The Foreign Service Journal, January 2011

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35 s we walked through Port-au-Prince’s filthiest and most dangerous slum, Little Haiti in Cité Soleil last April, a mob of children pressed against us, grabbing our hands. Our group included a German physician whom we all called Dr. Bar- bara. She heads her own tiny non- governmental organization that serves the health needs of children at Silesian mission schools, Les Petites Ecoles. Many of the students hail from this neglected neighborhood, and she provides the only medical help they or their families ever get. The dilapidated, fungus-stained and broken concrete hov- els gave way to shacks of rusty tin as we continued through the slum. Ironically, the January 2010 earthquake had done less damage to Port-au-Prince’s worst housing than to its taller, fancier structures. Or perhaps the structures are so flimsy that it had been easy to put them back together again. At least they weren’t heavy enough to have crushed anyone. We made our way along the narrow dirt paths, with pre- earthquake rubble pressed into them to make them passable despite the previous evening’s rain. The stench of urine was ever present. Dr. Barbara led us along byways to an open area that edged into a salt swamp, which housed the communal garbage dump and toilet. She pointed at a single scrawny tree on the other side. When two of former President Jean- Bertrand Aristide’s thugs had escaped prison and were rob- bing and terrorizing the neighborhood, one local leader had finally had enough and killed them both with a machete. He left the bodies under the tree to be eaten by the pigs. Did we want to see the interior of one of the huts? A par- ent made way for us, pulling back the filmy cloth door so we could peer into the windowless interior. About the size of my master bathroom, the hut held two double beds, and a rack of shelves stacked with clothing and cooking utensils. Six people lived here. It was tidy and as clean as possible under the circumstances. As we exited, another woman pulled at my arm, urging us to look at her hovel, too. It was the same. These people took pride in making a life from so little; they were flattered, not embarrassed by our visit. Heading back to our vehicle—Dr. Barbara’s mobile clinic — I looked at the crowd around us. I felt less nervous now about being here. They wore the old garments that we in the United States give away to charities, which bundle and sell them by the pound to brokers for eventual sale in the market or on the streets. The clothes were torn and worn, but not rags — manmade fibers have their virtues. Dr. Barbara greeted a little boy who looked 5 or 6, but was probably 9 or 10. He had a severely burned arm, which she treated before we drove off. In the mobile clinic, we squeezed by a water truck that had just pulled up. It cost two gourdes, about five cents, to fill a pail or other container. A few hundred meters along to- ward the main road, the driver pulled over and we saw the re- construction of one school that was under way: a simple wooden frame for two or three classrooms, waist-high ply- wood panels for walls, and a corrugated tin or aluminum roof. H AITI : S TRENGTH A MID D ESOLATION A YEAR AFTER THE J AN . 12, 2010, EARTHQUAKE , H AITI CONTINUES TO ENDURE MORE THAN ITS SHARE OF HARDSHIPS . B UT EFFORTS TO REBUILD CONTINUE , AS WELL . B Y C HRISTOPHER E. G OLDTHWAIT Christopher E. Goldthwait was the first career Foreign Agri- culture Service officer to be named an ambassador, serving as chief of mission in Chad from 1999 to 2004, among many other assignments during a 30-year career. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 2004, he became an independent con- sultant. A