![]() Jim (name changed) prophetically wrote and sent me the following in late 2016 after Hurricane Matthew did its damage and before President Trump started doing his. “I know God has got this and is with them but it doesn’t stop my heart from breaking and wondering what else I can do.” The elderly and young are at such risk right now as they have no reserves in nutrition. “I talked to a friend who told me his 85-year-old father was hungry and that his neighbor had just died of starvation. They are the ones who fed much of Haiti with their farming. The people in the mountains off the beaten path have been forgotten. People are still living outside and hurricane season starts again in three months. The effects of Hurricane Matthew are just now really beginning to be felt. “This disaster is not like the earthquake that was over in a few seconds and then was rescue and rebuilding. And while so many small ones are doing what we can, our resources are limited and dwindling. The mismanagement of funds has made people leery of giving and the funds have not come into the large organizations. “The world watched and came to the plate with the earthquake and it seems gave all it had to offer. Not of cholera or other disease but of hunger. Don’t get me wrong wonderful things are being done by wonderful people and organizations but people are dying. Things in Southern Haiti are worse than bad. “I can’t even articulate what is in my heart. She posted the following on her Facebook page last week: Kelly Crowdis is an American veterinarian serving long term in Haiti and is on the ground every day fighting a brilliant battle. ![]() I wondered where is the war in Haiti? Where are the barrel bombs filled with explosives and shrapnel that drop in Sryia and kill thousands of civilians? Where is Boko Haram and other African extremists groups? Why is there famine and despair here to this degree? This must be a different type of war.ĭr. Seeing him in these circumstances made me feel desperate, but his aunt kept laughing. My little Nerlo Oberti and his troublesome heart and scraped up face living in the dirt with his grandma just outside of Cayes. The fifty some year old man in Damassin who I examined with heart failure–his house had blown away in the hurricane and now he was lying in his friend’s damaged shack. He should be in the university I thought. The intelligent face of the young 20-year-old man carrying branches on his head up the hill. How did she have hope? The rosary around her neck must be her source. The wrinkly pitch black face of an old lady on scraps of debris on the blown up beach near Chardonnieres. Cholera Treatment Center–Camp Perrin, Haiti–Octo(Photo by John Carroll) The old man alone in a hospital bed in Camp Perrin neglected in a health care system that is non-resilient. Near Jeremie people were walking with nets in the dark of night to catch fish. The hurricane took the people’s lives, homes, chickens, goats, crops, trees, schools, and churches. Clearly, enough aid was not available. I would see an occasional forlorn helicopter with dangling nets that was returning from a food drop for some inaccessible village hidden in Haiti’s mountains. But I knew I shouldn’t be hopeless when describing Haitians or Haiti because over the years I have seen too much good evolve from so much bad.Īs I traveled from Les Cayes to Jeremie and then south, to Chardonnieres, I felt like a giant inescapable trap had netted a couple of million people. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the storm left nearly 140,000 Haitians homeless.Īfter Hurricane Matthew, Southern Haiti seemed quite hopeless to me last October and November. Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti last October according to the U.N. The only country suffering more than Haiti in the world is South Sudan where famine already has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, and 1 million people there are on the brink of dying from a lack of food. The Gallup Poll recently reported that “even before Hurricane Matthew ravaged Southern Haiti in late 2016, the small Caribbean nation was already in deep distress, with more than four in 10 Haitians (43%) rating their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering”. Southern Haiti after Hurricane Matthew–October, 2016 (Photo by John Carroll)
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