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Day 3 Port Au Prince, Haiti
5 am wake up call by... roosters, I think.
Ran over to drop team 2 off at Delmas to register kids.
started identifying children who had not been reunited with families and/or who were orphans. My team for today went towards Cite Soleil.
Normally, UN and U.S. military personnel would accompany us, but our objective was to get deep into Cite Soliel, build trust and have the Haitians help us in identifying some of the children that are homeless and hungry. I have to be honest. I was scared at first.
For us to stay safe, we didn’t travel with security inside Cite Soleil. Our team was small: 8 people, 3 of whom are originally from Cite Soleil. We didn’t carry any food either. This kept us safer than if we went in with even a small amount of food.
A couple adults tried to manipulate us, picking up orphans and saying they were theirs and asking us to give them food. When we told them we had no food, they would drop the kids and run off. That made me even more determined to find more orphans. Not only are they preyed upon by outside traffickers, but they are used by some in their own communities. They need protection.
Look for more on what I experienced on a one-to-one level with the children in a future blog post. Very interesting. Most of these children are joyful and playful. They yearn for human touch and want to be hugged and want to interact with you. In Cite Soleil, especially, the kids LOOK sick. Many have physical injuries, open sores, yellowish eyes and coughs. You want to touch them but at the same time, stay safe. It tears you apart.You can see the desperation the children’s eyes.
And then, there are the kids that are angry and hateful. Which breaks my heart even more because they need love the most.
I wish I could describe better what I saw. There are so many things that I just want to throw my hands up and say… It’s BAD. Wikipedia’s entry on Cite Soleil says it is the most dangerous part of town. Police and aid workers will not even go there. Brian sent me this link after reading that I was inside Cite Soliel: http://missionlifeline.blogspot.com/2008/12/city-soleil.html
I got so dirty playing with the kids in Citi that I HAD to change clothes. I think I even managed to get poop on me.
Today in Cite Soleil, we found around 76 orphans.
I got us into trouble today. I didn’t have food of course, but as a resource to connect with the kids and get them to talk openly, I used balloons. They are small and easy to carry in my BDU pockets (if you carry something in your gear bag and people see you reaching in there, you’ll attract too much bad attention). Well, I attracted some bad attention because people started seeing that I had balloons and started gathering around our team begging and grabbing at us for balloons. After I gave out all I had, they started to get angry. So our guys got us out of there. This was around 3PM. The day after tomorrow, we are planning on doing a food distribution to this section of Citi Soliel. We will come in at that time with the UN and the U.S. military.
LARGE NGOs like the Salvation Army and Red Cross have a different system of distributing food and medical services. They hand out vouchers and people come to designated areas. But there are communities that are not reached and/or those people have no means of getting to those locations. Some are afraid to leave their tents fearing what little they have will be stolen. Some have injuries or illness and some don't even know there is help available. Our group's goal is to reach those types of people. Together, large and small NGOS... work together this way with one goal. Help the people of Haiti.
Since we finished our original mission early, our driver took us to see the palace. That is the image I am most used to seeing on CNN. We get there, and…okay, great, I see it. It doesn’t affect me. Hmm.
Got caught up in a riot right outside the palace. President Sarkozy arrived and a mob was making its way to meet him. so today we did couple UN no, no's.
He drove us around other sectors in Port-au-Prince and then took us to the top of a mountain where we looked down at the city. There is a huge cloud of dust below. It is gray and flat. The only colors you can see, which are not even color, are from the tent cities.
I have not cried once since I’ve been here. When I am on my mission, my adrenaline is going and I don’t even have time to think, “Oh, this is sad.” I am identifying needs and trying to be vigilant about my surroundings. At night, when I try and reflect, I wonder why I don’t feel the need to cry even though my heart breaks and I feel like there is not enough that I can do to help. And of course the last thing I want to do is cry in front of the people I’m trying to help! But here at the top of this mountain, I felt an overwhelming need to cry. Looking down and seeing the devastation and how big the city is, you realize that EVERY SINGLE PERSON down there is suffering and in pain.
After that, we received a call asking if any teams were available to go to a neighboring fishing village to try and purchase clams, conchs, and fish for the aid workers. We decided to go even though we had not made the trip before. The drive was over an hour away, on damaged roads. We went to two villages, but they had no food. We finally were able to find a third one that had some conchs and even a lobster! We purchased it and while the team bagged them up, I started talking with the kids that had gathered around. Most of them are orphans but are being taken care of by the fishing community. They proudly showed me all of their toys, which were all make from pieces of trash. I went to my supplies and brought out all the stuffed toys and candy I had and we gave them all out.
We spent too much time there, because it got dark long before we made it back to camp. It is so dark that even with headlights, it is hard to see the road. Plus the dust affects visibility. The roads have holes, bridges are broken, and there are rocks everywhere and tons of people walking around in the dark. This was very dangerous and a big lesson for us. Crazy, dangerous and incredibly productive day :)
And most importantly, made it home and had a big clam bake for dinner!
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