by me) school backpacks stuffed with coloring books and other craft items to deliver, plus another suitcase full of Dollar Store knickknacks and toys, so I had to get in somehow.
Thus ensued a cobbled-together back door entry into Cap-Haitien through Turks and Caicos (whose local pilots apparently weren't phased by burning tires), because, hey, suffering kids are suffering kids, no matter how far removed from the epicenter, and what else could a private individual, at the time unaffiliated with any of the government relief agencies, NGOs, or private seat-of-the-pants quasi-faith-based organizations (but also, and for this I make no apologies, completely cholera-free), do?
(Which reminds me of my second trip, an attempt to try to actually rectify the failures of the first, which involved an overnight in the Dominican Republic and entrance into Cap-Haitien by bus, detained at the border so long that what was supposed to be a mid-afternoon arrival turned into somewhere past midnight, shepherding around three foreign nuns who had no idea where they were or how to get where they needed to go.)
This is funny now, I guess, marveling at how I still speak little French and no Creole, and yet am convinced, given the right tools and better understanding of how things work on the ground, I could somehow make a difference. I'm still around to tell the story of how I gave new clothes to what appeared to be street urchins, and then saw them upon my return wearing the same tattered garb. If you need to read anything prior to undertaking a good will mission to Haiti, I would suggest "Oliver Twist".
Ultimately, I did nothing to help anyone, the soccer balls mostly kicked into the bay, the Dollar Store crap, like the flip-flops, already broken before my departure and laughably unrepairable with Dollar Store duct tape, and even if you said, "But you helped the local economy by staying in their hotels and eating in their restaurants and shopping at their grocery stores," that money was probably funneled directly to a syndicate that does nothing but oppress the under class.
All of this is prelude to warning the Caribbean that I am coming back, this time to "assist" (I used to believe that motivated, unaffiliated Anglo-Saxons with medical backgrounds and their hearts in the right place could actually assist their melanin-blessed brothers) another island confronting the aftermath of another natural disaster.
So blog updates will not be high on my agenda, because I am traveling light and hoping I don't end up the laughingstock burden, having to be airlifted out because I hit my leg with an ax, or begging my own government for bottled water (but again, folks, verifiable 100% cholera-free).
Always look for that sign in the entrance to your favorite Estes Park museum or library or hospital or donor-supported institution, the one honoring the various levels of contributors, and know that "Anonymous" under the platinum level is me. I always point it out proudly to others, anyway, encouraging them to help in whatever way they can.
Thus ensued a cobbled-together back door entry into Cap-Haitien through Turks and Caicos (whose local pilots apparently weren't phased by burning tires), because, hey, suffering kids are suffering kids, no matter how far removed from the epicenter, and what else could a private individual, at the time unaffiliated with any of the government relief agencies, NGOs, or private seat-of-the-pants quasi-faith-based organizations (but also, and for this I make no apologies, completely cholera-free), do?
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| Not me, but you get the picture |
(Which reminds me of my second trip, an attempt to try to actually rectify the failures of the first, which involved an overnight in the Dominican Republic and entrance into Cap-Haitien by bus, detained at the border so long that what was supposed to be a mid-afternoon arrival turned into somewhere past midnight, shepherding around three foreign nuns who had no idea where they were or how to get where they needed to go.)
This is funny now, I guess, marveling at how I still speak little French and no Creole, and yet am convinced, given the right tools and better understanding of how things work on the ground, I could somehow make a difference. I'm still around to tell the story of how I gave new clothes to what appeared to be street urchins, and then saw them upon my return wearing the same tattered garb. If you need to read anything prior to undertaking a good will mission to Haiti, I would suggest "Oliver Twist".
Ultimately, I did nothing to help anyone, the soccer balls mostly kicked into the bay, the Dollar Store crap, like the flip-flops, already broken before my departure and laughably unrepairable with Dollar Store duct tape, and even if you said, "But you helped the local economy by staying in their hotels and eating in their restaurants and shopping at their grocery stores," that money was probably funneled directly to a syndicate that does nothing but oppress the under class.
All of this is prelude to warning the Caribbean that I am coming back, this time to "assist" (I used to believe that motivated, unaffiliated Anglo-Saxons with medical backgrounds and their hearts in the right place could actually assist their melanin-blessed brothers) another island confronting the aftermath of another natural disaster.
So blog updates will not be high on my agenda, because I am traveling light and hoping I don't end up the laughingstock burden, having to be airlifted out because I hit my leg with an ax, or begging my own government for bottled water (but again, folks, verifiable 100% cholera-free).
Always look for that sign in the entrance to your favorite Estes Park museum or library or hospital or donor-supported institution, the one honoring the various levels of contributors, and know that "Anonymous" under the platinum level is me. I always point it out proudly to others, anyway, encouraging them to help in whatever way they can.
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