January 12, 2011
Helpless.
That’s how it feels when you can’t help someone you love.
But we are not helpless, are we?
We have the ability to come and go as we please. Our homes are secure and bellies generally full. We can educate our children and trust that their futures are bright. Medical attention, when needed, is easily accessible and, even for minor boo boos, our drawer of Band-aids is full.
When all else fails, we can leave. If we want to go far, far away, Delta is ready when we are. We can apply for a passport and, within weeks, receive one. We can step onto that aircraft and step off wherever we want.
We have planes, trains and automobiles.
All it takes is a little bit (ok, sometimes a lot) of money and the desire.
So I’ve been yearning to go back to Haiti.
A year ago today, their world collapsed – literally – in ways that horrified even their jaded sensibilities. The earthquake took away for many the few signs that they were a human race. Buildings were reduced to rubble that remains a full year later. Families evaporated in one fell swoop. Livelihoods and provisions and security and God seemed erased.
It was apocalypse now.
Perhaps if a nuclear disaster struck America, we would understand. If it decimated our buildings, killed our men and mothers and children, erased any certainty we’d ever felt about another meal or any right to protect our own bodies, we may glimpse their fear and desperation.
That hasn’t happened, so we can’t quite bring ourselves to care enough that life is already that way for an entire nation just two hours from our southernmost. In so many ways, it seems just another horror thriller we see on the big screen – Hollywood’s finest.
Sure, we “do what we can.” We throw our pocket change at “the problem,” when we aren’t saving for something sparkly. We take a deep breath and drop ourselves into their midst for a week or two, weathering the sweat and mosquitoes and culture and feeling oh so proud and even awed by how changed we feel upon return.
Sometimes, we ache for those we met and yearn to change their plight.
Most of all, we feel helpless.
I don’t know what to do with what I brought home when I returned from Haiti last March. Memories of a 10-year-boy who smiled into my eyes with quiet trust and took the first pictures of his life now live within me.
He looks out of my eyes and sees the food I throw away and the home I take for granted. His brow wrinkles and his pleasure dims.
I don’t even know if Markenley is still alive. We met for a brief afternoon in the dirt of a devastated orphanage just a month after the earthquake. I was visiting and, as it turns out, so was he. Hunger made him hopeful and he found a way in. He had intelligence in his eyes, but they were shadowed by horrors most of us have never experienced.
I placed my camera strap around the neck of a little boy whose eyes lit up with gratification and something more – recognition that he was, for a moment, truly seen by a world that cares.
I’ve been looking for him ever since.
But how, exactly, am I meant to accomplish that? My world usually feels secure, but his isn’t. Trekking through Haiti is dangerous, especially for a woman. I cannot do it without protection and translation and transportation – where all of those things are vulnerable to abuse.
When I think about it, I feel helpless.
So I remind myself – I’m not. With enough resources, each of those obstacles can be beaten. I can hire a guard and an interpreter and a truck. Sure, it takes money, but that’s no hill for a climber. There are lots of us and, eventually, I will have enough dollars to pay the bill.
I will find him. If I can adopt Markenley, I will. But if their broken system clings to him and I am unable to free him, I will find a way to send him to school and ensure housing there and, together, you and I will offer him a future of hope.
He may be helpless today, but we’re not.
Will you help me?
I’m selling the images that Markenley shot while behind the lens of my camera. All proceeds will go to him when I find him. They are, after all, his images and he owns them. You can order any of the images on the Haiti slideshow on this site.
To place an order or donate, please click the Markenley Edouard Haiti Fund Paypal link above. We also welcome your fervent prayers.
P.S. If you are near Atlanta, I will be exhibiting additional images shot during my time in Haiti and using those funds to search for Markenley. Barbara Barth is generously featuring them at the grand opening of her new antiques shop at 94 Main Street in Lilburn, Georgia on Saturday, January 22, and during the month of February. My middle school small group from church is hosting a bake sale to help raise funds for Markenley’s education. We would love to see you there!
