Waff Jeremie: The Poorest Part of Port-au-Prince

I have been running errands all day and doing site assessments for possible distribution projects. I went and assessed a total of six different distribution sites today. It was really like an adventure. Each distribution site was in a different part of Port-au-Prince, it was like a treasure hut, meeting new people, seeing new sites, and playing with new children. We went and visited two big orphanages in Port-au-Prince in the middle of our day and it was really a sad site to see. They were very hidden in the rural areas of PAP and it took us a while to find them. It was both due to the fact that the roads leading us to them were very rough and bumpy, causing the car to bump back and forth, and not many people knew where it was. I was riding in the back of the pick-up truck and I had to hold on for dear life not to fall off. When this was going on, I was really thinking that this must have been at least a little bit of what the earthquake felt like. Up and down, side to side, and water splashing on the side. You really cannot control which way our limbs went and where your body fell. That kind of uncontrollable force can be very terrifying.

Doing all the orphanage trips, you really get a sense of just how huge the number of orphans there are in Haiti. It is incredible. It really is out of sight, out of mind for people. If you didn't go see it for yourself, you wouldn't be thinking of it at all. It is just never ending. There were already many orphanages in Haiti before the earthquake, but after the earthquake it nearly increased 10 folds. Not only do they not have the means to survive, but emotionally, people are running on empty. There were many children who were sick and severely malnourished. One little boy was brought to me because he was considered to be "sick enough" that he needed medication. When Haitian children are sick, or just people in general, they do not do anything until it is very bad. This is mainly due to the lack of medication and resources, but it is also due to the fact that they believe in many natural healing methods. This little boy of 4 years old stood in front of me with one of the biggest tummies I have ever seen in my life working with children. I have been shadowing doctors for a while now, so I have seen many of the same cases. This little boy was severely malnourished, dehydrated, and most likely has a case of worms. I carefully inspected his tummy and felt a sense of sorrow in my heart. I knew we did not have anymore de-worming medication and that their food supply was running out. I saw the scar on his scalp and the little scraped up legs...I felt the flow of hot liquid filling in my eyes...I had to hold it...there were 200 children quietly staring at me...

It was a very long day and at dinner time I sat there staring at the clock....it struck 6 o'clock and a si bro called out my name, "Lori Lori. We need to go." I grabbed my bags, not really knowing what's going on. I ran out the door only to find a giant military cargo cameo truck parked in front of me. It was the Brazilian army troops. The soldiers sitting on the cameo started to sing "Hello Hello Hello. Happy Happy Happy. I love you. You love me. We all love everybody. Helloooo." (This is the song we sing at distributions for leading the active participation of the Haitian). Lieutenant Baraud called out my name "Ms. Lori. Are you ready?" I was like half in shock and half super excited. A si bro and I climbed up the giant cameo truck and sat with the other 20 soldiers in full on war gear. Every single one of them had a hand gun strapped to their side with a giant AK strapped in front. The two soldiers at the end had grenade launchers. I, too, had many things strapped to me, I added to the bunch a Nalgene knock-off water bottle and a Tzu Chi cap. I sat there, in between all the soldiers, listening to them speaking Portuguese. It was an awesome experience. We were very high up and passing by all the cars I felt like I could see everything. I really got to experience what it felt like to be an UN solider in a foreign country. When you go through the UN, you are acting as a peacemaker. All the people respect you and especially the admiring eyes by all the children you pass by. We sang in the truck and spoke of all the different weapons. Mostly they were not words, since we couldn't understand each other, they were pretty much all actions. The Brazilian soldiers all pulled out their cameras to show me all the pictures they took of me and them. They started going through each pictures to explain who was who and they also showed me some base pictures in Dominican Republic. It was pretty funny. I had a short conversation with si bro before we got to the destination we were heading to. Si Bro told me we were going to a new place and that he didn't exactly know what was going on. Turns out we pulled into Waff Jeremie, the poorest part of Port-au-Prince. It was already dark when we arrived and you can only see a small number of glimmering glow from far away. They were burning trash to light up the night skies for the people. No one had tents, they were all make-shift shelters, if you can even call it that, made out of four wooden sticks and some thin cloths. A lot of the families lived in cardboard boxes or sheet metal pieces. When the army pulled in all the children started to run toward the cameo shouting at the soldiers. One little boy spotted me in the cameo and started to point and shout at the other children to come look. “C’est une femme! Une femme! Elle est là! Regarde une fille dans la cameo! (It’s a woman. A woman. She is there. Look, a girl in the cameo!) They were all super surprised that a girl was with a whole bunch of soldiers. They were all shouting out of excitement and disbelief.

We pulled into what looked like an old deserted building. We got out of the cameo and we started to take a tour of the building. It turns out that the building use to belong to NPH (Nationale Police D'HaÏti). Haiti's National Police force use to be attacked all the time by guerrillas and was forced out of their own base. In 2003, Brazilian troops marked this vacated building as part of their airborne division base. Seven years later, they are reclaiming what they once found. The building still stands with an exterior wall fully intact. You can really tell that the building was really built for battle of all kinds. We took a tour and I finally found out that tonight was a movie night for all the neighborhood children and families. They put up a white screen roll on the back of the cameo and used a projector to show a french children's film. They used film breaks to transmit positive messages for the Haitians, such as the things they can do to get a job and how to treat people around you. The soldiers even prepared a huge box of popcorn for all the children. We brought candy and cookies with us to distribute to the children. The neighborhood is not considered to be very safe, so the Brazilian commander wanted us to put on bullet-proof vests and UN helmets. I was so excited. Beyond excitement. I have always wanted to wear the UN helmets. It was a dream come true. We geared up and went out into the crowd to distribute all the goods. The timing wasn't all that great, so it was very chaotic. All the children came sprinting toward me. I had 3 bodyguards, then it turned into 6 bodyguards, and then finally it was about 12 of them all around me pulling me out from the pile of children. They were trying not to push the children, but at times it just wasn't possible not to do so. One soldier was pulling me from behind with the bullet-proof vest and another two was pulling both of my arms to lift me up from the swarm of children around me. I saw out of the corner of my eyes a little girl of about two to three years old falling over and all the children rushing toward her direction. I yelled in terror and fought off all the soldiers grab to safe that little girl. I held her in my arms and more soldiers came to clear the way. This all happened in about 7 minutes of time.

It was so chaotic and a very good lesson learned. I can really understand what people are talking about when they say people can get trampled to death in a mob. People really get that desperate and they cannot think of anything else. When people are so hungry, there is nothing that can stop them from getting food assistance, even if that means stepping on top of a small child. The little girl sang to me later when she was brought to safety. The crowd calmed down a lot more later. The army and I talked about alternative ways to distribute candy in that particular neighborhood. We passed a very good night in Waff Jeremie with the Brazilian army. It was really surreal to be honest with you. I stood on the roof of what use to be Haiti's police headquarters and look at the limited lights around. Tears came to my eyes because it was so beautiful at nighttime, but I knew just exactly what the daylight will reveal tomorrow. Funny how a little change of scenery can change everything. The Brazilian army troop took us back to OECC in a smaller cameo. We were still fully geared up from head to toe in the cameo. There were 5 soldiers with us, fully armed. When we got out of the gates all 5 soldiers under the commands of the Lieutenant all pulled out their handguns to add on to their riffles. I was surrounded by weapons, literally neck to neck. Lieutenant Baraud told me that the worst areas in Port-au-Prince is Cité Soleil and Bel Air, especially after the earthquake because the prison break that happened gave 500 prisoners free rean. They are all situated in these two areas. They took us all the way back to OECC and we said our goodbyes. It was a tearful goodbye again, because we were all touched by each other's work. Their work as peacekeepers and us as peace promoters. It is such a great thing that two groups from completely different parts of the world come together in another foreign country in the name of peace.

When we got back home, we found out that 4 police officers were shot to death by rebels in Cité Soleil, which was only 5 minutes from where we were at with the Brazilian troops. Everything has a reason...this is why we had to wear bullet-proof vests and helmets...they are strong enough to stop riffle bullets apparently. RIP police officers.