DRIVING THROUGH PORT-AU-PRINCE continued
It is amazing to watch all kinds of informal stores, people running from one side to another, men pulling carts, women with
big canisters on their heads. It is remarkable to see the streets full of products for sale, as many as anyone can imagine,
from a stick to a bunch of cherries. That is indeed marvelous and encouraging.
In the midst of that hecatomb of economic movement, however, there is a hopeless scene of people who work without
being able to stop, of people who are trying to reach a better something, a something that is not there, a something that
cannot be seen, which is not near.
Beside these peoples, as faithful witnesses, the rubble that the quake left is still standing. The smell of death, the garbage,
the disorder, the lack of cleanliness, the destroyed houses, the crooked buildings, the fractured buildings that are still on
the verge of falling, all of them still stand there as mute storytellers.
At their side, walking over them, or passing below their broken columns, sitting on the fractured buildings, there are the
people: buying, selling, without the time to look around or understand the dangerous situation, no time for reconstruction,
no time to clean, no time to dream, no time to wait, no time to believe, no time to hope, no time for proposals, no time for
a promise. The only available time is the time to survive, the time to fight for life, the time to not allow death to reach them
that day, the time to reduce the pain while waiting for the night without knowing where to sleep, while waiting for a piece of
bread or something to eat, while trying to live just another day.
There is a stronger competition for survival at the same time that there are better opportunities to an improved existence.
In spite of all the efforts of the local and international organizations that are trying to alleviate the condition of Haitians, the
situation now is not better than the one before the quake.
In the midst of crooked buildings and almost falling structures, in the midst of water in the streets and disease and filth
everywhere you look, nothing gets better, everything seems to be standing still.
In the meantime the people of Haiti remain there: on the ground. There they sleep, there they buy and sell, there they live,
and there they die.
As Baptists we strive to answer with another sense: with a sense of grief and a sense of compassion, with a sense of
love, with a sense of urgency.
To our people and to the Haitian needy people, we promise that we will do for you as much as we are able, and more.
Perhaps we lack strategies, plans, bureaucracies and meetings. But we will love you in action, in deed and toil, at least
showing our very presence in the field.
Francisco Martínez Sarita is executive secretary of the Baptist Convention of the Dominican Republic. This article was first
published by the News Service of the Argentine Baptist Association and was translated for the BWA by
Daniel Carro.
PHOTO: A street scene in Port-au-Prince


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