APRIL 2008

Nearly seven years have passed since the summer Luke and I spent in Port-au-Prince. I’ve been back to visit many times. The summer of 2001 remains fresh in my mind, fueling the lifelong commitment I have to the children in Tiplas Kazo.

The years since then have been extremely difficult for Fr. Gerry and the members of St. Clare’s. Their prayer to St. Jude has grown stronger and stronger as families struggled to survive through an aid embargo, a coup d’état, and the current global food crisis that has sent rice prices soaring and created a near famine throughout Haiti.

In 2001, international loans to the Haitian government worth hundreds of millions of dollars were blocked, including $500 million in preapproved support for health care, education, potable water, and road improvement. The U.S. government led the loan freeze. A minor electoral dispute regarding eight parliamentary seats (out of 7,500 total offices) in the May 2000 elections was cited as the reason. But even though seven of the senators in question resigned in 2001, and the term of the eighth expired shortly thereafter, the blockade did not end until 2004.

The toll on the population was devastating. Inflation skyrocketed and the economy collapsed. Throughout the aid embargo, Haiti was required to pay millions of dollars in interest on some of the frozen loans—even though the country had not received them! This, combined with other debt payments, left the Aristide government with few resources to improve the lives of the poor majority.

Throughout this period, Nennenn, Manmi Dèt, and others from St. Clare’s never missed a single Sunday afternoon serving meals at the rectory, and the number of children fed increased during this time from 500 to 750. The What If? Foundation also started a small education fund to pay for scholarships, beginning with ten students in September 2002. In 2003, a summer arts & crafts camp was organized, initiated by Manmi Dèt and Nennenn. Fr. Gerry’s guidance, “Pinpiti,” helped me stay focused and hopeful.

Immediately following the coup, U.S. Marines entered and occupied Haiti. An interim government, backed by the U.S., was installed. Its police force targeted supporters of President Aristide and his Lavalas party. The jails, which had been emptied during the coup, freeing even convicted death-squad leaders, were quickly filled with political prisoners. Fr. Gerry e-mailed me reports on the crisis and its impact on the community:

It is a tough place to live in these days. The new de facto government cannot satisfy the urgent basic needs of the population. It is becoming panicky. Armed criminals, [who] escaped from jails during the coup, are running the streets causing insecurity… People are going hungry and are putting a lot of pressure on the new de facto government. The assistance promised has not been delivered. The public workers cannot be paid. The trash remains uncollected. No water from the State company. No more electricity. Lack of money, claim the new officials ... We have lost some of our basic rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, particularly in the evening. People are scared. I also feel the pressure. If our food program was not taking place, Tiplas Kazo could become like downtown Port-au-Prince, where living is impossible for all. I have to preach louder and give more services. My heart is bleeding for the people ... May more of us on the face of the earth hear the call of Jesus through Matthew 25 ... God’s blessing always!

Gerry

A few weeks after the coup, we took a leap of faith and started a meal on Wednesdays. We had collected enough donations to pay for stoves in the St. Clare’s rectory, and tables, benches, and a roof for the “outdoor cafeteria” Fr. Gerry had envisioned years earlier, so a second cooking crew from St. Clare’s was lined up. Although we were not sure if there would be enough money to keep the second meal going more than a few months, we started anyway.

In June 2004, U.S. troops began to withdraw and were replaced by multinational UN forces. Repression of Aristide supporters continued. More than a thousand opponents of the new regime were jailed. Fr. Gerry, who had consistently and visibly spoken out against the coup, calling for the return of democracy and President Aristide, was among them.

One Wednesday afternoon in October 2004, while Fr. Gerry was serving meals at the food program, hooded men working for the interim government’s police force circled the St. Clare’s rectory. When Fr. Gerry refused to come out, the men stormed the building and demanded that the children lie facedown on the floor. They dragged Fr. Gerry through a window over broken glass and sped off with him in a truck. When they drove away, the police shot into the crowd that had gathered outside the rectory, wounding three children.

Never have I felt so helpless and far away from Haiti as on that day. I received a call just as Fr. Gerry was being taken from the rectory. He had called from his cell phone to alert friends in Miami, who then called me. I sat stunned as I took in the news, my stomach getting tighter and tighter. I had the same all-over heartsick feeling I experienced after Rich died. My hands trembled as I typed out an e-mail to What If? Foundation supporters pleading for them to contact their congressional representatives, the State Department, and Haitian authorities. Other organizations did the same. Thousands of e-mails, faxes, and letters were sent. Fr. Gerry was immediately listed by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience. Throughout Haiti, Aristide supporters were disappearing— being arrested or killed—so I feared for Fr. Gerry’s life every day he was in prison.

Seven weeks later, he was released without charges.

In the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., he did not stop speaking out against the human rights violations and other injustices against the poor. Fr. Gerry has told me he cannot separate his faith from politics. His example for how to live his life is Jesus. Jesus was not silent about injustice or the oppression of the poor. For Fr. Gerry, speaking out from the pulpit and through the media about the need for change, for the respect of human rights, for the release of political prisoners, for food, water, education, health care, and economic opportunities for all Haitians, not just the wealthy, is a critical part of his ministry.

He was arrested again in July 2005, just a few days after we expanded the food program to four days a week. This time, even though he was again listed as an Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience and thousands of letters, faxes, and e-mails were sent on his behalf, he remained in prison for over six months.

It was only after Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners In Health diagnosed Fr. Gerry with leukemia and life-threatening pneumonia that he was given a medical reprieve. He was released from prison on January 29, 2006, to receive treatment in Miami. A few days later, René Préval was democratically elected as Haiti’s president. He had served as president from 1996 to 2001 and was the favorite of the poor majority, who had hope that his election would put an end to the violence and repression.

Progress has been slow. Members of the St. Clare’s community have told me that it is difficult for Haiti’s democracy to fully flourish with UN forces still there, many of the same officials appointed during the coup regime still in place, and most of the political prisoners still behind bars. Although the country is more stable politically, the same deep divisions and power struggles remain.

I visited Fr. Gerry in Miami shortly after his release from prison. Even though he had been through months in a cell, had just had surgery, and was about to go through chemotherapy, he had that same indomitable faith, energy, and hope. And thankfully, after seven months of chemotherapy, the leukemia was, and continues to be, gone.

Today, the food program is needed more than ever. A sharp rise in food prices across the globe has sent Haiti into an even deeper hunger crisis. The price of rice worldwide nearly doubled from February through April 2008. As in many countries throughout Asia and the Americas, rice is the primary staple of Haiti. With over half the Haitian population earning less than $1 a day and 78 percent earning less than $2 a day, this increase has made it impossible for most people in Haiti to feed their families. It now costs nearly $1 for one small can of rice. Reports have appeared in the media of families eating “mud cookies”—dirt, mixed with salt and vegetable shortening and baked in the sun—because they don’t have the money for food. Food price protests and riots have taken place in several countries around the world, including Haiti. The world is finally taking notice of the suffering, and I pray that this will help bring about positive change.

The main reasons cited for the dramatic global increase in the price of rice, wheat, corn, and other staples are rising fuel costs, a push to create biofuels from cereal crops, weather problems, and an increased demand in China and India. Haiti is especially vulnerable to these price increases because it is dependent on imported food staples.

Haiti is the third-largest importer of rice from the U.S.— 240,000 metric tons per year. Until the 1980s, Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production. But in 1986, a multimillion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) required that tariff protections for Haitian rice and other agricultural products as well as some industries be reduced, opening Haiti’s markets up to competition from the outside. Rice from the U.S. began pouring into Haiti. Since it is heavily subsidized by the U.S. government and therefore cheaper than Haitian rice, within a few years most Haitian rice farmers went out of business. Now, with the price of U.S. rice rising and very little domestic rice being produced in Haiti, millions of people throughout Haiti are starving.

With the dramatic increase in the cost of food, I wonder sometimes whether we’ll be able to provide the funding needed to keep it all going. The cost per meal has increased significantly. It has gone from 50 cents to 70 cents per meal and continues to rise. I try to calm myself by remembering the Sunday we ran out of food and how I learned to keep the focus on love—celebrating what we can do, and not lamenting what we can’t. I try to focus on the fact that a thousand people a day, five days a week, receive some relief from their hunger, even though millions of Haitians are suffering and providing these meals does not address the root causes of their poverty. I remind myself that visiting doctors have told me they don’t see the signs of malnutrition among the majority of children who eat regularly at the rectory, and that Fr. Gerry believes the meals have helped the community remain peaceful during the volatile years since the coup d’état. The food program, he says, remains “an islet in the middle of the ocean ... A place where people are loved, respected, and fed every week. Hope is kept alive in the midst of troubled days.”

Regardless of the obstacles—the coup d’état, the hurricanes, the flood that wiped out a year’s worth of construction on St. Jude’s Chapel, beatings, prison, leukemia, and the current hunger crisis—Fr. Gerry’s belief in the importance and power of small steps remains a guiding force for everyone in the neighborhood and for me, too. Every morning when I sit down at my desk, I look at the sign I have taped to my computer monitor— “Piti piti na rive,” Little by little we will arrive—and I feel inspired to continue this work.

My Haitian colleagues continue to be my greatest teachers. Whenever I visit Haiti, Manmi Dèt’s open arms welcome me “home.” I treasure every minute with her and make sure we sit next to each other at Mass. She’ll be 80 years old this year, but she still walks up the hill to St. Clare’s when she can, greeting everyone along the way. She and the fifteen ladies in the front left pews continue to pray and sing and hold the space for love, hope, and possibilities with their extraordinary faith.

Manmi Dèt and Nennenn have passed on the responsibilities of the food program to another group of incredible women from St. Clare’s. Today, Nennenn is pouring her heart into the construction of a small medical clinic called Clinique St. Michel—a new St. Clare’s outreach project funded through the efforts of a physician assistant in Philadelphia—that just opened its doors. Nennenn’s daughter, Romi, who recently graduated from medical school in Cuba, is the clinic’s doctor. Members of St. Clare’s Church have been trained as health agents and are doing health education and advocacy work throughout the Tiplas Kazo community. Manmi Dèt and Nennenn plan to serve meals to the patients at the clinic, so we might be working together again soon.

One of my greatest personal challenges remains living in balance. I struggle with wanting to do more so we can expand and more children and adults can be served. The need is urgent and the work involved in running the What If? Foundation continues to grow. Yet, part of me craves a slower pace with more time for my family (I’ve remarried! and Luke is now a teenager), for writing, and for contemplation. I remain the volunteer president and director of the Foundation and still run my health and wellness business part-time, so my days often feel overscheduled and overwhelming. At times, I feel close to burnout, trying to juggle it all. I know I need to find a way to couple the urgency of the situation with the ability to sustain my energy over time—a common challenge for many people.

I often think about the Sunday night when Nennenn led me to the pool in my muumuu and the time she taught me to dance. “Dancing is good for you, Margo,” she whispered. Her days included both the commitment to the food program and laughter under the stars. She is able to sweat in the heat of cooking and then shake loose with dancing. She always has time to pray. I’ve realized that filling every free moment with work, even for a life-and-death cause, is not healthy for me or sustainable, so I now have an assistant in my office. A first step.

I have a picture of Nennenn and Manmi Dèt on my computer screen saver, their arms around each other, smiling, with a twinkle in their eyes. It feels like they’re watching over me, encouraging me to find and hold the balance between work and play, action and stillness. When I look at them, I often think of the fruit salad and the love and time they put into it, and I’m gently reminded how I want to live my life.

Fr. Gerry’s courage and commitment also remind me of how I want to live. Recently he shared with me an experience he had while in the Haitian National Penitentiary. There was an old man who lived across the street from the prison. Fr. Gerry could see him through the window. The old man was thin and weak. Since St. Clare’s parishioners brought food to Fr. Gerry almost every day, he had more than he needed. He and the old man developed a signal. At 6:00 every evening, Fr. Gerry would shine his flashlight at the door of the man’s home. One flash meant bring a small pot. Three meant bring a huge pot. The old man came every evening. Fr. Gerry arranged with the guards to let him in so he could receive whatever food Fr. Gerry was able to offer. Nearly every evening while Fr. Gerry was in prison, the old man, his wife, and children from the neighborhood had food to eat.

Time and again, Fr. Gerry and the members of St. Clare’s have shown me there is always the opportunity to act and make a difference. There is always hope. Little by little!