Two Years After the Earthquake - Part 2

Haiti 2012 (Sarah Batista photo)

This is the second story about returning to Haiti two years after covering the earthquake.  For part 1, click here

Stormy night

Tropical storm!  The downpour sounds like it will rip through the tile roof of our host's home.  I can't help but think about the families living in tents - just tarps  and sheets, really - that have been their homes since the earthquake.

In the two years since the disaster, the government has moved the larger tent camps to the hills outside Port-au-Prince but smaller ones remain.  Families living amid the stench of rotting garbage; women bathing in plastic tubs of dirty water; children playing in waste-contaminated mud...

I feel a twinge of guilt at our own comfort but mostly gratitude that we're in a dry place; sleeping outside would have been miserable.  The weather had been mercifully clear when our relief team camped on a soccer field after the earthquake. 

At least the storm quiets the roosters that normally crow all night.

Rebuilding
By morning the roads are passable.  We drive to a site where a pastor started an outdoor church for residents of a tent camp. Our host's organization, Brazil-based MAIS, had heard of the congregation's plight and helped buy land for a building.

At the construction site, teenage boys push wheelbarrows filled with stone; gray-haired women carry water buckets; children shovel dirt with toy pails.  The workers are mostly congregation members who volunteered to help build the church; only a few skilled laborers and an American project manager are paid.

Building a church for residents of a tent city

Learning to carry water

"Have the women show you how to carry water," the project manager tells me. I follow two women to  a cistern and ask for a bucket in English but they only speak Creole.  Empty-handed, I walk back to the site.

"Come with me," says the interpreter, Schneider. His flawless English and breezy style, iPod headphones draped around his neck, remind me of a California skateboarder.

"You use this," he rolls a dirty cloth into a tight donut.  "It keeps the bucket in place," he explains, slapping the wet rag on my head.

At the cistern, I lower the dip pail but it keeps bobbing like a sailboat so I can't fill it. Schneider shows me how to skim the pail so it tips and takes in water. He tells me to stop when the bucket is half full.  "Since this is your first time, it will be heavy and slosh," he says. 

Next time I fill the bucket to the rim. "You carry it a little way and then I'll take it," Schneider says, "You might hurt your neck."  The 40-pound load hurts but I decide to keep going. Seeing the American woman carrying a full bucket on her head, the workers break into applause.  Success!

Our interpreter Schneider shows how to carry a bucket (left).  Success! (rt)

"Here," the pastor says, handing me a Styrofoam container. "You get lunch because you carried the bucket of water."  The crew laughs as we dig into rice and beans washed down with cold Coke and 7-Up.

We spend the afternoon shoveling stone and dirt.  Despite the heat and hard work, laughter fills the air.  The men tease eachother and trade funny stories, acting them out in a mix of Creole and English.

More storms
That night another storm pounds the island.  I think about the families living in the tent camps.  I fall asleep thinking, They have a joy no storm can wash away, no disaster can shake, no man can destroy.  Maybe they are the fortunate ones.

To read part 3, click here.

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