The "Incident"

Yesterday was a nicer day spent working around base. I helped organize the tool shed – we cleared a lot of space. We also worked on starting to fix tools. But overall the day was about an unfortunate incident. So I was taking a day off from the rubble site I’ve been working on and my friend Bram (the guy who has been taking some days as team leader on this really tough site) was leading. Apparently there was a Haitian man who came to the site and, initially, was helping run wheelbarrows and such. The man identified himself to Bram as a new local volunteer so there was no problem. Then he started to use the pick-ax and sledge in a dangerous way. Everyone who works with HODR knows to let the team know if you’re using dangerous tools in their vicinity but this guy definitely didn’t do that. So the team took a break while Bram tried to talk to the guy and explain he wasn’t being safe. Anyways, it sounds like things got worse and weirder so Bram called back to base where a HODR staff member, TC, and one of our translators came to the site to try to speak with the man. He didn’t say anything and payed no attention to anybody who tried to talk to him. So this guy jumps on the tap-tap as the team is leaving for base (an hour early, by the way) and basically rode back to base with the team. When one of the female volunteers started to bring the water cooler inside, the man grabbed at her so she of course screamed and ran to the door. At this time I happened to be right near the front entrance so I hear all this commotion and two of the volunteers come frantically running in and slam the door behind them. I peeked out the window and saw the man being pinned down by our day watchman and a couple of the tap-tap drivers (and some other local guys I think). As the men are trying to get this crazy guy off our property, he makes a mad dash and grabs for two other female volunteers who had been hiding around the corner. He was quickly subdued again and, at this point, several of us international volunteers had come out. The man stood at the gate and we pretty much just made a wall of people in front of the man. He stood there just staring – it was really weird and creppy. We all stood there in this standoff for like 10 minutes. There was a minute or so when this guy was staring at me. It was like he was staring me down but at the same time was looking right through me with his vacant stare. Some HODR people had called the Haitian police so the man stood around until the police got there and he struggled a bit but was no match for the four police officers with handcuffs and automatic weapons. They took the man away in the back of their pick-up. HODR also called the UN Police and the Sri Lankan Army. So it was just one man and all but it was a big deal. HODR has really good connections with the UN. The UN promised to look into the situation and make sure that the man was held in custody for at least a few days. Unfortunately, this didn’t exactly happen. Apparently the man was deemed mentally ill by the police, so what did they do? They released him. When the team returned to the site in the afternoon, the man was back. Well, just as the team was leaving for the afternoon, they saw the man and he did more weird, quasi-threatening things but LUCKILY the tap-tap was gone before he could do anything. Everyone was really shaken up by the whole situation and it made me really angry. Not only did this man make it so that we can’t return to the site (which I was going to finish today), but he really made a lot of the volunteers here feel more vulnerable. Leogane feels like a very safe town (and it is, relatively speaking) but everyone has to be more vigilant. So we’ll see what happens with the situation – the Sri Lankan Army has said they will increase patrol around our base and the UN Police said they’ll follow up but we’ll see. Nobody really understands why this happened. One of our translators says he smokes crack, which seems plausible. But it also seems likely that he’s suffering from PTSD – I was told that around this time after a disaster the disease often starts to manifest itself.

Today I stuck around base in the morning doing more work on the tools. In the afternoon I hit a rubble site where I did tons of sledging. Since I’m leaving for break tomorrow it felt good to get out there and work really hard once more.

Tomorrow I leave for the Dominican Republic. I am taking my computer so hopefully I’ll have internet access. I’m really exciting about totally relaxing for the next few days.

Take care.

Love,

Daniel