I was in Haiti from January 24-29 with 5 other activists and academics, three of whom are Haitian Americans, to assess conditions after the January 12th earthquake.  The trip was sponsored by the Los Angeles-based non-profit organization Scattering Resource, a group formed by Haitian-Americans to raise money, primarily among Haitian-Americans, to provide aid to grassroots efforts in their native country.  The trip was coordinated through Fondation Avénir (FA) a non-profit organization based in Port-Au-Prince, which helps young people develop various means of combating poverty, and helps to establish progressive development programs to include access to information technology, health information, basic education, training, and community building projects.

The task of the group was to meet and speak with a range of people along the various class-lines, with various community leaders of Haitian-led non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and Haitian Americans working and living in the country.  We sought their take on the relief and clean-up effort as well as their view on what it will take to re-build Haiti. 
The group visited most neighborhoods and community centers in Port-Au-Prince, the Toussaint L’Ouverture airport, UN compounds and other vital areas; the Foyer des Filles de Dieu orphanage and the connected Hôpital Notre Dame de Lourdes; Multilink, a Haiti-based provider of internet services that was the first to offer non-satellite international connectivity to the general public in Haiti; workers with The Fondation Connaissance et Liberté / Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (FOKAL); and doctors working alone and with organizations.

Doubtless, the devastation is heartbreaking and overwhelming.  People are in shock over the deaths of well over 200,000 souls.   An estimated 40-60,000 bodies are buried beneath the expanse of collapsed concrete and cinder block buildings.  Foreign health workers usually arrive on the scene of a wrecked building after the stench of decaying bodies overcomes an area.  Hundreds of thousands of children are now orphans.  Millions, left to survive in unsanitary makeshift tent and shanty communities, carry on and make what they can of the situation.  One of the more remarkable things was how communities—blocks, streets, and housing compounds—organized the sleeping arrangements.  Members in each community erected makeshift roadblocks to protect those sleeping in the streets from cars; and in many cases, had individuals and groups standing guard over the sleeping.

Almost everyone lost a family member or friend in the disaster.  Fondation Avénir’s headquarters even suffered major damage from the earthquake.  Sophia Charles, a young woman who is a member of FA, spent a day buried under rubble until she was pulled to safety.  When lamenting to her that her death “would have been a beautiful loss,” she softly responded, “they were all beautiful losses.”

Moving about Port-Au-Prince and some of the outlying towns such as Croix de Bouquets, Pétionville and the two cities at the epicenter of the earthquake—Gressier and Léogâne.  The third longest lines after food and water and those waiting at the UN compound near the airport, are the lines at the money wire/transfer offices.  A common refrain heard up and down Haitian class lines, “We have food.  What the people need is money to buy it.”  That is not to say there isn’t a need for the “beans, rice and sardines” that come in aid packages.  Yet, there’s also “a need to buy charcoal, shovels, wheel barrows and leather gloves.”  Many are left to remove both bodies and concrete stones with latex medical gloves.  When one sees men standing atop pancaked concrete slabs lifting and tossing down broken stones into the street with their bare hands, one wonders if there are gloves in some of those cargo containers coming into the country and if there are, why haven’t they been passed out?

Americans and people around the world are texting, passing the collection plate, doing telethons and fundraisers and all manners of appeals “for Haiti”, yet very little of that money or material aid is actually reaching the Haitian people.

According to the Associated Press , “less than a penny of each dollar the U.S. is spending on earthquake relief in Haiti is going in the form of cash to the Haitian government.” Since President Barack Obama announced an initial $100 million for Haiti earthquake relief, U.S. government spending on the disaster has nearly quadrupled to $379 million, per USAID. Each American dollar roughly breaks down: “42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just less than one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic.”  A Haitian NGO consultant that we spoke with on our visit claimed, “75% of the USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) dollars supposedly aimed at ‘development in Haiti’ goes back to the United States.”

Even so, Haitians welcome any aid and attention to their plight, given the scale of the devastation and death. 
So what needs did the people express?  They were many – short and long term.  Some are obvious.  Like the urgent need to provide temporary, quality shelter and thoughtful sanitation for the over 1 million people displaced by the earthquake.  A mix of 200,000 20-person tents, converted cargo containers and habitat-styled housing has been the talk.  The immediate short-term worry is a possible health crisis should Haitians be caught unsheltered in the rainy season that begins in mid-March and peaks in April.  Scores will fall prey to disease if nothing is materially done!

We also heard more than a few say that Haitian-Americans should come back to the island and help, as well as appeals to African Americans and the black church to come and lend a hand.  Many in “civil society” made direct appeals to such organizations as the Progressive National Baptist Convention, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, the civil rights leadership and others to join in a coordinated group effort to “provide tents and portable toilets” and “help build temporary (or permanent) communities”.  “If the black church would get together, fund and organize shelter for the 200,000 homeless, it would say volumes to the Haitian people,” said Karl Jean-Louis, who works with one of the NGOs in Port-Au-Prince.  The other hope is that individual black churches will raise money to purchase a 20-person tent (or whatever the church could afford) and 2 port-a-toilets per tent.  And, for those churches to team up directly with local Haitian churches or community organizations to make sure their material donations get to the people.

In the short-term Haitians want the strings loosened on aid and for the clean up to move quickly.  They want to see a larger portion of the aid dollars get to the Haitian people, community economic development and jobs.  Americans can make the “short-term” demand that the major airlines suspend or waive a portion of the extra baggage cost for individuals and groups traveling with aid to the country, especially those of Haitian-Americans returning to see after or provide income to their stricken kin. 
As for the long-term, civil workers suggested that American colleges and universities could help out by conducting community and social mapping or providing urban planners.  And helping to figure out who was lost and who’s alive.   One Haitian-American attorney spoke of the need to create a reliable, fair, trust-worthy, respected and humane justice system.   Then there’s the ongoing demand for a humane, open immigration policy with the U.S. to include greater education exchange in light of the damage to the Haitian school system. There is also the need to take a close look at the adoption issue.

Finally, there are calls to forgive Haiti’s international debt. Aid to Haiti should be in the form of grants, not loans.  Also, many feel that France should pay restitution to Haiti for its “odious debt.”

Haitians like to say that they “have a history that’s based on betrayal.”  America can help Haitians change this history. It can begin by dispensing compassion and a helping hand, not pity, control or exploitation. America’s international response to the January 12th earthquake must not be similar to its national response after Hurricane Katrina.  But most importantly, Haitians must lead conversations on the future of Haiti with the recognition that they are the best experts on their own needs and destinies. 
Gray is author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics.