Going home: Haiti six months on
Marie Josette Delorme-Pierre talks about going back to Haiti, as a citizen and a humanitarian worker
When I visited the country of my birth just before the earthquake struck, family and friends were all doing fine. What happened on 12th January 2010 changed our lives. On hearing the news, my head spun with sheer panic as to what might have happened to my immediate and extended family. I tried to find a flight that would get me back out there but it was impossible at the time. It wasn't until a month later (February) that I finally flew into Haiti. The family were all safe, but traumatised, by the sheer enormity of the disaster that had unfolded before them; the dead, the rubble, the utter chaos.
This time (July 2010) I arrive in Haiti as an aid worker with the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), thinking about how I am going to balance both sides of myself: Josette the Haitian and Josette the CAFOD aid worker.
As I drive into the capital Port-au-Prince, the diggers are hard at work and the plumes of dust that rise up into the sky must be reminiscent of those first minutes when buildings collapsed from the might of the earth's tremor. And as the iron jaws of the diggers scoop up concrete, some of the unknown buried, are exhumed. You know when a body has been found, the frantic waving to the driver to stop the machinery and everyone suddenly standing still.
Its not easy driving through the capital, journeys can take up to two or three hours just to go a few kilometres as vehicles share the roads with rubble, market stalls spill over from the street and the huge numbers of people navigate the many obstacles in the road. I was heading for Port-au-Prince Central, where I went to university and where my husband and I met, fell in love and spent our romantic stolen moments across bowls of Bouyon - a soup made up of vegetables, meat and yams - at a cheap corner restaurant near the national palace. As I rounded the corner, I found only a gaping hole.
The Haitian spirit that I know so well, which tells you 'not to wait for anyone to tell you what to do, find a way to do it yourself,' is alive and well. The local markets are now busy and small street restaurants are cooking up my favourite vegetable 'lalo', a kind of spinach stew. The football World Cup was also keeping people occupied, 90 minutes of light relief from the grim reality of living in their tented homes.
One man told me that he is living from hand to mouth, caring for his three children. He told me that every day when he wakes his first thought is; "What will I give my children to eat today?" He also worries about their future with no proper schooling in place.
When I was here in February, there was hope that the Haitian government would be able to bring about change. People would say in Creole: "Peyi a ap resi chanje, anpil èd ap tonbe sou ayiti, lavi an ap vin miyò" - "Now it’s [the earthquake] over, things are going to change in Haiti, money will come and life will be better". Unfortunately, that hope amid the ruins is crumbling fast.
I met a former colleague from the UN, who was also concerned about what the future will bring. She told me her concerns that the fallout of the earthquake will only deepen the gap between the social classes, with the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer. She said that the elite classes were thriving and opening up clever business ventures, such as rubble removal, whilst the government, she said, looks on 'like a stranger.'
Under the heat of a sweltering blue tent, I met with the members of the ACRA camp committee. It has been so important for CAFOD and its Caritas partners to work through these committees. It will always be the Haitians who will be most effective, as they know the terrain, the culture and language and are able to show us who are the most vulnerable within their camp settlements. Our history is one that has excluded ordinary people from public life, but CAFOD's partnership way of working is drawing people into public decision making with regard to the essential humanitarian services they need, such as; clean water, sanitation and health education.
In the work that we are doing each and every day, we are aware that people are still struggling to feed their families, to receive basic services. In this situation it is hard to think of the medium and long term, as we are still responding to the initial humanitarian phase of this disaster. However, we are talking with local community groups and with partners about future plans and how they will compliment the enormous effort we are making.
In the midst of this meaningless horror, I remember the words of my late mother; "fight with dignity, smile to have strength and never give up my daughter". That is our Haitian spirit.
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