Feel free to cast the first stone

I am frustrated! I just tried to read an article written to stand still by the six month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. I just had to give up reading because it overwhelms me with this feeling of despair. Another journalist who is going to prove some points we have known about Haiti for many years. The place is corrupt, uneducated, people fight for their own good only, they protest and they wait. But what do we expect! They don’t know any better. This is all they have learned and mostly from us! Has anybody noticed that most of the “teaching” that has taken place (and I am not talking about the efforts of private mission organizations now) has been wrought with dominance from foreign military forces and greedy businesses that have and still are benefitting of the few dollars these poor people have in their hands!

I saw a picture of a helicopter in Pakistan, trying to take off with a cluster of desperate people hanging under it. That’s what's happening with Haiti. The people, at their wits end, often hamper an effort that could help them, by trying to get something out of it for themselves.

But can you blame them? How can I blame people for being dishonest during a food distribution when all they know is hunger, hunger, hunger! How can I even have angry thoughts about men and women who have children sitting at home with eyes dulled by malnutrition and who cry through the night because they have nothing in their stomach.

Just a few months ago I was telling some sick people the importance of drinking enough clean water to keep their bodies from getting sick. I felt so ashamed when they answered that they do not drink much because it makes their empty stomach hurt more. I get fed when I am there but I am a privileged person. Even our orphans are above the crowd. We feed them every day at least two times that’s not the norm in Haiti. Yes, it should be but it's not.

So now to all of us who are standing on the outside please let’s not discuss Haiti over our lunches and cry wolf with the media of this world. I know they have an important role in reporting what goes on. But let’s use our heads before we have our judgment ready.


Let’s use our education to help educate the Haitian people in how they could do better. Let’s not do it for them, but give THEM responsibility and a chance to learn from their mistakes just as we have done over the centuries that it took us to get as smart as we are now. And are we really that smart?

Jesus said “let those who are without sin cast the first stone"

I want to get out positive news about Haiti. Uplifting stories about many people who work hard to get past the problems created by the earthquake or long before that. Heartwarming accounts of new beginnings like the feeding centers we are,one by one, getting back on line. Stories of little tiny hands digging in bowls of rice and stuffing little hungry faces. Stories that you can relate to because you have given for that kind of relief. Things that you would have wanted to do if you were there.

Let's challenge the media to come up with the positive things that have happened in Haiti when the time comes for the first anniversary of the earthquake. A first annual  celebration of what can be done instead of another litany about corruption and incompetence.

I am already a little less frustrated.