My interest in Haiti shouldn’t be a surprise to regular visitors to this site. If you’re a new visitor, read my blog from September 2008. At that time, Haiti had been pummeled by back to back hurricanes. The topography had been decimated by years of stripping and as a result the impact of these storms was even harsher. Adding insult to injury, the stripping of trees was a survival tactic. The trees and the charcoal that was made from them were the only products many Haitians had to sell at market. The very thing that helped them feed their families killed them or left them with even less than they had prior to the storms.
I was at a loss as to what I could do to help. Fast forward two years and on January 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake. Shortly thereafter, I began meeting with some people who I knew were connected to an Episcopal church that was doing a lot of work in Haiti building schools. We talked about how we could keep Haiti at top of mind once the telethons were over and the news cameras left. A member of this group recommended that I read Tracy Kidder’s book to help me understand the conditions there.
Intellectually, I know what the conditions are, and I have a peripheral understanding as to why. But Kidder’s recounting of the time he spent with Dr. Farmer couldn’t have painted a clearer picture. In my blog, I wondered “how many Haitians feel joy, contentment, or peace.?” Paul Farmer answered my question. He explains to Kidder that some forms of Christianity and more than a few missionaries drew impoverished Haitians into a cult of resignation – accepting their lot patiently as they await the afterlife. For so many, all they have is their religion and that would have to be enough.
Farmer continued by sharing a Haitian saying, “Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe”, which roughly translates to ‘God gives but doesn’t share’ or ‘God gives humans the resources they need but it is up to the humans to divvy up the loot.’ The stewards of the loot weren’t sharing in Haiti.
The Haitian economy has been manipulated for years by the French and US governments among others. In one instance, black low-slung Creole pigs were used by many farmers as currency. But that came to an end when the US replaced all Creole pigs with pigs from Iowa to mitigate perceived threats from an outbreak of swine fever in the DR. The Iowan pigs didn’t thrive, leaving many farmers without any pigs; that year the enrollment declined in schools because farmers had no way to pay the tuition for their children. Dr. Farmer saw the connection: removing a farmer’s ability to earn a decent living throws the entire family into poverty. Lack of education begets poverty. Poverty begets illness. Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows. Paul Farmer is still determined to find a way to make it stop.
For me, this book is a primer on Haiti – not just on the work of Paul Farmer. It is part history lesson, part case study, and all cautionary tale. Although this is about Paul Farmer’s quest to cure the world, Farmer himself will tell you that it’s not about him. It’s about acknowledging that changing the basic conditions in which people live can go a long way to curing many of the world’s infectious diseases. We have the ability, but do we have the will? When a newbie to Partners in Health, the organization Farmer founded, asked how much money was spent to transport one sickly child from Haiti to Boston for treatment, Farmer said, “The salary of a first-world doctor. How about that? Talk about all the money that could have been spent on other things, what about a doctor’s salary?” When we can all imagine what could be in terms of what’s best for the sick, then can we begin to move beyond the mountains.
--Joan Grangenois-Thomas