Haiti is weighing heavily on my mind. I know I'm not alone in this. It's a struggle wanting to stay aware of what's happening with the relief efforts in Haiti while continuing to live our daily lives. How does one strike a balance
between being compassionate while avoiding sinking into a depression? The sheer magnitude of this tragedy (an insufficient word) is unimaginable. Yet we cannot help but imagining it. What if it had been us? By what stroke of luck were we born in a wealthy country and not in a country like Haiti, destitute beyond our comprehension even before the earthquake? We won the lottery of fate, you might say.
My tie to Haiti is personal. About 10 years ago, my husband received a letter in the mail from his friend, Ray, in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Ray had been on a program through the St. Louis Public Schools in which teachers from Haiti would came to observe teachers here. He observed my husband's French class and the two stayed in e-mail contact after he returned home. And now Ray was asking for a letter inviting him to come visit, something required in order for him to obtain a tourist visa. My husband wrote the letter and Ray got the visa.
The first thing that came out of Ray's mouth at the airport was "Where do I get a green card?" We had suddenly been saddled with an immense responsibility with which we felt totally unable to cope. Just like that. Out of the blue. Ray was helpless. He had very little English. He had absolutely no ability to fend for himself. We went to the grocery store & I broke down in tears. But what were we going to do? Throw him out on the street? No way.
Ray was my agen but it was like taking care of a child. Ray would stare into space for hours, not speaking, just sitting there. We suspected he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and probably a large dose of culture shock. He told us that his life had been threatened in Haiti. Why? Because he was educated, which meant he had money. When you have money of any kind in Haiti, you're a moving target. Someone had literally shown up at the door & threatened to kill him if he didn't give them money. So he left. He felt he had no choice. He left his mom in Haiti. Not an easy choice.
Over the next 5 weeks, we took care of Ray. We fed him, fixed up an old bike for him so he could get to the free English class we enrolled him in, and went in search of help for him. We found a Haitian church and attended services in order to speak to the pastor. He promised he'd help yet did nothing. We were astounded. At that time, I didn't have the contacts I now have to the many non-profits that help immigrants and refugees in St. Louis. We had no idea what to do but kept looking. We found a free lawyer who gave us some advice. In the end, we had to send Ray off before his visa expired. Even though this happened before 9/11, we feared that harboring an undocumented person could result in the loss of my husband's teaching license. We had to find somewhere else for him to go.
Finally, after many phone calls, Ray found someone in the US who was willing to take him in. He was in tears as we put him on a Greyhound bus bound for Delaware. We've only had sporadic contact with him since then. We know that for a while he worked in a chicken factory, married a Haitian-American named Noemie (the French version of my name!), and he went back to school. We Googled him last week and found an address so we could send him a card to find out how he's doing, how his family is doing. We are still waiting to hear from him.
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