Travelers Digest

its always on when your traveling that you meet the most interesting people. I love the airport for this reason. its good to get out of your comfort zone and see what is going on in the rest of the world. who else are you sharing the planet with. when you sit in the back of a plane and look straight down to the front you realize how amazing the world is. there are hundred of people on the plane. 150 different lives all set in motion. going to different place, different struggles, victories. and new adventures. 

When travel to haiti i am most likely traveling with a team of volunteers. We are always clothed in blue shirts that say HOPE Worldwide. we have a mission. when we arrive at the airport we see other groups of volunteers, also on a mission, on their way to haiti. when we board the plane we see that the we have a common purpose and destination but we are divided. on the front right we have the green team representing food for the poor. on the mid left we have the yellow team representing, helping hands. in the rear we have the red team an group of asians calling themselves Jezu Reme ou (Jesus loves you) there are also white, light blue, dark green and grey teams as well. no one ever speaks to us and says hello, where are you heading or what it your mission. common purpose, same destination but very clearly and visibly divided. I always feel like I am imposing when I ask one of these groups where they are serving or what are they doing in Haiti. I like to gather information while I am traveling. you never know who you may meet and who you can partner up with .I don't  get the impression that the feeling is mutual. Why if our goal is to help the same people, in the same country are we so guarded about our plans of how to help. Every shirt has a different objective and with those objectives come different strategies,efforts but ultimately accountability and recognition. Haiti has become a place to mount a “Look what I did” flag. The nation has  the most Non-government-organizations  (NGO’s) than any other country in the world. With no government in place to assure the people that their fundamental rights will be protected NGO’s have stepped in to assure this but doesn’t this make the people more vulnerable more dependent?

In Gressier, where we do our volunteer work, we see the results of years and years of dependency gone awry. How are we any better or worse than the next organization? Are we also perpetuating the dependencies that other groups before us have nurtured? This is a question we ask ourselves and try to correct on each subsequent trip. How can we assist our friends in Haiti with THEIR objectives? How can we be a support to them and not them to us? How can we help small business owners and fisherman to be successful in the work they do? This year we rolled the dice on something different and perhaps controversial to some. We notice a pattern in how the women of the community picked through the in-kind donations as if they were shopping for someone other than themselves. We later learned that many of them were merchants selling the best of what they received at the marketplaces in Haiti. This year instead of organizing a chaotic and potentially dangerous clothing distribution out in the open lot of the beach we decided to sell a set amount of clothing to the women in our core group with 100% of the proceeds going to support the orphanage. The women who took advantage of this arrangement were so pleased. They told us that what we did was a good thing. In the past as she continued to explain, they were ridiculed by the other women in the village. They were accused of letting the americans dressed them. This made them look and feel quite foolish. By giving them the opportunity to purchase the items fair and square they maintained a sense of dignity and were able to go to town and make a profit. We look forward to returning and continuing and extending the program.