Haitian Sea at Sunset

We find a lean man at a cafe,

his smile an incantation to women on barstools

with nothing left to give.

Mosquito sirens spiral around my ears

across the sand

Wind shifts then breaks

Blues run together with ethereal life

until only a single azure note remains

Faces soften in amber shadow.

I watch the sun set under a bruised sky

transmuting base metal into gold leaf,

Cabaret

Despair is published in another langauge
not yours or mine but a tongue
understood by children
who make a home out of cardboard

Where they sleep in a wounded city
Without water or light or food
A tin of nothingness between their legs

The Children

She looks at me and begs for money

This emaciated house of bones and flesh

who's only constant is hunger's gnaw.

Emotions run like mercury through my fingers.

The orphans clutch my hands, my hem, my heartstrings

Luminous smiles too big for such sunken cheeks

The earthquake has left them bankrupt

with no time to admire life's variety or to contemplate the future.

Can such tiny children have great dreams?

Their lives are now a parliament of grief

and their faces pin you with their gaze

singular pieces of rice offered up on a fragile tine

forced to live in the present

detecting the world from the radar-net of heightened senses

A girl blows me a kiss and cries, "God Bless You,"

across a chasm of rubble

It is beyond my understanding

All the coins of sense are spent

Can something as ephemeral as my words

serve as a bridge between light and dark?

I wonder as a walk under sun's steady hum.

April 22

We are planning a trip for tomorrow but will have to wait to see if the riots in surrounding areas subside. I suppose that it's human nature to have conflict when in distress. Life in the camps and the streets is hard, and Haitians are restless from all the suffering they have, and continue, to endure. Haiti is a rare circumstance in the humanitarian relief world; it is one those moments where aid agencies have embraced the support of the military in providing armed protection at aid distributions. The need is staggering and the capacity of all the NGOs combined is not enough. Frustrations abound as Haitians scramble for help.

Someone also reminded me of an interesting fact this morning. Jails were brought down along with the rest of buildings, and many of the prisoners who survived are now among the general population. It's also important to remember that Port-au-Prince is a fully urban environment--from suburbs to sprawling slums. Some residents are professionals who lost their homes along with their jobs, others are families who lost loved ones along with everything else they held dear. Many folks have abandoned their homes because they are afraid to live under concrete roofs. And, of course, there is the poverty, which defines this country. More than 78% of Haitians live in poverty (pre-quake), and this is defined by the World Bank as living on $2 per day. With poverty comes vulnerability, and the earthquake exposed it. No wonder there are riots.

April 21

Just reading over blog and have to apologize to Lurma for the typos. I'll be better from now on, promise. One thing that might be confusing is that the 1.3 million figure refers to the number of homeless people and not total population.
Ducked out to make a trip to the grocery store (within a block of the office), and I am shocked, as always, by the cost of food. One of my housemates, Lesley, bought about a pound of ground beef and it was $24. I checked out chicken breasts for tomorrow night's meal, but quickly put down the package of 2 anemic looking breasts when I saw the $28 price tag. Gas, when it's available, is $12/gallon. Thankfully, I have discovered a pastry store that sells cappuccino and the cost is comparable to Starbucks. Helme and Jim, imagine my relief! Back to work...

I took my first trip out of the office yesterday and travelled to x. Depending on traffic ( and Haitian traffic puts Atlanta's to shame), it's a 1 1/2-3 hour trip. We went to check on the progress of the transitional shelter building. For those of you who don't know, Habitat is offering a 3-fold response to the disaster,including emergency shelter kits, t-shelters and concrete core housing. The t-shelters meet basic housing needs and are meant to last 2 years until the core housing project is complete. We'll be building 440 of these in Cabaret and work commenced this week. Everyone was hard at work when we arrived, and was amazed at how quickly the shelters can be built. Today, families will be moving into the structures I saw being built yesterday. We met the owner of one of the first shelters constructed. Through a translator, we learned that she has 10 children and her 11th child died in the quake. She and her husband Antoine kept thanking of for their home and for "bring us peace."

Our impromtu translator, Clifford, was going to university in Port-au-Prince before the quake and he hopes to become an international reporter. Now he lives with his mother and siblings and works the family farm. Although many of the elementary schools have relocated and reopened in some capacity, the university is shuttered closed.

Bob, the architect of the t-shelters came along on this trip and told me that, "poverty isn't about money; it's about unmet promises." I can't get that out of my mind.

It is so complicated. The destruction is so vast, it's easy to get discouraged. I felt hope seep out me on the ride out to Cabaret. There were people who had pitched a tent in the road because all available land was taken. How can you even begin to right this wrong? But you do. I must tell you, though,that hope returned to me during the afternoon as we walked through countless makeshift dwellings. Suddengly I head the sound of hammering in the distance. It was coming form the t-shelter construction site. When you consider that approximately 1.3 million people are in and around Port-au-Prince alone, it is difficult to see how true reconstruction is possible, and yet, there soon will be 440 families in Cabaret who soon will have a place to call home. It was a very emotional day, and I left feeling quite privileged that I witnessed, first hand, Habitat at work.

april 18th

Exciting day yesterday. We went to one of the Habitat apartments and went swimming at the pool there. Lovely. Then one of the men who had been in the Jacmel area doing assessments came to report in. Habitat is trying to set up several Habitat Resource Centers (HRCs) in the more rural areas surrounding Port au Prince. The Carrefors HRC is already up and running (440 transitional shelters completed) but it is a question mark as to the others. Jacmel was hit hard by the quake and transportation there is mostly paved roads so transporting goods and materials will be fairly easy (this is, of course, all relative). Land rights is a much contested area, . We're hopeful this can be resolved and work on transitional shelters can begin in earnest. There are two other towns we had hoped to set up an HRC but the road conditions may make this an impossibility. From Jacmel, there are only unpaved roads and once the rains start, they will be impassable. We asked about using the sea port to bring in materials, but apparently the ports are lacking cranes, which are needed to unload the crates.

Last night, I saw firsthand the power of the rains. We left the other apartment in the middle of a downpour and got stuck on the steep hill leading up to our house. Richard says that light cars can literally be carried downstream and the driver is helpless to alter course. After we got stuck, other cars/jeeps followed suit and so it was impossible to back up and get more traction. Finally the rains abated and we were able (just) to make it home. Apparently, the rain comes during the late afternoon and through the night. The road in front of our house quickly turned into a raging river. I asked how long the rainy season will last and the answer is 6-7 months. They actually will be closing down the apartment I'm staying in because it will soon be impossible to reach.

More later....