"A Different View of Haiti" Article

InFlight USA

The above link is to an article I wrote for InFlight USA magazine about my journey to Haiti that will appear in the May issue.

That journey is continuing as I try and determine the best way to write to help Haiti and the Haitian people. I have been offered the gift of many stories I could tell, but I'm realizing I want to tell the uplifting and positive ones. The media does an adequate job of presenting the negative. I would like to try and focus on the best of human nature being brought out in the midst of this tragedy.

There are rays of light to be found in even the darkest places in Haiti. The beautiful school in Cite` Soleil and the children there are a classic example. If you read the papers, there is talk about supposed impending violence in Cite` Soleil; how horrible conditions are there. There is however, another side to that story and to Cite` Soleil, and all you might read in the media is not grounded in reality.

I do not mean to minimize the conditions, for they are indeed still horrendeous for too many in the aftermath of the quake. Absolutely the government and International community needs to continue to do all it can to rebuild and bring Haiti to a place of integrity for its people. I use that description "bring Haiti to a place of integrity" intentionally, for integrity has not always been a part of the equation in how its own government or the world as a whole has treated Haiti and its people.

But I want to focus on the good, and envision that good growing exponentially and Haiti being restored from this tragedy into the place of beauty it once was and can be again. I want to write about the positives; the light and hope.
Those things are to be found in the people and stories involved with the organizations I've already mentioned here: Project Medishare - Aviation for Humanity - Art Creation Foundation for Children Within each are tales of the best in human nature coming forth in giving and generous ways.

A positive attitude and light can be found too in the faces of these children at the school in Cite` Soleil. A school that was built by community leaders who chose not to dwell on violence or the past, but instead on creating a productive and peaceful future for these children.

Fear ...

I deliberately chose the above picture for this post. Because for many reasons, had fear creeped into mindset at any point on this journey, I wouldn't have gone in the first place. And I definitely would not have seen these beautiful kids in Cite` Soleil ... jumping rope at dusk in a place that so many would have said, "oh but you cannot go there!"

I acknowledge that I went to Haiti under extraordinary circumstances. Unlike so many of the truly heroic relief workers - medical and otherwise - who responded to the disaster of the earthquake, I was comfortably housed, transported and cared for. I did not sleep in a tent; I did not battle dirt and bugs; I did not have to face the kind of trauma that a disaster by its nature presents to those who have the skills to provide aid. Not for a moment do I discount the affect that had on the experience I had in Haiti; not for a moment do I discount the perceptions it allowed me to come home with - as opposed to others who experienced the opposite of what I did.

But I believe there was a reason for the circumstances I was in - for the ability to experience Haiti the way I did, when I did. As someone commented on my post yesterday regarding the overall perception of Haiti via the media: "The focus on poverty, with the repeated tagline "the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" and the exagerated references to crime and unrest, make it hard for viewers to imagine any other aspect of life in Haiti."  I have to agree.

Making this trip brought out fears and concerns in family and friends. Reacting only from the perceptions of the media, they understandably thought I was - nuts. It was a dangerous place, both prior to the earthquake and especially now. It was humid and disease ridden; the people and country volatile and potentially dangerous. How brave of me many said. How stupid many said also ....

I wasn't brave. But nor was I stupid. My host had insisted before he agreed to my coming - before I made the commitment to come - that I educate myself about his country. I say "educate myself about his country" however I think I more accurately should say, "begin to educate myself" about his country. For the more I learn? The more I realize there is to learn. But prior to going, with just what I read and understood at that point both from my research as well as speaking more with my host as well as others who had seen Haiti from his perspective - the easier it became to settle in to a comfortable determination to make this trip, and to reassure concerned others that I was going to be - just fine.

That isn't exactly a true statement in the aftermath of the trip however. I'm not "just fine." I'm changed. Because I saw the other sides of Haiti and the Haitian people, as I think it was intended for me to. I think that was a gift I need to honor. The people I referenced above - the relief workers in the trenches - were certainly not offered that opportunity. Their reality of the negative was real and raw and absolutely valid and part of the big picture. But so too was my more positive reality.

I'm puzzled and frustrated about how - but more than a little determined to try now and find a way of presenting a different portrait of Haiti and her people. I feel that it was a blessing not to be taken lightly to see the country in the light that I did.

Little things ... but that mean more than you'd think. Remember - if you've been reading here for a while - my mention of the humidity? Two days into my trip, as I yet again marveled at what I considered a real lack of it, I asked Reg, "am I crazy, or is it just NOT that humid here?" I got a smile out of him that I came to recognize as his "let go of another myth about Haiti Susan" look. He said no, I wasn't crazy. There were days of course when it was higher than others - but overall he agreed with me that Hawaii was more humid. Now I recognize again - I wasn't experiencing Haiti in the post-earthquake trenches so to speak and a relief worker reading this that might have been out in the heat of the day doing challenging and horrendeous things might argue with me - and I wouldn't argue back over their perception. But if we're talking a general reality - and trying to perceive this island differently from stereotype? The "Haiti is tropical/miserable" humid myth needs to go. Small first step in a new vision.

So fear ... I guess it's fair for me to say to those of you reading this, please don't be "afraid" of Haiti. Those kids jumping rope should hold as much sway on your impression of Haiti as crumbled buildings, dead bodies, burning tires and visions of armed soldiers and dictators that recent and past images in the media have painted of Haiti. Actually those kids should weigh more in your perception in my opinion.

Because they are a vision of hope for this country.

Again, I was so blessed to see Haiti from the perspective I did. Look below - taken from Reg's plane.

Doesn't it indeed ~ look like God is trying to shine some light?