Horror in Haiti – & How to Help

  Imagine you live in a place where brutality is an everyday fact of life.

  A place were people are regularly kidnapped.

  A place where gang rape is a common occurrence.

  A place where people are beaten, slashed with machetes, murdered.

  The place is Haiti.

  Haiti is a country that can’t seem to get a break. It’s one of the poorest countries in the world, a place where more than six of every ten people live in poverty. Haiti is  plagued with earthquakes, floods, epidemics; food, fuel and water shortages, gang violence …

  Not a place where most people would choose to live.

  Most, but not all. Father Rick Frechette has lived in Haiti for 37 years. He could have been the pastor of a well-off parish in his native Connecticut, but chose Haiti instead.

  Prior to that, he and another Catholic priest had started an orphanage in Honduras. It was doing so well that he was asked if he’d be interested in starting one somewhere else.

  “I said I would and was asked if there was a place I’d suggest,” he said. “I’d visited Haiti and saw how impoverished it was, and that was what I suggested.”

  What began modestly with an orphanage in 1987 is now a campus that includes, among other things,  multiple schools, a clinic and school for vulnerable and displaced children, three rehabilitation centers for children and adults with neurological disabilities, a solar energy farm and two hospitals. Saint Damien Pediatric Hospital is the only hospital in Haiti that treats children with cancer and the country’s only hospital where heart surgery is performed.

  Father Rick, as he is widely known, is one of the health professionals who work in the hospital. He didn’t think he could do enough for people in Haiti just as a priest, so he went to medical school and became a doctor.

  Last month, he was in Boise to speak at a fundraiser for Saint  Alphonsus Regional Medical Center’s Project Haiti, now in its 30th year of supporting his work. I asked him whether he thought he had done more for people in Haiti as a doctor or a priest. 

  “I don’t think they can be separated,” he said. “They’re both part of a multilayered approach to the priesthood. It can’t be otherwise.”

  A warning: If you’re squeamish, you might want to skip over the next  three paragraphs. I debated whether to include them but opted to do so to provide an idea of just how grim things are in parts of Haiti. Should those of us who live in peaceful, comfortable surroundings turn away from horrors others must face regularly?

  A recent photo shows Father Rick wearing his priest’s vestments while blessing the muddy body of a victim of the violence outside of a gang leader’s compound. He said it’s common to find decaying bodies in the streets.

   “If they stay on the streets they deteriorate and children see them so we call the police and pay a stipend for the police to remove them,” he said. “It happens easily once a month. … Bodies do stay in the streets in some places. They’re eaten by dogs or pigs or burned.”

  The United Nations reported that a gang attack on Oct. 3 killed “at least 70 people, including women and babies.” 

  Does being a priest who has spent decades helping Haitians provide any protection from the gangs?

   “Because our schools are in a lot of areas, we have a long history of  dialogue with the people there, including the gang leaders,” he said. “You can’t avoid them, and they know you’re doing benevolent work. I don’t think they especially care about that, but they do care about what advantages you’re bringing to the area, like food distribution. Their family could get some food. They see that there is mutual gain.”

  During a previous visit to Boise, he said it wouldn’t surprise him if one day he became a victim of the violence. I asked him during his recent visit whether he still felt that way.

  “I said that in the sense that there are no guarantees. Even if you’re more or less known, there are always new combatants. And even if you’re known, the gangs are more drugged up. Safety is not a guarantee.”

  Risks to life and limb aside, just trying to function normally in contemporary Haiti can be challenging. 

  “There are closed roads to the north and south so the economy and agriculture are affected. If you don’t have some savvy in knowing how to get around, its difficult. The gangs have control. … Staff often can’t get to work, and patients can’t get to the hospital.”

  Supplies also can’t get there, and violence and kidnappings have caused  roughly a fourth of the hospital’s trained staff to flee to the U.S.

  I asked him how he kept going amid so much adversity. He could be forgiven for wanting to throw up his hands and flee himself.

  “One way is not to let too much get in. And the rightness of what you’re doing along with the fraternity, the solidarity, with which you’re working becomes a strong impetus to continue. … For believers, added to that is faith. Those are the marching orders of the gospel. That brings a lot of depth and strength.”

  He had an appointment and our interview time was running short, so  I asked him whether there was anything important he’d like to add.

  “Yes. It’s important to know that 13 million people in Haiti are victims of maybe 5,000 people who have big guns. It would be wrong to blame Haitians for the situation in Haiti. The movements that caused this (the violence) involved international mafias in drugs and guns. Where does a barefoot 18-year-old who is lucky to eat every three days get a weapon worth $1,500?”

  How can those of us who have multiple pairs of shoes and never miss a meal help?

  Project Haiti supports the hospitals, orphanage, schools and other charitable enterprises begun by Father Rick by helping pay for capital improvements, food, medical supplies and more. 

  To donate, go to https://donate.saintalphonsus.org/ProjectHaiti-Donate. Or mail a check to:  Saint Alphonsus Project Haiti, Attn: Jill Aldape, 1055 N. Curtis Rd., Boise, ID 83706.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Press and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him a woodwardcolumn@gmail.com.