The Hard Side of Caring

Could you eat while everyone around you went hungry? Could you drink while thousands of thirsty people stood watching?

That was the dilemma I faced today. I flew into the town of Logane with a company of Marines from the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Marine Division. We made ourselves at home in a cow pasture (complete with cows) that was big enough for the gigantic CH-53 helicopters that would deliver tons of supplies for the beleaguered residents of the area.

In a short time we had food. Tons of it. And water – thousands of gallons. Piled up in boxes in the center of the field. This brought thousands of hungry citizens out of the woodwork. The Marines established a perimeter around the field with armed sentries to keep anyone from rushing the helicopters and possibly getting hurt. And the fierce rotowash of the ‘53’s did the rest. After the first came in and blew anything not nailed down (including people on bicycles) into the fields behind the road that encircled the field, the guards were largely redundant. Every time a helicopter came in to land, the Haitians ran away – falling facedown on the road or hiding in ditches to escape the rotorwash. It became, for them, a sort of entertainment.

Here were thousands of people who hadn’t had a decent meal in over a week, and who had to gnaw raw sugar cane (which is grown in that area) to satisfy their thirst, because there is no clean water. Their belongings are scattered, their loved ones dead or injured. Many of them pointed to their flattened houses and spoke of family members crushed inside – but without heavy machinery there is no way to recover their bodies. And so the dead remain entombed in the ruins of their homes.

I couldn't help but wonder as I watched them wait patiently around the field, not knowing when or even if the tons food they could plainly see would be distributed – would Americans stand and wait quietly, or would we be rioting in the streets? Images of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina came to mind, and I fear we would not be so understanding and long-suffering.

I walked among them and exercised my rusty French, finding more than a few who spoke passable English. So many of them spoke of their faith in God. One man put it this way – We have faith that God will provide. And God bless the United States Marines.

The day grew long and the sun was painfully hot. I never saw any of them eat anything but stalks of raw sugar cane. I became desperately thirsty and realized that it was past lunchtime, so I walked to my bag, which I'd set near a Mango tree in the clearing, and dug for the MRE and Nalgene bottle inside. I found them and took a sip of water – it was wonderful. I was just about to dig into my MRE when I happened to look around. On all sides were the piercing stares of starving, thirsty people. All of them asked the same question:

What about us?

I put the food and water away.

It's not up to me what happens with the aid we delivered today. Something in me would just like to see the Marines throw open the boxes and throw food to the throng, in the frenetic fashion of Christmas morning. But someone wiser than me made the decision that to try and distribute it from the landing zone would likely result in mayhem that would compromise the entire mission. So the supplies were turned over to the local contingent of UN peacekeepers – these from Sri Lanka.

This decision almost DID cause a riot.

The second time I approached the crowd they were noticeably agitated. "Why are you giving it to them?" they wanted to know."The UN are criminals!"

Apparently the UN isn't popular around here. I'm not surprised: last year when I visited Haiti, I filmed UN soldiers in the marketplace selling the aid they were supposed to be giving away. The "peacekeepers" are notoriously abusive and the people claim you can't get anything from them without "paying" in some form or fashion.

You'd think that with the entire country in ruins, the crooks and corruptocrats would take a holiday. But corruption is so endemic in Haitian culture that I fear a good portion of the aid flooding into the country right now will end up NOT getting to the people who need it most.

The military is taking a very measured approach to this problem, and after being on the ground today, I got a better idea of the scale and the difficulty of it. While it's tempting to want to just throw food and water out of the helicopters at the first needy people we come across, sometimes caring must have a harder, more calculated edge.

Pray that well-meaning agencies and governments involved in Haiti will be wise in the distribution of aid – and that they would do it quickly. There are children with empty bellies in Haiti tonight.