My Writings. My Thoughts.
Our Haitian Heroes Part 1 Disaster
// October 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // Video
Utahns work to keep Haiti on America’s mind
// April 22nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Media
By Lois M. Collins
Published: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 9:39 p.m. MDT
Deseret News
This is Haiti 100 days after the earthquake: The bodies that could be reached have been buried, but rubble is everywhere. The water trucks and rice distributions now routinely reach many, staving off starvation, if not all hunger.
But the interest of donors, notorious for short attention spans, is waning. At least one hospital that ran out of resources gently placed patients out on the street before closing its doors recently — including a child in a body cast.
Daniel Cameau of Provo sits at the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 29, with an orphan awaiting clearance to evacuate. -Mike Terry, Deseret News
“I don’t blame the hospital. Everyone was working hard trying their level best, but they
You can tell part of Haiti’s story with numbers. Haiti has — or had — 9 million people, the vast majority impoverished. The average annual income was $1,300. The life expectancy before the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12 was 61 years. As many as 300,000 died, and about 3 million need aid in its aftermath, including 84,000 elderly. The injured are near impossible to count accurately, but estimates start at a quarter million. The United Nations said 245,000 “ruined or hopelessly damaged” buildings have created 30 million to 78 million cubic yards of rubble.
It’s not easy to return to normal in such a landscape, and attempts don’t gain much traction, says Daniel Cameau of Provo, who left his Haiti homeland 20 years ago. His cousin’s daughter died and her mom was seriously injured. Nine cousins are now homeless.
The other day, he asked one, “How is life?”
“It’s not much changed since the earthquake,” he was told. “There is still rubble. The government is still not organized.” They are trying to function “in a dysfunctional situation and that makes life more miserable.”
A distant loss
Utahns frantic to reach friends and family in Haiti right after the earthquake have now counted the dead from a distance. Hernandez and Alba Honore each lost beloved cousins. Alba’s uncle died and her aunt’s arm and leg were amputated. Their friend Farnell Pierre-Louis’ mother and siblings are doing comparatively well. His brother-in-law returned to work quickly and they gathered enough money to send some of the family to Miami for a few weeks. Now the tent school is opening for the children and Pierre-Louis, of Salt Lake, is in Haiti helping them return. Most will live in a parking lot a while longer.
And yet another wave of sorrow is right on the horizon. Haiti’s rainy season, just starting to sputter, will go on for weeks, pouring buckets of water on the broken-hearted and battered island. Then the hurricane season will begin.
Millions live in makeshift tent cities and the government is just beginning to move some to higher ground. “There’s no permanent housing. The lucky ones are in a tent, otherwise they have a sheet draped over a string. And when the rains come in May and June …” Randle’s voice trails off, then he says the rain will wash through areas that have been used as makeshift latrines, carrying sewage throughout the camps. It will stink as it brings cholera and infectious diseases, as it severely compromises conditions for people healing from injuries and surgeries or just trying to survive, homeless. When the rains reach bodies still under rubble in some locations, it will likely spread even more disease.
Dr. Jeff Randle (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
In his blog, Randle writes, Haiti “is not just broken but is crushed.” He took a team of volunteers to Port-au-Prince in March. “Half had been to Haiti before and were shocked at the devastation, half were new to Haiti and were shocked at Haiti.”
He loves Haiti, where he served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 27 years ago. But after nine days, he says, he was pining “to go where they’re not suffering, not mourning a loss. Everyone has lost someone dear to them.”
No giving up
Still, there’s hope. It comes in an architect’s draft of a 130-bed hospital a Utah team hopes to build, funded in part by small donations from moms nationwide. Hope rides in on a team of rehab experts operating a makeshift clinic under a blue tarp. It crosses religious and school-loyalty and international borders.
A Haitian man who's recovering from a spinal surgery is helped by a physical therapist and a nurse in March. (Jeff Randle)
At BYU, 150 students and professors are planning to go down for several months, in rotating teams, to teach square foot gardening and other skills. University of Utah students have joined Our Haitian Heroes’ relief efforts, said Steve Eror, one of that Utah-based group’s organizers.
Utahns are also helping Haitians Gina and Lucien Duncan with their orphanage and projects well beyond it. Gina Lucien is working with the Haitian government on a group home and school where she plans to take in 100 women who had amputations, along with their children, to learn about using microcredit. They will live there a year and Utah-based Healing Hands will make them prosthetics, said Jan Groves, an Intermountain Healthcare employee who will make her own 12th humanitarian trip for Healing Hands in June, leading nurses, physical and occupational therapists, prosthetists, translators and others from eight states and Canada.
Their plans include clinic work, providing rehab services in a tent-based hospital, and visiting little hospitals in outlying areas where spinal-cord patients need care. She also hopes to revisit orphanages in the capital where for 10 years the group has cared for disabled children.
Starting over again
Healing Hands, said Randle, just signed a contract to start demolition of the many pancaked buildings in its compound. They will rebuild but are considering options, perhaps working with other international organizations. MediShare wants Healing Hands to provide rehab services to patients. Randle would like that, but he also wants an outpatient clinic and a vocational component to train those with disabilities to earn a living. He hopes to build a little snack shop there and teach disabled people to make handicrafts that can be sold, so they can gain some money and get families back to work, he said. It all hinges on who’s staying to help and who’s leaving.
Since the earthquake, Healing Hands has helped where needed. They recently found 19 patients who’d been injured in the earthquake who’d had surgeries and been discharged by an international team. A Briton who’d been there a few years and built a clinic to treat children and keep pregnant women healthy took them in and his team has done its best.
But spinal cord injuries are hard, said Randle, who found severe, perhaps lethal pressure wounds. It was not the Briton’s team’s fault; at least it was willing to help. Randle spent two days training it as best he could. Healing Hands is now assembling six spinal cord injury teams that will each rotate into Haiti for a week.
The Utah Hospital Task Force, which took 130 volunteers including medics, construction experts and Creole speakers for two weeks right after the quake, plans to build a 130-bed hospital, said an organizer, Stephen Studdert. Wednesday they welcomed a group of women volunteers who will be part of a “million mothers for Haiti” to help build the American Hospital of Haiti. They envision a million women each donating $12.
Eror, a returned missionary who served in Haiti, has been bowled over by the response
Steve Eror President of Our Haitian Heroes (Keith Johnson, Deseret News)
his group, Our Haitian Heroes, has had to its efforts. The group includes doctors, construction workers, teachers and others. They have secured a piece of land and plan to build a center in Petit-Goave, 42 miles southwest of Haiti’s ravaged capital.
Haitians, he said, typically memorize to learn. The group wants to build a center where critical thinking skills and various trades are taught. They hope to eventually pair Haitians with outside mentors in their chosen fields. The country’s economy needs help.
They also hope to keep Haiti on America’s minds, he said, because the situation is still dire.
e-mail: lois@desnews.com
Little Haiti
// April 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Story
The day I received my mission call our family was loading a U-Haul. We were moving. My native Southern Californian parents decided that the economy was too weak, the smog was too thick and the freeways were too crowded. They set their sites on the land of Bountiful, Utah. Opening up a mission call in front of 20 people was almost too much as I do not like to be in the spotlight. When I opened my call I had to act happy, but honestly, I was disappointed reading that I would be serving stateside in the Florida Ft. Lauderdale mission. After 2 years of high school Spanish and having to speak basic Spanish at my water park job for 3 years, I assumed that South America was the place for me. I was wrong. I was relieved, however, when I saw the words Haitian Creole, even though I pronounced it as Ha Tee In. Only one person out of 20 at our house that day had any idea of what Haitian was-gutter French. That was the best he could do to explain the language. I was excited to learn a new language and eventually got over the disappointment of going stateside.
I remember my first real encounter with a Haitian. It was in Ft. Lauderdale on a typical hot and humid day in February 1992. I remember street contacting this older man. He was carrying a rose and I had no clue what he was saying. I wondered if I would ever understand. In the MTC we learned French for 5 weeks and then the final 3 weeks we learned Haitian. When I later taught in the MTC in 1996, I got permission from the MTC gods to reverse the time spent on each language. That seemed to make the most sense. Within 5 months of my mission I felt confident in the language. It still is odd to think that I learned Haitian in Florida and not Haiti.
One of the greatest things that has ever happened to the Creole missionaries in Ft. Laud was when the Haiti ‘blan” missionaries and the mission were relocated to Ft.Lauderdale around December 1991. Having 2 missions (Haiti and Ft. Lauderdale) in the same area was unique. The Haiti mission shortly merged into the Ft. Lauderdale mission. Most of the Haiti missionaries I encountered spoke better Creole, knew more Krik Krak jokes, and had a special bond with the Haitians. I was envious of this and wished I had also served in Haiti. I learned a lot from the my Haiti companions and tried to learn as much as I could from them about the culture and different areas of Haiti (ex. Leogane-peyi lougawou). The legacy of these Haiti missionaries, who survived the Aristide coup and months of curfew and house confinement, lived on when their mission finished because they taught us how to better interact with Florida Haitians.
LITTLE HAITI-you could not be a Creole missionary without biking Sekankat (NE 54th street). This street was “owned” by Haitians. It was as close to Haiti as you could get. There were Haitian murals on the walls of small shops. My favorite is the picture of a Haitian guy holding up papers to the Statue of Liberty and being rejected. Shop keepers would put out speakers on the sidewalk and blast Kompas music-Zin, Sweet Mickey, Phantoms, Tabou Combo. Any type of protest would happen on this street. The smell of rice and beans made you want to stop and eat but knew you had a great chance of getting your bike stolen.
In Florida I associated Haitians with old beat-up Toyotas. If a car was an 80s Toyota I would bet my bike a Haitian would be behind the wheel. Red curtains hanging in the living room window were a dead giveaway when tracking for Haitians. I never would get used to teaching discussions on furniture covered in plastic and leaving behind a puddle of sweat. Most Haitian homes didn’t have or use air-conditioning. It cost too much. Being called CIA or Immigration officers was a constant. George H. Bush fans they were not. Bush was blamed for everything. I appreciated their bluntness and honesty when it came to their political views and ideas on how to make Haiti better.
I never will forget the Haitian man, driving a Toyota hatchback, coming to our rescue and racing down a Miami street because he noticed 2 white guys running about a bike being stolen. He nearly hit the kid with the car but managed to quickly stop the car, run to his trunk, grab a golf club and go after the boy with the club ready to swing. The boy wisely ditched the bike and the bike was quickly returned to us.
Every Florida Haitian has a story to tell whether it be coming over on a boat and being granted political asylum or living with extended family to avoid a voodoo curse. I met many Haitian men who came over from Haiti to work in the Florida sugar cane fields or whatever work they could find while leaving their entire family behind in Haiti so they could provide for their wife and children. It was a very difficult situation with months even years of separation.
Doing service hours at English language schools was enjoyable. Many times the Haitian students preferred us as teachers because we spoke Creole. We were often treated as rock stars. Ironically it was us, the Elders, who would go to these people’s homes and take pictures of them because they didn’t own a camera. Haitians love to dress up and take serious looking pictures. It was a simple treasure that could send to family in Haiti.
Haitians taught me faith, to include God in all that you do and to share anything you have with those around you. Haitians are generous with the little that most have. If they could they would give you everything they owned. They are extremely friendly, accept you for who you are, and above all know how to enjoy life in its simplest form. For me, serving among the Florida Haitians was where I was supposed to be.
Brett Freeman (neglib)
Ayiti Cheri
// March 29th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Story
Unlike a lot of other missionaries I knew, I had actually heard of Haiti before I got my mission call. Wyclef Jean of the hip-hop group the “Fugees,” who later went solo, talked about Haiti (and in Haitian Creole) quite a bit in his music. I liked a lot of hip-hop music in high school, and Wyclef’s remix of the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive” was one of my favorites. So when I got my mission call to serve in Haiti, I was actually ecstatic. My excitement heightened, a few days later, when I saw a Haiti special on the Travel Channel. The one-of-a-kind culture, the bright colors, the vibrant music, the tropical climate, the rich history, and everything else you can imagine was featured.
Nothing, however, could have prepared me for that hot day, in April 1999, when I landed in Port-au-Prince with seven companions, and I realized that I didn’t have a return flight. Haiti is an extraordinary place. It is hot. It is dusty. It is bright. It is colorful. But it is also desperately poor and, in many ways, forsaken. On that first day, my companions and I had the fortunate experience of being driven around, in the bed of a big 4×4 pickup truck, on a little tour of the city, from Petionville, down to Canape-Vert, and back, where I got to see my first Haitian sunset over the bay of Port-au-Prince, and learn how to say “Sakapfet?” I remember thinking that Haiti looked just as bright, colorful, and exotic as Neverland–where the lost boys lived in the Peter Pan movie “Hook.” There were countless people weaving in and out of steep ravines, dirt pathways, and busy streets, while others climbed up and down through the concrete jungle of homes, alleyways, and stairs, carrying who-knows-what on top of their heads, in loads five times as big as the person carrying them. Mango and coconut trees peppered every hill- and mountain-side. Sewage flowed through the gutters. Naked children ran around yelling “Blan!” And nearly every single person I looked at gave me a huge, white smile in return. They brightened my spirit, and increased my excitement–this would be the adventure of my life.
It didn’t take long to realize, however, that these wonderful, unbelievably happy people were born into overwhelming and virtually insurmountable disadvantages. I quickly learned that things that we Americans sometimes take for granted, like good medicine and a decent education, are afterthoughts when you have to scrape by just to survive from day to day. Yet, notwithstanding their widespread poverty and travail, the Haitian people really showed me how to smile, sing without care, joke, and love living. Perhaps nothing illustrates this more than the wonderful, carefree children of Haiti. The kids won’t just treat you like a rock star, they will teach you how to speak, they will teach you how to play, they will teach you how to laugh, and they will teach you how to love.
To this day, only Haitians can make me laugh so hard that I have to scream “Anmwe!” because my stomach hurts so bad. Only Haitians can sing, dance, and “bay blag” all day, in the way they do, notwithstanding their desperate circumstances. In America, we say “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” In Haiti, they literally make a life worth loving, and full of joy, out of nothing. Over a period of approximately two years, Haiti taught me how to appreciate life more, to love more, to count my blessings more, and to remember that “because I have been given much, I too must give.” Ayiti, cheri, mwen renmen ou netalkole.–My Dear Haiti, I will love you forever and ever.
Seth “Ti Bouch” Mott
Why I fell in love with Haiti
// March 26th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Story
I was 19 years old and scared. I attended High School in a suburb of Detroit and the Mountains of Salt Lake City. I was about to spend the next 21 months in a country only 700 miles from the US boarder, but it might as well have been another planet. I had studied Haitian Creole as best I could for the prior 2 months, however, I was lucky if I could say my name and ask someone to pass the salt.
My American Airlines jet was unlike any other flight I had ever been on. First it was loud. This flight full of Haitians speaking this strange language I thought, up until that moment that I knew. Second it was crowded. These people didn’t just travel with their luggage, but the were flying with their luggage, and brooms, and food, and other basic items that I would have normally picked up in a grocery store. They were taking all these things to their families in Haiti.
I was riveted. I strained to understand this language. It was faster and seemingly more complex than I could have ever imagined.
After an hour or so our flight landed in Haiti. I looked out the window and noticed old broken down planes along the runway, and grass growing through the Tarmac. The plane came to a stop and the door opened, a wave of hot, humid air quickly over took the cool air conditioned air in the plane. I was instantly sweaty.
I lived in an area of Port-au-Prince called Carrerfour Feuilles. It was in the southern part of Port-au-Prince, and mostly built on a mountain side. Even in a densely populated place like Port-au-Prince news of a “Blan” moving into the neighborhood spread like wildfire.
The children of Haiti first won a place in my heart. I would turn around after walking to the market and see a dozen children chasing behind me calling my name, trying to hold my hand, eager to try out their limited English.
These children amazed me. I was a kid who always wanted the newest, latest and greatest toy, GI Joe, or Nintendo, and here were these children with nothing, and they were happy. I have never met a happier group of children anywhere. They would play soccer in make shift fields of dirt, with 2 cinder blocks as goals, and bound up plastic bags as a ball. They would take rims from old bicycles and roll them down the road chasing after them, laughing all the way.
When it was time to work, they worked hard, and their work was hard. As soon as a child is able to lift a gallon of water, their expected to go to the nearest water source sometimes miles away, a well, a river, a broken water line, and fetch the water for the family. They would make several trips a day hauling this needed water for their family. While they were carrying this water they smiled, they laughed, sometimes they even sang.
If they were lucky, their family could afford to send them to school. Early in the morning children would emerge from their small and dirty homes, dressed in impeccably clean and pressed school uniforms. I remembered watching these kids in the morning as I thought about what I wore to high school, usually ripped jeans, a wrinkled T-shirt. These kids coming from the most extreme poverty dressed 10 times better than I ever did for school.
Originally it was these children who made me fall in love with Haiti. These incredible children always smiling, always laughing, happy, and with nothing.
OHH Concert #1
// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Concerts, Fundraisers
Friday March 12th was the beginning of Our Haitian Heroes’ fundraising efforts. You will notice that this blog post is labeled as Concert #1. Yep, we plan on doing Concert #2, and then Concert #3, etc.
We were so excited to have such a great music lineup: The Spencer Nielsen Band, Allred, and Phaya
The SN Band performs at clubs such as Liquid Joe’s in SLC. I really like their music. They have a 3 Doors Down feel to them. You can find their music on Youtube and itunes.
Allred is in the middle of their Utah tour promoting their music. They are a very talented group and Jon, the lead singer, performs many acoustic cover songs. Check out his version of With or Without You on Youtube and itunes.
Phaya, a native of Bas Delams, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, performed his hip-hop songs including No Haiti No Cry and The Miley Cyrus Virus. He is a real crowd pleaser and we have established a great partnership with him for future concerts. Check out these videos on Youtube.
Those in attendance enjoyed great music and got reacquainted with old friends.
A special thanks to Patrick Dillon, the Beta boys, and Ben Rogers for their efforts. And OHH wants to thank their family and friends for supporting them in this great effort.
Concert #2 is in the planning stage and will be announced soon.
Arcade Fire, Haiti
// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Video
An incredible video featuring Haiti from the group Arcade Fire…
No Haiti No Cry
// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Video
Partnership with Our Haitian Heroes and the Community Foundation of Utah
// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Announcement
Time is of the essence to relief efforts in Haiti. That is why the Community Foundation of Utah is serving as a fiscal agent for Our Haitian Heroes, a vehicle through which those who admire and honor the Haitian people can contribute to projects addressing the immediate needs and future well-being of underprivileged communities and individuals in Haiti.
Our Haitian Heroes is a collaborative international charitable organization, with no religious or political affiliation, comprised of dedicated individuals who have devoted themselves, their time, and their talents to serving and living among the Haitian people. Our Haitian Heroes will fund and support the reconstruction of homes, orphanages and hospitals, and provide microfinancing, mentoring programs, and scholarships business to facilitate self-reliance.
The organization is the first ‘fiscal sponsorship’ undertaken by the Community Foundation of Utah. We will process donations to the agency and monitor their work so that donors can be assured that their gift is tax deductible. We will serve in this role until OHH receives its own tax exemption from the IRS.
The Community Foundation of Utah is dedicated to improving Utah’s future by facilitating innovative approaches to social problems. Leaders like the individuals behind Our Haitian Heroes are crucial to any success we’ll have in this effort, and we are extremely pleased to be a part of their commitment to the people of Haiti.
Our Haitian Heroes to host fundraising concert
// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Media
A recent article in the Deseret News on March 9, 2010
SOUTH JORDAN — In the weeks since the walls crumbled and the masses were displaced in Haiti, Steve Eror, Seth Mott, Patricia Barnes and Brett Freeman have been working on a long-term strategy to help the tiny, devastated island nation recover.
The four and about 200 friends and acquaintances from around the world have mapped out plans that go beyond providing short-term emergency relief to get at what Eror calls the “progression of Haiti.” And they’re setting their sights on ambitious tasks that include microlending, mentoring and home construction.
Their group, Our Haitian Heroes, plans to kick-start a funding campaign to raise money to build some homes with a concert at 7 p.m. Friday at Bingham High School, 2160 W. South Jordan Parkway.
The group was birthed from a coalition of LDS Church missionaries who’d served in Haiti and rallied when they heard about the earthquake. It quickly expanded to include people from many different backgrounds who share both a longing and a drive to help. The group is nonpolitical, religiously diverse and raring to make a difference in a more permanent way.
“We want not to just build homes, but to teach them how to build homes that can last,” said Eror, president of Our Haitian Heroes. “If you teach someone to run a construction business, he can hire people to go build homes.”
The plan, he noted, is to create opportunities that help the long-impoverished country build an economy, not just homes.
Reality, though, says the first step is providing shelter, Eror said. A business plan will help them only after they’ve found a place to stay.
Among performers Friday is a young man who takes that issue very personally. Phaya, a hip-hop rapper and dental student in Orem, came from the poorer lower area of one of Port-au-Prince’s best-known streets, Eror said. Phaya still has family, now homeless, there. He is performing at the concert to raise awareness and funds to shelter his and other families.
The other headliners are Allred and the Spencer Nielsen Band. Tickets are $10 at the door, with proceeds going to Our Haitian Heroes’ construction efforts in Haiti. Donations can also be made to the group at any Wells Fargo bank branch.
