Haiti the island that exists

Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, profoundly underdeveloped, extremely fragile: for too long a "country adrift", sucked into a vortex of poverty, violence, environmental degradation, authoritarianism and political instability.

The truly noteworthy point is that, even in this inextricable tangle of horror, there are those who try to bring life. Reason struggles to find a way, love goes further. Not in the abstract, but with a precise, consciously constructed will.
And it's possible!

The Camillian father Massimo Miraglio is at home on the island, more precisely in Jèremie. While awaiting the completion of the hospital for which he is responsible, after the disastrous earthquake of 2021, Father Massimo managed a vast program of mobile clinics in the mountainous areas of the hinterland - largely supported by Sermig - with a staff of doctors and nurses. The work in the mountain communities then continued, to take care of these isolated people, often without priests who could guide the small local communities to join efforts to escape poverty.
Therefore, establishing connections and working on the most urgent needs: housing, community structures, food, access to water... a time of reconstruction, of life in ruins first and foremost.

Father Massimo has been parish priest in Pourcine for a few months, near Pic Macaya, Haiti's second highest mountain, 2,347 metres: an area of ​​dense forests, rich in water, biodiversity, hurricanes... and very isolated. To get there it takes three hours by off-road vehicle, and then four on foot: people therefore have no way of bringing some produce from the land to a market on the plain. From the care of souls to that of lives - 4,000 people in 17 hamlets - the step, as we know, is short.

Everything is missing, obviously.
The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is en plein air; when it is a building or similar, it will also house the elementary school, and there will be a nursery school.
In the two versatile rooms of the Rectory, the "clinic" has already begun... Among many, one is the strategic priority: safe water for human consumption.
The basis on which to build, while the many diseases, even lethal, brought by contaminated water drawn here and there are rapidly reduced. A good solution is feasible: a small aqueduct, a few kilometers long, which conveys water from springs high in the mountains to a reservoir in the village, then branching out towards some fountains for distribution.

Intake works, pipes, valves, tanks, fountains: this is no small job, also considering the difficult logistics; but you can also count on a certain technical support from cooperators who still operate in the area. The people of Pourcine, together, will take on a lot of work: everyone's contribution will be a founding step of a new community, ready to live in harmony on its land, not forced to leave it for the slums of the cities. An example, for many.

The other protagonists... are all of us: two chlorinators powered by photovoltaics have already started, we want to be able to offer the resources that are missing to carry out this very important work, and do it in the best possible way, because good must be done well, to bring all the good possible.
Even where possible it wouldn't be!
Don't you think that's really good news?

Mauro Palombo
NP August / September 2024