#FreeHaiti

Illustration from Adventures of Son Son - Part 2

The first time I traveled to Port-au-Prince was days after the January 12, 2010 earthquake. If it was just for the earthquake, we wouldn't have gone. On the same day as the earthquake, we received news that one of the boys from Project Esperanza, Anol, had passed away. He was diabetic and had gone to visit family in the north of Haiti. We just had to go. We also had a friend that had been sending daily updates from Port-au-Prince so we ended up bringing care packages. 

We brought a Haitian friend who really wanted to serve with us. We stayed with his family in Gonaives the first night, then with Jeres' family in Canape Vert, Port-au-Prince. We ended up pitching a little house made out of wood and plantain leaves in the tent city set up on Plas Mozole. The plan was for our friend to stay there and use it to help set up a sort of government in the tent city that would organize distribution of any aid that came in and just organize life in general. Our efforts were super last minute, as no one knew the earthquake was coming, obviously. We planned on the drive over and stopped at a print shop to make letters in English and Creole, explaining our plan and purpose to any groups we ran into. We slept in the little house on Plas Mozole the last night in Port-au-Prince as an act of solidarity, and then headed up the crazy mountains to the north in the morning. 

I have gone through many bouts of insanity throughout my years and when I regain sanity later on, I can't believe that I did that. This was one. I'm not talking about sleeping in the little house in the tent city on Plas Mozole. I'm talking about going up those mountains with huge potholes, no guardrails, treacherous cliffs, with vehicles going way to fast around the corners! As for staying with the people in Plas Mozole, I wish I could do more of that. 

That night, a group of women talked to me. They were a women's organization fighting for women's rights. I explained to them what our plan was, and when I said our friend was staying in the house to serve, one of them asked, "A man?"

"Yes."

"A Haitian man?" 

"Yes," I replied again. 

"Volo!" A few of them yelled and repeated volo, which means thief in Haitian Creole. My heart sunk a little as they went on to criticize all Haitian men. I ended up asking what they were doing to change things. They replied that they treat their boy children and girl children as equals. If the girls haul water, the boys haul water too. The next day I would travel to my mother-in-law's house for the first time and see more of the gender inequality in how kids are raised in some households. As they spoke to me passionately about this, there was one twelve-year-old boy among them; the son of one of the women. 

They were so passionate and strong. I was honored to be talking to them and honored that God had given me the opportunity and the ability to speak and understand their language. As they talked, there was a rumbling of noise coming from the road. We were in the middle of sea of tents and little scrap houses so we couldn't see the road, but could hear the noise getting closer. As I realized it was people marching and singing, it was time for the chorus of the song and they joined in, with one woman in the middle holding her arms out as if she was worshipping or submitting. 

They sang, "Ayiti pa kapab soufri anko", which means, "Haiti cannot suffer anymore". 

As if it were planned, the singing continued and the woman who had had her arms out now looked directly at me and began preaching in a loud voice. She pointed her finger and declared that, "Ayiti pa kapab soufri anko. Haiti cannot suffer anymore. We have suffered too much. There was a child who died in Carrefour because he thirsted for water!" 

This was one of the most powerful moments for me that I can remember. I was in awe and grief. I wanted nothing more than to help these women. I had no resources beyond what we had spent. Their sons that they were working hard to raise to be responsible... were they able to go to school? Were they drawn into gangs despite their mother's efforts? Or draw in in what they felt was necessary to protect their mothers? I hope not. 

I actually wrote about this short lived Port-au-Prince effort in the first post of this blog in 2010. We tried, and hopefully we helped out some, but we were not equipped for the job.  

In a post I wrote in January called Haiti Cheri Part II, I shared that although there is still much political turmoil in Haiti, it is not at the state that it was in 2019 when schools could not even function. However, since writing that, there has been more conflict about President Jovenel Moise staying in office, saying he's violating the term set out in the constitution. I didn't understand that completely, but our cousin Jerry explained a bit more in the video below. You can see it's a bit ambiguous because the president's term is five years, which he has served four of, but a year was lost between the last president and him. 

I have seen news where the Biden Administration has taken a stance on the issue, saying that Jovenel should not be thrown out immediately as some want, but arrangements for an election should be made. Others conclude that this is simply the power hungry opposition supplying vulnerable youth and men with guns and sending them to the streets to wreak havoc. 

Whatever it is, it's sure sad. We have had boys in our program report that police (I believe it was) had given them guns to do harm with. One of these boys returned to Haiti several years ago when he was ill and ended up passing away. The second boy only came to the program a few times. It was the other boys who confessed this for him. Both boys were quite tiny. 

On March 14th, I posted this in Project Esperanza's Facebook group. 

Here is the article linked in that post. You see it mentions that this sparked #FreeHaiti that is flying around on Twitter. I blew the dust off of my old Twitter account and checked it out. It seems to be started by Ezili Danto. Here is her website.  From her tweets and her site, it looks like she sees the biggest issues that keep Haiti in bondage as foreign interference in Haitian politics, UN/US occupations, corruption among politicians, and the mindset of Haitians themselves, including NGO dependency. I do not see anywhere on the site where this is stated clearly, but I am gathering this from what is posted and from her tweets. She is all about mentally empowering Haitians to lead themselves. She says, "We are enough" meaning that Haitians shouldn't expect help from others, and they don't need it. They are enough.  

I can agree with all of those issues being problematic for the most part and I highly respect her for organizing. And I don't have to agree 100% to be supportive. I am not Haitian, myself. Jerry and I talked about things for over two hours. He ended up concluding that he thinks foreign interference in Haitian politics is 100% bad, but he does appreciate NGO support by means of education. He said that lots of support is wasted. He sees money come in, people drive around in cars, and don't get a lot done. But he went to elementary school at a Methodist school in Grisongarde, Haiti, as did my husband, where their tuition was reduced by World Vision, from what he said. He appreciates that and knows that support is a big part of the solution. 

I was glad that he concluded this and tried not to push him to do so, but let him talk and asked questions. I am glad because this is a solution that I believe with all of my heart. I'm not glad that education is not already provided by the Haitian government, but am glad to be a part of the solution in that way. I believe that a main focus must be providing nurturing education for all children in the country and that there are plenty of Haitians in the country who can teach. I hope we can be of support. As I said in Haiti Cheri Part II, we are channeling funds for Met Dev's school in Maroquee, which we mention in the above video.  

Over a series of posts, I'd like to share more thoughts about the chains that bind Haiti that Ezili Danto proposes, as well as share a few additional ideas. We humans... we have figured out a lot. We have explored space, figured out how to clone, and even have self driving cars. Do you think we can collectively figure out how to free Haiti? Let's not give up. Let's work together as one.