17 January 2010 -- Finding Perspective

Spent the night in Santo Domingo. In the morning, Angi and Nancy flew to Washington DC on Jet Blue, a little later I boarded a Caribe Tours bus to Sosua, and then Tim drove to Sosua later in the afternoon. The earthquake aftermath in Port-au-Prince was rapidly becoming a memory as I ate a tasty cheeseburger in an upscale Sosua restaurant. What is my next step? The stark contrast between a reality where most Haitians simply return to never-ending struggles for existence and the unrealistic portrayal of devastation by media and self-interested aid agencies haunts me. Tim is preparing to return and carry on the fight. It seems there is a growing awareness that the devastation is overstated and that incompetent management is slowing relief efforts. Foreign aid is especially prone to unequal distribution in crises. Resulting Haitian attempts at conflict resolution seem crude by our standards, but make for sensational news stories. I am nagged by a thought that overall the Haitian people simply live the way they want to. For decades, they have been sliding down the easy path of dependency. Are we showering them with excessive, mostly-wasted aid for personal or political reasons? Worst of all, what allows politicians, aid workers, and corporate media reporters to discard morals and truthfulness?