Photographers Stephen M. Katz and Chris Tyree continue their reporting from the Caribbean, where they are now in Haiti.
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“Imagine the government of the United States introducing a bill to raise the minimum wage 114%. Corporate CEO’s and industry leaders would pitch fits on news talk shows. Lobbyists would wear moat-like pathways between congressional offices. Threats of higher prices for everything would spark panic among consumers.
Now imagine being a common laborer where the minimum wage is two dollars. A day. That’s right – 10 dollars a week, 40 dollars a month, 480 dollars a year. Welcome to Haiti. The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Port au Prince is chaos on speed. Few places you go don’t smell of garbage or urine or pollution. Roadways are blocked by mounds of trash three feet high or throngs of people selling everything from raw sugar cane to used pants to scraps of metal.
Ramon, Chris and I arrived in Port au Prince this morning – Friday, March 1 – and went straight to St. Vincent’s, an orphanage/orthopedics clinic/school for handicapped children/child social services. And that is the way many of these aid centers are – slashes. There is so much need in Haiti that nearly any facility opened to those less fortunate – 95% of the population – is completely overwhelmed. At St. Vincent’s blind children wander the hallways, their eyes clouded over the way my 96-year-old grandmother’s look. Kids missing an arm or a leg or both are helped down long narrow hallways painted a mossy green by other children. They are all brothers and sisters. Rooms full of mute teens wave uncontrollably to strange white faces pointing cameras.
When the recess bell rang, half of the children raced to the cement courtyard. They stood around in their blue and white-checkered shirts eating bits of bread and drinking juice from plastic bags. There was no kickball or soccer or jump rope. Those activities are far too luxurious. The other half remained in the classrooms – too much trouble negotiating the dark cement stairways to simply stand around somewhere else.
One little boy named Joseph sat in the middle of the third classroom on the second floor. Some of the other children were playing with a set of blocks. They were pink. Most of the paint had chipped off. Joseph just sat there. Two classmates darted past him in a game of tag. Still, Joseph remained motionless, a cone for the others to races around. A little girl tried to coax Joseph to play with her. He wouldn’t. When the bell rang to mark the end of recess though, Joseph sprang up to his knees exposing his twisted lower legs and feet. Dragging them behind him, he scurried to his desk where he sat some more. Motionless.
Today, many of the students were learning math. Chalkboards reminiscent of the 1930’s were filled with addition and multiplication problems. Faded equations from the prior lesson still visible. No money for erasers. Some children were clearly engaged in the class. Others sat in the corners – some in cold, steel wheelchairs, some in wooden seats with mismatched legs – staring off. Daydreaming? What was there to dream of?
The lucky ones leave at the end of the day, going home to their families, many of whom live in old shipping containers down in the favela. The rest live in rooms at St. Vincent’s – seas of rusty bunk beds – only to wake up the next morning in the same terrible place.
When I asked the director what it was that St. Vincent’s needed from PFP he responded without hesitation, “Everything.”
