Beyond Borders in Haiti - Alternative Gifts International

Beyond Borders released the following story in their September Newsletter 2005:

“Leve pye ou.” Lift your feet. “Fon ti vanse.” Move over a bit. I was squeezed between two middle–aged ladies up near the front of a large version of a tap-tap (a freight truck converted for passengers. Women who had been selling goods at the market put their sacks and baskets under the benches that ran along the sides. The middle aisle filled with cargo. People crammed into the center. Others hung out the back door. Almost everything in Haiti seems scarce; seats to Port-au-Prince in the late afternoon were no exception.

The tap-tap jostled to a start after the driver’s assistant banged loudly on the metal siding. Talk soon turned to Genaїves. Forty miles in the opposite direction, Haiti’s fourth largest city was still submerged after Tropical Storm Jeanne hit a week ago. People were stranded on rooftops. Aid was slow to arrive; relief organizations couldn’t figure out how to deal with the logistics, armed gangs, and mobs of desperate people.

Over the past twelve months, this small island country of eight million people has experienced political upheaval, flooding that killed two thousand in another part of Haiti, malnourishment and unemployment that is chronic and widespread, then floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne, killing two thousand more. From a distance, those watching the news must wonder how anybody makes it in Haiti. Living here, I sometimes wonder too, but less so because I see the little things.

After passengers expressed how terrible the situation was in Gonaїves, a young man, about twenty years old, spoke up.

“I’m from Gonaїves,” he said. “Just got out.”

Conversation in the front half of the truck quieted. He told of awful things, of the bodies, of water sweeping the living away to join the dead, of stampedes threatening any meager supplies of potable water or food. His Creole was rapid-fire and he seemed a little disoriented as he jumped between subjects. His eyes darted to different people as he talked.

People asked questions. Bridges were down, roads almost impassable. Did he slog through the mud water? Yes. He left to find help, leaving his mother and siblings behind. Would he return soon? Yes, he hoped.

“There’s nothing, nothing,” he kept saying. “These clothes. Look. I’ve been wearing them since last Saturday.”

Haitians are almost always immaculately groomed, but the young man from Gonaїves was filthy. Little bits of straw and other debris littered his hair. His shirt and baggy jean shorts were stained and ragged.

Suddenly, a middle-aged man reached into a plastic bag and gave him a white polo shirt. “Here. Take this,” he said.

“Thank you,” said the young man. The crowd immediately told him to take off his old shirt and put on the new one. When he did, a sharp, rancid smell was released. Within thirty seconds, someone else gave him a white t-shirt. A pair of green shorts appeared. A comb. Someone else gave him a bar of soap.

Meanwhile one of the market ladies had taken a crumpled ten-goud note (about twenty-five cents) out of the fold of her skirt and squeezed her way through the truck from person to person, saying, ”Just give what you can. Five gouds, ten gouds, fifty gouds, anything.” Almost everyone gave something. After completing her circuit, she handed him a fistful of bills and coins.

He was holding onto the roof rail with his right hand, revealing a few small holes in the armpit of his new shirt. He looked around. Then he started wiping tears from his eyes.

“Mwen pa konnen….” I don’t know….

“You didn’t even ask for anything, we just want to give,” people said, and then we were quiet for a little while as the tap-tap bounced its way toward Port-au-Prince.

I have seen this kind of generosity among the people of Haiti time and time again. Yet it fells like a miracle to me every time I witness it. People who have the least are often the freest to give. Their generosity comes from a certain knowledge they have that often escapes those of us with more: Nothing we have is really ours. It can all be taken away in an instant.

Support the people in Haiti with one of the following projects.

4. Healthy Stoves / Haiti

5. Plant a Forest / Haiti

6. Rescue a River / Haiti