Haiti Relief

We volunteered (and Mark even played) in a footie benefit game in Nassau for Haiti Relief on Sunday. The event proved a tremendous success with a total of some $11,000 raised for the fund. A very commendable event - there were concession stands, face painting, raffles, 2 games (ROW Vs Jamaica followed by Bahamas Vs Haiti), food and drink. All good stuff but it got us to thinking.

The Haiti tragedy was close to The Bahamas in several ways. Physically the quake happened a few hundred miles away and too far to have any effect whatsoever. But emotionally and demographically it was extremely close. The Bahamas has been regarded in recent years by Haitians (and other less fortunate island countries) as a land of opportunity and prosperity. As such there is a huge Haitian immigrant population, mostly illegal, that carry out the tasks that Bahamians won't - mostly gardening and labouring. As a generalisation, they are tireless workers and responsible for much of the "heavy lifting" round here. Most are low down on the totem pole and make little money (much of which is sent back to Haiti). Most reports were that Port-au-Prince was a seedy, dangerous impoverished city with little saving grace. The city and country is so poor that people regularly take their lives in their hands to make sail on hardly sea-worthy sloops for the Bahamian coast. If they make it, and don't get caught by the authorities, they make contact with some acquaintance and start the daily trudge of grinding out a wage in some backyard in the baking sun.

All the more poignant then that this awful natural catastrophe should happen to such a country and people. As I see the horrendous images from Haiti and read the heart wrenching reports I can't help but wonder "there but for the grace of God go I." Sunday's relief event was terrific not for the money it raised - the massive international relief funds will hopefully take care of that - but to make us all stop, think and consider how fundamental life can be and how a tragedy can turn a world upside down.