2 Life Lessons Learned from Haiti

Everyone is saying the same thing.  It seems like Haiti just can’t get a break.  As the country has still not recuperated from the 2010 earthquake, Hurricane Matthew swept in and homes, crops, buildings were destroyed, along with hundreds of lives.

As I sit in my comfortable office, in a soft, cushioned chair, with ample electric light, a working computer, and so many clothes, books, and knick knacks around me that I cannot even put everything away properly, I can only reflect once again on the disparity that exists in our world.

My visits to Haiti over the past six years have taught me two great lessons.

1. The human spirit is amazingly resilient.  A recent New York Times article reported on the town of Beaumont, completely destroyed by the hurricane.  At night, the reporter wrote, music could be heard as people played makeshift drums of buckets and tin plates.  The words they sang?  “We are poor people, but we are strong.  We will not live on our knees.”  When I first went to Leogane, Haiti six months after the earthquake, I was inspired to see school children climbing over the debris of fallen buildings to get to school; adults, with no paid jobs, working together to carve out space for life. 
2. People are inherently generous.  Already, relief efforts have begun, with collections of food, clothing and other items being collected and sent to assist.  I left St. Thomas a few   days ago, and two days after the hurricane landed in Haiti, a shipping company had donated container, and freight charges to send tons of items to Port au Prince. Now I see that here in New York and all over the US, at this moment, churches and other groups are collecting items as well for shipping.  On each visit that I’ve made over the years, there have been small charitable organizations like Seastar, on the ground helping to re-build. 

Despite our view of the historical corruption that has plagued Haitian politics, despite our feelings about the involvement of “first world” nations in the poverty of Haiti, each of us must decide where we stand in the area of humanitarian aid.  We need to decide our role in helping when help is needed. 

From where I sit in my comfortable home, I have decided to do what I can to help in some small way to help somebody else.

And so, as we like to say in our Seastar meetings, we know that we cannot “fix” all of Haiti’s problems.  But we know that if all of us can do just a little, together we can make a huge difference.

Visit our Facebook page for information on our support drive and fundraising effort.