Silly me. I chose Haití. How can I talk about Haití in 2-3 minutes?
As one of the last students to pick a country, I chose Haití because (a) nobody else picked it, and (b) it had been in the news a lot recently due to the monster 7.0 magnitude earthquake of January 12th. I was thinking "¡los problemas ambientales!"
I have a tendency to take on too many projects, and I over-think pretty much everything, so I'm trying really hard to keep this presentation simple, mainly because I am limited by my small Spanish vocabulary. I must remember that Haití has enough problems to mull over for the rest of my life, and this presentation is only supposed to be 2-3 minutes long.
It doesn't take much scratching of the surface to discover that Haití's problems emerge from the same kind of power struggles that plague the rest of Central America and the Caribbean. How can I say it simply? Haití's problems were caused by the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful can solve Haití's problems but if they did, they would not be so rich and powerful.
What can we do?
We can look at pictures of the destruction and weep for the people who have to endure this tragedy (80% of Haitians live in poverty), we can donate to the earthquake victims via our cellphones and Facebook pages (Haití is the poorest country in the western hemisphere), we can pray to the deity of our choice to ask that the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Haití be lifted (the majority of Haitians practice a mixture of Voodoo and Catholicism), we can talk amongst ourselves about the never-ending bad luck that Haitians face daily (Haitian Creole is the language spoken by most Haitians, although the educated Haitians speak French), we can write to our nation's leaders, and plead with the rich and powerful to do something about the poverty and suffering, yet Haití's problems continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment