Blaze in Haiti, Day 4: The Three-Month Anniversary

From L to R: Jill Biden, Haitian President Rene Preval, and Michelle Obama today in Port-au-Prince. Photo courtesy of CSM.

This week marks the three month anniversary of the earthquake, and the members of the BlazeSports delegation are not the only Americans who commemorated the occasion in Port-au-Prince. The First and Second Ladies of the United States, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, paid an unannounced visit to the Haitian capital today, with Ms. Obama delivering a poignant speech to the United Nations staff stationed here. She used the occasion to laud the efforts of the international community and NGOs, but the First Lady reserved her greatest praise for the amazing and continuing display of “Haitians helping Haitians.” We actually had an encounter with the official motorcade as we slalomed down a formerly two-lane road that has been rendered one-lane by rubble piles. Our truck, piloted by the indefatigable Jean-Chevalier Sanon, was heading directly into an oncoming stream of black SUVs with blaring sirens. Spotting us, the entire motorcade hung a right onto a side road to let us through. It seems that not even the Secret Service is willing to take on Mr. Sanon in a game of chicken.

This morning we sat down with the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) of Haiti’s canvassing committee. Mostly made up of young people in their teens and twenties, this team travels tent-to-tent in displacement camps throughout the country in order to collect information on Haitians with disabilities. These volunteers assemble their extensive and sophisticated demographic information with paper and pen, and make frequent follow-up visits to check for migration between camps.

The leader of one the Haitian NPC’s canvassing teams displays some of his findings.

After navigating the gridlock caused by a severe gasoline shortage, we managed to enter Cité Soleil, a neighborhood called “the most dangerous place on earth” by the UN. Cité Soleil’s 300,000 or so residents lack access to electricity, sewers, and police, making it one of the world’s most populous slums. However, facts and figures do no justice to the abjection that the area’s residents face daily, and the pictures I’ve posted below go only a bit further. To understand Cité Soleil, you have to choke on the fumes pumped into its air by cars and smokestacks. You have to feel the anxiety that makes you hide your camera and causes relief groups to conceal food shipments to protect them from the powerful neighborhood gangs. And you have to speak with the residents who face these inhuman conditions with consummate humanity.

An elderly resident of Cité Soleil.

Mr. Sanon introduced us to members of SoHaMO, an NPC partner organization led by and created for people with disabilities and the frail elderly who saw their residential building destroyed in the earthquake. The one-room schoolhouse where we convened our meeting is eerily stuck in the moment of the disaster. The teachers hadn’t gotten around to taking down the homemade Christmas decorations, and the date chalked on the blackboard–the last that school was in session–is January 12, 2010, the day of the earthquake. During the daytime, the members of SoHaMO that are able to work attempt to find odd jobs and scavenge for food to share with the collective, so the people we talked to were among the frailest of the frail. Yet as they shared their stories of loss, devastation, and severe shortage of assistance, it became clear that their brittle bodies belie a toughness of spirit. These people are hurting, they are struggling against obstacles the likes of which few in the First World can conjure even in nightmares, but they have not yet given up hope.

The chalkboard in a Cité Soleil schoolhouse still bears the date “12 Janvier 2010,” the day of the earthquake. There has been no class since.

Carol, Jean-Chevalier, and Duncan listening to stories of SoHaMO members.

Cité Soleil residents at our meeting.

Judging by their living conditions, though, there is no telling how long that hope will be able to sustain itself. After our meeting, the SoHaMO contingent piled into the flatbed of our truck and we all drove to their encampment. They have set up camp in a ruins of a destroyed building. Tents improvised from tablecloths and sticks are pitched on concrete, and the inhabitants sleep on literal rock piles in order to escape nightly flooding. Still, the pride they show in these homes is moving. As I walked through the camp, person after person posed in front of their tent, waiting for me to take their picture. About fifteen minutes after I thought I’d finished this rotation, a little boy signaled for my attention by yelling “Those!” and pointing. Two women had been standing beside their tents, waiting their turn.

Today was easily the toughest day on a tough trip. The need in Cité Soleil is seemingly limitless, but the depth of this challenge is testament to the necessity of addressing it. NPC Haiti is doing what they can for the people of the SoHaMO camp; they help to furnish the camp with water purification materials and food. Let us follow their example, and prod others into doing the same.

On the border of the SoHaMO camp.

A family poses in their tent.

A Cité Soleil “bed.” Residents sleep on rock piles like this to escape nightly flooding.

BlazeSports and NPC Haiti with residents of the SoHaMO camp.