Essay: Haiti's Story Rolls On as Journalists Roll Out

Emily Troutman is writing a series of dispatches from Haiti for AOL News. Follow her on Twitter.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Feb. 9) -- If other disasters are any guide, journalists will soon begin retreating from a story that captured the world's undivided attention just days ago.

Already, the poverty, the gunshots, the failure of aid, the impotent government are beginning to blend into Haiti's old milieu, a reality most people forgot in the months and years before this earthquake.

The rush of rescue teams and images of gruesome tragedy are largely over, but readers and journalists -- you and I -- have a powerful chance to rediscover Haiti. What happened here in the past few weeks is less important than why it happened, and how the country can recover. The devastation in the streets is not only about fault lines and Richter scales; it is also about poverty, history and how the world's best intentions went wrong.

On Jan. 11, the day before the earthquake, I gave a small slideshow and presentation about Haiti to my grandmother's local AARP. It was a simple little talk, but over the past few weeks, I've thought of it often. I had just returned from a month in Haiti, where I photographed some of the country's most troubled regions. The slideshow, and our discussion afterward, turned out to be a stark reminder of the gap between people's desire to help others and the knowledge it takes to do so effectively.

In my role as U.N. Citizen Ambassador, I often speak to groups about under-reported humanitarian issues. Coming in out of a bitter cold that day, a dozen seniors listened patiently on folding metal chairs in the meeting hall of my hometown's Presbyterian church. I spoke about the difficulties Haiti will have in achieving the Millennium Development Goals of 2015 -- an aggressive agenda of eight major development goals led by the U.N.

At the time, I thought of these goals as a road map for helping Haiti and other countries get out from under the complex causes of poverty. The Millennium Development Goals aim to reduce maternal death by 75 percent. In Haiti, only 15 percent of all births are attended by a knowledgeable midwife or doctor. The goals aim for 100 percent of children to complete basic primary education; in Haiti, only 27 percent were able to do so.

Haiti seemed so far behind. Especially when it came to urban poverty. Seventy percent of people in Haiti live in slums, meaning they have no access to structurally sound homes, clean water or bathrooms.

As I flashed through my photos, the men and women in the audience grew quiet. Here I was, speaking to a generation that had survived the Depression, and yet, they were breathless. My own grandmother grew up so poor that for years, we've watched, bewildered, as she hides food in her purse at restaurants, or takes half-eaten apples out of the trash.

Finally, a very concerned woman, with her woolen hat still in hand, politely interjected to ask a simple question. "But Emily," she said, "aren't there any missionaries in Haiti? Couldn't they help?"

I was silent for a moment. Her sincerity startled me -- and though I knew it was exactly the right question, I struggled to answer it. I told her what I saw on the ground: Haiti was replete with missionaries, as well as others looking to help. But, in the end, there was more need than aid.

It was a cheap answer. And since the earthquake struck, I've thought of her question a thousand times because it's exactly what journalists ought to be asking now. In December, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti told me there were about 400 registered nongovernmental organizations or charities in the country, but the actual numbers were estimated to be more than 4,000.

The Haitian government seemed to stop no group or individual from entering the country. In many nations, governments require aid groups to register. But Haiti failed to enforce their own rules on the issue. As a result, no one could definitely say who was helping, let alone how much.

The U.N. wasn't taking up the role, either. Effective humanitarian coordination -- as this earthquake has shown us -- is complicated, labor-intensive, expensive and wrought with political risk. The U.N. chose to interpret its mandate as primarily providing security, not humanitarian aid.

In the end, organizations themselves resisted organization. During my time here in December, I delighted in asking every charity official, every orphanage, every do-gooder I encountered, "Who else is doing this work? Who do you coordinate with?" I was entertained, and appalled, by the blank looks on their faces. It was aid in a cowboy state.

No one wanted the job of looking after Haiti. But missionaries, and everyone else, thought they should still do something to help. My little lecture to my grandmother's friends was a perfect example. All I did was tell a sad story -- ignoring the plot, the main characters, the outcome.

What I should've told the woman, what I'd like to tell her now, is that no one really knows if missionaries are helping; they may actually be hurting. "Helping" Haiti has become a high-risk game with no referee, and we're wagering the world's money on it. The real loser in this game is Haiti.

Haiti may be poor, but it has a democratically elected government. It is not saddled with a barren desert landscape. Some portions of the country support a thriving tourism trade. A historic look at Haiti shows eras filled with economic hope and even prosperity. Truth be told, there are millions of people living in conditions that make Haiti's look bucolic -- Sudan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, China, Afghanistan.

Even as we look at the Millennium Development Goals, which provide an important framework for the future, we seem mostly to be asking one question: "What does Haiti need?" But we should also be asking: "Why does Haiti need?" That's more complicated but, ultimately, more important.

Over the past few weeks, I've read dozens of op-eds and essays from the international community, each with its own solution to the problems Haiti faces: Let's send seeds. Let's send urban planners. Let's become the government. Let's derail the government. Let's ship them to America, cancel their debt, stop the cruise ships, build factories, adopt their babies, airlift everyone who's sick to hospitals with better doctors.

My suggestion: Let's listen more carefully. Let's listen to Haitians, many of whom believe the primary responsibility -- and honor -- of rebuilding Haiti ought to fall to them.

Before the moment passes, I would like to acknowledge that the biggest story in the news before the Haitian earthquake was Tiger Woods. I would also like to acknowledge that there are people, like my grandmother and her friends, who care more deeply and with greater intent than we can imagine.

I came here because I wanted to tell the world what happened to Haiti. I will stay, so I can show the world why. As it rebuilds, only Haiti itself can show us how.