In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, many of us experienced an awakening of sorts - our distractions became not so distracting all of a sudden, and our problems became small in comparison. The media was flooded with stories of the earthquake's devastation and the dire need of aid to Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas.
Much of what I've seen there hit me at my core and rocked my world seeing as how that would be my first trip to a disaster zone. The stories that followed, as my trips went along, could only be described as macabre, and in some instances, it felt like people were describing to me what hell looked like. People often ask me ubiquitous questions like "how was Haiti?" or "what's it like down there?" and I really don't have a clear answer because they haven't seen any of anything that I've seen, to which I believe they could extract a clearer question if they had. I will say this before I continue with a little summary of my trip, is that the Haitian people are the most resilient people I've seen. Considering what they've seen and been through and still seeing families active within new communities and kids running around smiling, I think it says something about how these people have been all along.
Now the reason I even had the opportunity to go to Haiti is because I'm working with a crew on a documentary. It all started with the documentary "The Philosopher Kings," which was about finding wisdom in unexpected places, and it told the stories of janitors in America's top universities. One of the characters is Josue Lajeunesse of Princeton University. His story is about how he has a responsibility to help the people of his village, to bring them clean drinking water. To do this, he works two jobs and sends as much money as he can to his brother, Chrismadonne, who has already built an extension from the water source. The purpose of this documentary is to make his dreams come true on a bigger scale, bringing more water to multiple villages in a sustainable fashion and to document it hoping to set a standard for
Around Port au Prince are buildings that have been labeled. These labels can be shown as a spray paint on but more and more buildings are showing these labels. Red is to indicate the building must be torn down, yellow means the building is structurally unsound but can be fixed, and green means it's suitable for living. I have yet to see a green labeled on any building, and I doubt anybody would want to live in a yellow structure unless they had no choice.
Before I start talking about the rebuilding process, just know that a lot of what is being sold is considered expensive, even from an American standard. I'm sure this has partly to do with the reason that Haiti is an island, and anything and everything there needs to be imported. So while it has been cheerful seeing Haiti rebuild over a 4 month period (intervals at a time), it's also sad. Sad because Haitians can't afford concrete blocks and the cheaper alternative is to use recycled rubble grinded back into concrete blocks. The buildings are built the same, and there's still no rebar used to support the structure (because that's even more expensive) So really, are they better off now than before?
Our crew stopped by a hospital on our way to Jacmel to wait for another vehicle. While I went to the bathroom, I noticed I was walking by a morgue. What gave it away was the smell (even right outside the bathroom). After the earthquake, power has been a big issue. It's becoming more stable lately, but for a while, they would only have 1 - 4 hours of random electricity a day, and everyday the power for the city would shut off at midnight (I think). So to avoid cooking the bodies when there was no electricity, the staff opened up the refrigeration units allowing the smell to seep into the air surrounding the building and any direction the breeze choose to carry it.
While standing by the morgue, taking a picture of this man building a coffin, my friend James from Operation Blessing was telling me a story right after the earthquake. It's probably unnoticeable in this picture, but he pointed to the ground and said "you notice how the floor is all dark? Well after the earthquake, people had nowhere else to take the bodies so they started bringing them here to the hospital and morgue. The number of bodies was so overwhelming that they started to stack, to where it was about 4 feet high and the only way for you to get around it was to walk over the corpses. There was no other way around it, it was something you just had to do because there were that many bodies. And so the dark stains and that slippery feeling you're getting under your boots there, that's the residual body oils, fatty tissues, blood and whatever that we tried so hard to get out, but can't. And that's even sadder is that you'll notice that the dark pavement doesn't stop until you get *points all the way to the end of the road* to the entrance of the hospital...that's when the pavement starts to lighten up." I don't know about you, but I just stood there dumbfounded for a minute letting the story digest. Now imagine how you would react if you were there.
It was brought to my attention later that not only were there mass graves, but there were mass body burnings as well. Bodies being pulled out of buildings remained unclaimed to a point where the streets were overwhelmed with corpses that the stray dogs were beginning to eat at them. Diseases were beginning to set in and the smell is the type of smell you pray no one has to experience, ever!
There's more to my trip, but I'm going to just leave it at that. Most of it probably contains the same emotional weight as these stories have. I have more photos, but probably won't be posting any on here for now just in case I can use them for the documentary. All in all, Haiti's a beautiful place and the people are generally nice. They have a lot to overcome and I'm glad I was a part of a positive effort for change, as fresh water is a huge problem not just for Haiti.
If you do want to help out, please do your research before donating. I've learned that there were crates of Viagra donated as "medical supplies" and things like fleece sweaters and Uggs (not exactly tropical weather attire) were donated as well. A lot of the bigger organizations like Salvation Army and Red Cross remain to be seen by me or my fellow crew members, but we heard their presence wasn't very permeating. Stories aside, blindly throwing money at anything only helps short term and isn't a sustainable solution - so please think before donating.
Here's two girls off to collect (in all likelihood) mud water. Most water fetching groups I've seen consists of children around this age.
Much of what I've seen there hit me at my core and rocked my world seeing as how that would be my first trip to a disaster zone. The stories that followed, as my trips went along, could only be described as macabre, and in some instances, it felt like people were describing to me what hell looked like. People often ask me ubiquitous questions like "how was Haiti?" or "what's it like down there?" and I really don't have a clear answer because they haven't seen any of anything that I've seen, to which I believe they could extract a clearer question if they had. I will say this before I continue with a little summary of my trip, is that the Haitian people are the most resilient people I've seen. Considering what they've seen and been through and still seeing families active within new communities and kids running around smiling, I think it says something about how these people have been all along.
Now the reason I even had the opportunity to go to Haiti is because I'm working with a crew on a documentary. It all started with the documentary "The Philosopher Kings," which was about finding wisdom in unexpected places, and it told the stories of janitors in America's top universities. One of the characters is Josue Lajeunesse of Princeton University. His story is about how he has a responsibility to help the people of his village, to bring them clean drinking water. To do this, he works two jobs and sends as much money as he can to his brother, Chrismadonne, who has already built an extension from the water source. The purpose of this documentary is to make his dreams come true on a bigger scale, bringing more water to multiple villages in a sustainable fashion and to document it hoping to set a standard for
Around Port au Prince are buildings that have been labeled. These labels can be shown as a spray paint on but more and more buildings are showing these labels. Red is to indicate the building must be torn down, yellow means the building is structurally unsound but can be fixed, and green means it's suitable for living. I have yet to see a green labeled on any building, and I doubt anybody would want to live in a yellow structure unless they had no choice.
Before I start talking about the rebuilding process, just know that a lot of what is being sold is considered expensive, even from an American standard. I'm sure this has partly to do with the reason that Haiti is an island, and anything and everything there needs to be imported. So while it has been cheerful seeing Haiti rebuild over a 4 month period (intervals at a time), it's also sad. Sad because Haitians can't afford concrete blocks and the cheaper alternative is to use recycled rubble grinded back into concrete blocks. The buildings are built the same, and there's still no rebar used to support the structure (because that's even more expensive) So really, are they better off now than before?
Our crew stopped by a hospital on our way to Jacmel to wait for another vehicle. While I went to the bathroom, I noticed I was walking by a morgue. What gave it away was the smell (even right outside the bathroom). After the earthquake, power has been a big issue. It's becoming more stable lately, but for a while, they would only have 1 - 4 hours of random electricity a day, and everyday the power for the city would shut off at midnight (I think). So to avoid cooking the bodies when there was no electricity, the staff opened up the refrigeration units allowing the smell to seep into the air surrounding the building and any direction the breeze choose to carry it.
While standing by the morgue, taking a picture of this man building a coffin, my friend James from Operation Blessing was telling me a story right after the earthquake. It's probably unnoticeable in this picture, but he pointed to the ground and said "you notice how the floor is all dark? Well after the earthquake, people had nowhere else to take the bodies so they started bringing them here to the hospital and morgue. The number of bodies was so overwhelming that they started to stack, to where it was about 4 feet high and the only way for you to get around it was to walk over the corpses. There was no other way around it, it was something you just had to do because there were that many bodies. And so the dark stains and that slippery feeling you're getting under your boots there, that's the residual body oils, fatty tissues, blood and whatever that we tried so hard to get out, but can't. And that's even sadder is that you'll notice that the dark pavement doesn't stop until you get *points all the way to the end of the road* to the entrance of the hospital...that's when the pavement starts to lighten up." I don't know about you, but I just stood there dumbfounded for a minute letting the story digest. Now imagine how you would react if you were there.
It was brought to my attention later that not only were there mass graves, but there were mass body burnings as well. Bodies being pulled out of buildings remained unclaimed to a point where the streets were overwhelmed with corpses that the stray dogs were beginning to eat at them. Diseases were beginning to set in and the smell is the type of smell you pray no one has to experience, ever!
There's more to my trip, but I'm going to just leave it at that. Most of it probably contains the same emotional weight as these stories have. I have more photos, but probably won't be posting any on here for now just in case I can use them for the documentary. All in all, Haiti's a beautiful place and the people are generally nice. They have a lot to overcome and I'm glad I was a part of a positive effort for change, as fresh water is a huge problem not just for Haiti.
If you do want to help out, please do your research before donating. I've learned that there were crates of Viagra donated as "medical supplies" and things like fleece sweaters and Uggs (not exactly tropical weather attire) were donated as well. A lot of the bigger organizations like Salvation Army and Red Cross remain to be seen by me or my fellow crew members, but we heard their presence wasn't very permeating. Stories aside, blindly throwing money at anything only helps short term and isn't a sustainable solution - so please think before donating.
Here's two girls off to collect (in all likelihood) mud water. Most water fetching groups I've seen consists of children around this age.
sciencexxx:
Geez man, I am just now seeing all this...