Haiti: Part I

As you may have noticed, I created this blog a year ago to document my travels to South Africa, United Emirates of Arab, and Greece. I have not used it and it is until now that I decided to actually use it for my trip to Haiti. In less than five days, I will be on an airplane flying out from John F. Kennedy airport to Port-au-Prince. I had orientation last Saturday evening for the trip, and the first thing that was said to us, “You’re going to war. If this is not for you, back out now.” As I looked at everyone in the room, there was a moment of silence and an underlying sense of sodality that everyone was here for one goal: to help.

I will be in Haiti for seven days with a medical mission endorsed by the organization, Concerned Diaspora, which is under the umbrella of NJ for Haiti. During those seven days, I will be in Carrefour,alongside doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals in food distribution, building houses, and assist at the medical clinics within the tent communities, as well, visit schools and orphanages. Our mornings will start at 5:30am and end at 9:00pm. Because water is like gold in Haiti, there will be days where our group might not shower. We were warned that we run the risk of contracting any type of infectious disease such as scabies and to be very cautious in what we touch or drink. As for safety, we will have body guards to protect us. In case, an earthquake happens again or any other natural disaster, we must carry our passports at all times to ensure we immediately return on the spot to the United States.

Working with the HIV/AIDS population through the Philani organization in Khayelitsha last summer has taught me in how to mentally prepare myself in what I will inevitably see in Haiti. One of the key elements that I have learned is to emotionally insulate and detach myself when I am out in the field and to make sure that my bias will not intervene in the important work that I will do.

I am not a stranger in witnessing the worst of humanity and in the oddest blessing, I am thankful to have spent some of my childhood summers in El Salvador. If it was not for my experience as a child in El Salvador during the civil war and afterwards, my life would have not been set in this path to help the underprivileged. The great thing about roughing it out, is that it is one of the most incredible lessons in humbleness. As I always like to tell my close circle of friends, I have been entrusted with the life-calling and honor to help others, but most importantly, the privilege to learn from them and to be allowed in their lives.

I am really excited that my experience in Haiti will stimulate me academically when I begin studies as a Global Public Health student at George Washington University, and how it will also assist the research of one of my Rutgers’ professor’s books on crisis management. At a practitioner level, I am going to be observing what actions the NGO’s are doing to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera and sanitary measures. What’s being done to mobilize the development of transferring the population from tent communities before they become slums? Most especially, how the money is being put into good use or misuse after millions of dollars have been contributed in Haiti’s rehabilitation within the last 8 months.

I have also been trying to learn a few common Haitian Creole phrases. At the moment, I have learned to say:

Kijan ou rele? –What’s your name?
Kijan ou santi ou? – How do you feel?

Thank God I am bilingual in Spanish and that I studied some French and Italian in college because many of the words in Haitian Creole descend from the romance languages. I am looking forward that I will be speaking some Haitian Creole when I return back home. Unlike in South Korea, I had such a difficult time learning the language. While in South Africa, the only words that I learned in Xhosa were Mazungo, which means, white person, and Enkosi, which means thank you.

Overall,it is an adventurous opportunity to immense myself in a culture and to learn from it. In any destruction there is forgiveness and beauty, and as humans, we must be allowed to be transformed by it. Still, away from the destruction, I am looking forward to waking up and falling asleep under the Haitian sky because there is a sense of peace and rebirth. If you ever have the privilege to see the morning sunrise. You will notice that there is a moment of transition throughout the landscape. At the brevity of that moment, the morning sun infiltrates through the night sky from the right side, and from the left side, you will see the pitch darkness of the night. It is at this brevity of moment, in which Haiti stands. I believe that in the small contribution I take part in will continue to assist in the country's nation-building.

Until then, I am packing for my trip, packing for my move to Washington, D.C., and enjoying my time at home with my family and my close circle of friends who have been a great support system in all of my endeavors.