Food Relief
and
Medical Care

The first of Vodou Aid's four missions is to provide food and medical care to rural Haitians, especially but not exclusively in times of disaster.

Hunger is a fact of life in Haiti. At least 75% of all adults are malnourished. Nutritional deficiencies are widespread. Infant mortality is high. Hunger drives desperate people to do things they would not otherwise do, and an epidemic of violent crime and kidnapping has taken hold in Haiti. Lawful but often turbulent demonstrations against perceived indifference by those in authority can close down the capital city, and violent incidents sometimes follow.

CLICK HERE for a New York Times video investigating hunger in Haiti.

Food relief programs operate in Haiti, some of them very good and very decent organizations. The problem with these organizations is that very often they "farm out" their food, send it to other distribution centers that they do not personally oversee. Some of those recipients are evangelical Protestant Christian churches.

Almost without exception the Christian churches limit the food to their members only, even though evangelical Protestants are a minority in Haiti. The Vodouisant majority goes unfed, and Haitian pastors crow from their pulpits that the "godly" Americans who sent the food want those who are "in Christ" to eat and live and those who are not "in Christ" to starve and die! Often enough the food is restricted to the higher ranking members of a particular church, who take more than they need and sell some in the market to generate personal cash.

That's why we have Vodou Aid. We seek the same status as any church, we want to distribute disaster assistance to people too! But in the meantime, we have to raise our own money, and Vodouisants must feed our own. We have taken on the added burden of setting what we believe to be the best example - we distribute food without regard to religious affiliation. We say to all in our community, "If you are there when distribution is happening, you will get some food, until the food is done."

Food prices are cruelly high especially in a country where most people don't make $300 US a year. Rice costs the equivalent of about two US dollars per pound. We don't pay that in the USA! Protien foods, the meat of domestic animals and fish, are likewise beyond the reach of the average Haitian. There is no reliable source of milk or cheese. Vegetables are available at the vagaries of devastating hurricanes.

In order to preserve and promote the Vodou religion, we must keep the people alive who form the backbone of this religion in Haiti! They have to eat to live.

During the 2008 hurricane season, four consecutive hurricanes ripped through Haiti, devastating the lives, homes and support systems of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Jacmel was no exception. On Sunday, November 4, 2008, Mambo Racine was able to establish telephone contact with Jean-Louis "Loulou" Prince, an herbalist in our area who teaches plant-based healing and magic.

"The water has gone down," he said, "but now all the gardens are ruined. Livestock is sick from standing in the water. No one has anything to eat, no one has any clothes and the clothes that are soaked in flood water, we have no soap to wash them! We have no money, no food, and it's hard to get medical care. Hounsi Amel of the Roots Without End Society has a relative who was sick with diabetes and died in the storm because they couldn't get his insulin for him."

Health conditions are deteriorating for everyone. There is an epidemic of conjunctivitis that is making everyone miserable. Also malaria is starting up because mosquitos breed in all that water. And typhoid, because the water supply is totally contaminated right now, and who can afford to buy purified water?"

This account from a Haitian man in Jacmel after four hurricanes ripped through, illustrates all of the long term catastrophic effects. Sick and dying livestock, ruined agricultural plantings, contagious water-borne illness, poor sanitation, lack of medicines and medical care... all of thsee conspire to sicken and kill Haitians, right now, today, this moment.

Medical care is a cash-for-service affair in Haiti, and if you have no money you die. Something as simple as an infection, or a case of malaria, becomes life-threatening when untreated. There are clinics which cater to upper-class Haitians, but in our town of Jacmel the best option is the Cuban medical mission at the Hopital St. Michel, God and Guinea bless them. We are also served by an excellent private physician, Dr. Tozin, who is arguably the best diagnostician in the town.

But it takes money! In the years past, we have set broken bones, pulled rotten teeth and replaced them with healthful and perfectly modeled dentures flown in from Miami. We have treated eclampsia and cholera and assorted minor illnesses and injuries. Mambo Racine also teaches her children prevention of illness and injury, risk-reduction strategies, and the importance of vaccination.

Please help us to keep Haiti's rural poor fed and healthy, at minimum. Their rich cultural practices can not be sustained against a background of steady starvation and limited life expectancy! If we want this tradition to live, the people who carry it within themselves must live.

Give generously to Vodou Aid, we beg you bowing very low before you, our hats off and our heads low to the ground before you, please give. Twenty dollars might be a small hardship to you, but it is an enormous gift to them. And if you can give more, if you can help us with $100 or $500, know that every penny, every dime, every dollar of your gift goes straight to Haiti, into the bodies and the lives of the poorest of the world's poor.

Thank you!