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in Haiti can be deceiving. The best roads are
dotted with potholes; the worst are rutted dirt
paths, obstacle courses of festering puddles.
As a tap-tap passenger on these byways, shock
absorbers are a heady dream. Combined with
heavy traffic, the state of the roads makes travel
a slow and torturous affair.

But there were places to go, so Donald
drove two hours down the hill to take us
northward into the countryside. We climbed
In a different country, the 2010 earthquake would into the covered bed at the back of BLESSING,
not have claimed so many lives. Poverty, poor and started on our trek to the Moringa farm in
infrastructure, and a multitude of historical factors Pierre Payen.
piled tragedy on top of tragedy. Photo: Curtis Hsing
A PROfOuND AffiNiTy
constructed buildings without steel
reinforcements quickly tumbled, leaving Tzu Chi’s continuous engagement with
underfunded local hospitals unable to keep up Haiti began after the quake, but the affinity was
with the urgent need for treatment of injuries first formed twelve years earlier. In the wake of
and illnesses. Though medical volunteers rushed 1998’s Hurricane Georges—a disaster that left
in from around the world, they too were limited more than 150,000 homeless as it devastated
by inadequate supplies and unpredictable the nation’s agriculture—volunteers at Tzu
electricity. Chi Global Headquarters in Hualien sent four
shipping containers full of clothing to storm
With no money, no homes, and nowhere to survivors. In the decade that followed, Tzu Chi
turn, countless people congregated in makeshift volunteers in the Dominican Republic kept a
tent villages that sprung up wherever there was compassionate eye on their neighbors to the
space. With too many people tightly packed west, holding relief distributions as necessary,
in unsanitary conditions, these areas became such as in 2004, when Hurricane Jeanne killed
havens of disease, including the nation’s first more than three thousand.
ever cholera outbreak, an ongoing epidemic
that had killed nearly eight thousand and In 2008, Tzu Chi grew even closer to Haiti
infected six percent of the country’s population after the island nation was battered by four
by the end of 2012. storms in quick succession—Fay, Gustav, Hanna,
and Ike. The barrage caused more than eight
Now, more than two years after the hundred deaths and exacerbated an ongoing
quake in this place where there had been so food crisis. Sensing a desperate need, Tzu Chi
much pain and so much death, BLESSING was Executive Director of Global Volunteers Stephen
Donald’s constant reminder to appreciate that Huang led a volunteer team to Haiti and was
he was still alive. BLESSING also gave him a way warmly received by then-President René Préval.
to serve his community by running errands
and chauffeuring for Mountain Top Ministries Following this November 2008 visit, forty-
in Pétionville. When Lesly Pierre, Donald’s two Tzu Chi volunteers traveled to Haiti in
old college classmate and close friend, came January 2009 to distribute food and relief
looking for a driver for Tzu Chi, Donald happily goods to more than three thousand families.
made the two-hour commute to help. Their relief mission was significant not only for
its immediate results, but also for the strong
As the crow flies, Pétionville is only ten connections that were forged with the United
miles or so from the Overseas Engineering Nations Stabilization Mission, OECC, and Food
and Construction Co. (OECC), Tzu Chi’s base For The Poor, partnerships that would prove
of operations in Port-au-Prince, but distances invaluable just a year later.

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