Like millions of people around the world, I have been following the tragedy in Haiti since the earthquake jolted the country just over a month ago. Although the media portrays a great deal of the devastation that has been visited on this poorest of Western nations, it wasn’t until I traveled to Haiti on a humanitarian relief mission that I truly understood just how severe the crisis really was.
Last Thursday night my father asked me if I wanted to join him on a visit to Haiti to donate relief supplies to an orphanage in Port-Au-Prince and to generally help in writing and broadcasting about Haiti’s devastation. We would leave Sunday night and return Wednesday morning. The idea sounded preposterous. How could we possibly go to a country that is in a state of emergency? A country where all hell has broken loose. The offer sounded somewhat irrational, but I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. If I thought about it I would probably decide against it. So I quickly agreed.
About 48 hours later I found myself sitting in the Santo Domingo airport sleep deprived and cranky, trying to figure out if this whole thing was still a good idea. We met up with our friend Glenn Megill, founder of Rock of Africa, an organization that feeds families in Zambia and Zimbabwe, along with his daughter and a photographer named Peter. After much haggling and miscommunication with a Dominican representative at Avis, we were finally able to rent our minivan and start our journey to Haiti. After driving nine hours on a windy gravel road, we finally reached the border. It was there that we got our first taste of the deprivation left by the earthquake. Thousands of people were waiting in the baking sun to try and get into the country with supplies. We waited our turn until we were finally permitted to enter. Two hours later we reached the Haitian capital.
Words cannot describe what we witnessed. Picture Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic detonation, or Hamburg and Dresden after the devastating carpet-bomb raids delivered by the allied forces. Picture the monstrous mounds of rubble, and the jagged edges of half-torn buildings marking every street with a sullen sign of death and destruction. Only this time the ineffable picture was not drawn any conflict or war, but came about through the sudden crush of nature alone.
Hundreds of thousands of people wandered the litter-strewn roads like zombies, their homes destroyed, many of their family members dead. Perhaps the most devastating factor was that these people were so helpless. Haiti, already a poverty-stricken country, was now also in shambles. These people didn’t even have the means to get back on their feet if they wanted to. As we drove through downtown Port-Au-Prince, my heart grew heavier. I could not understand how G-d could have allowed such a calamity to take place. Why were so many innocent citizens lying in their graves beneath the rubble on the street, as people stumbled over them to find their way? Is the value of a life really that worthless? Did these humans really live in vain? The smell of death permeated the entire city, making us gag. Relief workers informed us that dogs had been coming during the night and consuming the decaying bodies, leaving behind piles of bones in the rubble. In all honesty I felt as if this G-d-forsaken country had been doomed for all eternity, without any hope of salvation.
But in the midst of darkness there is always a beacon of light that shines through. My hope was restored the next day when we paid a visit to an orphanage called Child Hope, an organization run by a Christian family who left their home in California six years ago to devote their lives to rescuing suffering and abandoned children in Haiti. They have many volunteers who travel from US for months at a time to help in any way they can. Their love and devotion towards these children was incredible. They treated the orphans as if they were their own children and gave them opportunities that they could never receive growing up on the streets as most orphans in Haiti do. I sat with some of the Haitian girls who live there, laughing and talking about school and our favorite nail polish colors. They were a pleasure and their company inspired me. They were bright young women who didn’t wallow in any form of self-pity. Rather, they exhibited a zest for life and knowledge. They told me how they wanted to be doctors when they grow up.
We also went to the UN Base where we saw hundreds of doctors from all over the world united together in Haiti, all with the common goal of healing victims of the earthquake. You could hear every language spoken as doctors ran back and forth from tent to tent tending to the sick. I was especially proud of all the American volunteers both from the military and as well as random individuals who felt it was their duty to assist their Haitian brothers and sisters in this disaster. One American volunteer introduced us to a three year old Haitian boy whose mother and sister had perished in the earthquake. The father was forced to amputate his own son’s hand in order to save him from the same terrible fate that his mother and sister had met. His father then walked ten miles, carrying him to the only hospital in the city hospital to get help. This American volunteer felt a connection with the boy and treated him almost like a younger brother, bringing him gifts and paying him visits daily.
Catastrophes such as the earthquake in Haiti are some of the darkest forces in nature. However, these same calamities also bring out the brightest qualities in humans who feel it is their duty to help others when they are needed.
You can’t go to Haiti and return the same person. You come back a little sadder, but a lot more inspired. You discover that even in the darkest of times when one cannot understand the meaning of terrible calamities, one can still make a difference with their own actions. We can’t understand why bad things happen to so many good people. However our personal decisions can make all the difference in improving their lot. Witnessing the effects of the earthquake in Haiti first hand has made me so much more sensitive toward those in need.
Mushki Boteach is an undergraduate at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women where she is majoring in public relations. She resides in Englewood, New Jersey.
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