After the earthquake

In 2005, Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, DC. determined that the political and social unrest in Haiti was making it unsafe for the Peace Corps Volunteers then residing there. After spending two years under the mother-hen-like care of the PC Dominican Republic administration and medical care staff, I trust that headquarters will take its careful time in deciding when and if volunteers can assist Haiti again in the near future. For now, some of us are helping Haitians through organizations, communities and people on this side of the border.
In the two months following the earthquake, many of my colleagues who had learned some Creole went to translate and organize at a Dominican clinic overflowing with Haitian refugees. Their stories are powerful and hard to listen to. Nearly all of them describe walking through the crowds of people sitting on the ground outside the clinic, doctors and organizers looking out for the people who were most in need of care. Patients with compound fractures were taken first, and for fear of the infections that would inevitably take their lives, were ordered amputations without the luxury of further consideration.

As I typically don’t go a day without hearing a racist comment, I was surprised that my community’s initial reaction to the earthquake was a unanimous outreach to their Haitian ‘brothers and sisters.’ In the days following the quake I was instructed to go across the border and pick up some orphans for them to raise as their own. One woman had recently received a huge box of clothing from the United States to sell, but instead she decided to donate it to the Haitians and so I took it to Santiago for her.

Now, although they are sympathetic still, my family is tired of hearing news about Haiti and is wondering what they did with all of the aid that has been sent there. They didn’t understand the severity of the previous economic situation and cannot comprehend the resulting hardship the earthquake has caused. Facing increasing pressure from citizens, the Dominican government soon had to send all Haitians patients at the border clinic back into Haiti, healthy or not. And this from the country who, a couple weeks before, was boasting that it provided the first aid into Haiti…well I hope so, we do share an island!