port au Prince, Haiti Day 5, Trip 3

Internet has been spotty and time is seeping away. This is a very busy trip as I am both counseling and setting up a longer term staff support program, which means hiring, training, preparing people.

Today I rested for a few hours in the mountains, at a friends home. The cleanliness, silence and beauty was a dramatic contrast to Port au Prince. It is easy for me to forget how lovely Haiti is when I am spending so much time in the destruction. We spent a small part of the afternoon looking for tiny little frogs that live in the highlands and make a shrill sound, like the high pitches of a xylophone. No luck today.

Two evenings ago we celebrated a friends birthday--a young birthday. She is not yet 30. Most of her family was killed in the earthquake. She lost the center of her life, and has struggled since, uncertain as to why she should even go on. I have no idea what a birthday means to her; I know what they mean to me: Family. Friendship. Prayer and reverence and reflection Celebration.

Throughout the evening she "disappeared", her eyes wandering and at times vacant; the space where she sat felt empty. It was a lovely evening, and--- the absence of everything that she orients to, organizes around, lives for felt to me like a booming hole of silence. I cannot stop thinking about the evening. About what wasn't. Its very hard to put this into words.

There are several places downtown where bones are piling up. As more and more rubble is moved, bones emerge. The French embassy is sending pieces of femurs to France for DNA testing. At east 33 are dead, some are still missing. So now there are several piles by each former building: Small rubble. Big rubble. Bones.

A friend described sitting in the tent camps in BelAir--a slum where much of the past gang violence has occurred and where gangs are supposed to be emerging again. The woman rocks a tiny baby on her lap, cleaning its feet. She is sitting a few feet from a site that is covered in charred remains of burning--the place where the finally burned all the bodies that had piled up. Black dust and bone shrapnel and this is the only place to bathe and comfort a baby.

There are several half complete structures there-- when the violence showed early signs of re-occurring, all the NGO's left. Left half built outdoor shower stalls and some tents and a little food and water that will soon be gone. So the community sits and waits, and waits, and waits, and waits. They have decided to "re-do" their image--so they are forming neighborhood cooperatives and gathering materials and doing what they can to complete projects, clean their neighborhood up, and provide safety for their families and the many children there. While they wait.

Port au Prince, Haiti Day 3, Trip 3

There are so many small moments that become the threads of hope, healing, and others that contain traces of grief, fear.

When I first drove up to the office, the groundskeeper happened to be right there. His face became a burst of light as he walked up to me and took both my hands and said "Oh--you're here. You came back." He held my hands and my gaze as he recounted how many times he sat in the office and smelled an oil, or prayed, or reflected on something. And felt quiet, calm and safe.

He has moved back into a structure to sleep. His one living child has a protected place to be during the day and his school will re-open soon. He sleeps. He showed me the tiny bottle of oil, still in his pocket, still a vial of hope.

One of my clinical colleagues has begun using some of the oils, sprays, and contemplative methods I taught her with her clients, and she describes "moments of calm, c-a-l-m. I see their nervous systems calm down." She describes how each one of these moments restores an aspect of their vitality, and the joy at "seeing them come back".

The juxtaposition of all of these moments against a backdrop of neater and taller piles of rubble, what was left of a head of hair, or scalp, dug up in todays clearing, the invasion of foreign help that often means well but even more often tramples local resources, the knowledge that Haiti will never be the same, that many of the losses have erased landmarks and structures that have deep historical and cultural roots, and are symbols of pride and place to people here.....people's faces look sadder, more tired, more flat, more bone weary.

What does it take to revive the spirit of place? It is clear that there is a much larger suffering here that isn't just the accumulation of years of terrible things or of each individual story or tragedy. It is the shattering of a collective reality, of the soul-sense of familiar, of the often unacknowledged markers of belonging. It is everything stripped away for many while others adjust to inconveniences or losses or massive change--a continuum of loss that affects everyone, all the time. A continuum that truly doesn't end.

Port au Prince, Haiti Day 1, Trip 3

The trip in was easier---every flight landed early every transition smooth.

I sat beside two women who were returning to their birthplace for the first time since the earthquake. Both praised God when we landed at the busy, busy airport safely, and both cried as we wound our way through the new airport, looking through large glass windows at the old, cracked, sad looking international airport.

I waited in the hot sun for an hour for my ride. The traffic is thicker than I have ever seen. Its impossible to get a car near the arrival area. The driver rushed up, apologetic. He had been in traffic for over 2 hours (it can be as brief as a 30 minute drive from the office to the airport.

The roads seem thinner, because the rubble has been gathered in, waiting to be removed. Higher piles beside the road, neat and organized. We ran over the stiff body of a cat, clearly dead for awhile. I asked the driver why no-one removed the putrefying feline corpse; he replied "its just another dead body. And its not a person."

The team greeted me enthusiastically and warmly. Many of them shared stories of sitting on the little couch in the quiet space, using the oils I left behind, reflecting . ''This room is our resting place."

Driving home, we passed the tent camp in Plas St Piye; it looks the same. Traffic is a gridlock because there is a band playing a concert. It is strange --there is almost a festival feeling as the music drifts over the trees and makeshift tents and people gathering in the park. Two families face one another, chatting, while they combs their children's hair. One baby is given a dramatic fro and laughs as his hair is teased. I smile and a slighter older toddle wanders towards our car that is not moving, waving and clapping. I clap out the window and we "air pattycake" until our car finally moves beyond the damp. I wave.

Around the corner I see a red pick up truck, and beside it, a lovely young woman bare naked, bucket bathing in the open while her young child-perhaps 6 years old--tries to shield her from view. She continuously turns from view, but almost 360 degrees around her, there are people. I think of dignity. A tiny child and a red pick up are her shower stall, her privacy.

We pass actual make shift shower stalls-a simple wooden square structure surrounded with blue tarp, and the words "DOUCHE" written on it. I see 3 smaller squares, 3 sets of bare feet on the muddy earth. There are holes, large and small, in the tarp. Privacy.

Port au Prince, Haiti Day 9 & 10, Trip 2

Returning home, this time for a few weeks, I prepare to be in a place where homes still stand, where the air is fresh and clean, where driving to the store and stocking up on favorite snacks is not a luxury or a privilege, but just another task in a busy day.

The morning I flew to Haiti, news reporters were swarming American Airlines check in counter, interviewing Haitians flying on the first commercial flight to Port au Prince since the earthquake.

When I rushed up, my clothes crooked and hair uncombed because I had dressed so quickly when I learned my original flight was leaving 2 hours early, I was relieved to find a seat on the second flight and was signing the credit card receipt when one of the reporters yelled "Hey, thats woman's buying a one way ticket!" Suddenly there was a glare of many cameras on me and 5 microphones in my face. "Are you buying a one way ticket?!" "Whats your relationship to Haiti--have you ever been there?!" "One way--are you going to come back?!" I was momentarily stunned, and then began to answer the questions and apparently, made it on several Miami news stations and a few radio casts. It was pretty simple: I bought a 1 way ticket because my flight had left without me, and I had a return; Haiti is my hearts home and I have worked and visited there since 1998; Yes I would come home; here is what I do there.... I imagine the contrast of my pedestrian answers with the image of a white, disheveled, hectic woman rushing up to buy a one way ticket to Haiti where the largest disaster in terms of human loss and destruction to a major city was playing out.

Now, there is very little on the news about the Haiti earthquake because it is no longer new. People ask me if its getting better; if things have improved? I don't know how to answer. Yes, more rubble is cleared, the air was less dusty and the stench had subsided except in a few areas; there were more tents and less makeshift plastic sheeting structures; supplies are arriving to Port au Prince, Leogane and Jacmel; the airport is open now.

Better?

There are at least 211,000 people known dead and countless more who will never be found. A million people have lost homes. A friend who has a long-time, successful business had to let go 70% of her staff because there is no economy. Many of them had worked for her for over 20 years. She was heartbroken, crying, trying to find tents and safe places for them to live, raising money for them to rebuild homes, providing medical care for their babies and children. There are still remnants of bodies rotting under debris and sometimes being pulled out from under. There were two more quakes when I was there, and many aftershocks. Every time, the same fear and terror coursed through people's bodies and they came to my office, sweating, trembling, crying; or at night, let out a collective cry in the streets which was audible throughout the city.

When I first began teaching in Haiti, I was told that crying (especially for men) was not done publicly, and "therapy"--speaking openly with a stranger--was not common in this culture. Yet I had lines of people some days, waiting to talk, to cry, to share things they could not tell anyone else. Men 30, 40, 50, 60 years old, sobbing for 20 minutes, terrified of the future, afraid they can not support their family members, still trembling inside like the earthquake never stopped.

I don't know what better will be for Haiti, but I know it won't happen if Haiti drops off the radar and is forgotten. On my flights home, many people were returning from Haiti and as we talked about our experiences, almost everyone commented on the resilience of Haitian people.

Yes, they are resilient, and its because of this resilience that they deserve our ongoing support. The words I hear to describe people at food distribution centers, in tent camps, in clinics: "Resilient." "Dignified." "Grateful."

I believe that the Haitian people are world leaders in resilience, and hope that they will someday have the opportunity they deserve to teach the rest of us to embody the same collective strength and grace that they do.