Essays
&
Reflections |
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The
Thing About Tarantulas is..., by Lindsey Strauch |
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Where
Hope Hides, by David Diggs |
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Out
of the Compound, by David Diggs |
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Security
without Walls, by Shelly Satran |
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Is
There Room? by David Diggs |
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Emptied
for Love, by Kent Annan |
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Pregnant
Woman Dies Outside Hospital Gates, a letter from
David Diggs |
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A
Little Change, Please,
by Kris Stoesz |
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Preemptive
Love by David Diggs |
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Our
Lives are Different Now, by Kris Stoesz |
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Seeing
Lazarus, by David Diggs |
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My
Name is Little Baby, by Alina Cajuste with
Bev Bell |
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Loving
the Terrorists by
David Diggs |
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Jeff's
Tap-Tap Letter by
Jeff Rogers |
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We
See from Where We Stand, by David Diggs |
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Two
Ways to the Top, by David Diggs |
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Food
for Thought
by
Coleen Hedglin |
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by Shelly Satran
Shelly
Satran with two of the children from her Haitian host
family, "Bebe" Wolfabien August (left) and
Berlin Rose August (right). |
January
9, 2004
As political tensions here rise, I have been asked a few times
whether I live in a compound in Haiti. It isn’t a bad
question; many government and nonprofit organizations here
operate and/or live inside a compound. However, Beyond Borders
and its sister organization, Limyè Lavi, have
chosen to seek security in another way. Our primary security
principle is to live in such a way that those we live amongst
protect us. This means that the Beyond Borders and Limyè
Lavi staff in Haiti don’t live walled off from
the surrounding community. We all live in various, typical
Haitian neighborhoods or villages. We live where we can know
and be in relationship with our Haitian neighbors. We live
in homes that aren’t fancy and don’t attract attention.
We live in ways that mean we must be dependent on our neighbors
and community.
One
day in early December my husband, Kent, was starting down
the road toward the city. Before he had walked five minutes,
a neighbor stopped him and said, “Today’s a
day for staying home. Don’t go down to the city today.
There’s a political demonstration today near where
you’re going.” Kent returned home.
Shelly
Satran and her husband, Kent Annan, have just completed
their first year with Beyond Borders in Haiti. |
We
had never asked this man to look out for us or to warn us
of potentially tense situations. Kent hadn’t first
approached him on the road inquiring about conditions in
the city. The man just felt it was his neighborly duty to
let us know the situation.
However,
there are a few friends who live nearby that we have asked
to let us know if there are demonstrations or violence in
the city. So on several occasions, they have come by our
house in the morning to inform us of the latest radio news
about the political unrest and its manifestations (we both
still find it difficult to understand staticky Creole radio
ourselves). Along with imparting the news, our friends often
advise us whether we should stay home that day, avoid a
certain street or neighborhood, or go about our day as usual.
We have never not followed their advice when they suggest
we spend a day at home or avoid a certain neighborhood.
As
I write this, we are staying overnight at the Limyè
Lavi office in Port-au-Prince while our house is getting
painted. The office is a good 45 minutes and several communities
away from where we live. Nevertheless, one of our neighbors
called the office yesterday to let us know a demonstration
was taking place in between the office and our neighborhood.
“Don’t come up the mountain today,” he
said. We didn’t.
My
husband I love our simple, tin-roofed home in the mountains
outside of Port-au-Prince. We like our lifestyle that means
daily interactions with friends and neighbors who so often
enrich our lives. So until the recent unrest in Haiti, I
hadn’t thought much about what our living in a simple
unguarded, unwalled house meant. Now that security and political
tension is part of everyone’s daily conversations,
I haven’t yet wished we lived a compound, though I
have wished for a home with phone lines or Internet to keep
in touch with the outside world on days we are homebound
due to the unrest.
The truth is that no form of security is
one hundred percent sure—neither walls nor strong
community can protect against certain dangers. But for the
moment I am grateful for friends and neighbors who have
given us a sense of protection (and community) that no walls
could.
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