The guy is from Ghana. I met him on South Beach. He
works in Haiti for the Haitian Red Cross. He has no kind word for his host
country. Everybody calls her Madame La Presidente, he said about the woman who
runs the Haitian Red Cross. She is extremely arrogant; everybody is scared of
her; whenever she comes about, everybody freezes; he maintained. And, about the
Haitian system and culture, he sees corruption, outright prejudice and incompetence.
What am I alluding to? Why do I even raise this subject? In the last few posts
I was talking about keeping positive vis-a-vis our Haitian nature. Today, what
I have here is totally the opposite.
Not too long ago the Miami Herald had reported that
the Haitian Red Cross was looking into building a hotel. I thought, weird! Why
would the Red Cross choose to build a hotel?
Even the news reporter appeared to be blurred by the idea. Why a hotel?
The Story - The Red Cross collected a great deal of
money to help the Haitian mass during the seismic catastrophe that struck the
country January 12, 2010. With some of that money, they acquired a massive
piece of property for several millions of dollars. Now, on that land, they say
they want to build a hotel with the rest of the cash. Why a hotel again? The
money was supposed to help the poor wretched people of the devastated country.
In fact, that's the mission of the Red Cross everywhere, helping poor
disadvantaged individuals. Is the Haitian Red Cross now planning to put the
poor people in a four-star hotel? Not likely. According to the report, they
consider it a business opportunity. Our next question - A business opportunity
for whom? Obviously not for the poor folks.
I was thinking about it. But I was thinking in the
American way. I was asking myself. How could that be possible that they have
collected money to help the poor mass of the people, and they turn around to
use that money to build a hotel for themselves while the poor people are still
desperately in need? So many people are still under tents; so many people are
so hungry; so many people are dying with treatable diseases; and so on. The Red
Cross does not see to help those people? It wants to build a hotel?
As I was talking with the African guy; he was
telling me about Madame La Presidente; it came to me. It's Haiti! Madame La
Presidente is Haitian! And, I should not expect much better from Haitian. The
guy deplored the fact that he encounters so much discrimination in Haiti a
black country. As he specified that he would walk into a party and he would be
the only black person there. As we were talking about Madame La Presidente, I
commented, no wonder that the Red Cross in Haiti is about to build a hotel. The
guy laughed his butt out.
The report came out and it went away. Despite the
fact the reporter questioned the logic of building a hotel with the money
destined to help the destitute individuals, he did not try to make a case
against it. I have no idea how Madame La Presidente is advancing with her
project. I call it a negative example, as compare to the positive approach that
we have been envisioning. The worst about it, Madame La Presidente very likely
has carte-blanche to do her thing. There is no government to intervene; there
is no organization to protest; the deprived mass has no voice. And. this is a
good example of the guiltiness of us all. Nobody is challenging Madame La
Presidente to do the right thing.
By E.C. GRANMOUN
ecgranmoun.blogspot.com
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