Room One’s Director recently took a unique vacation, and although it was not part of her role as director, it was inspired by her work with Room One. It all started last January, shortly after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake ravaged the small island nation of Haiti and Karissa was teaching a life skills class to the Methow Valley Independent Learning Center. In light of the recent tragedy she changed her lesson plan to include a discussion of disaster response, the discussion lead to a senior project for one of the students (Jesseca Reece) which raised money for the Haitian relief efforts. As Karissa worked with Jesseca and other students on the fund raiser, a small group including students Jesseca and Jesse Hope, and one additional chaperone (5th grade teacher Erica Bleke) decided to take a trip to Haiti to volunteer for the relief efforts. In a letter to Room One’s board following the vacation Karissa reflected upon her experience:

The devastation in Haiti is unbelievably thorough. However the devastation is not just from the earthquake. This country has been in a bad situation for a very long time. I struggle with calling what is happening there right now a “recovery process” I don’t think that is accurate. Haiti isn’t going to recover to the way it was before the earthquake in January, or even to the way it was before the Hurricanes in 2008. No one would call that recovery. I’ve heard some media hesitantly label the earthquake as an opportunity for Haiti. I believe this is an uncomfortably accurate statement. Obviously it’s not much of an opportunity for the individuals who lost their lives, their families, their homes (if they were fortunate enough to have one), and their jobs (if they were fortunate enough to have one). Which is why it’s so hard to call it an opportunity without cringing. However for the country as a whole, the earthquake is undeniably an opportunity. The entire world just noticed Haiti and is ready to help Haiti make some real long term, sustainable changes in government, disaster preparedness, waste management, and health care. While we were there we worked with Hands On Disaster Response (HODR), I have worked with this organization in the past, I have faith in their mission, in their intentions, and most importantly in their preparedness. This organization assesses every project that they do to assure that their participation in the disaster response can be effective. One of the things that they pride themselves on is being able to provide a venue for unskilled volunteers to come and do productive/effective work. As short term volunteers we prioritized our time on clearing families slabs of debris so they would have a space to build another home (temporary or permanent, most folks were either living wall to wall in a neighbor’s temporary shanty, or living in the street, or living in an IDP camp until their slabs were cleared). We also spent some time doing play time/arts & crafts/ English lessons with the local kids around our volunteer base. Spending time with the kids was probably the most rewarding experience for our kids (they prefer to be referred to as young adults). Jesse and Jesseca connected with the Haitians better than any other blanc (white) volunteers. They played with the kids and communicated in some really incredible ways (Jesse taught all the Haitian kids basket ball tricks and they worshiped him, Jesseca let them play with her camera resulting in some unique and beautiful photos). By the time we left the two had more local friends than any other short term volunteers.

Someone asked me the other day what was the most difficult part of the trip, I answered without hesitation “leaving”. I think Erica, Jesse, and Jesseca would all echo that sentiment. None of us were ready to go at the end of our 9 days. We had an incredible experience and only had a taste of the work that is to come for this country. HODR is working on some very inspiring long term projects including building schools, composting toilets, and sanitation awareness, and disaster preparedness education, cash for work programs, medical assistance, and NGO coordination centers. Each of us had particular interests in different areas of the long term work to be done in Haiti. I hope to return sometime in the future.