This Is Not a Poem About Haiti
As part of a benefit for the 2010 earthquake
May is Haitian Heritage Month, and it’s painful to watch what’s happening in that country. Over 200 gangs currently control most of the capital of Port-au-Prince. A former policeman turned gangleader, “Barbecue,” is giving interviews to the press. This chaos reminds me of the horrible earthquake which hit Haiti in January 2010, one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. Hundreds of thousands dead, damages in the billions. Benefits were organized all over the world, and San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church quickly hosted a poetry reading to raise funds. I had just been to Haiti on assignment a few years before, and was included in the lineup of writers, along with Ishmael Reed, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hirschman, Alejandro Murguía, Boadiba, and more. This is the piece I wrote and read, which was later published in Konch magazine.
One million homeless. 250,000 homes destroyed. 53 million tons of rubble. 72% of the population live on less than $2 a day. A country that is 97% deforested.
Almost immediately, the planet is swirling with facts and misinformation and PR spin:
Sustainable engagement. Food-insecure. Donor fatigue. Cowboy adoptions. Family-based solutions.
President Obama announces, “This is one of those moments that calls out for American leadership.”
The day after the earthquake, dozens of countries rush aid to Haiti, including Chile, Nicaragua, Spain, Guatemala, France, Mexico and Russia. An International Search and Rescue Team from Iceland arrives the same day—carrying tools, communication gear, and water purification equipment.
After three days, America’s aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson arrives. It carries Sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters. No emergency relief supplies.
After four days, the U.S. military finally allows the World Food Program to bring food, water, and medical supplies into Port-au-Prince airport.
Huge piles of food and water sit on the runway, cooking in the sun. No one knows who is in charge.
Regular people around the world pitch in however they can. In three days, more than a million Americans donate $10 by texting from their cellphones. Whole Foods and Safeway collect donations. San Francisco restaurants and bars raise more funds. In New York City, on Super Bowl Sunday, a Hooters donates its profits.
A Wisconsin Rotary Club. A Junior Girl Scout Troop in Georgia. Two Massachusetts sixth graders lead a coin drive that nets $1,300.
So how do we help? You go online, and here are lists—9 ways you can help, ten ways you can help, 35 ways, pick it and click it—Red Cross, Salvation Army, Oxfam, UNICEF, Yéle, Partners in Health? While we’re Googling our grief, the media keeps trying to fill more hours of the day:
In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson sends in Marines to take control, and they remove $500,000 of Haiti’s reserves “for safe-keeping.”
From 1977 to 1988, every pitch thrown in major league baseball uses a ball manufactured in Haiti.
Thirty years ago Haiti imported no rice. Today Haiti imports nearly all its rice.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush meet with Obama at the White House for a news conference, and create the “Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.” Some are reminded of 2002, when the Bush administration blocked Haiti from receiving 146 million dollars in aid. Maybe they could start the fund with that.
Haitians around the world are asked to kneel and pray at exactly the time the earthquake hit. A New Mexico company called “Faith Comes By Hearing” sends 600 solar-powered audio Bibles. The Church of the True Path recommends that Haitians should cleanse themselves by fasting.
Pat Robertson declares that the dead and injured get what they deserved because they have made a “pact with the devil.”
A group of Scientologists working in a hospital courtyard shrug off medicine shortages, saying they are healing patients through “the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems.” One skeptical doctor says, “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.”
A 76-year-old man tells a reporter, “I am Voodoo, Catholic or anything if it means I would get food for my family. I believe in any God who fills my stomach.”
We are the world, we are the children.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. Shakira. Ben Stiller. Lindsay Lohan. Ryan Seacrest. Bono. Always Bono.
Naomi Campbell helps auction eight Lotus sports cars, each featuring a color scheme that reflects the flag of Haiti.
George Clooney organizes a charity telethon and raises more than $66 million. When people call to pledge money, a celebrity answers the phone:
“Hello, it’s Steven Spielberg! Fantastic—so nice to meet YOU…really, thank you for the donation that you’ve made to, uh, you know, to the, uh, Haitian relief…
…There’s some really smart people there on the ground helping out. So, you know, I get very encouraged when I see how much intelligence is really operating and disseminating all of the vital materi-ELLS that need to get to the people who need it the most. Every single day it sort of builds my confidence that it’s being handled very well. Have a good weekend!”
Two years ago I traveled to Haiti on a magazine assignment with my friend TiGeorge Laguerre, who owns a restaurant in Los Angeles. We go from Port-au-Prince, to Port-au-Paix and finally, a tiny village on the north coast. This is where TiGeorge grew up.
There is no electricity. But this is not the Haiti you always see in the news. The mountains are green. Water flows in the streams. Children play soccer barefoot in the gravel road. Teenagers talk on cellphones. A woman sweeps the dirt in front of her door. People may be poor, but they have dignity. Everyone says bonjour.
A man sees us admiring his house and comes out to talk. He says he was the former mayor of the town, and is now a philosopher. The entire front of his home is covered with a hand-painted slogan in French Creole, for everyone to see: “Pafebyen Si`W Paka Sipote Engratitid Lom.” TiGeorge translates the message, which means roughly: “Don’t try to do good things if you don’t know how.”