by Jonathan Lamare
It's Jonathan! I've been on vacation and out of the country for just about 10 days, and so instead of writing an update for the week I wasn't here, I thought I would share again with you all a popular blog entry I originally wrote back in May of 2013, about the realities of Haiti and the civil unrest that affects us in our daily lives. This is particularly true in recent weeks with election related violence and the expiring term of President Michel Martelly. We are day 7 without a President in Haiti, and are asking for continued prayers and thoughts for those in Haiti responsible for making this transition smooth and peaceful..."Reality Check" by Jonathan LaMare, May 2013:
Reality Check
I'll be the first to admit that it's sometimes easy to forget that I am living in Haiti. Behind the walls of Be Like Brit, where we enjoy the luxuries of safe clean water, electricity, a backup generator, even air conditioning and hot water in some places, my general everyday existence doesn't feel "developing country" - in fact, it feels quite the opposite. One of my concerns when we have Britsionary groups and visitors stay with us is that they won't get a true sense of Haiti - that they will exist within this "bubble of privilege" which we so easily forget is just that - atypical for Haiti, and as far from the norm and standard of Haitian society as one can get. I worry about the effects of this bubble on the children who live here, too. Given that their environments are so controlled and that they themselves are so safeguarded, it's something I often think about: How will life in this environment affect these children once they are outside of it? My job is to be sure they are prepared for life in Haiti - the real deal. A Haiti I hadn't seen much of until this past week.
It's certainly easy for someone reading this from the comforts of their home in a place in the States or elsewhere, or even in the more affluent parts of Haiti to take the work we do for granted. I feel like at times as the story of Be Like Brit and the lives of the children play out on Facebook, we do a disservice to ourselves and our readers when we omit some of the stark realities of Haiti. While we all know that poverty exists and people die senselessly all over the world, I didn't have a true sense of how hard things are in Haiti until I set out with a child for Port-au-Prince this past week in an attempt to obtain services and treatment for the child's HIV infection.
After weeks of emails and calls, invoking privilege and name-dropping, the powers that be at Be Like Brit arranged for an appointment at St. Damian's Hospital in PAP. I was to take the child along with our driver Francky to be sure that everything we needed to get done was done, and that any attempts to pass the child off to another facility or refusal to administer a given test or diagnostic would be met with my vehement objections and insistence on their following through.
We left Grand Goâve at 5:00am on the morning of our appointment to drive the some 50km to PAP and to the hospital. Depending on traffic, the drive along National Route #2 can take anywhere from 1.5 hours to 4 hours. Accidents, flooding, traffic jams, people marching in the streets, etc., are all possibilities that can delay a person by hours. Our early departure hoped to mitigate the effects of any of these possibilities.
No more than 30 minutes into our drive, as I was nodding off to sleep sitting in the front seat of the F150 pickup, a loud bang and violent sway of the vehicle shook me and caught my undivided attention. As the truck bounced along the smooth stretch of Route 2, I realized we had lost a tire - likely at around 50mph. Keeping in mind that Route 2 is about as wide as any 2-way city street in the States, littered with livestock, motorcycles, buses, tap taps, people walking, people on bicycles, losing control of a vehicle can be, and often is, a deadly incident. Thanks to the skills of my driver and friend Francky, I breathed a sigh of relief as the truck came to a wobbly stop on the muddy shoulders of Route 2.
Francky had the tire changed in no time, and I took advantage of the delay to catch a glimpse at a magnificent sunrise. Francky was beaming with pride at his great recovery from the blowout and his even more impressive speed at which he changed the tire and had us back on track. We moved on towards Port, talking excitedly about and laughing at what could have been a not so funny experience.
Port-au-Prince is unique. I have traveled to something like 7 or 8 countries and always to the capital cities. PAP is like no other place I have ever been. I would have expected that by now, the sights, sounds, smells, and reality of the city should no longer affect me. I figured that I'd be conditioned to this by now, and that as we pass by the tent cities and the squalor, the women laying out their meager goods on dusty sidewalk ,the street vendors jockeying for a place within traffic in the hopes of selling a bag of water or a can of Coke, the children picking through smoldering heaps of garbage and filth, the piles of rubble that sit as if the earthquake happened just yesterday, I'd simply look forward and be unaffected. Yet for some reason, it continues to emit from me a very sad and bereaved sense of frustration and helplessness. Indeed, with each trip to PAP, I question all that is supposedly good in this world and wonder, why don't we do better?
As we arrived at the hospital in the pediatric HIV/AIDS unit, being sent from office to office, building to building, getting the run around on why we can't do this and why we can't do that, we met the objectives of our trip in to PAP - we got the necessary diagnostics and tests run that we needed so we can best help this child. It did not go without invoking some level of privilege - even invoking what I would call "white privilege" - for surely if anyone else had complained about having to wait too long, they likely would have been met with a different response other than essentially being ushered into the laboratory for preferred service.
As we prepared to leave the hospital after hours of sitting and waiting, seeing children who have almost no chance of survival, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. As we sat stuck in the traffic which is so typical of Port, waiting for a convoy of United Nations vehicles to pass through before allowing the locals to move freely, I noticed a large group of people start to move - and fast! Their shrieks and their exclamation meant something was clearly wrong. As the crowd ran away from where we sat in traffic, we saw a man with a gun pointed at a man working a money exchange counter in front of a gas station. The man took the money and ran - while the crowd, the UN and the police were preoccupied, directing traffic in an ineffective manner.
After this long day, we made our way back to the safety and the security of Be Like Brit - unscathed, and thankful that the day's challenges and misfortunes were not directed at us, nor did they result in any serious consequence.
It's certainly easy for someone reading this from the comforts of their home in a place in the States or elsewhere, or even in the more affluent parts of Haiti to take the work we do for granted. I feel like at times as the story of Be Like Brit and the lives of the children play out on Facebook, we do a disservice to ourselves and our readers when we omit some of the stark realities of Haiti. While we all know that poverty exists and people die senselessly all over the world, I didn't have a true sense of how hard things are in Haiti until I set out with a child for Port-au-Prince this past week in an attempt to obtain services and treatment for the child's HIV infection.
After weeks of emails and calls, invoking privilege and name-dropping, the powers that be at Be Like Brit arranged for an appointment at St. Damian's Hospital in PAP. I was to take the child along with our driver Francky to be sure that everything we needed to get done was done, and that any attempts to pass the child off to another facility or refusal to administer a given test or diagnostic would be met with my vehement objections and insistence on their following through.
We left Grand Goâve at 5:00am on the morning of our appointment to drive the some 50km to PAP and to the hospital. Depending on traffic, the drive along National Route #2 can take anywhere from 1.5 hours to 4 hours. Accidents, flooding, traffic jams, people marching in the streets, etc., are all possibilities that can delay a person by hours. Our early departure hoped to mitigate the effects of any of these possibilities.
No more than 30 minutes into our drive, as I was nodding off to sleep sitting in the front seat of the F150 pickup, a loud bang and violent sway of the vehicle shook me and caught my undivided attention. As the truck bounced along the smooth stretch of Route 2, I realized we had lost a tire - likely at around 50mph. Keeping in mind that Route 2 is about as wide as any 2-way city street in the States, littered with livestock, motorcycles, buses, tap taps, people walking, people on bicycles, losing control of a vehicle can be, and often is, a deadly incident. Thanks to the skills of my driver and friend Francky, I breathed a sigh of relief as the truck came to a wobbly stop on the muddy shoulders of Route 2.
Francky had the tire changed in no time, and I took advantage of the delay to catch a glimpse at a magnificent sunrise. Francky was beaming with pride at his great recovery from the blowout and his even more impressive speed at which he changed the tire and had us back on track. We moved on towards Port, talking excitedly about and laughing at what could have been a not so funny experience.
Port-au-Prince is unique. I have traveled to something like 7 or 8 countries and always to the capital cities. PAP is like no other place I have ever been. I would have expected that by now, the sights, sounds, smells, and reality of the city should no longer affect me. I figured that I'd be conditioned to this by now, and that as we pass by the tent cities and the squalor, the women laying out their meager goods on dusty sidewalk ,the street vendors jockeying for a place within traffic in the hopes of selling a bag of water or a can of Coke, the children picking through smoldering heaps of garbage and filth, the piles of rubble that sit as if the earthquake happened just yesterday, I'd simply look forward and be unaffected. Yet for some reason, it continues to emit from me a very sad and bereaved sense of frustration and helplessness. Indeed, with each trip to PAP, I question all that is supposedly good in this world and wonder, why don't we do better?
As we arrived at the hospital in the pediatric HIV/AIDS unit, being sent from office to office, building to building, getting the run around on why we can't do this and why we can't do that, we met the objectives of our trip in to PAP - we got the necessary diagnostics and tests run that we needed so we can best help this child. It did not go without invoking some level of privilege - even invoking what I would call "white privilege" - for surely if anyone else had complained about having to wait too long, they likely would have been met with a different response other than essentially being ushered into the laboratory for preferred service.
As we prepared to leave the hospital after hours of sitting and waiting, seeing children who have almost no chance of survival, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. As we sat stuck in the traffic which is so typical of Port, waiting for a convoy of United Nations vehicles to pass through before allowing the locals to move freely, I noticed a large group of people start to move - and fast! Their shrieks and their exclamation meant something was clearly wrong. As the crowd ran away from where we sat in traffic, we saw a man with a gun pointed at a man working a money exchange counter in front of a gas station. The man took the money and ran - while the crowd, the UN and the police were preoccupied, directing traffic in an ineffective manner.
After this long day, we made our way back to the safety and the security of Be Like Brit - unscathed, and thankful that the day's challenges and misfortunes were not directed at us, nor did they result in any serious consequence.
Please pray for Haiti and the people here, that they will be guided by forces greater than ourselves and make sound decisions for the future of this country.
