'Everyone came to help after the earthquake, but nobody came to help us' - Pap Day 4

Citi Soleil - is the largest slum in Haiti and the poorest slum in the western hemisphere.


I have extended my stay in PAP. The assistant director who has come to pick myself and other visitors up who will come for a couple days has already gone back. Nobody from here is to take me, but I know I will figure it out. I came this far out to see Citi Soleil and I made a commitment. We have one more chance, a half day to go into the slums. I transcribe for the leader of an organization, L. She is doing research thesis on children in abject poverty. Rumor has it about Wyclif running for president. They will vote for him. A certain line from the boy rings in my head again and again and will continue to do so, ‘Everyone came to help after the earthquake, but nobody came here’. He doesn’t ask why. Why would relief workers come to a site where everyone has always been in makeshift housing. I wanted him to add the reason, the reason he believes. I wanted him to say it’s because we’re so poor and we’ve always been so poor, nobody will care. I feel emotionally vulnerable. The interviews are painful. We sit by a clinic for the community, “The Lamp”. Its open three day a week to the public. People line up hours before. We sit in the courtyard. The kid has a solemn face. He is so cute. Little raindrops pour through the thick bright exotic leaves that hover over us. The rain is silent like my heart unable to understand struggles.

After 3 days of waiting we have one hour to go into the shanty parts of city soliel, deep in. Finally! We go to fishermen town, Warf Soleil. It is black. There is no sand or brown dirt on the ground. Black mud and other stuff I’m unsure about cover the ground. Everything looks the color of liquid tar. We see the new site for the clinic. It is along a road. We see fisherman making his fishing nets out of hand. If there was a full time clinic here it would still not be enough for these few hundred families. Medical care is never enough. Ironically each time you walk a distance, you always see clinics, but in terms of the populace, diseases and sicknesses, clinic ration is radically disproportionate. They suffer from everything. I cannot understand their suffering, it us intensely multifaceted. We walk back behind the road. We see little boats like canoes, they are handmade, having been carved by people. I am fascinated. The children follow us. A man sits on something. His feet are in the black mud. He reads the holy Bible. The children all want their pictures taken. They want to see them after. The giggle and get excited. They all smile and pose. They have high spirits. We take pictures. We walk around. I’m stuck in the back with kids creating circles around me, unable to hear our tour guide. I miss some details. I am curious. Our Translator R translates. We see naked babies. We see the same boy with a outstretched stomach. The soles of his feet are covered in the tarry liquid mud. We see a girl with her underwear. Her braids go in different directions. The other two little boys make action poses. I wonder if they have ever seen a cartoon on television. I wonder if the naked ones do not have clothes or if their one pair of clothes they have are dirty or are given to another sibling. All these thoughts occur to me later as I go through pictures.

I always wonder why the Haitian people are so pleased and content. I never will understand. It will always be beyond me. Years thinking about it and it will always be beyond me. What God has done to the Haitian people and what they Haitian people have done to be in terms of defining God will stick with me like glue. Invisible glue that will seep into places I did not know existed. Like everything I do not know becomes a huge part of life. And all things we know become minimal and trivial from a certain point forward. I have hit that point again.

I am with L the head of an organization. She comes here often. Her left foot steps into a pool of mud. Gross. Someone brings a bucket. The man bends down and pours it over her foot. I am surprised to see a clear bucket of water. It is not drinkable but it must be available. I know he brings it out because we are foreigners. Maybe we will do something for them. They do not say anything. I know his intention for helping and pouring that water is done with sincerity. I know he also thought that we were going to help him. A lady with short hair and blue shorts and a matching jacket, says to my friend ‘We’re sick, we’re ill’. This is the first time I have heard someone make such verbal statements. We walk out towards the road slowly. My time is up. I must take a bus back very soon.

We walk back out. The same lady she walks behind me, a baby still in her arms. She is so young, maybe younger than me. All she says is, ‘agua’. I click. We walk back out to the road. I ask the community leader who is also our current tour guide about their water. It is no longer free. Its 5gourds a bucket. People here make nothing. This is the slum of the slums. I ask if I we can give money for 50 buckets of water for 50 families. The people we have left behind us still look at us from far away. It’s like we’re all paused in a photograph. My mind is on pause. 2 seconds later feel bad. We cannot just supply 50 families and ignore the others. How will he choose? How will I trust him? He recommends buying a huge truck of water. Wow. I don’t have that kind of money I think. Then I pause, I have all my savings with me in our car. 2 seconds later we ask about the price of the truck. We buy a truck of water. I know I will cry when this all happens. We go back to the main roads. We find a truck on the other side. The men get out and signal it over.

We come back. The truck stops in the middle of the road. He opens the pipe from the side of his truck. Water gushes out like a massive hose on full blast. Some people are already there they rush to get buckets. Soon the news spreads and then everyone comes with their buckets. They come with their bottles. They come with huge garbage cans. They come with containers. They come with their jugs. They are civil. Most wait in a disorganized clump of a line. Little children bathe. I try to help with efficiency and less water wastage by maneuvering the buckets faster through and line them up. We’re so American I think, always having to be at the front of everything. I feel so arrogant. Eventually we move back. Everyone starts to crowd and the line gets messy. I want everyone to have water. The water must be filled to the brim, not anything less in Haitian culture. Even if 4 cups will be wasted as the woman put huge buckets on their head. The concept of filling to very top is important, it states completeness and fulfillment. I roll my pants up to my knees. My sneakers are solid black. My wounds are wet and puddles lie inside my feet.

The albino boy asks me for a dollar. He has followed us everywhere. He has little speckles of black like big freckles across his body. ‘But you have water, I don’t have a dollar’. He wants my shoes. This is the first time I have been asked for things, today. I don’t have extra shoes or I would have taken them off to dry my wounds. I already promised another girl my watch, I cannot give you that either. The same girl in the blue shorts comes up to us. She is the reason this all happened. I have to go. I jump into the van. They crowd around us, and say we’re sick through the two inch openings of our window. I’m wet and now nervous. We drive off leaving the truck behind, he's almost done. We make it to the bustop. I did not cry. I am strong, but in reality I am so weak. They are so much stronger. Like rocks they have been molded and shaped and polished…. ‘The rocks in the water don’t understand the life of rocks in the sun’