Anst-Bidry Gelin talks about his native Haiti
Haitian Circumstances
Haitian Circumstances
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 1 of 2
The earthquake that hit ten miles away from Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 12 did more
than destroy a city of three million people and disrupted the lives of an entire nation. It also
exposed the vast poverty of the island nation in a way that Hurricane Katrina exposed the
poverty of the United States back in 2005. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Caribbean and one of
the poorest of the world.
While the United States has been directly and indirectly involved in Haitian affairs since
Haiti achieved its independence in 1804 from France, Haiti is a relative mystery to many
Americans. America has militarily occupied Haiti four times since 1915, five times if you
consider the current relief efforts as a military occupation. 548,199 Haitians live in the United
States.
One of those Haitians is Anst-Bidry Gelin, a first year medical student at the UW School of
Medicine and Public Health. Gelin moved to the United States to stay with his father in New York
City and attend high School. After graduating from SUNY- Geneseo, Gelin enrolled at Madison
last September.
While Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital was almost completely destroyed, Gelin’s hometown, Trou-du-Nord in the northeast section of
Haiti, was left relatively unscathed. “My uncle said that as they were in the house, it shook,” Gelin said about when the earthquake hit. “But
there was no building that went down. We don’t have that many tall buildings anyway. Even in a town 28 kilometers west of us, they had no
buildings go down. Maybe there was minor damage. So we are pretty much fine in that sense.”
However, just as with Hurricane Katrina where even the untouched areas of New Orleans were affected, so too was Gelin’s hometown.
With Port-au-Prince being almost literally the center of all nation life, the nation came to a standstill. “Everything has to go through Port-au-
Prince,” Gelin said. “So gas is not coming in. Food is not coming in. The prices have been rising because new supplies haven’t been coming
in. The hospitals are being filled. Everyday, many busloads of people come. Everyone had decided to go to Port-au-Prince and now that Port-
au-Prince is down, everyone is going back home. They need help; they need food. They need to be able to at least buy food. That isn’t
happening. They need medical supplies and medical help. That’s not happening. There are just so many people. I used to spend some time at
a small clinic in the North and we would see a good 80-200 patients on a given day. Now that people are fleeing to the countryside, that is
going to increase. I’m just wondering how they are going to be able to see so many patients. When I talk to folks back home, everyone is
feeling the after effect.”
The movement to the countryside is almost a reversal of the population trends that Haiti has had since the 1950s when Port-au-Prince
had 200,000 residents. Now it has three million. “The shantytowns, slum areas are caused by what we call The Big Mobilization,’ which is the
farmers leaving the countryside and coming to the city for the better life,” Gelin said. “That is a result, I think, of societal values. The farmers
are being seen as being not important. So they are like ‘Okay, if you are going to treat me as unimportant, maybe if I become like you — if I go
live in the city — I will become important.’ So most of the farmers are leaving the countryside and we tend to blame them for doing that. When
they get to the city, they live a miserable life, causing a lot of chaos and things like that. People just sell things and the streets are very
crowded and polluted. That’s what happened. And when you have something like that happening in an area like that, a lot of people die. To
get to the streets, you might have to walk 200 meters. They have to walk down alleyways to get to the street. Even if you wanted to run out, if
you have one minute, you might not have the chance to get to a place where there are no houses coming down on you. Of course that raised
the death toll in those areas if something happens, whether it is water or an earthquake like what happened last week.”
Gelin looks back fondly at his hometown, which is located about eight kilometers from the Caribbean Sea. “The streets are dusty,” Gelin
said. “Some of them have asphalt. It’s just a very quiet place with a lot of people just doing their thing. It’s a community where everyone
knows each other. We have a lot of folks who are out far away studying. It’s halfway between the sea shore and the foothills of the
mountains. My grandfather lives in the mountain and I usually spent my summertime there when I was in primary school. It was fun. The
buildings are green and red and maroon. We tend to like green, yellow, maroon and beige. The doors are brownish. They are normally one
floor. You would find some of them are 2-4 stories. Nowaday, you begin to find more multi-story buildings. Some of them are made out of block
cement. That is the way we construct houses in that part of the world. Some of the houses are made out of bricks. Some are made out of
wood and mud.”
Trou-du-Nord has electricity, but the electricity is intermittent. “We have electricity, but the thing is, gas is usually rare,” Gelin said. “So
we usually have electricity from 6-11 p.m. Often, we will have a shortage of that due to gas. However, during the holiday periods such as
Christmas and New Years, we always have electricity. When the town party days are coming around, we always have electricity around
those times. As for water, they get the water from the mountains and bring it into town. It isn’t well-treated. It’s not like you can go to your sink
and get water 24/7. You have to take the water and place it in something else. We use it later on. It’s kind of like bottled water. They are
installing pipes under the streets, trying to come up with a new system where people would have water 24/7.”
The lack of electricity has forced Haitians to use charcoal as their primary fuel to cook their food. While as a tropical island, Haiti was
blessed with lush vegetation, many of the hillsides and mountainsides have been stripped of their trees, which are used to produce
charcoal. And Haiti’s extreme poverty which causes many people to think about survival on a daily basis exacerbates the situation. Gelin
has seen the impact in his lifetime.
“Because the demand is so high, the people keep on cutting down the trees to make charcoal,” Gelin said. “They are not planting trees,
so you cut them down and don’t plant more. One of the problems with that is people want to see quick responses and fixes. Planting a tree
takes so long for you to see the benefit of that tree. Most people don’t want to go through all that work and probably die without even seeing
the benefit.”
According to Gelin, there isn’t much that separates the lower and middle classes in Haiti. “If you are middle class, you are able to
survive as the days go by,” Gelin said. “Or if you have a great need, by your level in society, you can find somebody to lend you some money
if there is something you have to do, but not enough to save to send kids to study. The middle class has levels also. Some of them are more
like respected individuals, they have power in respect. Others have more money than others. So it is all balanced. They all have the ability to
survive. But they don’t have a lot of money. You don’t make much money as a doctor. You are still a part of the middle class. As a nurse, you
make a maximum of $3,000 per year and $12,000 as a doctor. That isn’t much, but you are considered to be a part of the middle class.”
And while the middle class is very small, the upper class, the wealthy, is a very small minority of the population.
Next issue: Historical influences in contemporary Haiti
While Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital was almost completely destroyed, Gelin’s hometown, Trou-du-Nord in the northeast section of
Haiti, was left relatively unscathed. “My uncle said that as they were in the house, it shook,” Gelin said about when the earthquake hit. “But
there was no building that went down. We don’t have that many tall buildings anyway. Even in a town 28 kilometers west of us, they had no
buildings go down. Maybe there was minor damage. So we are pretty much fine in that sense.”
However, just as with Hurricane Katrina where even the untouched areas of New Orleans were affected, so too was Gelin’s hometown.
With Port-au-Prince being almost literally the center of all nation life, the nation came to a standstill. “Everything has to go through Port-au-
Prince,” Gelin said. “So gas is not coming in. Food is not coming in. The prices have been rising because new supplies haven’t been coming
in. The hospitals are being filled. Everyday, many busloads of people come. Everyone had decided to go to Port-au-Prince and now that Port-
au-Prince is down, everyone is going back home. They need help; they need food. They need to be able to at least buy food. That isn’t
happening. They need medical supplies and medical help. That’s not happening. There are just so many people. I used to spend some time at
a small clinic in the North and we would see a good 80-200 patients on a given day. Now that people are fleeing to the countryside, that is
going to increase. I’m just wondering how they are going to be able to see so many patients. When I talk to folks back home, everyone is
feeling the after effect.”
The movement to the countryside is almost a reversal of the population trends that Haiti has had since the 1950s when Port-au-Prince
had 200,000 residents. Now it has three million. “The shantytowns, slum areas are caused by what we call The Big Mobilization,’ which is the
farmers leaving the countryside and coming to the city for the better life,” Gelin said. “That is a result, I think, of societal values. The farmers
are being seen as being not important. So they are like ‘Okay, if you are going to treat me as unimportant, maybe if I become like you — if I go
live in the city — I will become important.’ So most of the farmers are leaving the countryside and we tend to blame them for doing that. When
they get to the city, they live a miserable life, causing a lot of chaos and things like that. People just sell things and the streets are very
crowded and polluted. That’s what happened. And when you have something like that happening in an area like that, a lot of people die. To
get to the streets, you might have to walk 200 meters. They have to walk down alleyways to get to the street. Even if you wanted to run out, if
you have one minute, you might not have the chance to get to a place where there are no houses coming down on you. Of course that raised
the death toll in those areas if something happens, whether it is water or an earthquake like what happened last week.”
Gelin looks back fondly at his hometown, which is located about eight kilometers from the Caribbean Sea. “The streets are dusty,” Gelin
said. “Some of them have asphalt. It’s just a very quiet place with a lot of people just doing their thing. It’s a community where everyone
knows each other. We have a lot of folks who are out far away studying. It’s halfway between the sea shore and the foothills of the
mountains. My grandfather lives in the mountain and I usually spent my summertime there when I was in primary school. It was fun. The
buildings are green and red and maroon. We tend to like green, yellow, maroon and beige. The doors are brownish. They are normally one
floor. You would find some of them are 2-4 stories. Nowaday, you begin to find more multi-story buildings. Some of them are made out of block
cement. That is the way we construct houses in that part of the world. Some of the houses are made out of bricks. Some are made out of
wood and mud.”
Trou-du-Nord has electricity, but the electricity is intermittent. “We have electricity, but the thing is, gas is usually rare,” Gelin said. “So
we usually have electricity from 6-11 p.m. Often, we will have a shortage of that due to gas. However, during the holiday periods such as
Christmas and New Years, we always have electricity. When the town party days are coming around, we always have electricity around
those times. As for water, they get the water from the mountains and bring it into town. It isn’t well-treated. It’s not like you can go to your sink
and get water 24/7. You have to take the water and place it in something else. We use it later on. It’s kind of like bottled water. They are
installing pipes under the streets, trying to come up with a new system where people would have water 24/7.”
The lack of electricity has forced Haitians to use charcoal as their primary fuel to cook their food. While as a tropical island, Haiti was
blessed with lush vegetation, many of the hillsides and mountainsides have been stripped of their trees, which are used to produce
charcoal. And Haiti’s extreme poverty which causes many people to think about survival on a daily basis exacerbates the situation. Gelin
has seen the impact in his lifetime.
“Because the demand is so high, the people keep on cutting down the trees to make charcoal,” Gelin said. “They are not planting trees,
so you cut them down and don’t plant more. One of the problems with that is people want to see quick responses and fixes. Planting a tree
takes so long for you to see the benefit of that tree. Most people don’t want to go through all that work and probably die without even seeing
the benefit.”
According to Gelin, there isn’t much that separates the lower and middle classes in Haiti. “If you are middle class, you are able to
survive as the days go by,” Gelin said. “Or if you have a great need, by your level in society, you can find somebody to lend you some money
if there is something you have to do, but not enough to save to send kids to study. The middle class has levels also. Some of them are more
like respected individuals, they have power in respect. Others have more money than others. So it is all balanced. They all have the ability to
survive. But they don’t have a lot of money. You don’t make much money as a doctor. You are still a part of the middle class. As a nurse, you
make a maximum of $3,000 per year and $12,000 as a doctor. That isn’t much, but you are considered to be a part of the middle class.”
And while the middle class is very small, the upper class, the wealthy, is a very small minority of the population.
Next issue: Historical influences in contemporary Haiti
| Anst-Bidry Gelin, a first-year UW medical student, was born and raised in Trou-du-Nord, a city in northwestern Haiti. |
