JUN-B-9
ABOARD
THE DELAYED AMERICAN AIRLINES A-300 AIRBUS
FROM PORT AU PRINCE TO MIAMI
June 14, 2003
We walked the crowded streets of Port au Prince after my group breakfast this morning, following my quiet hour on the veranda as though—as Bryan had said last night from the same view over the strangely darkened city to the harbor (the capital of this nation-state is still not electrified, so there is little light pollution from the squalid parts and only a glimmer from the generator based lights of the “houses on the hill”) “In another universe, you could imagine this to be a paradise, in a florid tropical setting by the sea!”
On the streets, that imagining is abruptly reversed to a reality that is unpleasant. As one moves along, aggressive young Haitians will cross the street on the run with their hands outstretched toward the Blancs “Give me… Give me!” is their cry, usually followed by their fondest wish “Ten Dollah..” They are not referring to the “Haitian Dollar” which is equal to five gourde, when the US dollar was worth five Haitian gourdes (now equal to forty), but the one currency they demand just for being present when a “blanc” comes near enough for predation. The sorry state of the Haitian economy and the misery of this nation from virtually its inception as the singular example of a black republic, first of any republics in Latin America, and alone in the world as a solitary example of an enslaved people that overthrew their colonizers by the force of arms (in 1804) Haiti’s proud “birthplace of freedom” was the product of yellow fever that defeated the army Napoleon sent, and the ostracism of the rest of the world who feared the slave rebellion and the contagious idea that the French Revolution’s “egalitie” should cover Africans as well. It is perhaps the paradigm of black independence, not only here in the West, 150 years before African independence movements, but also a model which, unfortunately, many African nation-states have also followed in becoming basket case corrupt economies and full-time dependents on European capitalism charity.
I have picked up a few of Paul Farmer’s books, and am started now on the “Uses of Haiti,” a self-proclaimed passionate polemic, and another “Infections and Inequalities.” I will have to look over some of these, which come from his position on the Brigham and Women’s Harvard faculty and the Department of Social Medicine. I first met him at the NIH conference entitled “Toward a Higher Level of Abstraction.” This was an attempt to get social and softer sicne3ces to achieve the funding that has made it possible for the biologic sciences to achieve—through their predictive powers—such stunning successes, along with the dissatisfactions of many of their otherwise presumed beneficiaries. I have not yet read enough of his stuff to know if he carries the political further than I might find provable in how Haiti became the desperate dependent that it is, and whether his devotion to the elected President Aristede is perhaps not a naďve hope that this former priest has not been co-opted and corrupted by the powerful military, all of whom seem to have their hands so deeply into the donor tills that they might not even need their much more lucrative drug running and money laundering enterprises to keep their wealth growing even faster then the deepening poverty of the majority of the population is sinking.
We returned to pack up and check out and go through the typical hurry up and wait process of the convoying us to the airport in the same battered an muddied 4 WD rented SUVs. One Four Runner has a broken shock it is dragging and the Mitsubishi has a chipped windshield, and each is covered in gumbo mud. We took a very long circuitous route through the labyrinth of the city—I would not want to be doing this as a passenger in a taxi, lest I find myself looking at the barrel of a gun after the stop in the furthest reaches of the city where Bryan once found himself, and was relieved of all his valuables. In the torrid heat of mid-day, I was drowsy, and would nod off in the start and stop traffic of the crowded narrow streets. When we stopped abruptly, I would look up and realize I was staring into the quintessential crowded Sub-Saharan African market. A colorful redolent scene of women with large head loads balanced gracefully while carrying babies, and threading among the other women sitting on the dirty pavement among a few vegetables and cheap products and used clothing bundles—a social occasion as much as a marketing one. I snapped a couple of pictures of the scenes from the vehicle in this “nation-state’s” capital, which looks very little different than the one in Tumonde through which I was walking two days earlier. The centripetal pull of the big city has certainly not resulted in an excess of services, like sewer and water and electricity and abundant educational and health services, and has seemed to decrease the environmental ambiance—unless it is the greater mass of competing dense populations of mutual need that has drawn them. But, it has also given them a closer range contact with those migrating “blancs” as they come in and out of the country, as we were in the process of doing, and trying to attract their attention to “Give me...” It is certain that they have not attracted the attention of those “up on the hill” that do not focus down at that level of their neighbors, since they are puling down bigger deals with transshipments across much greater world markets. So, the luxury cars that we must give way to are the “most favored citizens” whom we somehow are indirectly supporting by keeping the masses out of the way of thi9er inconvenience.
We arrived and paid our $30.00 US plus 25 Gourde departure taxes, then went to the shop to buy five star Haitian rum. We were hurrying to board, when I had passed through the security redundant screenings and had given my ticket to the gate agent, when someone came back from the plane and said “Weapon on board” and they made everyone get off and wait another hour and a half. They lamely came on the PA system later and explained that there was a problem with the A/C (“Right!”) and that there would be a further delay while they fixed that. We have finally boarded and now are on our way to Miami, where I will be overnight—to stay in the guest rooms of Dr. Barth Green, neurosurgeon and have had an invitation to dinner by Dr. Moreno, Cuban cardiac surgeon. I asked if our group of four could particfpate3 in this with me and we will all be going their tonight, now with a somewhat delayed arrival. I saw Kim Green in the Villa Creole, who said she would be coming to see me in Washington where she is working on her HBO video on Haiti, and when she comes, the second week of July—just before I go to India and about the time my whole household should be packed up—only Bryan Schaaf and I will be still around from our foursome of GWU. But, as already detailed, we have pledged to continue the GWU support for the Project MediShare outreach adopting the Clinic at Montmart, which we can use for a future base for a new GWU group using the present students as coordinators and using Bryan’s connections as the ex-Peace Corps Volunteer for this Tumonde area to make a Health Fair screening clinic productive. If we can enlist the help of Skip Williams, not only Dean of the medical school, and Vice President of Health Affairs, as well as (now) Provost of the University—but especially giving him the opportunity to use his prior residency achieved skills as anesthesiologist to help as we scoop up several cases from our clinics and carry them over to the Cange Hospital and I could operate on them there. This would be a better credibility than promising them that someone would help them there, and allow a follow-up of our own team who would be able to see more than just the screening of patients with problems, but seeing many more of these through to the fixing of them
So, I am enroute back to the USA—a privileged enclave within the real world which is more closely resembling the environment we just left. I have said this before about Mozambique, and will say it now and more urgently about Haiti:
HAITI CERTAINLY DOES NOT BELONG IN WHAT YOU THINK OF AS THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY, BUT IT PROBABLY DOES NOT FIT WHAT SHOULD BE THOUGHT OF AS THE RESIDUAL OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EITHER.
IT IS A MODERN PARADOX OF THE PLAGUES OF POVERTY IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO NEIGHBORING FIRST WORLD AFFLUENCE WITH ALL THE FRUSTRATIONS THAT RESULT FROM THIS DISPARITY.
WHAT YOU NEED TO FEAR IS THAT THIS STATUS MAY REPRESENT THE 23RD CENTURY!
IF THAT DIRE PREDICTION MAY BE TRUE, CIVILIZATION—WESTERN ECONOMIC DOMINATION, EASTERN PHILOSOPHIES AND RELIGIONS, AND SOUTHERN OVERPOPULATION PROLIFERATION—WILL HAVE FAILED.
THE ATOM, THE VIRION, AND THE FERTILIZED OVUM, WILL HAVE REALIZED THEIR THREAT TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT WHICH WE HAD HOPED WOULD ALWAYS RISE TRANSCNENDANT—BUT THAT IS A HOPE AND NOT A PROVEN FACT UNDER THE WIDE VARITY OF STRESSES THAT HAITI EXHIBITS AND THAT THE REST OF THE PRIVILEGED WORLD IS YET TO EXPERIENCE.
Africa, and Haiti—this hemisphere’s Africa—will be the laboratory for this human experiment.