We Need Help
By Crystal Wells
International Medical Corps - USA, February 23, 2010
Along the road to Petit Goave, a coastal area roughly two hours west of Port-au-Prince, roadblocks made of rocks and sticks now accompany the signs pleading for help outside the camps. Some of the roadblocks are discrete and easy to bypass, an attention-grabber more than a serious obstacle, but others quite literally block the road or, even worse, could demolish a vehicle.
We ran into one of these roadblocks while visiting one our clinics in Pet Goave at a remote camp on the top of a hill above the sea. The nearby camp had taken piles of rocks to make the road completely impassable and right as we stopped, a crowd quickly gathered around our car, protesting that relief had not come. We visited their camp and, like so many in Haiti, they had barely any food, completely inadequate shelter, and little access to clean water. Our group heard their needs, told them of our clinic just up the road and our plans to build water and sanitation systems in the area, and we were soon on our way, the rocks moved to the side by the same hands who put them there. But this is happening all over Haiti, people who have lost everything and have nowhere to turn but to broadcast their suffering with spray paint, cardboard, or rocks in the hope that someone will hear them.