Reflection on a Recent Pilgrimage to Haiti

I’ve heard it said that “Life is like an onion, you peel it off layer by layer, and sometimes you weep.”  Having recently returned from my sixth visit to Haiti, that adage seems to apply to Ayiti as well.  Each time I travel there, I discover yet another layer of her history, her culture, and her people, and sometimes I weep.  And yet I also found myself laughing deeply and sighing in great gratitude more often than not.  Such is the mystery and the magic of the place.

  I wept at the devastation still very much evident almost a year and a half after the tragic earthquake rocked the island.  We visited one of the countless tent camps and I wondered how a people survive in such horrendous conditions, especially as the rainy season had begun in earnest.  At the camp we gathered in the small plywood building which functions as a de facto community center run by artist and musician volunteers. The leaders of this motley group of internally displaced refugees are overwhelmed not by the hungry masses begging for food but rather by the desperate yet dignified masses searching for work, any kind of job that will help them feel useful and needed again. 

The streets were not lined with Haitians pleading for a handout from the more well to do American visitors.  Instead on every corner countless entrepreneurial vendors were stacked on top of each other trying to sell a myriad of goods such as fried plantain, small bags of water, snacks, and toiletries.  With so many sellers and so few people to buy, I wondered how many of these aspiring small markets could survive.  But Haitians are among the strongest and most resilient people I’ve ever known and somehow many do survive, in spite of all the odds against them.

As an American of privilege I often feel guilt and even shame with the disparity and inequity that exists between my lifestyle and that of my Haitian brothers and sisters.  I know all too well that historically the sins of colonization have contributed to my comfort and to Haiti’s misery.  Even now I am aware that our own government often hinders the progress of Haiti through policies that protect our own interests rather than seeking significant improvement in the lives of everyday Haitians. 

A case in point involved an attempt to raise the minimum wage in Haiti from about a quarter an hour to 61 cents an hour.  According to The Nation magazine, U.S. companies such as Hanes and Levi Strauss benefit greatly from Haiti’s cheap labor force.  Ultimately our own U.S. Ambassador pressured Haiti’s president to adopt a much more modest increase of a mere 31 cents an hour.  Shame on us!
I dream of a day when Haiti will have the opportunity to thrive and not merely survive.  But it will take the will and the commitment of the rest of us to practice solidarity at every level – politically, economically, and spiritually in order for that to happen.  Like an onion, layer by layer. 

Anne Gibbons

Associate Chaplain, Lynchburg College

Chair, Diocese of Richmond Haiti Ministry Commission