Haiti: The day after: visible from the highway

Anyone who has ever been to Haiti probably found it very hard to sleep on Tuesday night.

Even under normal circumstances, life is unbelievably difficult on the island; it is hard to imagine that any more pain and suffering could be possible. But there it was: late Tuesday afternoon, a massive 7.0 earthquake struck near the capital city, Port-au Prince, wiping out power and communication lines. Darkness came too soon, making rescues even more difficult.

In the poorest nation of the Western hemisphere, there are no “first responders”, no rescue teams, no fire fighters, little heavy equipment capable of digging survivors from the rubble. If help came to survivors in the dark of night, it was from a family member or friend who answered their cries and tried to extricate them from the debris, often with nothing more than bare hands.

Daniel Morel, via Twitter

Woman buried in rubble after 7.0 earthquake, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The majority of Haitians who live in the capital city of Port-au-Prince are profoundly poor. Over a million live in shantytowns on the edge of the city. Eighty-seven percent live in such deep poverty that finding food is a daily struggle and clean water is a luxury. This is a country where poor mothers feed mud pies to their hungry babies to fill their empty little stomachs. In light of this level of poverty, the fact that daily life in Haiti proceeds with any orderliness stems from the resilience, strength and will of the people — that, and the presence of missionaries, relief organizations and UN peacekeepers. 

It has been many years since I was in Haiti. Its history of struggle against the odds, and the talents of its many artists, drew me to this island nation. It became the place where I accepted the limitations of my own ability to tolerate abject poverty, or to alleviate the suffering of its victims. We had parked our car near the Iron Market. It was hot and too crowded, so I decided to stay in the car alone while the rest of our group shopped. Within minutes, the car was surrounded by faces pressing on the windows, through the front, back and both sides of the car. These were the faces of mothers whose babies appeared to be merely bundles of skin, bone and rags, of old people with all kinds of ailments, their haggard faces begging for whatever could be gotten. In my locked car, in the teeming heat, surrounded by all those begging faces, I cried and trembled alone behind the locked doors.

It wasn’t until years later, in Egypt, while riding from the airport to the center of Cairo, that I understood what I had done, what so many of us do when forced to look into the faces of people in extreme poverty. We concentrate our attention on the beautiful views and try not to look down. 

That day in Cairo, the car was traveling on a very high, elevated roadway which afforded sparkling views of the city as we sped along. The views were so thrilling that it took a while before I looked down from my perch and saw the teeming crowd of people below. In just one glance, I saw hundreds of ragged people, gathered in a crowded, rundown sector of the city, while people with plenty, people like me, sailed past on the sky bridge overhead. The way that road was designed, a tourist could complete an entire visit to the pyramids without having had any contact with the poor Egyptians surrounding them — without even seeing them. 

For decades, that’s the way it has been with Haiti. Most of the developed world seems to have been traveling past on an elevated bridge, riding high above Haiti, never looking down to see the impoverished masses below. But this time, with the Obama administration pledging its unwavering commitment of assistance, with the full attention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, UN Special Envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton, and with the eyes of the world focused on this desperate situation, let’s hope the people of Haiti can finally be seen eye-to-eye, face-to-face.

This time, with so much damage and so much suffering, it is time for the world to reach down and lift them up.

Originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle online edition The Gate.