Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti

by Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné

  The authorities decided to change the system again. They decided to go directly into the camps, to each person who had a tent. They kept to the idea to deal only with women. In the camp at Saint Louis de Gonzague in Delmas 31, two NGO authorities came to distribute ration cards. When they asked where the family was who lived in a vacant tent, a neighbour said that they were absent and that she would pass the card along. They gave her the ration card for the absent woman. She now had two cards and no intention of giving one up.

  She went to get her own sack of rice that she brought back to her tent. Then she returned with the second ration card that should have belonged to her neighbour. While she was waiting in line for the second sack of rice, her neighbour happened to appear and discovered the distribution of rice. She was told by others in the line that her neighbour had her ration card. So she asked her for her card.

  “No, no,” said her neighbour, “they are mistaken. I didn’t take a card for you. This is my own card.”

  The MINUSTAH soldiers could not understand what was happening. They wrongly assumed that the woman who had the ration card in her hand was its rightful owner and that the other was trying to steal it from her. They literally pushed away the woman who had no rice and no ration card. That woman said threateningly that she would wait for her neighbour in the camp. All of that was lost on the MINUSTAH troops.

  When she got her second sack, the woman returned to the camp. Her neighbour attacked her to get the rice. The first tried to balance her big sack of rice on her head while fighting off her neighbour whom she had cheated to get it. The cheated neighbour was seriously scratching the face of the woman with the rice when I happened to be passing by.

  I approached. Others in the camp were surrounding them and encouraging them to fight. I saw one woman balancing a twenty-five kilogram sack of rice on her head with one arm and fighting with the other. Her adversary bit the hand that had entered her mouth while they were striking out at each other. Startled and in pain, she let the sack of rice fall from her head and it burst open on the ground.

  I squeezed myself between them, pointing to the rice on the ground. “Look,” I said, “you are fighting each other and look at the result. Haitians should be sharing with each other. We’re all hungry. Look at you. You’re both hurt and both still hungry.… The NGOs would love this image. If they had known you would be so co-operative, they would have been here with cameras to show the world that Haitians are so hungry they are killing each other for a sack of rice. Maybe they could use that to raise even more money.”

  The people who had been goading them on now applauded my intervention, “He’s right, he’s right,” they said, “as long as we fight among ourselves, the NGOs will be enriching themselves. They aren’t here because they care about us, but because they saw that the earthquake could raise their importance.”

  The two women started to calm down. They both wanted to explain their positions to me. I cut them off. “The main thing isn’t to judge who is right or wrong, but that we try to manage the situation for ourselves. If we fight among ourselves for the little that we have, instead of taking care of each other, then we only leave the NGOs and blan and rich the opportunity to take control.”

  While all of our discussions were going on, a kokorat had scurried out of the shadows to the place where the rice had spilled over the ground when the sack broke open. He turned his t-shirt into a sack and started to scoop into it all the rice he could manage. A kokorat like him had no access to the distribution of rice in the “civilized” lines. He hadn’t reached the social level of a tent in a victims’ camp. So he had waited for his chance to get his ration.

  I directed the women’s attention to the little kokorat loading his t-shirt, “Look. Tout sa ki pa bon pou youn se bon pou lòt.” (Meaning that someone can always benefit from the misery of another.)

  They both looked at the boy and shook their heads. They returned to their tents.

  I heard the kokorat say, “Today, I’m going to fill myself up thanks to those two women!”

  Everyone laughed. He scurried into the shadows.

  chapter twenty-four

  SOON AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE STRUCK, we heard American helicopters and aeroplanes and saw them landing at the airport. Planes from other nations came as well, but the American military wouldn’t let them land. It had taken control of the airport.

  An old church sister of Deland, who lived abroad, was touched by the news of the catastrophe. She had become very wealthy. She tried to charter an aeroplane to bring relief to her native island. Her flight and all that it was bringing, like the others, was turned away from Port-au-Prince by the Americans and ordered to land in the Dominican Republic. Many Americans believe that Haiti, because it is situated in the Western Hemisphere, is under the authority of the United States. Other countries cannot have independent relations with Haiti. Haitian affairs, it was made clear during the crisis, pass through Washington. Even Haitians, such as my father’s friend from church, had to go through Washington. The Haitian rich nurture the right contacts among the American rulers, so they can be sure of Washington’s support. That can be unfortunate for the rest of us Haitians.

  Some Haitians already understood, as a result of their daily lives and those of their families for more than a century, that the Americans saw Haiti as their own possession. Some assumed that Washington had somehow provoked the earthquake to take overt control of the country. The immediate response of the American military seemed to validate their suspicions. Some claimed that the Pentagon had exploded a weapon under the sea that set off the quake. They said that the loud bang that preceded the earthquake was not natural, but evidence of American treachery. All of these rumours were simply interpolations from what Haitians knew about American intentions over a century.

  The earthquake traumatized the victims. The actual experience — the loss of loved ones to a violent death, the destruction of homes and buildings, the memories of the terror, and so on — was compounded by the knowledge that the bodies of the dead would soon start to decompose and emit foul odours. To that was added the combative sound of American helicopters constantly circling overhead, terrorizing the traumatized victims below. On the ground were American soldiers everywhere, running around with their rifles drawn and ready for combat. Against whom? We were in no mood for fighting. All of these traumas led people to seek peace outside of the capital. Many returned to their home communities in the countryside to escape the terror of the capital.

  Many of those who remained in the capital thought they might be useful in the circumstances. Medical workers, drivers, engineers, masons, and so on imagined that there would be lots of work to put Port-au-Prince back on its feet. Those who could speak other languages also saw that they could be useful, and find paying work, among the blan invading the capital.

  Josué had an uncle who told him that the airport was now full of English-speakers from the north. He said that Haitians who could speak English needed only to appear with their identity cards and they were assigned jobs. Josué remembered my language exchanges with Paul in 2006 and encouraged me to go to the airport to find work. He wanted to come along with me. If I were to find a job, he said that I would then be on the inside and could find something for him as well. I went to get my passport and Josué got his identity card. His uncle wanted to drive us to the airport, with the same idea as Josué — if I should find a job, then he wanted to be close by to profit.

  We weren’t alone. The streets were full of people going to the airport with the same objective. They were all on foot. The taptaps were not moving. Only the SUVs of foreign journalists and bourgeois Haitians were still circulating. When we got to the airport, we saw foreign journalists preparing to leave Haiti. I found a security guard whom I knew from Simon and asked why they were leaving. He told me that they were being turned away by the American military authorities. They had landed only to return to their native countries.

  Outside of the gates was a big crowd of us Haitians. A
few decided to organize themselves. They created a list of their names and competencies that they intended to hand to the foreigners who were taking control of our country. I asked a man to write my name on the list he was creating. He said it was full, so I found a piece of paper and asked to borrow someone’s pen and wrote out my coordinates and my English skills. Josué then asked that I put his name down too, which I did. Then, everyone circled us like mosquitoes, shoving their identity cards in my face and insisting that I include them on my list. I couldn’t keep up. Everyone who, like me, had been refused on the other list was determined to not miss this chance. Josué’s uncle took out his identity card so that I could add him to my impromptu list. Unfortunately, he is short and when he tried to hand it to me, others batted his hand away, saying, “No, no, I was here before him.… No fair.… Me first.” Even though it was his idea to come, and he had driven us, he had to wait until the more insistent people were on my meaningless list.

  I was writing my list in conformity with the others that had gone before me. People told me that they had passed lists through the gate with ten names each. But there were forty people who were hollering at me that they had to be on my list. I politely told them that I understood that these lists should have ten names each and so they could begin one of their own. However, they insisted that they be on my list. Some told me that if they weren’t included on my list they were going to beat me up. So, to save myself, I took forty names before no more would fit. I had not the foggiest notion where my list would go and what would become of it. I felt sorry for the poor souls who were putting all their hopes in a list with no destination, despite the fact that they were threatening me.

  When I finished taking their names, I waited in front of the gate with the list in my hand. No one came to get it. I was frightened of the crowd behind me that had elected me their spokesman because I had a pen. Once they had put me in charge, they expected results. I waited for two hours. As time passed, some of the crowd got hungry or bored and started to disperse. Eventually, the security guard whom I knew came by again. I asked if anyone would take my list. He said no, that they had already taken lists of people looking for work. So, I just ripped up the list and left it in front of the gate. Those of us still there left, just as we had arrived.

  chapter twenty-five

  A FEW WEEKS AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE, we were all sleeping under the stars. To have a tent was a luxury. We were in the middle of the dry season. Everyone wanted a shelter from the dust. We were also thinking of the rains that were in store for us.

  Some international NGOs came with tents. The bourgeois families, with the contacts that soften the blows of life, put up the best tents and distinguished themselves from the other victims and the kokorats. The wretched had to fight in lineups to get a tent. Many managed to get a tarp from an NGO or, if they had money, bought them from street merchants. Where did they get them? From committees that misrepresented the number of people under their charge. Or from other contacts that may never be known. Those who couldn’t buy a tent or a tarp and couldn’t get one through an NGO were left to fend for themselves.

  A number of camps arose where people built their own shelters. All that was needed was eight long sturdy branches and some sheets to hang from them to represent walls: the kind of shacks that the very poor build for themselves in slums all over the world. These camps quickly became densely populated. The NGOs decided to visit them and to distribute whatever tents or tarps they still had. To qualify for those donations, or other aid, Haitians needed to have a place etched out in one of the camps and to have demonstrated some proof of residence. They would need to have put up some kind of structure. Inside these camps, every inch of land was taken up by people trying to establish a presence.

  Everyone kept their ears open to find out where the NGOs were distributing the tents most generously. The objective was to go to that camp and demonstrate a presence. Then wait. Sometimes people squatted in a number of camps at the same time in order to cover all their bases. There were distinct classes of victims. For some, the objective was to accumulate as many tents — and whatever other forms of humanitarian aid might arrive — as possible. When they saw that material goods with a street value were coming into the country, their goal was to profit. To do that, they had to shut their eyes to the people who were actually in desperate need of the basic necessities of life: water, food, and shelter. They became even more callous than before toward those who were suffering the most.

  Imagine that you are a single mother of seven children living in Delmas 19, like a friend of mine. Four of them were immediately crushed and killed when the building where she rented a room collapsed upon them. The other three were at school and were saved. But now, she had no home, no money, no food, and water was hard to come by. How could she battle others for the absolute necessities of life for herself and her surviving son and daughters while grieving the deaths of four children? She heard that the Red Cross was giving tarps out to people in a camp in Silo. So she managed to find the branches to build a frame for the tarp. There, she still lives with hundreds of others. From time to time the Red Cross comes by to distribute some soap. The residents have planted bananas and beans around their crowded camp that they keep spotlessly clean. Now, she suffers from depression and she is always in pain. But while she tried to cope after the earthquake, others were pushing her out and plotting how best to profit and advance their family’s interests in the new circumstances.

  In other cases, the owners of the land threatened the real victims with eviction and even hired vakabon to physically kick them from their land and return it to its vacant state.

  Since I had no shelter after the earthquake, I was nervous about sleeping outside when the rainy season started. I didn’t trust the structure where my room was located, behind the house that had collapsed. I wanted a tent. Moreover, I was dreaming of getting a tent that was large enough to protect my friends who were also homeless. I listened, like everyone, for where I might be able to find one. People told me that the camp at Saint Louis de Gonzague was my best chance.

  I called my friend and fellow furniture maker, Josué. He too was homeless. Together, we arrived at Saint Louis de Gonzague where we found all kinds of activity. People were building shelters of all sorts, with whatever was at hand. All of the space was taken. Some people who had received real tents refused to erect them. They preferred to keep their pathetic impromptu structures in place, since that might qualify them for more tents and other aid. Sometimes, they took their tents and then sold their space to someone else who could use it to get his or her own tent and continue the cycle. I decided not to buy a space from someone who had already received a tent. Instead, I chose to find a couple of vacant metres where I could build my own shelter.

  In a corner of the field there was a little open space. Josué and I didn’t want to occupy it before asking around. Usually, a little vacant space like that in a camp had already been claimed by someone whom you would have to pay to take it over. There were often fights over such spaces. I wanted to avoid trouble. We found a young man who told us that he had already started to clear and level that space and so it belonged to him. He wanted 500 gourdes ($12.42 US) for two small spaces, each two metres square. I had 150 gourdes ($3.73 US). Josué had 250 ($6.21 US). We put it together and offered it to the young man, with the promise of paying the outstanding hundred gourdes later. We were happy. We’d have our tents, we thought.

  We returned to Delmas 19 to take the branches off of some mature trees to build a frame. Then we found some ranyon, which are clothes and sheets worn and soiled beyond use, to use as the skin of our new shelters. We hurried back with our materials as well as a machete and a pick, because the little plot was on a hill that we would have to flatten. We passed a day working the land and building our structures. When we were nearing the end of our work, an anxious woman came up to us. “What are you doing on my property?!”

  I was surprised, “Your land? What are you talking about?”<
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  “This is my land. I was the first one here. I weeded this property. I even came across a snake that I had to kill. I’m not going to give it up now.”

  Josué said, “Joegodson, don’t listen to her! She’ll say anything at all to steal our land from us that we have already bought and prepared.”

  I was already listening to her. It was entirely possible that the land we had bought did not “belong” to the man who had sold it. Maybe she was as right as we were. I told her the story of how we came to be there.

  “That young man is a thief!” she said. “He’s from Site Solèy. That’s the same guy who sold us the land. I’m going to call my husband and he’ll tell you it’s mine.”

  Her husband came and calmly explained how they came to claim the land. Josué and I told them our story, almost the same. She was sleeping under the stars with a three-month-old baby. She couldn’t fight the crowds for a tent, so she had decided to come here to try the same method that Josué and I had in mind.

  “Okay,” I said, “since we have the same idea — that is, neither of us is in the camp to stay, but just to get a tent, maybe we can find a way to get three tents out of these plots. It would be a better use of our time than arguing over who has the right to be here, because we all do.”

  After a short while, we were all agreed. We went to find the young businessman who sold us all the same property. But he had already left with his profits. We left the two shelters that we had assembled in place. I gave one to the woman and I shared the second one with Josué. From time to time, we passed by Saint Louis de Gonzague to see if there was any talk of a tent distribution. The NGOs never came back to Saint Louis de Gonzague. Presumably, they had struck it off their list after the first tents had been distributed. After two weeks, we came by to find that our shelters had been removed, tossed into the woods by the camp committee. Our hopes were dashed of ever getting a tent. Josué and I let the idea go, but we wondered how the woman with a three-month old would manage. We were young men and we hated fighting for food in those lineups.