One step up, two steps back

One step up, two steps back
Relief efforts in Haiti taking hits with hurricanes
By Willie Kiernan
republican@cnylink.com

A year ago, almost to the day, Bob Hood shared his experiences in Haiti with the community at Common Grounds in Cazenovia. At the time, he was making headway.
“I know we made a difference in their lives,” Hood said. “We’ve turned it around.”
Today, Haiti is in different circumstances fighting the devastation caused by flooding from Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike.
“My friends in Haiti are suffering beyond comprehension,” Hood said.
Hood, who has made more than a dozen trips to Haiti in the last few years embracing the small community of Thibeau, has personally taken on some of their basic problems, like clean water. He built the Kara Hood Center for a community meeting place. He built a store for villagers to barter for food. He’s given business loans and has been repaid. The horrific consequences of the hurricanes represent two steps back after taking a step forward.
“We need to tell the story of this tragedy in Haiti...in our back yard,” Hood said.
In a letter written to colleagues and supporters of Partners In Health, Dr. Paul Farmer, the esteemed humanitarian made famous in the bestseller “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder, described the situation as painful beyond his experience.
“I apologize for writing again and for asking my own colleagues and friends to consider sending more resources—we need food, water, clothes, and, especially, cash (which can be converted into all of the above)—so that Zanmi Lasante, and thus all of us, can do our part to save lives and preserve human dignity,” wrote Farmer. “We're faced with another round of death and obliteration. Haiti's naked mountains promise many more unnatural disasters. We know that a massive reforestation program and public works to keep cities safer are what's needed in the medium and long term. But there's a lot we can do in the short term to help out with disaster relief.”
The day previous to writing the letter, Farmer colleagues from Zanmi Lasante had driven to the coastal city of Gonaïves, where tens of thousands of people have been driven from their homes and thousands more are living on rooftops without any access to food, water or shelter. Hurricane Ike arrived the next day with more torrential rains and deadly floods.
“A speedy, determined relief effort could save the lives of tens of thousands of Haitians in Gonaïves and all along the flooded coast,” Farmer wrote. “The people of that city and others have been stranded without food or water or shelter for three days and it's simply not true that they cannot be reached. When I called to say as much to friends working with the U.S. government and with disaster-relief organizations based in Port-au-Prince, it became clear that, as of yesterday, there's not a lot of accurate information leaving Gonaïves, although estimates of hundreds of deaths are not hyperbolic.”
Animal carcasses litter the flooded streets of Gonaïves and threatened the health of people with no access to clean water.
“No human can go ten days without water - food, perhaps - but not water,” wrote Farmer. “The people are at great risk of falling ill with water-borne illnesses. There is also a lot of dead livestock floating down the streets of the city. The stench is overwhelming.”
Paul Farmer, the world famous, Harvard educated doctor, has spent 25 years in Haiti curing aids, TB, malaria and the like.
“He’s very inspirational,” Hood said. “I have visited his hospital in Haiti...amazing!”
Many Haitian officials responded to the widespread tragedy.
“They showed up in Gonaïves lucky to have avoided drowning,” wrote Farmer. “They are doing the best they can with scant supplies. They are tired, thirsty themselves, hoarse-throated. Even Haiti's newly-appointed Prime Minister, on her first day on the job, showed up this morning in Mirebalais, keeping a promise she made many months ago, long before she was directly involved in politics. She now has to install a new government, perhaps this afternoon, and respond to multiple disasters at once. These people, who are trying to help their fellow Haitians, deserve our help.”
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter was to arrive in Gonaïve the next day with water and supplies, but an attempt to dock a U.N. vessel the night before was not successful because of "fear of crowd control."
“Since ZL is, like all the PIH sister organizations, nimble, we can do a lot by pooling small donations from friends and family members and helping ZL respond in real time to requests from those coordinating the relief efforts, Farmer wrote. “We'll need to source things like tetanus vaccine, first-aid, supplies, oral-rehydration packs and of course food, cooking oil, and fuel. Again, I know that conventional disaster-relief organizations have greater experience in logistics, and I am expecting they'll have kits prepared for precisely these needs, but as of today these supplies are conspicuous by their absence.”
America was waking up to these threats, but Haitians have long been pulling all-nighters as rainstorms keep them up rather than lull them to sleep.
“Over 20 years ago, someone explained to me that ‘wet poverty is worse than dry poverty;’ I wasn't then sure what that meant, but had a pretty good idea of the misery endured by those living through the rainy season in houses that, as the Haitians say, ‘can fool the sun but not the rain.’ I've repeated the maxim often enough to merit teasing from my students, but the Haitians find it neither amusing nor over-used,” Farmer wrote. “Trying to sleep in wet clothes, on a muddy floor, is high on the list of degradingly uncomfortable activities. It's better to simply give up and wait until daylight.”
For more information, visit pih.org. For Haiti, daylight is sometimes one step up but two steps back.

CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: Haiti, Hurricane,devastation
EDITION: Cazenovia Republican

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