In this moving post, Dayanara Reyes, a former Children International employee from the Dominican Republic, shares how a recent relief trip to Haiti dispelled some ancient misconceptions about her neighboring country...and taught her important lessons about brotherhood.

“Hard times are when we learn who our friends are”

By Dayanara Reyes

A month after the earthquake stuck our brother nation of Haiti, a group of friends and coworkers  decided to carry food rations from the Fair Trade Banana Producers [in the Dominican Republic] to a specific group of affected people there.

Days before our trip, the dates weren’t working out. There were purchasing and trip delays; one of the front tires of the semi truck carrying the donation blew out…I found myself thinking, then and along the journey, “Should we cancel this trip? If all this is happening to us here, what awaits us over there?”

As we traveled, many of us expected the entry to Haiti to be difficult…traumatic….Just a few kilometers after entering Haiti, we stopped to eat some snacks we had brought along so we could have energy for the work ahead. Carlos, who accompanied us and served as our driver for the whole trip, was surprised to see a group of Haitians stop when they saw us, because they thought we were having problems with the vehicle and were coming to help us. Right then we did a little reflecting…The common notion is that Haitians are people without feelings who think only of themselves, but that first action showed us that was a mistaken image of their country and its people.

When we finally got to where we were to unload the donations, a Haitian man, noticeably moved and who obviously was from a high social class (in Haiti, there are only two social classes: very high and very low) stopped when he saw the truck and said, “Thank you for all the help you have brought from the Dominican Republic; that shows us we are brothers.” This was a second lesson that showed and reconfirmed that there is a mistaken impression of this nationality.

As the goods were being unloaded, we proceeded to take a tour of the city so we could see how it was left and the impact [of the earthquake] on its inhabitants. The images were devastating…public offices completely out of commission – destroyed…inhabitants camping in different parks, on grassy areas with public restrooms, where you could see the clothing, the tents and the few donations they have received…right then you could see how children, adults and the elderly intermingled, and we thought of all the diseases that could be transmitted; but neither we nor they could do anything about it then. Seeing this made us feel helpless in a way.

We continued our tour, and we encountered a blind man in front of the Cathedral, which was partially damaged; it was impressive to see the Christ on the cross still intact. This man moved us, because even though he couldn’t see, he narrated with his song and his guitar the story of what happened there, as though he had seen it all…the deaths, the destruction, the children crying….

Out of everything we experienced during those three days, the greatest message one of our Haitian brothers left with us was, “Many Haitians have left our country; however, we need Haitians to make a firm decision to stay here and rebuild our country.” [I was impressed by] his dedication, patriotism, strength and love for his own, enough to get back up in spite of this great fall. This feeling spread to me, and after I returned home, when people would ask me how I had returned – with everyone expecting me to say “depressed” – my answer was, “Greatly strengthened.”

During the tour, with the emotions of that [fateful] twelfth of December still raw, Jean Marc, who acted as our guide, told us how he survived along with his six- and three-year-old sons:

“We were at my sister’s house. I had been in other earthquakes, but when I saw that this one kept going, that it didn’t stop and was much more intense, and when I saw the house begin to crack, I ran out with my children and didn’t stop until I reached my house. Along the way, my children and I saw houses falling down, people dying, rocks falling on people and their insides coming out. The most traumatic and moving part of our journey [home] was when my six-year-old son told me, “Daddy, now I know what it means when people say the world is coming to an end.”