Hi guys,

I want to tell you all about my trip to Haiti, as it was such a moving and life–changing experience for me. My trip was with PSI (Population Services International), and their Five and Alive/Youth AIDS programs which help to improve the lives of kids around the world, ages five and under, by educating and helping their families to prevent causes of death such as AIDS, malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea (caused by unsafe drinking water).

First, I’d like to thank the PSI staff for giving me this incredible opportunity to visit Haiti, so that I could experience daily life there. They’ve been absolutely wonderful and I hope to have more trips with them in the future.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and it’s been extremely difficult to try to describe and express what I saw while I was there. You can read all the statistics on paper, see pictures of the kids and families that are there and see pictures of all the destruction that occurred during last year’s hurricane season, but all that information fails to tell the real story of the people that live through it every day. It is completely devastating and difficult to process in one’s mind. It becomes even harder to understand when you realize that Haiti is only about 2 hours away from Florida (by plane) and how close it is to the prosperity that we enjoy here in the United States.

The purpose of my trip was to sit in and watch the programs that PSI runs in Haiti, as well as to meet local families and children and get a sense of their daily struggles. PSI’s main focuses in Haiti are AIDS and STD prevention, malaria prevention and children’s health. Many people in Haiti are accustomed to regularly taking an oral rehydration solution,  since they are unable to become hydrated from the unsafe drinking water that exists in the cities and towns there. Forget about running water, Haiti has no real infrastructure, so they don’t have sewage systems or any water purification systems. The only source of water for most people, especially those in rural areas, comes from rivers and rainwater, which are often polluted and are two major sources of disease in Haiti. PSI runs two programs in Haiti that educate people and help distribute both a water purification system called Dlo Lavi and an oral rehydration solution for children called Sel Lavi. I was able to sit in on some of PSI’s incredibly educational meetings and it was amazing to see first-hand what a great job they do there.

For me personally, I’ve seen poverty before, that wasn’t what shocked me the most. Having grown up in Russia, where 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, I’ve seen kids running around barefoot because their families couldn’t afford shoes. What shocked me about Haiti, where 70% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, was just the complete lack of basic human needs, and the amazing amount of disease and sickness that is so prevalent within the population. Diarrhea is rampant and is a major cause of infant deaths, simply due to the lack of clean drinking water. I’ve never seen so much trash and waste, on every street, on every single road. They don’t have the systems to get rid of the waste in a proper way, not to mention recycling, so they have to burn it in the streets. There’s no infrastructure or programs of any kind, whether it’s plumbing, waste control, sewers, clean water, etc. It was so difficult to see those conditions with my own eyes.

In the first village that we visited, Cabaret, you could see the hair of the children turning yellow due to malnutrition; and their homes, which you can’t even call homes, are often made of rocks, sticks and cardboard. Whole neighborhoods were destroyed by the hurricanes last year and so you see two families living in one 10x10 hut. I had the opportunity to distribute malaria nets while we were in Cabaret, which was a great experience. The nets typically last about 5 years and can often protect the whole family, because they’re very large and the huts that people live in are very small. So, it really doesn’t take that much to protect people from malaria, it’s really about educating people on the steps they can take to protect themselves.

Another problem in Haiti is that a large portion of the population is illiterate. Because they are unable to read or write, they’re often taken advantage of by others who will offer $5 to purchase the labor of one of their children, so they sell their child to a slightly better-off family to do chores and menial daily tasks for the family. The poor children that are being sold into indentured servitude are called restaveks. Restaveks are often abused in every way: emotional, sexual, physical. One little restavek girl was telling us about how her family had sold her to another family when she was 8 years old and that she does everything for that family. She gets them water from the well each day, walks their kids to school (including the children that are older than she is), washes the clothes, cleans the house. She’s not allowed to attend school, not allowed to have any kind of life of her own and she’s being abused sexually and physically. She comes to the PSI meetings in secret, telling the family that she’s doing something else and then comes to the meetings to try and get a bit of an education and to try to find some support within her cruel daily life.  A huge part of the problem is that many people, including a lot of these children, basically don’t exist. They don’t have birth certificates or any official documents identifying them, so they don’t exist within the legal and governmental system. If these kids are being mistreated, there’s no one that can help them, because they can’t even prove their own identity. 

60% of the Haitian population is under the age of 24 and 16% of Haitian youth have lost a parent to AIDS, so dealing with the dangers of sexual contact and reproductive health is a big problem. It’s very difficult to get even basic education for these kids, so daily sports activities are not even an option. PSI does what it can to persuade kids to come to their educational meetings, by playing music for them, hosting volleyball games, whatever they can do to keep their attention and educate them about the prevention of STDs and AIDS. These programs also branch out to try to help the commercial sex worker industry. PSI connects with them by going into brothels and teaching the women how to use protection, trying to teach them how to persuade the customers to use protection. It was especially moving to see these women that have no other choice but to sell their bodies to make money, but probably 99% of them hide their job from their families. It was heart wrenching to listen to their personal stories and to hear what they have to do just to make $5 a day, which they have to use to support their children and their parents. $5 a day to support a whole family, can you imagine? We were talking to one woman about what she could do instead of working in a brothel, due to the obvious dangers of possibly contracting AIDS or an STD and die, and she said, “I will die of hunger before I die of AIDS.” Her reasoning was that she could get an STD or AIDS and live for maybe 2-3 years, but if she doesn’t make enough money to feed herself and her family, then they’ll die of hunger in months, not years.  That sentiment was echoed by another woman, who was telling me about the “mud cookies” that they make. They put together mud, a pinch of sugar or salt (if they can find it that day) and some grass, then shape it into a cookie and let it dry. They eat those when times are really tough, just to have something in their stomachs and to make them feel full. It was so devastating to hear the lengths that these families have to go to just to keep from starving on a daily basis.

However, I would like to say that throughout our entire trip, the people we met were still so upbeat and friendly. Everyone was smiling while we were there, and wanted to talk to us about how proud they are to be Haitian. The Haitian people are very proud of their country and their cultural traditions; they are extremely musical and artistic and the woman are so crafty. Nearly everything is handmade there, from clothes to paper flowers, and so many of the people we met were all very excited to show visitors their handicrafts.

So, as you can tell, I could give you all the facts and numbers about the daily survival struggles that face the Haitian people, but it wouldn’t have properly given you a real sense of what it was like to be there in person and to experience their life. It was completely and devastatingly humbling to experience it all and it will certainly be something that stays with me. This trip made a huge impact on my life, both mentally and emotionally. I’m very thankful and honored that I was able to hear so many personal stories and I am grateful to so many of the kind Haitian people that opened up to a stranger and shared their thoughts and feelings with me.

Anna

http://www.psi.org/
http://www.fiveandalive.org
http://www.youthaids.org
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/blogs/80days/2009/02/anna-kournikova.html#more

Click here to see my photos from Haiti