Heroes and Villains

Terraced_Land

Local farmers terrace their land to combat the effects of soil erosion in the mountains of Fondwa. Fondwa is the site of where several NGOs work on health and ecological projects. One of the goals of a Fondwa-based NGO is to replenish the forests in various parts of Haiti over several years.

Published August 18, 2015, last updated on October 12, 2017 under Voices of DGHI

By Tanya Thomas

We’re taught that every story has a good guy and a bad guy—the character you root for, and the character whose demise brings you righteous joy. In the real world, however, we come to learn that actual human beings are a bit more nuanced—bad people do good things, and vice versa. And in the realm of non-profit work, it's no secret that possible long term harm can come from short-term good.

This is what I’ve observed and learned about in my classes on development, whether it be the proliferation of the AIDS epidemic worldwide, the deadly cholera infections inadvertently brought to Haiti by the UN, or the chipping away of the Haitian economy that happens every time an NGO brings down from wherever some material good that is perfectly obtainable in Haiti, depriving local merchants of an income that could feed their families for a little while longer. Having read numerous scholarly, statistically valid articles and hearing accounts from professors much more well-versed in the field than I, just thinking about the large NGO presence in Haiti made me itchy, and I braced myself for when I’d see the consequences of the paternalistic blans (foreigners) evident on the ground.

As it tends to pan out in the real world, the situation is a lot less black-and-white when you’re staring it in the face. The missionaries of history books that eradicate “natives” unwilling to convert aren’t the missionaries I met working with Haitian nuns up in the mountains, who become so close to the children they work with. My fellow students whom I worked with every day, who constantly tried to improve their Creole, the language ninety-five percent of Haitians speak (not the French of our colonizers) weren’t the audaciously ignorant foreigners of the documentaries who come to Haiti without even a basic knowledge of Creole, and who expect the Haitians to understand their French or English (and not the other way around). The blans who try to leave Haiti with Haitian orphans with no governmental or parental permission aren’t the ones I met who help care for a three-year-old girl rescued by her father from an abusive mother suffering from post-partum depression.

This isn’t to say that all was rosy in the field. There were the Americans who came and made no effort to learn Creole while they were there nor to understand the culture. Those who think that the loud, rowdy Haitians should change and be more like the docile, proper Americans. There were the people on mission trips who thought that if only Haiti had some nice foreign corporations to develop the land and make it a bit more like America, the people wouldn’t live in such horrible conditions!

Things in the real world aren’t as clear-cut as they are on a two-dimensional page or even a thorough documentary. The producers of these materials do highlight a crucial aspect of development in countries like Haiti. Foreign and/or wealthy powers who think they know best and disregard all notions of common sense and respect of sovereignty shouldn't be hailed as saviors sailing in on white clouds, but rather they should be held to their same, if not higher, standards of respecting the dignity and sovereignty of others, and, most importantly, to do no harm. When these standards are imposed and met, there comes a glimmer of hope that the errors of history can be rectified for a brighter future. And this gives me hope that the world isn’t such a bad place after all.