We took a tour around and were impressed to see that some building work had been carried out by a team who had visited a few months ago. Then, as we talked further, the impact of the earthquake became more apparent, not just on a physical level, but on a psychological one. The owner started to open up about how he had struggled over the past year and had almost had a breakdown as he tried to come to terms with it all. He described some of the sights he had seen in the days and weeks after the quake and how he had been forced to drag bodies and pile them in the road. Although at first he had managed to keep going, what he had seen kept returning and he had no way of processing it properly. As we listened, we were filled with admiration for him, but also an acute awareness that his story must be one of many hundreds and thousands. The enormity of what had happened and how deeply its wounds must have scarred began to hit home and our thoughts then turned to the children and the realisation that they too must be so internally traumatised.
In the past year the city has been in turmoil and emergency aid and relief work the focus. A cholera outbreak, a flood and hurricane have only hampered progress and in such times, basic needs only can be met- water, food and hopefully sanitation. Dealing with post traumatic stress has not been on the agenda, but as we were to see many times over during the course of our trip, it is very much needed.
Time came to meet some of the children and to hand out some of the items we had brought with us. Girls from St. Mary's school in Shaftesbury had beautifully prepared packs of toiletries and we wanted to give each child a pack of their own. A simple task, you might think, but we were in for a lesson in how the simple can become really complicated - or better known as" how to make a mountain out of a molehill"! Many of our packs were put together with girls in mind and older girls at that, so some of the items might not be quite so well suited to the needs of the boys who were there (to put it delicately) Our first problem then, was to decide if we should just give to the girls and return with something for the boys on another occasion or try to find something for everyone. Would it be fair though if the boys weren't to receive anything after we had called them over? At this point everyone seemed to have an opinion on the matter; all of which were different. After alot of to-ing and fro-ing it was deemed to be more fair to give out something to every child now, but that led to the next problem of how to divide up what we had! Suffice it to say, there were several more opinions on this matter and more to-ing and fro-ing and lots of passing around of bags. The sun was now burning down and we were feeling hungry and faint. How could this be so hard?! It was another twenty minutes until a consensus had been reached.
Pleased that we had arrived at a solution we all dived on the bags, emptying the contents with gusto as the children looked on in a rather bemused manner. The whole thing must have looked quite comical as shampoos, hair bobbles, soaps and sanitary towels were being thrown all over the place! Finally we had it sorted and managed to ensure that each child was matched with a pile of goodies. We were exhausted...
The day taught us a great about the situation in Haiti. About the heat and how it gradually sapped your energy and ability to think coherently. About the horror suffered by so many in January last year and its continuing affects. As ridiculous as it might seem, we also learned how a seemingly simple task could become so difficult in these circumstances. Our lesson with the toiletries seemed like a microscopic picture of what was happening in Port Au Prince now. A decision that might benefit one, could also disadvantage another. An opinion offered by one could be countered by another equally valid one. And another and another...And all this resulting in chaos and indecision.
No comments:
Post a Comment