BOOKPATHS

Haiti

Rebecca Solnit speaks out about how “words can kill” in Haiti.

… what is absolutely accurate, in Haiti right now, and on Earth always, is that human life matters more than property, that the survivors of a catastrophe deserve our compassion and our understanding of their plight, and that we live and die by words and ideas, and it matters desperately that we get them right. – by Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch.com

Haiti

Tracy Kidder speaks out about the importance of “aid done correctly” in Haiti.

Hence the current state of affairs: At least 10,000 private organizations perform supposedly humanitarian missions in Haiti, yet it remains one of the world's poorest countries. Some of the money that private aid organizations rely on comes from the United States government, which has insisted that a great deal of the aid return to American pockets – a larger percentage than that of any other industrialized country.

But that is only part of the problem. In the arena of international aid, a great many efforts, past and present, appear to have been doomed from the start. There are the many projects that seem designed to serve not impoverished Haitians but the interests of the people administering the projects. Most important, a lot of organizations seem to be unable – and some appear to be unwilling – to create partnerships with each other or, and this is crucial, with the public sector of the society they're supposed to serve.

The usual excuse, that a government like Haiti's is weak and suffers from corruption, doesn't hold – all the more reason, indeed, to work with the government. The ultimate goal of all aid to Haiti ought to be the strengthening of Haitian institutions, infrastructure and expertise. – from “Viewpoints: Haiti Needs Aid Done Correctly for a Change,” by Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder Website

Haiti

Novelist Edwidge Danticat, who’s “still waiting to speak to family members who live there,” reacts to the earthquake in Haiti.

Ms. Danticat, 40 years old, said that the picture on Wednesday was much foggier in Port-au-Prince, which she described as a ‘very crowded city with a lot of people. The magnitude of this is immense and unbelievable. Every minute counts.’ – from “Haiti Novelist Edwidge Danticat: ‘Magnitude of This is Immense,” by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, The Wall Street Journal

Haiti

Partners in Health, memorably described in Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, is asking for donations to help earthquake relief.

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Haiti, Cuba, Peru, Africa, Russia….

Mountains Beyond Mountains: the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder (New York: Random House, 2003)

Mountains Beyond Mountains tells the story of Dr. Paul Farmer – his unusual childhood, initial work in Haiti, the formation of Partners in Health, and continuing challenges in Haiti, Peru, Africa, and Russia.  It’s an inspiring book, acknowledging that answers exist, however slowly they arrive and begin to make a difference; offering hope for the future of “the only real nation [of] humanity;” and gently urging readers to action.

One time I listened to Farmer give a talk on HIV to a class at the Harvard School of Public Health, and in the midst of reciting data, he mentioned the Haitian phrase ‘looking for life, destroying life.’  Then he explained, ‘It’s an expression Haitians use if a poor woman selling mangoes falls off a truck and dies.’  I felt as if for that moment I could see a little way into his mind.  It seemed like a place of hyperconnectivity.  At moments like that, I thought that what he wanted was to erase both time and geography, connecting all parts of his life and tying them instrumentally to a world in which he saw intimate, inescapable connections between the gleaming corporate offices of Paris and New York and a legless man lying on the mud floor of a hut in the remotest part of remote Haiti.  Of all the world’s errors, he seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the ‘erasing’ of people, the ‘hiding away’ of suffering.  ‘My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.’ – from Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder

Related Websites

Publisher’s Website

Partners in Health