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Haiti, Hurricanes, and Horror

Posted Sep 17, 12:18 PM | 1 comments | by Editor | Link

By Luke Renner:

The roads were dustier than I had ever seen them, which was saying a lot. It was the summer of 2004, and I had already been traveling back and forth to Haiti for 15 years and had grown rather accustomed to the look and the feel of the place. But this was something different. The terrain had been drastically altered.

Before long, we were forced to navigate our truck off of the main road and into a dense thicket of scrub brush and tightly packed dump trucks, busses, and tap taps (Haitian taxis). The road that had once continued forward was now gone. It had vanished, leaving in its place, a lake, shimmering in the intense mid-day heat of the Caribbean sun, a permanent revision to the landscape in this area. I might have thought this foreign body was some massive oasis, a watery refraction of light off of the scorched earth, had I not already seen it from my window seat on the arriving flight into Port-Au-Prince, just a few days earlier. Now I was at its edge, diverting precariously away, around the massive boil.

We were on our way to Gonaives, a pivotal city in Haiti’s history. At one time, the city lauded the bold proclamation that Haiti was a sovereign nation, no longer ruled by the French colonials … the first independent black republic in the world. Now, more than 200 years later, Gonaives was facing an entirely different set of circumstances and her former glory was far from reach.

Just 30 days prior to our visit, Hurricane Jeanne had swept through the Caribbean basin and delivered more wind and rain than Haiti’s deforested mountains could buffer. In one city, after only one night, more than 3,000 people had died, swept away under a black and moonless sky by an unannounced torrent of murky water.

Upon arrival, we stepped into a ghost town. The survivors strode aimlessly along the crusted streets with nowhere to go and nothing to do, like zombies in many ways. Many had just lost everything in the world, including mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, and children. Some lost all. Somewhere in the madness of the silence and despair, I couldn’t help but realize that the number of lives lost here was eerily similar to September 11, 2001, in the United States of America … but different, in that, no one seemed to know or care what was going on down here. There were no grief counselors on hand to deal with traumatic stress syndrome, no social services, and relatively few advocacy groups. The only noteworthy shield from this wretched aftermath were paper facemasks, worn to collect the pulverized feces and decay that was airborne and sticking to everything.

One young mother told us her horrific tale.

The water rushed into her home, waking her family as it breached their beds at three o’clock in the morning. As in most developing countries, households consist of several generations, living together in a one-room shack. In a desperate scramble, her father hurried to get the family out of the house. The ti moun (children) were the first to go, boosted to the roof through a tiny window facing the torrent. As the rain came in sideways, carried on a hurricane force gale, each child stood crying in the pitch of night. Their cries were not alone. In the darkness, other families could be heard screaming from several surrounding rooftops. The cries of the less fortunate—those who were unable to find anchor—were racing by in the current below. The woman telling me this story was the next to arrive on the rooftop with her mother close behind. Only the father remained below.

As she told the story, her face glazed over with a look I have never seen outside of Haiti. It was that same zombified look that we had seen on every face leading here. It is the most utterly hopeless expression I have ever seen. She told the rest of the story with this protective look strapped on. It was as if her mind would no longer allow the presence of her conscious self. The story would continue, but her innocence and vulnerability was escorted away.

The door to their shack was facing the raging current and had been pinned shut. The young mother listened as her father, now underfoot, struggled to open it. He was unable, and with the river now pouring in through the open window, he was running out of time and options. Through a single piece of corrugated tin, the entire family listened in replete horror as their patriarch scrambled to mount a small, wooden table beneath them. In the next moment, a moment that would forever reshape and redefine this family, he pounded and clawed at the under-side of the tin, only a fraction of a millimeter thick, banned from hope. They would listen, and he would scream until death swallowed him whole, alone and forgotten, in the darkness of an invisible night in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

It’s an old story about my visit to Gonaives, Haiti, in 2004, but it surfaces because Haiti has once again fallen victim to the deluge of rain and wind that comes with the Caribbean’s worst storms.

Unlike 2004, Haiti has been hit harder and longer this year; assaulted by not one, but three storms so far (Gustav, Hanna, and Ike), and the hurricane season is not yet over. The stories that are pouring into our organization simply boggle the mind.

I recounted my story from 2004 because it happened to me, and I can personally recall the emotion and horror that my heart experienced, a full month after the waters had already come and gone. Today, the water is still pooled, and the mud is still thick and wet. This time, Gonaives is not alone. The entire country is in ruin. I have received reports of villages (one mostly populated by orphaned children) that have been completely wiped off the face of the earth. Bridges have been shorn from their roosts, leaving gaping chasms that supply trucks cannot cross. From the mud, coastal villages are collecting bodies that have been carried from the mountains and deposited at their doorstep. The entire country is in shambles and is in desperate need of prayer and financial support.

Presently, celebrities Wyclef Jean (a Haitian by birth) and Matt Damon are trudging through the sludge, delivering a little relief and a lot of publicity through Wyclef’s reputable non-profit, Yéle Haiti. My hat is off to these gentlemen for risking their lives and a lot of comfort to make the voice of the poor heard globally. In addition to their efforts, the United Nations has launched its own appeal for much needed funds. Add to that the hundreds of full-time missionaries that are daily doing everything they can to get their Haitian friends and neighbors back onto their feet. I myself am not in a position to present our organization as an avenue through which you can be involved in helping Haiti’s immediate needs. As the Founder of Haiti’s first “film school” (a first-of-its-kind media training institute), we are better aligned to provide solutions for long-term sustainability. What I can do is use my experience and my voice to urge you … no, to beg you … to find a way to get involved.

If you are looking for an organization that you can immediately interface with to make a dent in Haiti’s pressing, emergency needs (something that I strongly encourage you to do), please visit our organization’s blog for a list of groups that I can personally recommend.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Photos by Luke Renner

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Luke Renner is the founder and director of operations for The Caribbean Institute of Media Technologies.

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