Changing perceptions

The kids seated behind me on a flight from Phoenix to Ft Lauderdale were obviously flying for the first time. They were marveling at the cars as they watched them turn to the size of small toys, then disappear from view. The brother exclaimed "the sky is higher than the clouds?!", as we steadily climbed above the white fluffy ones now below us.

I am hoping that my perceptions will change as well. I've flown countless times. I've lived many years and witnessed poverty and suffering first hand. Noted, it has been in small doses. Nothing like what I am sure to witness in Haiti.

Speaking to my father on the phone last night he told me that people offered their children to him. These parents wanted what I want for my children. Health, happiness, opportunity, a better life. It's what those parents that gave their kids to the now imprisoned Baptist missionaries were hoping for. Am I ready for that?

I only have one way to find out. We live in so much priviledge here. When was the last time you had to think about the water you brush your teeth with? Or if your son was going to be deaf because he has had too many ear infections that went untreated by antibiotics?

The US has given close to $200 billion dollars in Haiti over the last 40 years, and what do they have to show for it? Extreme wealth for a few corrupt politicians and extreme poverty for the rest. There really is no "middle class". All we can do is help the medically needy and extend opportunities for learning. Until their government takes action, or they are cut off, it will only get worse. This earthquake had just highlighted the problems that everyday Haitians face everyday.

Haiti needed this spotlight to hopefully expose the corruption and hopefully put an end to it. Until that happens, the money that is now going in to the country would be better used as toilet paper when the next crisis happens and the the world's media attention deficit disorder kicks in.

My evolving theory is as follows: we, as part of the "civilized", wealthy world, largely ignore situations like Haiti. As a country that is used to such a good life (and I am not blind to the ones here that are struggling), we would not dare give up our personal standard of living voluntarily. The three million or so residents of Haiti live in subject poverty because for them to live with the same kind of lifestyle we tout as our "Rights", there would be less for us. That goes for every other second or third world country as well. Yes, they also have massive corruption, etc., but they wouldn't be hard to overthrow. A lot easier than Iraq. And the people there aren't going to try to kill us with IED's either. I'm sure if they had oil, we would have done it years ago. And this way of thinking is new to me. Am I going rouge?

-Steve

P.S. More to follow (gotta change the laundry before the trip to Haiti in the AM)