Rubble hasn't moved, but has again become a focal point. Before anything else, please look at these 15 photos and read this reflection from Let Haiti Live [the events come from a schedule I posted a few days ago]. Melinda writes more eloquently than anything I've read or could say below: about the way Haitians are sharing collective memory, and rising today from tarps & tents as they do each day. [So you can stop reading now, having gathered the real point. Or perhaps follow a little more...]
I. "Anba": means 'under', as 230,000 people were crushed by concrete a year ago today, and millions who survived were cruelly shaken from their lives' foundations. How could we imagine? My hands shake as I type right now, feeling again that first night's sleepless vigil, and days of constant watching. We were there for Haiti. We cared, and responded.
Much happened. Groups like Partners in Health and many, many others did deliver lifesaving relief. I was privileged to accompany one of these incredible efforts through medical relief in Leogane. Haitians helped their neighbors from 'anba dekombe' to receive medical care, and start a precarious new day-to-day existence.
Much hasn't happened. One year later and more than 1 million still keep their families under tents or tarps in camps with inhumane lack of sanitation or other basic services. Only 38 percent of money raised by NGOs has been spent. The Huffington Post did some neat work tracking this. Fully half of American households donated, and we deserve accountability on our generosity. Our Haitian neighbors also deserve this accountability.
The International Office of Migration reports a 31 percent decrease since July in the number of people living in displacement camps. A success, notes the report, that victims are finding their own housing solutions and "getting on with their lives"... but IOM fails to mention that 29 percent of camps have been forcibly evicted, despite such eviction violating both Haitian and international humanitarian law. A solution? People who leave camps are NOT going to better places.
Cholera was a threat from the outset. One week post-quake, I remember my churning stomach as I read the first speculations of major infectious disease compounding the crisis. And so it came. Last week, Ban Ki-Moon named an independent commission to investigate the potential source of the epidemic, since a likely candidate is a contingent of UN peacekeepers from Nepal who arrived just before the epidemic began, and whose base was expelling raw sewage into the river upstream of initial case appearances. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study last month showing the Haitian strain to be genetically most like those from South Asia.
The president of the international coordination for Medecins San Frontieres recently analyzed the lackluster response to the epidemic, writing in The Guardian (and this assessment applies in other sectors): "Co-ordination of aid organisations may sound good to government donors seeking political influence. In Haiti, though, the system is legitimizing NGOs that claim responsibility for health, sanitation or other areas in a specific zone, but then do not have the capacity or know-how to carry out the necessary work. As a result, people's needs go unmet."
Which leads to...
II. "Aba": 'down with', frequently found as a first word on protest signs and graffiti. The discontent runs deep. Haiti won freedom 207 years ago in the world's only successful slave rebellion, defeating Napoleon. But they still are not free. Watching the terrible PBS Frontline "Battle for Haiti" tonight (really, quite awful), I realized how easy it would be to think of Haiti as a sick & savage land whose people prey on their own. No. Haitians dig each other out of rubble and carry each other to cholera treatment centers, saving their own. The savagery is orchestrated in international boardrooms, actually.
People talk about "discontent" and "civil unrest" among the population, with a spike of mainstream media coverage last month on the protests. No kidding. Their country is ruled not only by the aforementioned "Republic of NGOs" who are held to no real accountability. But also, all official rebuilding projects (and the $5 billion pledged for these by int'l donors) are administered through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, which has met only a handful of times since its March formation. Foreign members include relevant donor entities (IMF, World Bank, etc). Yet, Haitian members of the IHRC recently published a scathing complaint they are pointedly excluded from discussion by the foreigners, and even physically denies a seat at the table.
And the elections? Predictable. Listening to Voice of America Creole radio this summer, I learned of the exclusive and unfair electoral preparation, and talk of boycott. Low turnout plus clear fraud means the process could not be considered democratic on any other planet, much less 21st century self-determining Earth. See CEPR's report here for a few numbers, and here on how the international community is likely to accept the results anyway.
Yep, if it were my country and my entire chance at an optimistic future, I'd be pretty ticked off, too. 'Aba' is not unreasonable. It is not uncivil.
It is also progressive with a hopeful spirit...
III. "Kenbe la": 'hang in there'...see those most important first links above. People in desperate, excruciatingly unending crises still talk. Still share collective memory. Still emerge from tarps and tents each morning. Still work together.
This week, one year ago, I did not sleep. Because I couldn't believe what was happening; and I still sometimes toss & turn, angry at such undeserved cruelty. Friends in Haiti still living in tents must be angry, too, but they are also taking progressive steps of advocacy & action. We can support them. Men anpil, chay pa lou. When hands are many, the burden is light.
Let Haiti Live has posted a compilation of further analyses, FYI.
4:53PM EST on January 12. I've heard that for 35 seconds, bells all over (including at Notre Dame) will toll to mark the shaking.
I believe that action, life, comes from emotion. So I think I will simply allow myself to feel. To honestly, profoundly...hurt. Join me.
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