I Will Rebuild Haiti...

For These Children

Two hours after losing her parents, sister and home, a single mother wandered the remains of her neighborhood. Hysteria, crowds of people, chaotic sounds and unfamiliar smells surrounded her. But none of it seemed real. Her mind felt numb, shocked, unable to process the world. It was a baby’s cry, a need cry, from the rubble that finally reconnected her. Her mind snapped back. The cry anchored her and pulled her between two angled pieces of concrete, where she found a two week old baby in a miracle space. To the infant’s left and right lie her less fortunate parents, crushed under concrete. Her face was swelling badly. Cadiche Julande Jean Baptiste, 30, took her new daughter and went to look for her other two children. Both were found alive and well. She named the baby Princess Miraky. Princess Miracle. Now they all live along with her niece, who lost her mother, under a tarp in a tent city. Princess Miraky struggles to eat the sugar water Baptiste cobbles together for her with the help of neighbors, but the swelling has gone down. “There are a lot of kids on the street without mothers and fathers. Those with parents don’t have any money or any where to live. But we love our children. I love these children. I love this baby.”

Brick by Brick

From the cool of the morning, throughout the sweltering day, into the evening cool, Eliezer Jean Edward works autonomically. Like a machine, for hours on end, he shovels rocks and rubble into his sifter and watches powder fall away from concrete chunks. Around the 42 year old, a crew of younger men laugh and tease each other as they work recovering rebar. Minus a respectful smile, nod, or offer to share water, they know to leave him alone to his thoughts. In a few days he will have enough powder to make new concrete blocks, which he sells for 18 goudes (about $2) a piece. He will send the money to his family, who joined the migration out of Port au Prince after losing Edward’s father, sister and daughter in the quake. He knows in time his bricks will be used to rebuild Haiti and the money he makes will help rebuild his family, but he is saddened by the feeling that it will not be enough. “We can rebuild Haiti the way it was, but we can’t do any better than that alone. If Haitians could do better for Haiti we already would have done it, before the earthquake. We need a lot of help from the blancs [whites] if anything is going to change.”

With Music

From the tent in his garden Lolo Beaubrun, 53, talks unsurprisingly about revolution. As founder of Boukman Eksperyans he has in his lifetime become a rock, reggae, voodoo tranced, indelible part of Haitian culture and politics. “The earthquake is a signal that Haiti really has to change. All our symbols are gone, the National Palace, Cathedral, Ministry of Justice. The country we knew was destroyed. Its time for Revolution and Revelation,” he says. He holds that Haiti’s corruption was rooted in the fact that power was centralized in the National Palace in Port au Prince. He proposes creating 43 states in Haiti, based on traditional tribal boundaries. “States like you have in the U.S. It balances power.” Beaubrun will put his ideas for Haiti’s future to work where he feels it will have the greatest impact: in his music. “Music is powerful in Haiti, it is part of everything. It is social, spiritual, cultural, economic. And music is healing. It’s therapy. All the energy people have inside, the feelings of loss, the frustration, the struggle to make sense of things, music helps all that. It is the best therapy in Haiti.” He was in his concrete home with his daughter when the earthquake hit. They covered and shook together. Fortunately, the house held up. “It was the longest 35 seconds of my life. I tell you, I’m done with concrete man.” He and his family moved into a tent in his garden. “A friend of my from the U.S. is a Kiowa Indian. He wants to come make me a teepee. If I get my teepee, bon! That’s where I’ll be living.”

Through My Dream

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Mardela Scott can get anything from anywhere to anywhere, anytime, anyhow. She has done it In Iraq with nothing but shipping containers, dirt and chalk boards. She’s done it in Afghanistan ringed by hostile forces. “If its parts, food, tents, uniforms, anything you need to distribute, I can do it. Under any conditions,” she brags. In the world of distribution warehouses, she’s Ram-ChuckFreakinNorris-Bo. With a dream. In 2005 Scott, who was born to Haitian parents in Miami and speaks fluent Creole, was watching scenes of Haitian violence from a TV in an army warehouse in Ft. Campbell, KY. That night she had a dream. “I was directing Haitian people in my own warehouse. The forklift was broken, so we had to work together unloading rice. We had people doing inventory, giving distribution tickets, directing trucks. Everyone had their own job and the supplies were coming in and going out like clockwork.” The next day she asked the lead engineer for a copy of the blueprints for the army warehouse operation. Working from those, she drew what she saw in her dream into a plan. She has been saving to purchase land in Haiti when she gets out of the army and will start building her own distribution center to make aid donations more effective. “Dreams are real, I’m holding on to that dream. Dreams tell you when someone needs you. I know I will come back here and this is how I will help Haiti.”

Stitch by Stitch

While Dr. Jacques Lesly Agenor’s life waits in Miami, his heart and body are indefinitely in Haiti. His wife, 12-year-old daughter and thriving OBGYN practice are on hold as he spends his days at the head of a unending line of people in need. The magnitude of that need and the loss of his brother, who was also a doctor, in the quake puts everything in perspective. “When I call my family they are worried about what could happen. There could be an outbreak of infectious disease, there could be violence. But we are a poor country, and we just don’t have enough resources. If you’re a doctor...you have a choice, but there’s really no choice. It’s hard. My family needs me but my people need me more.” The 52-year-old was born in Port au Prince, and still holds to childhood memories of a better times in Haiti, when tourists like the Rolling Stones and the Clintons flooded the island. “Haiti will be beautiful again. It was the Pearl of the Antilles, and we will be again. It will take some years, but it will happen.” For him, the key is international aid, and keeping international aid out of the hands of the Haitian government. “For how many years has the international community been helping us? But where’s the money? We’re still the poorest country in the hemisphere. It’s no secret the government steals the money. You see people in government who are millionaires. How? We don’t know,” he says, “but any money should go through the NGO’s, not the government.”