This is a picture from Gonaive that a friend sent to me in the aftermath of Hanna. You can see how awful it was in that city with people sloshing through what can loosely be described as streets...
First of all, a big thank you for all of you who've been emailing with good wishes and concerns - it really cheered me up and I promise to reply to each and everyone of them. I'm fine and so is Tina the Invisible Kitten (well, one assumes).
In terms of the situation here, none of our staff or their families have been directly affected by the flooding from the last few hurricanes however, one of our field offices in the Central Plateau is completely cut off. We tried to reach them today with a truck of emergency kits but the rivers are still too high to manage it and they had to turn back. From reports, there are a huge number of people over there who had lost everything - especially on the appropriately named Montagne Terrible. As it's not one of the "in" areas, not to mention being practially impossible to reach at the best of times (donkey being THE transport of choice), there are absolutely no government, UN or agency help. Also, just saw some photos of the situation down in St Martin and Martissant - slum areas in Port au Prince where we work. It's pretty awful. When our team went down there to distribute kits to one of the temporary shelters there, they were almost mobbed by an unexpected crowd of desperate people and had to evacuate. So much for trusting the UN to effectively manage the relief operation...
I remember seeing the pictures of this on the news and it's strange how the television actually distances you from what is going on - some random disaster in some godforsaken part of the world. But then it's really different when you live here and you know the people who've lost family, who've lost their savings, their homes, all their possessions, their livestock, their crops. And because of the problems with accessing a number of areas, what food and clean water there is - not to mention medical assistence or shelter - cannot get to them. But I think the worse problem is the lack of hope, and that's something that's I've found to be really striking in Haiti. People have lost faith and hope that things will get better here - political turmoil, criminality and kidnapping, unaffordable food and gas, and now losing everything due to freaks of nature. You talk to people and they say that everyone is "in transit" here - people have lost the sense that this island is a place to stay or a place that nurtures.
We had the BBC in for the afternoon yesterday to look around and piss off Brian with their incessant need to sniff out the misery - back to the whole infamous "Has anybody here been raped and speak English?" school of journalism. It's not that I don't like journalists - I just think they have crappy jobs, especially the roving ones: the ones who go from disaster to disaster without really caring the people or knowing enough the context - just wanting their bit of "disaster pornography". I know it's their jobs and I know it's important that people in rich countries are aware of what's going on here but bloody hell, there must be some way of doing it better.
Had dinner with a friend last night and he told me how last week, his colleague had been trapped on top of the roof of her hotel in Gonaive during Hanna with 7 of their local staff. Max had been frantic getting in touch with MINUSTAH (the UN peacekeeping force here) to get them rescued. So they came in their helicoptors to pick her up but refused to take the local staff. When she found this out, she insisted that they return her immediately and then spent the night on the rooftop with them. The happy ending is that they all got rescued the next day but... It's one of those cases which you hear about but don't actually really believe can happen - that the UN continues, despite all the criticism, to operate this double-standard. I mean, good for her - if I was with my team and that happened, I would have been absolutely furious.
Anyway, if any of you are interested, here's what we're doing in response to the crisis:
And on a much lighter note: I have actually seen Tina - she actually crept out of the cupboard and started eating right next to me. If I make any move towards her, she instantly runs away but I'm trying to learn the virtue of patience. Might buy her another toy to see if money can actually buy love....
And just to cap things off, just to prove that I'm not all doom and gloom, here's a cute joke that a friend sent me:
Job Opening at the FBI
The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were 3 finalists; two men and a woman. For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances are. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair .. . . Kill her!!" The man said, "You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife." The agent said, "Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home."The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, "I tried, but I can't kill my wife." The agent said, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home."Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping the sweat from her brow. "This gun is loaded with blanks", she said. "I had to beat him to death with the chair."
MORAL: Women are crazy. Don't mess with them
