Thursday, August 28, 2025



Americans in Haiti: Thoughts from a Volunteer

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Upon returning to any left-leaning liberal arts college in the fall and asking the typical “What did you do over the summer?” question, one occasionally hears about community service trips to developing countries. These trips are frequently attacked, often accurately, as being self-serving resume builders. In his recent Argus opinion piece “Africa for Africans: Thoughts on Humanitarian Work,” Kennedy Odede described this phenomenon: wide-eyed, idealistic Americans taking a community service trip to a developing nation, and return¬ing home with something to put on their resume and a pretentious pseudo-knowledge of the hardships of life in a developing country.

While thinking about this phenomenon, I was reminded of a South Park episode making fun of people who drive hybrid cars. In the episode, South Park is in danger of being polluted by the smug attitudes of Prius owners. Stan, Cartman, and Kyle have to save South Park from being contaminated by a deathly smug cloud by destroying all of the town’s hybrid cars. However, they ultimately realize that driving hybrid cars is a good thing, beneficial to both con¬sumers and to the environment, as long as people aren’t obnoxiously smug about owning one.

This logic can apply to the types of community service trips that many Wesleyan students go on during their long breaks. However, while some peo¬ple act as if they can save developing na¬tions simply by gracing them with their presence, the value of privileged students going on community service trips to developing countries should not be un¬derestimated. Although they can lead to skyrocketing levels of smugness, these ex¬cursions positively affect the flannel-clad Wesleyan students that embark on them as well as the developing nations they are helping, albeit to a lesser extent.

I spent last semester’s spring break volunteering in Haiti with seven other Wesleyan students. We worked with an organization that set up schools and day¬care centers that doubled as treatment centers for PTSD, which many chil¬dren suffered from after the earthquake. We organized supplies, assisted medi¬cal teams that went out to the refugee camps, and entertained children with little to do in the aftermath of the earth¬quake (white people are something of a novelty in Haiti, and children regularly mobbed us to feel our hair and poke our skin to watch it turn pink).

Our two weeks of volunteer work may not have dramatically changed Haiti, but Haiti certainly changed us. A two-week trip certainly does not make me an expert on Haiti, but I learned a lot about a country that is known to many Westerners as nothing more than an impoverished disaster zone. We learned that Haitians put great pride and effort into their appearance. For example, we were teased by young children for how dirty our hands were on more than one occasion. We also learned that many Haitians were infuriated when Western camera crews filmed them living in tent cities after the earthquake, as they were embarrassed by their new economic situ¬ation and felt they were being exploited as sensationalist entertainment.

The most vital lesson I took back from Haiti may seem like an obvious one: that people living in a developing nation are not so different from people who live in the U.S. I found that, de¬spite Haiti’s impoverishment, life goes on. Their lives are complicated by hard¬ships that few in the U.S. ever have to face, but the Haitian teenagers I met were just as interested in texting their friends and flirting with love interests as any American teenager. Haitians are not spending all day mourning their coun¬try’s situation, but instead attempting to go about their daily routines and find new jobs.

We did not save Haiti by gracing it with our presence, but we were able to do something of value, even if it was on a tiny scale. The money we gave to volun¬teer in Haiti was used by our organiza¬tion to pay its full time employees, and virtually all of them are Haitian. We were also able to see for ourselves the hypoc¬risy that often comes with humanitarian aid, a valuable lesson for any privileged teenager thinking about going on a com-munity service trip to a developing na¬tion.

In one story we heard, supplies were being delivered to refugees through Haitian community organizers until UN convoys arrived. At that point, the con¬voys decided to take the supplies and de¬liver them directly to the crowds, result¬ing in a riot. In response, the UN took all of the remaining supplies and left. More direct encounters with hypocrisy-ridden humanitarianism included the tattered tents we saw in the refugee camps em¬broidered with the words “a gift from the American people”—as if the U.S. were a great god bestowing Haiti with its generosity, despite over 200 years of economic exploitation and a continuing strangle hold on the Haitian government through the deliverance of aid money.

We also saw the types of people who go to Haiti to pad their resumes. One doctor we worked with treated her Haitian coworkers and patients like in-ept children. She showed more interest in perfecting her make-up for the pho¬to-op next to a sick Haitian baby than actually treating the baby she was hold¬ing. After witnessing the condescension that often accompanies Western aid to the developing world, we were inspired to change our country’s attitudes about developing nations and our approach to developing aid programs. I do not pretend to be more knowledgeable than Haitians themselves about the rebuild¬ing of their country’s infrastructure; however, as American college students, we have closer access to powerful chan¬nels that could provide crucial assistance just as media attention concerning Haiti is beginning to fade.

So did we change the world? No. But we were able to do something positive for Haiti, and Haiti was able to change us. I gained a passion to get in¬volved with humanitarian work, and was exposed to a brief yet powerful portrait of life in a developing country. If you have the chance to take a community service trip to a developing country, I highly recommend it. When you respect the locals as your equals and avoid smug-faced pretension about your newly-discovered worldliness, these kinds of trips can help others and change you for the better.

Comments

7 responses to “Americans in Haiti: Thoughts from a Volunteer”

  1. Rev. Yves Francois Avatar
    Rev. Yves Francois

    Wow, Seeves, you brought tears to my eyes. Your story is powerful. It is positive and hopeful and this is the kind of stories that the Haitian people need to be told. Thanks for going to Haiti! Thanks for sharing your story! I live in West Palm Beach, Fl, but I was born and grew up in Haiti. Since the earthquake, I took 6 mission trips to Haiti, my homeland. I helped out, and also I paid attention to the attitude of the people and of the so many NGOs that are on the ground. Your story describes the situation as it is on the ground. You did not pretend to go to Haiti to save Haiti and unlike so many, you did not put Haiti down in your story. So, thank you for being objective, loving and compassionate! May God bless you always!

  2. Fr. James E. Byrum Avatar
    Fr. James E. Byrum

    Dear Michael,

    Thanks for this insightful article on Haiti. Your wisdom is refreshing and your humility inspiriing.

    Keep up the great soul you are obviously cultivating and continue to think of creative ways to help others.

    Sincerely,

    The Rev. Canon James E. Byrum
    Managing Director
    The iF Foundation
    http://www.if-foundation.org

  3. Haitian SGT Avatar
    Haitian SGT

    I am haitian and a soldier in the U.S army. I did go after the quake and see for myself. I do thank you for telling us about what you felt and saw… I usually see it, but I wonder how everybody else feels not the haitian but the foreigners who go to help….your insight already prove that you have tried to do something helpful for Haiti and I with the rest of the Haitian community thank you for it… ” It feels different when you are the one witnessing it doesn’t it? Yes the Haitian people are a proud one just like americans, just like french, just like chinese, just like a whole lot of other big countries, we may not be big financially but we are big with pride, pride in our history as the first black nation to gain its independence and pride in our people even if some are a greedy bunch… I thank you again

  4. student Avatar
    student

    But on the other hand, everything you learned in Haiti could have been learned here if you tried, and the money you spent getting there could have gone to pay Haitians to do the work you were doing.

  5. Richard Neel Avatar
    Richard Neel

    Dear Michael,
    You may not remember me but we met at your fols house many moons ago. My wife, Maria, and I live in Guatemala. We lived in Mexico for 5 years previously. Although while living a life abroad we have never participated in a organized humanitarian effort, we have reached out to local folks as students of life rather than teachers. We are still learning how, as guests to other countries, we can have a positive effect.
    Your article shows a brilliant maturity that is inspiring to an old fart like me. Guatemala is rich, more like rampant, with humanitarian groups and projects. I’m not one to judge these efforts but your perspective is unque and beautiful. The kind of perspective that not only helps humanity, but will change it.
    cheers to you my friend!

  6. Bertha Neal-Eley Avatar
    Bertha Neal-Eley

    Excellent article, Michael. I am glad to read that, in spite of the riotous effect the U.N. is having on Haiti, you and your fellow students we able to affect the lives of some of the people you encountered. With regards to what you could have learned without living the country, I believe that at every point in our lives, we are where we should be. Someone’s life was, or will be, touched because YOU were there.

  7. Simon Templeman Avatar
    Simon Templeman

    You must go in order to be able to see with your own eyes. However, the brick wall starts right there; understanding what you are seeing and beyond that, almost, insoluble solutions. I really enjoyed your perspectives.. thanks to your Dad for passing it on.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Wesleyan Argus

Since 1868: The United States’ Oldest Twice-Weekly College Paper

© The Wesleyan Argus