The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [81]
Sean Penn continued to work his guts out. I saw him rescuing people, buying X-ray machines for many hospitals, and giving his personal items away. He slept in a small tent alongside the rest of us and ate rice and beans nightly, just like everyone else. He has committed himself to doing this work in Haiti for years.
J/P HRO took the lead as managers of our IDP camp, overseeing OxFam, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, and about a dozen other NGOs doing work there. Together, we worked to ensure that the village residents received tarps and tents for shelter, that they had enough food and water, that the latrines were kept up to standard, and that the children had a safe place to hang out during the day. Our camp was the largest in Port-au-Prince, with about 55,000 people visiting it during the day and up to 65,000 people staying over at night.
By May, our primary focus became relocating the village. It was time for us to vacate the Pétionville Golf Club land, not only because it was private property, but also because it would be in the middle of a flood zone as soon as the rainy season began. With the monsoons starting in July, we were in a race against time. Experts told us that the rains would destroy the shoddy, pieced-together shelters made from bits of tarp and sheets, which many thousands of Haitians continued to live in. Not only that, but water flowing in rivers through the streets and down the hillsides would turn the land into mud, which would mix with human feces from the ground and cause diarrhea and widespread outbreaks of communicable diseases. Our team began a “Beat the Rain” campaign focused on moving people out of flood zones and providing them with proper tents or even temporary shelters. Evacuating people is a tremendous task, requiring a great deal of planning, but we were fortunate to have military logistics experts helping us.
The Pétionville Golf Club course, where 65,000 displaced people live
In Haiti, I saw the same patterns that seem to show up after all disasters: The aid money gets stuck in bureaucracy, the NGOs have meetings upon meetings, small-scale local officials and large governments make increasingly impossible demands, and nothing happens. The good news is that if you can predict what’s going to happen, you can seek to avoid it. I had learned from our experience in Sri Lanka, for instance, how devastating the rainy season could be to people already living in fragile conditions, so this time we planned in advance.
After a few months in Haiti, I could already foresee the uprising, the point when people would move out of the shock and sadness phases of their grief and into rage, turning against us. Then, the infighting would begin: the mad jealousy at the neighbors who were lucky enough to get more, the blaming of us aid workers for not doing a better job, even though the Haitian government was doing nothing for its people. In anticipation of that, all I could do was warn the others, steel myself with faith, and reach deeper into my heart for love and forgiveness. I was ready to unconditionally love everyone, even before they’d hurt me.
On our way back from a two-day trip to the coastal town of Jacmel, Oscar, a camp volunteer named Stephen, and I were passing the broken presidential palace when something caught my eye. I saw a professional photographer with a long lens on his camera, and then I noticed small fires burning in the middle of the street. Before I could put two and two together, a group of teenage boys with huge rocks in their hands came running at our car. I saw the whites of one boy’s eyes as he sent his rock flying directly at my face. In a split second, the danger registered in my brain and I dove to the floor of the car, covering my head with my hands. Oscar and