Six days ago a devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the country of Haiti, taking the lives of thousands as well as decimating the infrastructure of a country already suffering from political unrest, poverty, and diseases like AIDS. Whereas life may have been a day-to-day guessing game on January 11th for many Haitians, it's now a second-to-second, minute-to-minute clash for survival in a society fighting to find medical relief and shelter, necessities even more basic than the ones they fought for before.
But, unless you've been living in a news-vacuum for the past week, you already knew that.
They're fighting for food. FIGHTING. For FOOD.
Perhaps this tale is a little more unfamiliar to you. Across the ocean there's a country called the Democratic Republic of Congo. This land is filled with plants and animals reminiscent of many people's images of Shangri-La or Paradise.
The okapi, an animal native to DRC.
The DRC is also filled with minerals and gems that the modern world revolves around like diamonds and tantalum, an important component in cell phone production. Because of this the DRC is suffering through turmoil not wholly unlike Haiti, though theirs is not one caused so much by natural disasters. The greed of colonialism and the power of the "almighty dollar" has been a non-stop source of bloodshed for at least the last 50 years in this region of central Africa as governments have changed and been overthrown. People have attempted to escape en masse for years.
This is a story I didn't think about until I started reading The Poisonwood Bible.
Mass migration and fear, also native to DRC.
After finishing my assigned reading I realized that the Food Court here on EIU's campus was about to close for the night. Closing my book and throwing on my shoes, I ran out the door and out into the cold. For the third night in a row a rather thick fog envelops the Charleston, IL evening, lowering visibility to dangerous levels. For lunch I'd had a Subway Tuscan Chicken sub, and I figured that I wasn't really that hungry since I'd eaten just a few hours ago. Still, I cautiously crossed the street and grabbed a late-night power-dinner: Special K Breakfast Bar, Rice Krispy Treat, and a bottle of V8 Splash.
When I walked back outside and stood in the thickly-layered fog, I suddenly found myself in an awkward position. I looked down at my pre-packaged food, then thought of Kingsolver's book on my bed. Quickly I saw comparisons in my head:
American shoes. Made from many quality materials.
Congolese shoes. Made from old tires.
American lunch. Made from chicken breast, cheese, vegetables. Sauce optional.
Congolese lunch. Made from a tuber called cassava. Trace amounts of cyanide NOT optional.
There's been a fog in my consciousness, a fog that's allowed me to slide through even the past six days of constant news coverage about Haiti without truly internalizing the idea of the pain that's out there in the world. But learning about the DRC in Poisonwood has burned that fog off for me, showed me that help is needed all over the world at all times. I'm going to try to do my part, even if just for a minute.
There're two morals to this story:
1. Read Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I swear on everything I respect and love that it will change you.
2. Take action. Now, I'm not saying that everyone should up and adopt children from foreign countries, or hop up out of their jobs and families to join the Peace Corps or whatnot. There are people ready right now to fly over and administer aid. Medicine, food, clean water, and other tools needed to rebuild countries like Haiti and DRC are out there, but they're waiting for the right combination of manpower and dollars.
Tonight Haiti especially needs our help. Two more earthquakes, at magnitudes of 4.6 and 4.7, struck Haiti just yesterday. The crisis isn't going to just fade away.
The problem is huge. But we can solve it together.
Today you can save lives while in line waiting for food, or even in bed. Take action by sending a text with the word "HAITI" in it to 90999, donating $10 to the Red Cross Disaster Relief fund. It'll take 5 seconds, and the money will be billed to your cell phone account. I swear you'll barely even notice you've done it when everything's said and done.
The price of one dinner out with friends at a sit-down restaurant can save the lives of Haitians whose lives have been changed forever due to a circumstance they never asked for (don't get me started on Pat Robertson). If you can't afford it yourself, look for other ways in your area to contribute to disaster relief, or encourage a friend to send the text and go halfsies. There are infinite ways out there to help, to take action.
I'll be taking action tonight by texting "HAITI" to 90999, knowing that my $10 will do better in the hands of the Red Cross I could have done myself. What are you going to do?
-Josh
