Love and Solidarity in Haiti

This morning I had a long phone conversation with Pastor Zenas Pierre, who is working with World Hunger Relief, Haiti to develop a response to the earthquake. The Mayor in Ferrier is organizing a bus to travel to Port-au-Prince to pick up Ferrier relatives who have been left homeless by the earthquake. There were several incidents on the roads leading to Port-au-Prince, but with added security, passage has been safe for the past few days. Security is still a problem in some areas of the Capital, but they are hopeful that with the arrival of a larger contingent of U.S. Marines this will improve as well.

More information from Daryl Yoder-Bontrager, Mennonite Central Committee area director for Latin America and the Caribbean:
“MCC workers have complained over and over about the images shown on the news shows – dramatic scenes where people get angry and fight for scarce resources. MCCers say that these things are happening, but it's such a small part of the story. The real story, the one that always seems so much harder for television cameras to capture, is the selfless sharing of so many thousands of people, helping each other to survive. This is so much more prevalent than the violence. Still security is a constant concern, especially as food, water and fuel remain scarce and people get more desperate. Thanks for your support and prayers.”

MCC staff person Ben Depp of Waxhaw, N.C., said this on the blog he posts with spouse and MCC staff person Alexis Depp:
“The violence has been isolated and if you have a big distribution that is not done right it's going to go badly, so far that's been blown out of proportion by the media. There is a lot of solidarity among everyone here that is not been captured by the news. Most of the rescues that have happened have been by Haitians pulling their neighbors out of the rubble, the outside emergency is helping in factories and big places that had a lot of people.”

Alexis Depp added:
“…we all need to make sure that we're not criminalizing or demonizing the victims of this tragedy. People will do what it takes to be able to feed their families and when they're truly desperate, those actions might become violent. However, that doesn't make them any less human or any less deserving of our sympathy and aid. Ben is right that we've seen an astounding amount of love and solidarity in the aftermath of the earthquake.”