United States or Haiti – Which is the Truly Poorer Nation?

Haiti occupies the western one-third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Rocked by earthquakes and devastated by hurricanes, it is the poorest nation in our hemisphere.

Because the official language is creole, Haitians are isolated communicatively from the surrounding Spanish speaking nations.  As with most former French colonies, they had no government, economy, or legal infrastructure at the time of their liberation.  The Haitian people have been successively exploited by so called civilized nations (the USA included) and by their own leaders (Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier, to name but two).

For example, because there is virtually no electricity outside the cities, Haitians use charcoal to cook and heat water for bathing.  Nonmedical missionary efforts have concentrated on planting eucalyptus, a fast growing tree that protects against erosion with its root system and provides wood for building, charcoal, and carving souvenirs for the rare tourist. 

These efforts are opposed by, of all things, the charcoal gangs of Port Au Prince.  They cut down hardwoods in nearby Cuba to make charcoal that they sell to the Haitians.  The last thing they want is for their fellow countrymen to be self-sufficient.   The other inhabitants of the island of Hispaniola- the people of the Dominican Republic- look down on the Haitians and hire them for menial labor at poor wages.  The culture contains an oddly comfortable collision of Christianity and Voodoo.

My wife and I have done medical mission work in both Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic.  Even in comparison with the somewhat economically average Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, Haiti is destitute.

But despite their centuries of exploitation, Haitians manifest a heartrending innocence and sweetness, free of rancor and bitterness.  Full time missionaries told my wife and I that, while our intent was to go and bless these people, the keeping of a receptive heart and mind would guarantee our being blessed beyond measure in return.  Such was our experience at L’Hopital St. Croix in Leogane, a suburb of Port Au Prince, Haiti.

When a patient was admitted to hospital, the entire family moved in to the hospital.  They slept on floors and chairs.  The nurses trained them in wound care, feeding, and rehabilitation.  When the patient needed medication, we doctors would write a prescription which the family would take to the pharmacy where they would pay for the medication.  They would give that medication to the nurses who would administer it. 

These people, lacking material wealth, compensated by placing a higher value on one another.  It should be shameful to our materially wealthy culture how much more than we these Haitians simply adore each other.  No adolescent boy in Haiti is ignored by a father who spends his time polishing a vintage corvette.  No daughter is overlooked.

What about beyond the family?  I was called to the bedside of a twenty-eight year old man who had broken his back in a fall from a building.  His bladder had stopped working.  I approached his bedside, located on an open ward.  On either side of him was an occupied bed, each one surrounded by a circle of family, caring for the bed’s inhabitants. When we learned that this young man had no surviving family, the veteran doctors in our group all said he would die. Without family in Haiti, a paralyzed person would not survive.

I made rounds after my surgery schedule, around midnight.  When I arrived on the ward, the two circles had coalesced into one large circle of family, now surrounding three beds.  My patient was in the middle, being ministered to by both families.  They had purchased his necessary medication.  Equally important, he accepted their nursing with a dignity devoid of embarrassment.  It seemed mutually understood that, were their situations reversed, he would nurse these other families’ members.

We returned home after our mission trip with a question.  United States of America or Haiti – which is the truly wealthy nation and which the poorer?  Marketing in our country bewitches us into equating the purchase of techno-games and gadgets for our children with the loving of those children.  Both parents are frequently employed outside the home to meet a family budget where marketing (again) has successfully blurred the distinction between wants and needs.  They market directly to children, creating a false need for their product and a lynch mob response to the parent who dares to refuse an indulgent purchase of this ‘stuff.’

In America, while we debate immigration policy, we see an increase in our native Hispanic and Haitian populations.  One can only hope that their work ethic, their strength of faith, and their love of family survive the relocation.  Our culture could do with an infusion of their value systems.  Lord knows, we need it. 

In 2010, Leogane was the epicenter of the earthquake, and L’Hopital St. Croix was all but flattened.  Many nations rushed to care for these people.  I don’t recall any Voodoo relief missions being listed among the rescue agencies.  It grieves me to think that the Haitians I met and cared for might be dead.  But I know that the Haitian spirit lives on.  That kind of love is immune to extinction.

– Dennis Garvin has coauthored a book with his brother Lucky, “Growing up in Stephentown”, a collaborative diary about their growing up. He has also written ‘Case Files of an Angel”, now available through Amazon.com.