Alumna
in Haiti
![[DSCN2241.JPG]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RmoG7tJ1jSI/Su2x6CwlHtI/AAAAAAAAEKc/C7LXL3PnJnY/s1600/DSCN2241.JPG)
Prayers
for Haiti
Dear Montrose Families,
We have a Montrose alumna in Haiti, Betsy Bowman '95, who is
working at the Louverture Cleary School
outside Port Au Prince. Thankfully, she and her students survived the
earthquake, and they are in a position to assist many refugees.
Please join us in praying for Betsy, her students
and everyone in Haiti. As we carry out our work day to
day, we continue to keep the victims and
their families in our prayers.
The ninth and tenth grade
history classes in conjunction with student government are leading
Montrose's effort to promote awareness, prayerful solidarity and financial
support. Please see excerpts from Betsy's blog below, and stay tuned for more information.
Visit this page periodically
for updates from Haiti.
Thank you,
Karen
Donate to
The Haitian Project to help
Betsy's school and the people living in the neighborhood:
|
Read Betsy's interview with the Harvard Graduate School of Education: An HGSE Alum Teaching in Haiti Shares Her Experiences |
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Read about Betsy and Louverture Cleary School in Feb. 9 Boston Globe article Ex-trader's vision keeps school's mission clear |
Excerpts from Betsy's Blog:
 |
| Betsy (far left) and her fellow volunteers at the Louverture Cleary School. |
Helping - why is this so complicated? - Friday February 20:
Shouldn’t it be simple to help people in
desperate need? There has been such an outpouring of support from around the
world, billions of dollars and tons and tons of donations without thousands
of aid workers and volunteers on the ground. It’s amazing to watch first
hand, how incredibly complicated this is. It can be done well, and it can be
done so badly – even with the best of intentions.
First, how do you distribute food? How do you know who really needs it most,
and how do you ensure that they get it? I know the TV has been full of
images of riots over food thrown from the back of a truck, and police
shooting people suspected of stealing that food, and I’ve seen glimpses in
person of what that looks like. Even in our little neighborhood this morning
a truck pulled up with some bottled water and bags of rice and our normally
subdued and peaceful neighbors went a little crazy, yelling and pushing each
other to get to the truck first. It’s strange because most of them are not
actually worse off now than they were before the earthquake, so honestly
that same thing probably would have happened two months ago if a truck full
of free stuff had pulled up. But certainly in the tent cities there is a
much more acute need, and sense of desperation, so when the food comes to
those places the reaction is even more intense.
I’ve seen food distributed really well too. The US military lines people up
on a huge field, then releases them a few at a time to walk across another
field to the place where the bags of rice are being handed out. Then tap
taps wait on the other side to drive the people and their huge bags of rice
home. Of course there are guys standing guard over the line with automatic
weapons, so that helps maintain order, but the whole thing looks calm and
dignified.
At LCS we decided early on that we would not become a large scale food distribution site, but rather would follow more in the example of the Missionaries of Charity and St. Vincent de Paul and bring assistance directly to the people in need. In the days after the earthquake that meant setting up a huge pot of rice and beans on the street and serving it directly to our neighbors who came by and ate it, then handed their spoon and bowl to someone else who hadn’t received any yet. That worked pretty well for a week, but it was never a long term solution. Now we’re back to feeding the neighborhood children at the school, as we always have. But since we’re a well established organization, many individuals and some of the larger aid organizations are beginning to turn to us to help figure out how to get help to the people who need it. The Red Cross of Colombia just made a huge drop off of food and supplies to LCS this week. We spent Thursday sorting the food into study shopping bags with brightly colored cartoon characters on them. Then on Friday we handed one bag to each student on his or her way out the door, and personally delivered them to families in the neighborhood, and some of the hardest hit families even beyond our immediate neighbors. There was no drama, or pushing, or yelling, or fear. Everyone got one. Now I think one of my first Spanish classes next week will need to be focused on reading the labels ad directions on some of this food that the families are a little less familiar with …
Where do you start on the physical reconstruction? The “monuments” to the earthquake are everywhere, and I worry that the longer the piles of rubble and broken buildings sit there, the more normal they will become. And once people stop noticing them, then the urgency to remove them will disappear. This is the same lack of urgency that lets people walk past piles of trash in the street here without blinking, and if the rubble problem becomes like the trash problem, then this country will not move forward. So, in our own neighborhood we’ve worked hard to clean up our own rubble, and encourage neighbors to do the same. We’ve even started paying a team of unemployed young men from the neighborhood to do some of that work. They cleaned up a large, destroyed house on a prominent corner, and are now helping to build a foundation, and eventually a house, for another neighbor who lost everything. Even the little kids in the school were helping this week, carrying cement blocks in wheelbarrows, and even on their heads, from our own pile of rubble to the site of the new house where they were being used in the foundation. After this house is constructed, we’ll move on to another one.
I’m hearing all the weird stories about utterly useless things that have been donated and shipped halfway around the world. And I’ve felt the frustration as I sit in gridlocked traffic in a line of cars bearing the logos of prominent NGO’s … each with one person inside. But I honestly don’t know enough about international aid organizations and disaster relief to offer any real criticism or analysis of what’s gone on here, and how it all could have been managed better. I just think that for myself,if I’m ever looking to make a contribution to assist people after a disaster, I think I’ll give it to the Missionaries of Charity. They know who needs the help most, and they know how to distribute it. The 82nd Airborne Division is housed down the street from us here in Santo, and one afternoon Patrick Moynihan saw them walking down the street, so he invited them over. They walked in the front gates in 2 lines, each young man wearing dark glasses, his hand on an enormous automatic weapon. It was surreal – but also so funny. As I looked at each 18 year old face – and I’m fairly sure none of them is older than 24 – I was honestly happy to see them, but also happy for them that they had the opportunity to spend time at LCS, and would get to meet such smart, fun, interesting kids here. Of course it was the middle of netwayaj (cleanup hour) when they arrived, so the kids were more than happy to drop their brooms and wheelbarrows full of cinderblocks that they were in the midst of moving from the collapsed front wall. Instead they all gathered around the basketball court and watched members of the 82nd airborne take on 5 of LCS’s best ballers. The kids wore flip flops or played barefoot, and they basically ran circles around their peers in the US Army who wore fatigues and T-shirts with heavy boots. The Americans were actually much better shooters, but the full court defense and quick passes of the Haitians won the day. The final score was something like 40 to 15. Let’s hope the Americans have more success in their efforts to help rebuild this country than they did on the court.
Since that day, this one platoon from the 82nd has come back several more times. They told us they’ve kept the school a secret from the other platoons, calling it their “oasis.” Today they came for lunch and to enjoy real showers for the first time in three weeks. Obviously it would be absurd for the US military to eat the food that we eat from Catholic Relief Services and Food for the Poor, so they brought their MRE’s and exchanged them with the neighborhood children’s plates of rice and beans. You can be sure that both sides were absolutely happy with this arrangement. The LCS kids love MRE’s. A few of the older kids who have been working as translators in hospitals around the city have come back to school singing the praises of the MRE’s they get for lunch sometimes. After today’s exchange, I think the rest of the kids are now fully jealous of the United States Military’s superior cuisine.
MRE's - Part 2
MRE has another meaning in Haiti, stemming from the tumultuous period of political upheaval in the 1990’s. I know that I’m not an expert in Haitian history, especially not in this incredibly complex and still hotly debated period, but here’s my basic understanding based on lots of reading and conversations with people who lived through it. In those years, the divide in the country was quite clearly along economic lines – the people vs. the military and the so called MRE’s – “morally repugnant elite.” Surely throughout Haiti’s history those with wealth have in general done little to demonstrate any real care for the suffering of the masses. They ran their businesses, which provided jobs for some, but graft and corruption in the business community seem to have been as ubiquitous as in the military and the parade of failed Haitian governments of the same period. No one trusted anyone. People with wealth and power used their influence to brutally repress the democratic movements of Aristide, and as the years went on, Aristide’s gangs responded with gruesome violence…
One thing that’s been particularly unique, I think, about my experience in Haiti is that I have had the opportunity to get to know people from so many different parts of Haitian society. Obviously most of the children that we serve in the school come from the poorer neighborhoods and slums, and since most of the staff are graduates of the school, so do they. But many graduates have managed to move up quite a bit in society. Many have laptops and a few have cars, and some can talk about traveling to the DR or even to the United States for vacations. But another of the most important groups in the LCS community is formed by some of the wealthiest people in this country. The project has worked hard in the last few years especially to engage the Haitian business community in supporting LCS, but also in supporting charitable endeavors all over the country. The notion of social entrepreneurship is new here, and many small grocery stores and even the giant cell phone company Voila are getting on board. One of he local store owners donated many essential grocery items to the school each month. Sadly, that man and many of his family members were killed when their store collapsed on them. Voila has made sizeable contributions to the school’s “office of external affairs” which supports graduates in finding university scholarships and job opportunities. Four days after the earthquake, Voila handed us 10 new cell phones with lots of minutes on them. Maybe the “haves” in this country are starting to get it finally, that their fate is inextricably linked with that of everyone else. Many have great hope that the shared experience of the earthquake will further that sense of solidarity.
Going Inside – Tuesday January 19
It’s been a week since the earthquake and during that time we’ve managed to
take care of basic needs, and even provide some entertainment and
intellectual stimulus for kids. Peter brought a pair of binoculars back
after Christmas and has been taking them out onto the soccer field (where
the kids are still sleeping at night) and teaching little astronomy classes.
We had soccer and basketball tournaments yesterday. Last night Jon and I
carried out something we had started planning last Monday – before plans
changed. In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, we played the audio
of the last 5 minutes of the “I have a Dream” speech for all of the kids
last night, then announced a speech competition – “what is your dream for
Haiti?” We even had a group of about 10 kids who stayed around and listened
to and read along with the entire speech while we talked about Civil Rights
in the United States. I think the speeches – which they’ll write in English
– will be pretty wonderful.
But it still wasn’t school, and a bunch of kids in a school not going to
class for a week is just sort of unnatural. So today, we had school. We’re
running a shortened schedule, since we don’t have all of our teachers and
can’t use all of the classrooms, and only have about half of our students
right now. We’re using all of the outdoor classrooms, and a few in the less
damaged classroom building...
The psychology of aftershocks is impossible. For the first few days the aftershocks were frequent, and when they happened people standing outside would stop what they were doing and brace themselves, and people inside would run outside. Though they never lasted long, and never caused any damage, they rattled people’s nerves so much. We all started imagining them after a while so if someone moved a table, or jumped off the top bunk suddenly, it could cause a whole roomful of people to startle. I started trying to see if water in a glass on the table was moving to figure out if the shaking was real or in my head. One morning at about 5 am we had one that had me and two of the people I was sharing a room with out the door in about 10 seconds. Somehow others slept, but we were up for the day. Then they got smaller and smaller so that by Sunday morning we all slept through one. We were getting ready to start moving kids back into buildings on Wednesday morning. Then, with all of the kids standing outside on the basketball court at about 6:15 am, talking about going back to sleep inside, we had another long, fairly strong rumble that evidently registered at 6.1. I was so furious – not because anything was damaged or anyone was hurt but because all these kids who had been building up the courage to go back inside for days were back to totally terrified again. We backed off on sleeping inside the dorms, but did move kids off the soccer field into two partially enclosed spaces...
So, it would be really great if this would stop so we could all feel a tiny bit less crazy all the time. Yesterday I was teaching a Spanish class with some of the youngest kids (who I don’t usually teach, but I’m the only Spanish teacher in town right now ….) when I noticed that one little girl had her head down and was sobbing. I helped her to her feet and we walked outside for her to get some fresh air and she started calming down. I asked her if she was scared to be inside and she said no, so I asked why she was crying. Through her tears she explained that the little boy behind her kept hitting her in the head. I was ecstatic. An eleven year old girl crying because a boy is hitting her? That’s so NORMAL! I know exactly how to deal with that. Guess which naughty boy had me sitting next to him for the rest of the period?
Tuesday January 12, 4:45 pm
7.0
The first thing I noticed was a sound like a freight train. I was sitting on
the second floor of the administration building where we live, with Mary and
Kristen, two other volunteers. I thought the generator next door was turning
on, and something was wrong with it causing it to make a louder than usual
noise. Someone said, “what’s happening?” and I realized the floor was moving
and things were rattling around...I became
conscious of so much screaming outside, and I remember wondering if this was
a big earthquake or just a tremor, never having experienced one before. And
then it stopped. People say it was about 20 seconds, but it felt like
forever.
The next thirty minutes though were actually the scariest. When it stopped
we got up slowly, totally bewildered, and walked out of the building holding
on as we went down the stairs, knowing that the aftershocks would start any
minute. As we rounded the corner of the stairs – which are actually outside
– I noticed that the front wall surrounding the campus had completely fallen
down into the street. I heard screaming. My legs were like jello and heart
was racing...I saw kids running toward me and the
front basketball court where they always gather, crying, or using every
shred of their strength not to cry. I ran the other way toward the first
building to go inside and make sure the kids were all out. I had this image
in my head of a kid being too scared to get out, or an injured kid inside,
and an aftershock coming and knocking down the whole building. I remember
thinking it was totally idiotic for me to go inside any of those buildings,
but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
There weren’t any kids inside, but as I came out, two terrifying sights
greeted me. The head maintenance guy, a really big guy, was running full
speed past me with a little girl limply in his arms, yelling for help. Then
I saw that that two water tanks that hold our drinkable water were gushing
out water. The possibility that we had serious injuries, or that we might
have drinking water problems in the aftermath, had not yet hit me. I watched
as the pickup truck filled with - I couldn’t tell how many - injured kids
and a few staff members raced out of the driveway. I kept running around
through two more buildings screaming for kids to get out, then ran back to
the basketball court where they were gathered as they always do, actually
standing in the lines in which they always stand. Most were crying, holding
on to each other...
|
We still knew little of the extent of the damage and death outside, but we knew we were blessed to be alive, and together in a safe place. They sang a song of thanksgiving, "mesi bondye pout tout ou bay nou … thank you God for all you give us.” I stood to the side and watched them singing, wrapped in sheets. I was utterly humbled by their faith. |
Settling In
In the next hour we moved the kids to the back soccer field, away from the
chaos that was unfolding on the street outside. When I got back there I saw
that part of the wall around the soccer field and playground had fallen too,
and learned from another volunteer that seven kids had been injured when
that wall fell on them. The next few hours were spent calming kids, keeping
them away from the walls surrounding the field (afraid that a strong
aftershock could knock them down), securing the drinking water, rigging up
some lights and a TV because – amazingly – our solar panels were completely
intact and we had working electricity in most buildings. Fortunately, the
school’s cooks had just finished making dinner when the earthquake struck so
some people carried the huge pots and the kids’ bowls outside and passed out
food. We rolled the drums of diesel fuel away from the now crumbled front
wall into a more secure location in case any kind of unrest or looting
happened...
At first we still had cell phone contact within Haiti, so staff members were feverishly calling family and friends, and we even had cell contact with the US at first so we could report and get information from the staff there. But after a few hours, all but one of the Haitian cell companies went down and we were left cut off from the US, so those first hours were extremely complex in terms of decision making...we had to make decisions about whether or not it was safe to run into buildings even for a moment to take out foam mattresses and sheets for the kids to sleep on. We had to decide how to handle the parents who were arriving. We had to decide what area we would use as a bathroom. Meanwhile, there were radio reports of a tsunami warning, and predictions of more intense aftershocks. We had some kids descending into total shock while they waited, hoping that the next parent in the door would be their own. Those reunions made my heart ache, and made the rest of the kids even more anxious about the fate of their own families.
We awoke with the sun just before 6. As I gathered myself and my
belongings together, I remember thinking, “Here we go. This is the beginning
of the real work.” After moving all of the mattresses to the side, we
gathered the kids as we do every morning, in their usual lines, and one of
the oldest students got up in front of them and led them in a prayer of
profound thanksgiving. We still knew little of the extent of the damage and
death outside, but we knew we were blessed to be alive, and together in a
safe place. They sang a song of thanksgiving, “mesi bondye pout tout ou bay
nou … thank you God for all you give us.” I stood to the side and watched
them singing, wrapped in sheets. I was utterly humbled by their faith.
| As for the kids, they are amazing. I asked one 16 year old boy yesterday how he was and he said with a huge smile “everything’s OK. My family is good. My house is totally broken and they’re sleeping outside, but everyone is good.” |
We spent the rest of the day cooking … literally, the next nine hours. Most of the Haitian staff were still trying to get information about their families, or hadn’t yet returned, or were out with the kids, or just weren’t really in any shape to help. So it fell on the nine US American volunteers to make breakfast for 400 Haitians. We decided that it wouldn’t be possible to make three meals each day, so we settled on a mid
morning meal, and a late afternoon meal. Unfortunately there was a
probable gas leak in our industrial kitchen, so we were left to do all the
work in the small residential kitchen. Spaghetti for breakfast is a staple
in Haiti, but we didn’t have any hot dogs which are a typical part of the
meal. So we boiled pot after pot of spaghetti, made pot after pot of a
simple tomato sauce, and carried it all in shifts out to the back soccer
field to serve the kids class by class. It took five hours to cook the food
and feed everyone. When it was done, and all the dishes were clean, we
started on dinner, a simple plate of rice and beans.
The New Normal
We’re now on day six since the earthquake. We still spend most of our time
cooking and cleaning, but have settled into a state of near normalcy. The
kids still sleep outside, and during the day set up a little tent city. They
made a shower area to take bucket showers. Yesterday they were washing their
clothes and hanging them to dry all over the playground. We have the meal
serving and cleaning down to a science, and many more of the Haitian staff
are able to help – or rather lead – the cooking process. Consequently, the
kids are also much happier with their home cooked Haitian food as opposed to
that very mysterious Italian style spaghetti we made them on that first
bewildering morning! We’ve also been able to feed almost 100 people from the
neighborhood at least once, and sometimes twice each day. We are so blessed
that the earthquake struck at the beginning of the month. Our freezer was
full of meat, and our pantries full of rice, spaghetti, beans and some
vegetables.
Within our own school, the rebuilding is beginning. Students and staff moved
the pieces of concrete block from the front wall that fell into the street.
The kids help with the meal prep and cleanup. We knocked down the balcony
banister that was precariously perched on the third floor of a classroom
building. On Saturday we climbed on the roof of a building to clean the
solar panels. Kids are cleaning up the shelves and books that fell all over
the library and returning it to some state of order. We’re still awaiting
confirmation from an engineer that all of our buildings are inhabitable
despite the cracks, but we’re trying to get people used to the idea of being
in them – and on them – so though the kids aren’t sleeping inside yet, we’re
starting to make use of the buildings whenever we can...
Now the real trauma of what happened in this country is known to us all, and is hitting this community in personal ways. Though all of our students and staff are alive, we did have seven students with injuries, two of whom are still not quite right. Students and staff are learning of family and friends who were killed when houses collapsed, or the university collapsed, or the wall on the side of the road they were on collapsed. Some still haven’t heard from family members at all. People coming from the outside are wearing masks now, as the smell of death is everywhere in the city...
Many people are so scared that this hole is just too deep for Haiti to come out of. They’ve heard of international aid on its way before, only to have corrupt government officials line their own pockets with it. They’ve had hope for change before, only to have the harsh reality of daily life in Haiti break those hopes to pieces. They wonder out loud if this isn’t some kind of punishment from God. I have found that people here express joy so freely, but hope doesn’t come as easily. The radio reports are that foreigners are leaving the country in droves. There are lines outside the US embassy of missionaries and NGO workers and others waiting for evacuation to the Dominican Republic. How can people be hopeful when everyone seems to be abandoning them?
Koman ou ye?
We try to ask each other and the kids “how are you” as often as possible.
The answer depends on the moment. Loud noises still make us all jump. The US
Air Force lanes are coming in around the clock right now, and they’re HUGE
and fly very low, very loudly...
As for the kids, they are amazing. I asked one 16 year old boy yesterday how
he was and he said with a huge smile “everything’s OK. My family is good. My
house is totally broken and they’re sleeping outside, but everyone is good.”
Some haven’t been home yet, and I’m starting to worry that some of the older
kids are delaying the reality as long as possible. We’re encouraging them to
go home, just to see, as long as it’s safe. We’re afraid that we may lose
many students. Most people in Port au Prince are transplants from the
countryside. If they lost everything here, many will just go back to the
family home in the provinces.
Now I’m in school mode again. I’m working on a modified school schedule so
on Tuesday we can start having some academic classes with whichever kids and
staff members are here. The country has officially cancelled school for a
month, but we will carry on as well as we can. The cooks will come back
tomorrow, so the volunteers and staff who have been cooking and cleaning all
day can get back to being teachers … sort of. We’ll incorporate many hours
of work into each school day, so we can fix everything on our campus, and
when the resources become available, we’ll help the neighbors rebuild their
houses
I’m not afraid there will be another big earthquake, and the aftershocks
rattle me – literally and figuratively – a little less each day. The
security situation in the country is OK. Yesterday we drove around a bit and
saw people out selling things on the street, and even some tap taps running.
Those people aren’t stupid. They wouldn’t do that with marauding gangs all
over town. The presence of a huge US military force will be good. The
relationship between Haitian civilians and the US military is actually
excellent. People see them as helping to maintain order and peace. Our food
situation is secure, and we’re managing to find the things we need. Today we
bought 720 eggs and even found bread for breakfast tomorrow. No one really
knows what the next months will bring, but we’ll make plans, then scrap them
and start over as the situation demands. Maybe in February, the week when
Carnival should have happened, the volunteers will spend some time in the DR
sipping cocktails with umbrellas in them … or maybe we’ll just stay here and
work. Time will tell.
All photos courtesy of Betsy Bowman '96.