This morning I went out to shock
a few wells and I ended up walking around for about four hours in the rural
back country. It was really beautiful and I was happy because I got to see one
of the irrigation canals working. I, being a tall white guy from the US, stuck
out. There was a bunch of people who crowded around me every time I got to the
well. This used to be intimidating but I know enough people here, I know enough
Creole, and I have been here long enough to feel comfortable around big groups
of Haitians.
Every time I have gone out into the countryside or into the
cities, no matter where in Haiti, I’ve always had people come up to me and say
“mwen grangou, ban mwen manje*” which translates to “I’m hungry, give me food”.
Whenever I go out to where the kids are, sooner or later one of them will come
up to me and say, “give me candy”. Not all of the kids know how to speak
English, but one phrase most are pretty familiar with is “give me candy”. I may
have adjusted to the language, to the hot weather, and even the masses of
Haitians around me when I shock a well, but I will never adjust to this. This
will always pull my heart in a way I can’t describe.
Now some of these people aren’t hungry but they know that Americans
have money and food. Americans associated with the mission have handed out food
for long enough that the people from La Croix know I have food or access to
food, and if they ask and they’re lucky, they might get some. That said, many
of these people are genuinely hungry. Many of them haven’t eaten for a few
days. They may have had a poor harvest that day or they may have forgone their
food to feed their children. Many of these people aren’t just looking for a
handout, they are genuinely hungry. I really want to help these people. Going
hungry, no matter who you are, is a travesty. In a perfect world I would love
for every Haitian, and every human for that matter, to have the same access to
the food I have in the US. Unfortunately that impulse can be very harmful. If I
begin handing out food to anyone who asks for it, to everyone who says they’re
hungry, I’m not doing them any favors, and I could be doing harm in the long
run.
In the moment when I am in the communities and someone comes
up to me and asks for food and I were to give it to them, I would immediately
have four or five more people coming up to me expecting food. If I give them
all food, then I will have even more people coming up asking for food, and
pretty soon there mob scene and a small riot could break out. This has happened
at some of the mobile clinics where we give out medicine for free, and this has
happened before with some of the kids when to volunteers pass out candy. One
day we were playing whiffle ball with some of the kids and a few volunteers
started handing out candy at the end. Within five minutes they were surrounded
by dozens of kids. Kids were fighting with each other to get at the candy. When
I am at the wells I will sometimes get seven or eight people around me asking for
the empty bottle that I used to shock the wells. This is just an empty bucket,
I can’t imagine the crowd that would mass around us if we were giving out food.
The issue of the mob however, is a minor problem. The much
bigger problem lies with the culture of dependency. The reason these people are
poor is not because their lazy or unintelligent. The Haitians I’ve met are some
of the hardest working people I know and they’re every bit as smart and capable
as the average American. The reason these people are poor because they lack
opportunities. Many of them lack any formal education, and even if they did
have some sort of education, there are a limited number of professional jobs
available in all of Haiti. No one chooses to be a subsistence farmer, they farm
because they have no other options. Hunger, though it appears as a tragic
problem, is a symptom of a much larger problem, poverty. In order to help these
people feed themselves we need to give them the opportunities to make a more
consistent income, to make enough money that they don’t have to worry about
where the next meal will come from.
If we were to just give out food we address the symptom
without solving the problem; we actually make the problem worse. We give people
an incentive to not farm. Since most of the food they produce is eaten in the
home, they can either feed themselves by working or feed themselves with our
handouts. They would obviously rather feed themselves with our handouts because
our handouts don’t require any back breaking labor. This feeds people, it
staves off hunger for another day, but it doesn’t give them any more
opportunities, it doesn’t help them come out of poverty. If we gave everyone
enough food to feed themselves, then no one would go to the market. Why would
they go to the market to pay for food when they are getting food for free? Everyone
is fed, but no one has a opportunity to make any money.
The only way to help people is to help them access more
opportunities, enable them to take care of themselves. Education is one of the
best ways to do this, but there are other ways this can happen. Many times
people borrow money to pay for the medical procedure or an emergency expense.
With no access to formal credit, people have to turn to loan sharks to cover
these large expenses. These loans sharks will typically charge 200%-300%
interest, and many people go hungry trying to pay off these loans. Giving a
person a goat or a cow, thus giving them access to something they can sell in
order to cover a large expense, allows them to cover these expenses without
going into debt. These initiatives, though successful, are very difficult. They
are difficult to implement and they require a commitment by the participant.
They don’t pay off immediately and they have no guaranteed payout once the
process is finished. If I give someone a goat, though it could be really
useful, it could also get stolen or get sick and not help them. Even if the
goat survives, the owners still have to commit to caring for the it. If I give
someone an education, they have work at it for years before it will pay off.
This is one of the biggest issues I face in the communities.
There are so many times when I try to work with the kids and as soon as they
find out I don’t have candy, they don’t want anything to do with me. There are
so many times when I am walking along the side of the road or in one of the
communities and someone comes up to me saying “give me some money, give me some
food”. So many before me have just passed out candy that there is an expectation
that I am only there to give candy. This expectation takes away people
incentive to go to school. If we can meet their short term needs, if we give
them food every time they ask for it, they won’t have as much reason to go to
school. Some will still go to school, but some will drop out. If we give away food,
we give people fewer reasons to improve their situation. We may treat the
symptom, but if we do this enough may cause some people to become dependent on
our aid. This is makes the poverty that much worse, closing off opportunities
and increasing their poverty.
Helping people is a difficult task, and making a real change
is even harder. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but we have to understand
the full implications of our actions. When I go out I want to feed everyone I
meet, I want to give them food, but I have to keep reminding myself that it
won’t help. It will make the jobs of those who follow me more difficult, and it
won’t help the Haitians in the long run. There are some instances where
distributing food is beneficial, specifically during emergency situations like
droughts or floods, but passing food out to every hungry person makes will only
feed them today, it won’t open up the opportunities of tomorrow.
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