Haiti Dispatch: Faith and the Earthquake
The mood in much of Port-au-Prince was more joyful than one would have expected during the three days of mourning on the eve of the one-month anniversary of the earthquake. On downtown streets and under the tarps of makeshift churches in every neighborhood, the singing of hymns started as soon as the sun rose, and didn’t stop until well after dark.
I don’t know what the “official” estimates are, but I would guess that at least two hundred thousand residents of Port-au-Prince gathered together to pray and worship in the middle of the tent cities that are occupying Champs Mars between last Friday and Sunday. The sight of so many people gathered together after suffering through so much was pretty amazing, and it filled me with the hope that this country can somehow overcome yet another enormous obstacle thrown in its path.
If religion helps people through difficult times, I am not one to criticize. But at the same time, I felt that there has also been a message being propagated by some religious leaders here and abroad (both Haitian and American) that was sad, counterproductive, and simply wrong.
The basic line of thought I’ve been hearing from this camp is that the earthquake was sent by God as a punishment for sinful Haitians. I was told yesterday by a guy I met on the street, named Michel, that God sent the earthquake to punish the government because they are so corrupt. It’s true that corruption has been endemic in all Haitian governments for as long as anyone can remember, and true that the government (with a lot of help from the U.S., France, the World Bank, and other international players) should be in large part to blame for the total devastation left by this natural disaster.
But I reminded Michel that mostly good, innocent Haitians are suffering — and not the government — despite Preval’s public complaints that he “lost his palace”, and was left with only one shirt. The “catastrophe”, as everyone now calls it, has affected the lives of all Haitians, rich and poor alike, in ways that not even faith can help explain.
Fonografia Collective’s Bear Guerra is in Haiti for two weeks, traveling with Beverly Bell, an activist and author of “Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance”. Together, they will be documenting Haitians’ efforts to rebuild, one month since the earthquake. This dispatch is a collection of Bear’s observations on the ground.
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Thank you for this, Bear. I’ll keep on reading as you write.
Stay safe, and be well.
Megan