Reflections on Experiencing Post-Earthquake Haiti

The following blog post was written by Holly Balsbaugh, a participant on UUSC's recent first medical trip to Haiti, April 11–16.

Having visited Haiti on previous medical trips, I felt reasonably prepared for this experience before I left. I had seen the lack of basic public services and the health effects that follow. I had watched both young and old struggle to survive. However, even on the drive from the airport, I could see this was a different Haiti. Tent cities and piles of rubble are scattered all around. There are scenes of destruction, garbage, pollution, U.N. militia with weapons.

Simultaneously, those scenes also reveal the brilliants colors of Haiti — in road signs, market life, clothes, art, and mothers and fathers caring for their children. I could feel the pulse of the music and the responsive urge to dance. Every Haitian has their own story to tell, about the earthquake, about their life in Haiti, about hunger, about their daily struggles, about the powers unknown that allow them to be a survivor of it all. 

So now, the question of how to make meaning, to find a way to make some connection between the stories heard and experiences there and my life here. These are contrasting worlds, not so very far apart in miles but lifetimes away in terms of experiences. There is a part of me that wishes for a life where day-to-day concerns focus on the essentials: eating and sleeping and finding work. But this imagined life would be a peaceful life — and life I saw in Port-au-Prince is not. There is no peace when you are wondering not what to eat, but if you will have food to eat; not if you will sleep, but rather if you will find a place to lay your weary body down; and not about how the next day at work will go, but hoping for any work, no matter how risky, so you will be able to buy some food for your hungry belly. This a world I have merely glimpsed and am forever changed by.