(Editor’s note: Norman Jameson returned from a week in Haiti Aug. 30 to report on the work of North Carolina Baptist groups working in the aftermath of that nation’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. This is the fifth of several daily impressions from his week there. His previous dispatch is available here.)
By Norman Jameson
We’re in Haiti’s rainy season, which means “it rains sometimes,” according to Scott Daughtry, who coordinates North Carolina Baptist Men’s disaster-relief effort here. Outside of the rainy season, it hardly ever rains and what you might think would be a tropical, lush paradise is more like the foothills above Colorado Springs — arid and dusty.
But tonight it rained, dropping the temperature below 90 and washing some of the dust out of the air, which remains thick and sticky. The team rejoices knowing that seven families that would have been in the rain this morning are under new shelter tonight.
The medical teams saw 359 people today, including 221 at a tent city sprouting daily on a nearby hillside as people leave Port-au-Prince, giving up on whatever expected relief efforts have failed to materialize. The team saw patients under a tent, erected by UNICEF, which is to be used for a school. Within a few strides of the tent are two gambling booths, about six feet wide. Lottery tickets can be purchased for local drawings or for one in New York.
Even among residents of a tent city, for whom “desperately poor” doesn’t begin to describe their plight, gambling interests move in to sell the lottery lie of hope. There is not a visible water pump, latrine or intentional road in this impromptu assembly. But desperation prompts squatters to spend a few precious cents hoping to win a way out — or at least enough to buy a better tent.
The second medical team worked out of Eglise Baptiste Conservatrice. The church was locked when we arrived, but by the time we carried the medicines in, a dozen patients waited. By the time doctors were ready to see them, 85 occupied the “waiting room” of pews.
Poking up through team members’ deep sense of satisfaction is a needle of weariness.
Construction members took a nap after lunch and were slower to catch their ride back to the work site. I asked several if the week has seemed long or short. When I said their response of “both” was unacceptable, Chuck Demers said the day seems long at 10 a.m. when you are soaked through and roasting, but short at 3 p.m. when you can sense the end of the work day on the horizon.
Chad Hodges said the week seems long when you’re in the midst of it, but short when looking back upon it.
Today I went with Daughtry to buy a refrigerator to replace one of two that are in the house.
Picking out a fridge took five minutes once we got to the new hardware store in Port-au-Prince, 20 miles away. But the trip took more than three hours because of traffic and a Route 1 that is in horrible shape. While one missionary has said Haiti is a nation of walls, it is also a nation of speed bumps.
No speed limits are posted, but speed is controlled by potholes big enough to flip a bus and by speed bumps severe enough to require vehicles nearly to stop or risk throwing passengers off the back. Desire for better roads is tempered by the realization that speeds would immediately reach suicidal rates, as commerce is conducted on the edge of roads, wares displayed on the ground only inches from the pavement.
Several Haitian drivers and medical staffers are essential team members. Even when volunteers from North Carolina are insufficient to meet the needs, these staffers faithfully and relentlessly continue the medical clinics and shelter construction. There is some concern for construction projects as Samaritan’s Purse is closing in on its goal of building 10,000 of them in Haiti, through partnerships with dozens of organizations, such as North Carolina Baptist Men.
Many people who need a shelter are sensing they will be left without when the final volunteers leave. Consequently, volunteer leaders and others identified with the Baptist effort are frequently approached by anxious people demanding they be next.
Scott and Janet Daughtry have been coordinating the effort here since Feb. 1. Thirty-six teams of volunteers have come, each carrying home their stories of life-changing activity emanating from the compound, appreciative of the Daughtrys’ efforts.