Wanda Sabir’s Appeal

Courtesy sfbayview.com

San Francisco Bay View arts editor and poet Wanda Sabir

Greetings, Everyone:

I went to Haiti over the Spring Break this year. I visited many grassroots organizations in Delmas, Cité Soliel and Port-au-Prince. I would like to return in August for two weeks, before fall semester starts, to see the areas I missed in my six-day visit in April, like the Aristide Foundation. I would also like to take cameras for Jean Ristil, Jean Baptiste’s kids, and money for the other organizations like the orphanage supported by Equator Faith Church in Oakland. I’d like to take funds to So Anne to buy food for the meals she serves, and to Rea Dol, who is rebuilding her school and taking care of so many people.

I’d like to raise about $4000 (I have raised $300 as of July 22), which will cover my airfare ($820 ) and transport/boarding ($400-500) with money left over to give between $300-400 dollars to all these organizations. These are the people doing the work without government and NGO/non-profit assistance. When I was there last, I left everything: tent, sleeping bag, bug spray, medicines, school supplies with my host Rea Dol. I’d like to leave money, too, this time. I need another tent and a sleeping bag (smile). I don’t know who I’ll meet when I go to Jacmel, Les Cayes and, hopefully, Port-de-Paix — with an overnight stop in Cap Haitien to see friends at SOIL — and the island of La Gonaive, but I know I will return with another list. The cost also includes my escort’s travel and lodging expenses. So dig deep and give generously.

Send the donations to me at
P.O. Box 30756
Oakland, CA 94604.
Checks can be made out to Wanda Sabir.
You can call me: 510.712.4015 — mobile.

I plan to have another report back in October during Maafa Awareness Month.

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July 22, 2010

IMF cancels $268 million Haiti debt

The Associated Press
Thursday, July 22, 2010; 5:24 AM

PARIS — The IMF says it has canceled Haiti’s $268 million debt and will lend the earthquake-devastated country another $60 million to help it with reconstruction plans.

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday the decision is part of a plan for long-term reconstruction after the Jan. 12 magnitude-7 quake, which killed as many as 300,000 people.

To read this story in its entirety, go to the Washington Post original

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Suffering and struggle: Six months after the Haitian earthquake

By Patrick Martin
10 July 2010
World Socialist Web Site

© 2010 WSWS.org

Port-au-Prince shortly after the January 2010 earthquake

Six months after an earthquake destroyed much of Haiti and killed more than 300,000 people, little has been done for the survivors. The promises by the United Nations and the major powers, particularly the United States, have produced only a trickle of aid. Of the billions promised at a series of conferences, amid much media publicity, only 2 percent has actually been delivered.

The scale of the devastation produced by the worst natural disaster of the twenty-first century still staggers the imagination. The death toll was at least 300,000, and by some estimates nearly 500,000, out of a total population of 8 million—the worst disaster, in terms of the proportion of the population, in modern history. The equivalent in a country the size of the United States would be a death toll of 10 to 20 million.

Virtually all the deaths were caused by the collapse of homes and other buildings in Haiti’s urban centers, particularly the overcrowded slums of Port-au-Prince, the capital city. Some 188,000 homes were damaged, according to one survey, of which 105,000 were completely destroyed, along with 1,300 schools, 50 hospitals, the presidential palace, the parliament building and the port of Port-au-Prince.

MORE ~ To read the story in its entirety, go to the WSWS.org original

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Listen

ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA, Isabel Allende’s new novel, breathes life into the history and spirituality of Saint Domingue (pre-revolutionary Haiti) and New Orléans. From her extensive research into the back-story of colonialism, slavery and human bondage, master storyteller Allende moves in close to dramatize in heartbreaking detail the story of one slave woman’s fate. The revered author’s April 27, 2010 interview with KQED Forum’s Michael Krasny is one sound, moving eye-opener.

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AP Photo

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden visit Haiti

“Haiti, Haiti, Tortured Lady” — a poem by Al Young

Three Poems for the Terremoto — Lorna Dee Cervantes

Poetry Friday: Edwidge Danticat Voices Haiti, Always

Haitianalysis.com ~ Writing Off Sovereignty: Québec Media on Haiti Since the Earthquake

ADJABEL dans l’metro reportage RFO été 2009

Origines [Racines 3] ~ MONDOMIX 1998

Music of Haiti ~ National Geographic World Music Site

Frequently updated since the earliest posting of January 12th, 2010

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Haiti updates at the New York Times

April 2010

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Rain triggers deadly floods in Haiti ~ BBC News video

March 15-21

Courtesy The Haitian Daily Times

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tweet examiner.com

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Poems from Haiti, translated by Merete Mueller with Dominique Herard

Jan 19, 2010

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March 10th

Haiti campers protest lack of food ~ Yahoo News/AP

Lost in the ruins: Haiti’s best and brightest

March 9th

Video footage © Associated Press

US hospital ship Comfort leaving Haiti~ Yahoo News/AP

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Haitian poet Boadiba’s EARTHQUAKE DIARY (introduced by Ishmael Reed

)

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Note Arundhati Roy‘s comment below on how big-money media have perfected the coverage of crisis, disaster and catastrophe in the 21st century.

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“What are we? Since that’s your question, I’m going to answer you. We’re this country, and it wouldn’t be a thing without us, nothing at all. Who does the planting? Who does the watering? Who does the harvesting? Coffee, cotton, rice, sugar cane, cacao, corn, bananas, vegetables, and all the fruits, who’s going to grow them if we don’t? Yet with all that, we’re poor, that’s true. We’re out of luck, that’s true. We’re miserable, that’s true. But do you know why, brother? Because of our ignorance. We don’t know yet what a force we are, what a single force – all the peasants, all the Negroes of the plain and hill, all united. Some day, when we get wise to that, we’ll rise up from one end of the country to the other.”

– Jacques Roumain (1907-1944),

Masters of the Dew

(Gouverneurs de la rosée)

Translated from the French by Langston Hughes and Mercer Cook