Haiti After the Earthquake

by Paul Farmer

  After the earthquake, phones were not working. Even before the quake, when they did work, the principal way of disseminating information in Haiti is through tele-dyol (dyol is the Creole word for mouth). The radio broadcasts, for the few stations we were able to tap, seemed to be on autopilot, with streaming music.

  Bodies were everywhere. On the sidewalk, in the streets, protruding from the rubble, hanging out of cars, crushed under buildings, suffocating inside crumbled homes. Dead people everywhere; everywhere.

  Haitians have a profoundly extensive tradition of venerating the dead. In the days immediately following the catastrophe, many survivors could not locate their loved ones. People had been buried alive in their homes or places of work. The main morgue at the General Hospital was not working, and the morgues that are normally attached to funeral parlors were for the most part destroyed. In some neighborhoods, people sat in front of their destroyed homes, with their dead neatly wrapped, for the most part in pristine white sheets, by their side. They sat there as if waiting for something big to happen, even though the big event had already occurred.

  Within a few more days, the stench of dead bodies was everywhere, and people walked the streets wearing masks. Those fortunate enough to have survived the earthquake wore an ashy cloak of fine white dust carried by the wind from the rubble. Word spread that putting toothpaste below one’s nose would help cover the stench and help one breathe in the midst of the overwhelming dust. But though the dust settled everywhere, it did not obscure anything: not the excruciating pain, or the overpowering fear, or the deep gratitude for having survived. None of it could be hidden, not even by this ubiquitous, intrusive dust from the destruction.

  In the days immediately following the earthquake, most UN staff stayed at the logistics base—log base, as we call it—the main UN peacekeepers’ compound. We worked round the clock, doing both rescue and programmatic work and, when possible, finding a relatively quiet corner to sleep for a bit. UN employees went to dig under the rubble for their missing coworkers; they went on site to identify otherwise unrecognizable bodies. The head of the mission, Mr. Hedi Annabi, and the second in command, Mr. Luis Da Costa, were both acknowledged as missing and were believed to have died in the destroyed Christopher Hotel, which housed the MINUSTAH executive offices. When a computer was available and the Internet happened to work for a brief moment, people took turns sending reassuring messages to family around the world, as well as death notices to headquarters; every division lost workers. People who had been able to retrieve some clothing shared with others who had lost all. At log base, we were blessed to have electricity, potable water, and daily food rations of MREs (meals ready to eat, little packets of army combat food). Our community of grieving yet driven comrades was a resolute bunch of humanitarian workers from every continent. As someone pointed out, everyone spoke with an accent, but there was a common understanding born of shared traumatic experiences. Coworkers from different divisions, who may never have spoken to each other before, greeted each other as long lost friends. Discovering a familiar face among the survivors was electrifying.

  Walking in log base one afternoon, foggy from sleep deprivation, I noticed an Asian man walking deliberately toward me. I made eye contact as he approached, an unspoken question stuck in my throat. He walked with purpose, yet his face was shrouded with grief. When he reached me, he simply put his head on my shoulder. He did so in a familiar way, as if he had rested his head on my shoulder many times before; he did it in a familial way—as if he, a Chinese man from a faraway land and I, a Haitian woman in her native land, were kinfolks. It was as though, immersed together in this tragedy, we had been compelled to know each other intimately and discovered that we were, in fact, the same. Existentially, we did know each other; our souls were united by sorrow.

  As I hesitantly raised my hands to embrace him, I realized that he was one of the Chinese peacekeepers from the airport. I felt him heaving and heard his spasmodic breathing as he began to weep. In time, I learned that the Chinese peacekeepers had been in a meeting at the Christopher Hotel at the fatal moment. Their remains had been found that afternoon. They had journeyed all the way from China to die in Haiti, the country they had come to help, just hours after they had landed. Requiescant in pace. May they rest in peace.

  In the days after the earthquake, nearly ten thousand families, approximately forty-eight thousand people, sought refuge in a vast, open space that had served as a military landing field. Having walked through this vast expanse of land, I slowly became aware that there was no curling smoke slowly climbing up to the heavens; there were no simmering pots. No one was cooking, anywhere in sight. No one had anything to cook; no one had anything to eat. This is how it began, before the shacks were built by people who needed shelter from the land that still rattled. Some fifty-odd aftershocks occurred in the weeks following the main event. At the time, we did not know that aftershocks were par for the course and would continue. Many of us did not even know that they were aftershocks. We thought, each time, that the worst was about to happen, that it would be the final blow.

  The camp space seemed all the bigger because no structures were erected. I struggled to get my bearings: The sun was behind us, so we were facing north. Much was missing from the customary panorama. Except for the thousands of destitute families, nothing was there. The ground was barren. Even the gravel and the sticks that refugees eventually used to build had to be brought in. During those early days, small groups of people clustered around the modest bundles of belongings they had managed to salvage. Many stood, blank faced. Others sat on the ground or on whatever could serve as an impromptu resting device. Many were wounded and produced makeshift bandages from pieces of cloth they had scavenged from the rubble. Some were bleeding. Others had broken bones but were afraid to go to a medical station because word had gone out that people were getting amputations to prevent gangrene. Having lost their homes and their loved ones, many people chose to remain in the camps so as not to lose limbs. Here in the middle of nowhere, they were scared and suffering, but physically whole.

  A Haitian doesn’t just say: I went looking for my neighbor and knocked on his door. Instead, she mimics the sound of the action and says: I went looking for my neighbor and knocked on his door kow, kow. The folk art of effective storytelling in Haiti has one cardinal rule: The sound brings life to the story. If there is an accident on the road, a masterful narrator will not simply explain what occurred but will depict it in the culturally prescribed manner: The cobalt blue 2008 Toyota was approaching at full speed voum when the red- and yellow-colored tap tap abruptly made the curve pheeew and they collided boom! (Mass transportation across Haiti consists solely of a colorful fleet of mostly dilapidated trucks, adorned with vibrant naïve paintings, complemented by philosophical and biblical quotes. These trucks are called tap taps because of the noise they make while negotiating the country’s many unpaved roads.) For the storyteller and her audience, sounds impart the nuanced details of the moment and not only enliven the account but render the story credible. Creole is not a tonal language, but it is hugely phonetic. Words don’t stand alone but are reinforced by sound. Creole appropriates and conveys sounds in a powerfully onomatopoeic way.

  When the earthquake occurred, Haitians used the descriptive term to convey what it was: tranbleman tè, or “earthquake.” In the early days, they also called the earthquake bagay la, “that thing!” This vague, amorphous term struck me because it underscored that what had happened had no name and was so outside what we considered livable or bearable, that it could not be named. Yet, people had ascribed this un-namable thing, bagay la, anthropomorphic qualities: It had killed their loved ones, demolished their homes and often their businesses. Most of Haiti’s population is Christian. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, to name something is to have power over it. Labeling the earthquake bagay la was for me indicative of the sense of collective powerlessness that people felt during the very first moments following the earthquake. Not being able to
name or define what had happened, while recognizing the full force of its effects individually and collectively, bespoke the sense of utter despair and desolation that immediately gripped the survivors.

  As people regained their center, in the chaotic aftermath of the earthquake, they slowly began to ascribe names to that terrifying noise, those tremors that shook the Mother of the nation, as we Haitians consider Port-au-Prince. It had to be named, and for the healing to begin, the name had to echo what shook our very core in those thirty-five infernal seconds. Tranbleman tè (earthquake), though descriptively correct, was not quite culturally accurate. Bagay la (that thing) was the ambiguous word expressing our post-traumatic stupor; it was merely an interim label. Creole is the language of our glory, the language of our fury; a vehicle to codify both our resistance, and resilience. As we began to awaken, the name for bagay la was coined, a neologism was created in accordance to Haitian norms and tradition: using the onomatopoeia goudou goudou. The disastrous event had been named. We, the people, were somehow, on our terms, regaining our bearings after the catastrophe. The first time I heard someone say goudou goudou, I shuddered. But then, I sighed. I understood. For me as a Haitian, this was the first step onto terra firma.

  MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS OF HAITI

  DIDI BERTRAND FARMER

  I. Rediscovering Haiti: December 2008–January 2009

  Gripped by nostalgia or perhaps a strange premonition, I decided to bring my family to Haiti for the holidays back in 2009. For the first time, we did not stay in my hometown, Cange, where our work is based, but rather stayed in the capital city of my birth, Port-au-Prince. We visited many landmarks, including the National Palace, which we had never before taken the time to see. It was as if we had known that this might be our last chance to appreciate them before they were destroyed.

  Political and familial circumstances had kept me away for a long time. I left Haiti for the first time in 1995 to pursue my studies in Europe. I was not ready to leave my homeland, but I had to take advantage of the opportunity available to me. In my heart, I never really left home; a profound love for my country remained with me. Each year, I would travel home for the long summer break and for the Christmas holiday. During my time away, I missed everything—the country’s beauty, the sun, the beach, the warmth of the mountains, the landscape, the food, the music, my friends and family. I felt I needed to stay connected to my roots in Haiti to survive in Western culture, so I returned at every opportunity. Haiti’s image abroad was never a positive one, but Haiti nonetheless remained my country, my home, and I remained fiercely devoted to it.

  After completing my education, I returned to Haiti, determined to contribute to its renewal. But when an opportunity arose to move to Rwanda, I didn’t hesitate. Despite the reservations some friends expressed about my living in a place with such a tragic history, I believed that I had something to learn from Rwanda. In September 2006, I moved there with my daughter Catherine—then only eight years old—to serve as the Director of Community Health for Inshuti Mu Buzima, Partners In Health’s sister organization in Rwanda. After that our family grew by two more children, first with Elizabeth, a beautiful baby girl from our adopted home in Rwinkwavu, who joined our family at just one week old, and then with Charles Sebastian, who was born six months later. My family in Haiti often expressed regret that they did not have opportunities to become better acquainted with their grandchildren, nieces and nephew, and cousins. No matter how far away we are from our homeland, one’s roots are one’s roots—lakay se lakay.

  Now at last I was bringing my family, as well as one of the young women helping us care for the children in Rwanda, to Haiti for a two-month stay. Close friends helped us to find a small apartment in the capital city, and I began to rediscover Port-au-Prince. We visited the Pantheon Museum and the Parc du Souvenir, went to the beach, spent time with family and friends, shopped for beautiful Haitian artwork, and enjoyed all the dishes that I had missed in Rwanda. At the end of our stay, we went to the northern city of Cap-Haïtien with my sister, her husband, and their sons, and an adopted Haitian daughter. We spent New Year’s Eve there with friends. In Cap-Haïtien, I visited for the first time one of Haiti’s historic sites, La Citadelle Laferriere, and also went to Labadie, the beautiful resort town that welcomes visitors from Caribbean cruises.

  With my husband, “Dr. Paul,” along, we certainly could not fail to pay a visit to the Cap-Haïtien Hospital, where we observed the hospital’s staff struggling to provide high-quality health care to the people with the meager resources available to them. During the visit, we met a newborn boy who had been left for dead in a trash can in front of the main gate of the public hospital. The baby was found, rescued, and kept at the hospital to be treated for severe malnutrition. I was tempted to welcome him into our family, but we decided instead to pay for his care until he could be formally adopted by someone in his community.

  At the end of the trip, as I packed my bags full of mementos from Haiti, I felt that I was bringing a little bit of home back with me. Little did I know that Haiti would follow me all the way back to Rwanda, that the baby boy we had just left would be only one of many children in danger whom we would be working to support from abroad, or that all the artwork and souvenirs I was carefully packing for friends and family would soon be auctioned to help pay for a desperate relief effort. Little did I know how narrowly my husband, children, and I were escaping disaster.

  II. Bringing Haiti to Rwanda: January 2010

  We returned to Rwanda on, of all days, the 12th of January. We landed in Kigali at 7:55 P.M. after a two-day trip via Miami, New York City, and Brussels. By the time we cleared customs and arrived at our house, it was nearly 10 P.M. As the younger children prepared for bed, I e-mailed my family to let them know that we had reached Rwanda safely, and called some local friends, the Germain family, a Haitian couple with two children who also worked for international institutions in Rwanda. At 1 A.M., with everyone finally in bed, I turned off my cell phone and set my alarm clock for 6 in the morning. Catherine had already missed a week of classes, and we would need to get going early the next day to purchase her school supplies and get her to school.

  The next day, after my morning prayer, I walked into the living room, turned on my cell phone, and discovered twenty missed calls from my Haitian friend Margalie. I wondered what could be wrong and became anxious that I had missed an opportunity to provide assistance to someone in trouble. I quickly dialed her number. She answered on the first ring, and asked if I had heard the news. “What news?” I asked. My heart started beating faster as I thought about my family in Haiti, my father. She replied, “Nou pa gen peyi ankò, Ayiti kraze”: Our country is gone, Haiti is destroyed.

  I could not speak. A few days previously, I had been there; my country had been standing on its feet. My friend was crying so hard that I could not understand her. I told her that I had to go, that we would talk later, and hung up the phone. Then I began shaking with grief. For a few hours, the world stopped. My daughter, who turned twelve that day, got neither a happy birthday wish nor a birthday party. Instead, she came home from school close to tears, asking, “What will happen to the children we met in Haiti? How will they go to school? How will this affect them?” I couldn’t answer her. My heart was in pain. The torment had begun.

  Words of sympathy were sent to me and my family by Rwandese friends and acquaintances: President and First Lady Kagame; members of the government; members of the different Ministries, especially the Ministry of Health; partners; members of our church; parents and teachers from our daughter’s school; colleagues; other community members living in Kigali, Kayonza, Kirehe, and Burera. Phone calls and e-mails came in from around the world: sympathy and solidarity from Christine and Pat Murray from Zanmi Paris, Sylvie and Jamel, friends from Paris, my Danish classmate from grad school, Camilla, others from Holland, Senegal, Burkina, and Mali. Haiti was at the forefront in the news and the topic of every conversation. People came to us with expressions of compassi
on and empathy on their faces, though it was still difficult to control our grief.

  I became panicked about the family and friends I had just seen in Haiti: my father and his second family, with their five children; my youngest sister, a nurse-anesthetist, and her husband, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and their young sons; the Lafontant family; members of the Zanmi Lasanté administration; Loune; members of the local staff who came from Port-au-Prince; all the doctors that I have known for years. I was worried about Manmito, Tatie-Flore, Sindy, and their children Victoria, Cassandre, and Luidgi, who came to Haiti for the holidays. I was worried for my friend Zette; my classmates Yonide and her sister, my aunt Catherine and her daughter and grandchildren, my cousins Guy, Ricot, Kerline, and Baby and their mother Carole; my friends Nancy and Harry; our adopted daughter Natacha, who had started nursing school in Port-au-Prince; Clerveaux; all the PIH drivers; all our friends and family… In that moment, all I could think about were the people dear to me and not about the bigger picture, the broader catastrophe and its effects on the country and people, which would soon consume every thought to come.