Anyone who has ever traveled to Haiti from the United States is quite familiar with the warnings posted by the United States Department of State. Airlines tickets tout warnings. Travel agents discourage visiting this country. Americans who have traveled there without doing their homework weave bad tales. So it is no surprise that “the State Department warns U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Haiti and recommends deferring non-essential travel until further notice.”
Is Haiti dangerous? Flipping the question around, is Haiti safe? Certainly, Haiti has had its share of political unrest; some of that has resulted in rioting, home invasions, and kidnappings. The food shortages have made people desperate. Hurricanes have disrupted travel, even affecting the last team we had down, stranding them in Haiti for 5 days (like that was a bad thing. Inconvientient maybe, but not necessary bad).
But in my opinion, Haiti is no more dangerous than any other place provided you take some precautions. After all, my wife would never think of walking the streets of Port-au-Prince alone. Whenever she travels out and about, she always travels in a group or with a Haitian escort. She is always aware of where she’s at and her surroundings. Perhaps this is due to her growing up in New York City. She carries herself in Haiti as she would there. After all, the same types of people who take advantage of Americans in Haiti are the same types of people who would take advantage of American’s here.
Perhaps this it is the lack of independece we struggle with when going to Haiti. I mean we actually have to depend on other people and can’t move about like we own the place.
Here’s the thing. I would hate for people to advoid Haiti just because there is a little bit of danger involved. Haiti is beautiful. The people, though needy, have huge hearts and are friendly. The culture is exquisit.
Please travel to Haiti! But do understand where you are traveling to, and don’t throw your caution to the wind.
I ran across this video on Youtube and was astounded. Hands Together does a phenomenal job, working in one of the poorest areas of Haiti, not to mention one of the most dangerous places in the world (according to the U.N. I mean. after all, this is the place in which Americans and other nationalities are kidnapped by Haitians for money.
The poverty and the danger is what makes what Hands Together is doing so remarkable. It was actually over 15 years ago my wife got the urge to adopt from Haiti, a story which she tells in our first podcast. I’ll let the video speak for itself.
We want to invite everyone to join us live around 8 PM tonight as we record our second show with Curt Edwards, co-founder of Haiti For The Kids and the Connection Project. Come watch us, hear us, and chat with us as we record our show on the Live! page of our Haiti in Focus site. We would love to have you with us.
In the past two weeks, we have had over 250 people visit our blog and over 60 people downloaded our first show! A big thank you to all of you who participated in that. We are always looking to hear from you, get your ideas, or hear your stories about Haiti. We will use them on the show. You can contact us by calling the listener line at (717) 983-4314 or e-mailing us at: haitiinfocus@gmail.com.
I am almost certain that if you were to ask any of my students who the Queen of Spain was, none of them would know the answer. If you would have asked me that very same question three days ago, I wouldn’t have known it either. The only queen of Spain I ever knew was Isabella and she’s been dead for four hundred plus years. This past weekend, when everyone in the United States was focused on Obama, Queen Sofia of Spain descended on Haiti and spent some time there.
Now I am sure she was not really experiencing Haiti in its raw,rustic sense; I’m not sure I would expect her too. What excited me was she was visiting a third world country in which her government had invested time and resources to help make it a better place. And its not like Haiti provides Spain with some huge commercial value.
I tried to place this in context for myself. This would be the equivalent of Laura Bush or Michelle Obama visiting the impoverished streets of Haiti. It didn’t happen in Laura’s time and I doubt it will occur in Michelle’s.
Now I am assuming that Spain has no commercial interest in Haiti. I don’t know my Spanish economics or politics. But if Spain is being truly altruistic, I am looking for the time when the United States heads into Haiti to help the Haitian people just because its the right thing to do and not because they get something from it.
