After the first couple of days in Haiti, I started to get discouraged that the story has, for the most part, fallen off of the US media radar screen and the collective consciousness of America, replaced by Apolo Ohno's soul patch and Lindsey Vonn's wild ride. Immersed into needs so great, I lamented that few back home were hearing the latest chapters of widespread human suffering; hearing that there are still bodies decaying and burning in the streets; hearing that there are throngs still yearning for sips of water; hearing that more and more children are being confirmed as orphans. I have to admit, I've felt a little jaded and upset about it all recently. Upset that we flit from one newsworthy event to another. Upset that we give something our momentary attention and then move onto something else that seems more interesting or dramatic.
Then I met Darlene and Davidson at a poor church in Haiti. Both are six years old. Both have lost their parents to tragedy.
Davidson was out playing with friends when his house came down on his mommy and daddy. A sad, quiet boy, he appears to still be in a state of shellshock. I got his story while standing in the dividing space between the church and a house next door, a house that had collapsed in at multiple angles. As I looked past Davidson's downcast eyes, I could see the crushed master bedroom behind him and imagined his parents in a similar room as the walls and ceiling quickly closed in.
I also imagined Davidson outside, watching it all happen.
Darlene was also out playing when disaster struck. Her mother and father were washed away. All her relatives vanished and she was found lying and crying in a pool of water.
"Washed away?' you ask.
Sweet little Darlene with the short braids was just four when the skies darkened and the winds blew with ferocity, part of a 2008 storm season where the island was pounded by four cyclones within a 30-day period. That's hardly time to bury the dead, let alone recover. Hurricane Ike was the punctuation mark and, when it was all over, almost one thousand people had died, towns had vanished under mud, and over 60% of Haiti's agricultural product was in ruins.
It was less than two years ago when Darlene saw her island assaulted by winds and waves. She has now experienced it rebel against its foundations. Jodi (World Orphans and Christian Alliance for Orphans) asked me, "What do you think her view of the world is now?"
I then started to question myself: Was Haiti's hurricane still on my mind, or even in my memory? Had I not forgotten it in exchange for the latest calamity? And what about the children who are still being pressed into child soldier units, long after they were orphaned by the cyclone that ravished Burma?
The truth is that we have very short attention spans. We click the remote control over to the next tragedy, the next star-studded appeal . . . while the people from the last one are still suffering.
Haiti will take many years to recover. Other disasters and celebrity stumblings and fumblings will occupy the newswires during that time. News of Sean Penn's charge for activism is now replaced by his charge for vandalism.
I also point the finger at myself and plead: Let none of us forget the continued suffering of a people who desperately need our attention and intervention. Through the blowing of the winds and the shaking of the ground, their struggle is still active.
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What is the Haiti Orphan Relief Team (HORT)?
The Haiti Orphan Relief Team (HORT) can be found on Facebook. Please start your own campaign for Haiti at First Giving/HORT
Abandoned-Orphaned is the personal blog of Paul Myhill, President of World Orphans. Subscribe to the blog in the upper right-hand corner of the home page. Paul can be found on Facebook and on Twitter @paulmyhill.
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