Humanitarian aid, charity work, or mission trips are all very similar ideas that conjure up the notion of one person or group helping another. The core motive and expectation of such doings are different for every person, but generally the goal is to be of assistance or to do an unselfishly motivated act of kindness. These events are not characteristically grouped with the usual adventure or “R&R” that most people seek when heading out on a vacation. Certainly setting out into the epicenter of a disaster would be even further down on the list of choices for an exotic vacation destination, but as you continue to read hopefully you’ll be able to see the value of choosing just such a place.
For reasons I’m still discovering, I was lead to go to Cap Haitien, Haiti, coincidentally only two weeks after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake nearly 90 miles away in Port-Au-Prince. My team of medical affiliates and I had been planning to go to Cap’ since October—with no idea of what was to come shortly before our departure. Being that I am a fairly young looking, white American female, my parents—particularly my dad—were somewhat uneasy about me traveling so far away from home. After the earthquake not only did their unease grow, but the number of friends and acquaintances that were concerned about my travels began to grow as well. There always is some element of “danger” expected when traveling to other countries, especially those considered to be of the third world and lacking in a stable government so why not add “recently devastated from a natural disaster”? Despite all of the worries and concerns of my friends and family, in addition to the obvious reasons I, myself, was never really afraid about traveling to Haiti.
From the first moments of our preparation in going to Haiti, I really had NO idea what to expect from the trip. Which turns out is the best way to approach a trip like this, the less of a personal agenda the better. Many of my teammates have done medical relief in Haiti before so I was able to hear their experiences, but I knew it would take me actually being there to really understand what they were talking about. And now after being there, I can say there really is no way that someone else can fully prepare you for all there is to take in while there and the amount of processing and debriefing, in a sense, that’s needed afterward.
One thing that I didn’t expect was to become so close with the people there. We worked with our Haitian translators everyday, all day, during most of our stay in Haiti and they became part of our team, our family. One of the hardest things in coming home was leaving that part of our team behind; it didn’t seem complete anymore with out them. Another surprise that presented itself to me while in Haiti was the deep connection of human kinship. I, along with most Americans, have a drastically different life-story than the 900+ Haitian patients that we saw, but yet we are the same. There is more to life than just what I know and see on a daily basis here at home in the states. I’m not sure why that sense of connection was so strong other than maybe the fact that there really were no other common denominators, so what little there was in common became more apparent.
All in all, my team went to Haiti to provide encouragement and medical relief to the Haitian people, of which they were immensely appreciative and grateful, but truly I feel more than blessed and honored to have been able to experience a portion of their lives and learn from them.
My suggestions for preparing for such a trip as this:
· A willingness to learn/adapt
· Little to no personal agenda—makes it A LOT easier to work as a team
· Bug spray, a bandana (was very dusty), sunscreen, and hand sanitizer
· CDC recommended immunizations
Links:
The missionaries we stayed with, Don and Karen Davis:
www.davisinhaiti.blogspot.com
Our medical team updates while we were in Haiti:
www.camanochapelmissions.org
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/content/haiti-earthquake-travel.aspx
*This article was written guest author RK*
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