(Editor’s note: This is an account from British Baptist aid worker Carwyn Hill on his trip from northern Haiti to help earthquake victims in Port-au-Prince in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 12 quake that devastated the Haitian capital. A version of this commentary was originally published Jan. 21 in the Baptist Times, the newspaper of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.)
By Carwyn Hill
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For most of the long seven-hour journey we remained in silence, fearing what we would find before us. As we drove further into the city, the scale of this atrocity began to unfold.
Piled along many of the streets lay the rotting bodies of victims from the earthquake. Most were covered in old, dirty sheets scarcely large enough to hide the tragic images below. People passed by — some slowly as if out of a mark of respect, others quicker, jogging almost to avoid the mass of flies and the sickening smell.
Makeshift coffins weaved in and out of the crowds of people, carried by half-a-dozen men or so. Our translator faced the underlying bubbling tension of the grief when he was threatened by a devastated man, mourning over his mother, with a machete.
The tension is understandable to say the least, and looting has been reported. What has caused many of our friends greater concern here is the reality that a number of criminals have escaped from broken prisons, guns have been stolen, and some shootings reported.
That said, I have been truly amazed and humbled by the peaceful way most of this city has handled itself, especially in light of the normal reputation this city has.
We had been warned that the city stank of death, and such warnings hadn’t been false. It is potent, and a constant and cruel reminder to all those who survived that beneath the piles of rubbish and destroyed houses, schools, offices and the like lay their loved ones.
One of our main objectives on travelling to Port-au-Prince had been to search for the children of one of our staff. Simone had waited three days to find out whether her four children had survived. The relief was incredible as she heard the news that her family was alive. There aren’t many glimmers of hope or flickers of light here amidst this great darkness — but when you find them, you cherish them.
Our ambulance had been filled with water, medication, first aid equipment, clothes and some small supplies of food rations. Even over one packet of bagged water — worth just a couple of cents — I watched as women and children danced and sang before me, singing their thanks to those who’d provided them with this welcome relief.
Yet, our little 4×4 ambulance soon became a powerful magnet of need. Women, children and men of all ages would stare through our window pleading even for one small bit of food. Our driver became agitated, fearful that some in these desperate crowds wanted our ambulance, and so we steadily progressed through the city, not hanging around in any one place for too long.
Having people beg for water was not an unusual experience for me, having lived in Haiti for over a year.
Just a few minutes from where my wife and I live in northern Haiti is our local market, which sells clay cookies. They are cookies literally made out of the dirt and filth in the ground, as some cheap means of filling the stomachs of the starving. What is important to recognise is that beneath the surface of this atrocity lies a nation that even before Jan. 12 was crippled with devastation.
You cannot understand the true damage of Jan. 12, until you understand the country which this disaster has struck. It is already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. One in five children dies before the age of five in Haiti, many from easily treatable or avoidable illnesses.
Even before the quake, most Haitians already woke up each day as if they were waking in the aftermath of a disaster — disasters that go unreported, but which are still just as sickening.
It shames me, but I have become hardened here — I wonder where my heart is, why it is I don’t cry at the injustices of this nation so much any more. Of course my heart still pours out as much as it ever has, more so today, and deep down I ache and grieve as anyone who works here does.
However, it is a true-but-sad reality that the disaster of Haiti happened a long time before the events of Jan. 12.