riots, gangs, guns and... rice?

Where to even begin...


In my last blog post, I mentioned that we were having a security situation. Our previously quiet streets had been filled with huge groups of people that were clearly from the slums and dressed like gangsters. They grow their hair long, they wear baggy clothes and a lot of them have huge scars. Our compound is very much isolated from any homes, other businesses, etc. so the people on the street are almost always patients. We do have some street vendors who sell food and phone cards to our staff and patients, but we recognize a lot of them and they usually fairly nice, so these new people really stood out.


Yesterday, a big group of the volunteers and employees had a meeting to talk about what's been going on and discuss options for staying safe. Father Rick started the meeting by explaining why these big groups (40-50 people) have been hanging around. Basically, our organization had a miscommunication with a supplier about where to deliver a shipment of rice. In the past, we have been able to use rice to get in the good graces of the people in Cite Soleil, so that we could provide medical care and other services to the people who live there. Instead, the rice was delivered to Francisville by mistake and these people have been hanging around waiting for the shipment to come in and for our organization to give out the rice. There are a few other security issues besides this, so we had our hour long security meeting and came to some agreements.


As Bridget and I are leaving, we can hear these groups of people yelling and causing a huge commotion. We decide to go up on the roof to see what's going. We get up to the roof and the people are inside Francisville. Francisville has a 20ish foot wall surrounding it on all sides, a padlocked gate, and two security guards. There are probably 20-30 of these gangsters yelling and pacing around in front of my warehouse, when we hear a gunshot. I am seriously freaking out at this point. We're trying to figure out who we should call, when I hear Wynn's keys and can tell he's coming up to the roof too. He asked us if that was really a gunshot, then realizes their inside Francisville, says a few choice words and quickly goes to get Father Rick.


Man, this story is way more fun to tell when I don't have to be PC about it.


Anyways, a few minutes later we see Father and Wynn walk into Francisville to go talk with these guys. Ten or fifteen minutes later, they get everyone outside the gates and start letting some of the tap-taps in to collect the rice. At this point, Ivy and I left to go have dinner at Operation Blessing, but I guess it got even worse. There were more gunshots (they just fire into the air), then someone smashed a bottle on Father Rick's car and broke his window. Father was mad, but it ended up being the other gangsters who started beating him for doing that. Eventually, they got everyone out and the rice is gone. There are no more crowds of people and I was able to go to work today with no problems.


The easiest way to deal with all of this is to laugh about it. Which, let me tell you, there are some pretty hilarious non-blog appropriate moments to joke about. But when you think about the situation its really devastating. These people have come all the way here, stood outside from 4am-10pm, sometimes in the pouring rain, all for rice. There are no other organizations doing food distributions anymore, so their desperation is immense. Father told us about a conversation he had with one of the guys waiting outside the gate. The guy got up in his face and said "Can't you understand? We're here in the rain, all day, all night, because we NEED this rice? Can't you understand how much we NEED this?" and Father replied by saying, "Can't you understand that you're making it IMPOSSIBLE for me to give it to you? You're scaring our patients, our staff... even the rats are staying away because they're scared!"


Completely not true by the way, the rats are definitely still here.


Stay tuned because October 15th should be another fun security day. Aristide (previously ousted president who favored random acts of violence) is supposed to be giving a speech on the radio and depending on what he says, may either be supporting Martelly (the current President) or trying to throw him out. Aristide also happens to be our next door neighbor. He also has chats with these gangsters who camped out by our organization. Apparently, they told Aristide that we are one of the groups that actually gives aid in Cite Soleil (point- St. Luke!)