Stepping off the air-plane in Haiti in 2006 was a rude and awakinging experience.

Life and daily occupation here is like returuning to some historical time some 100 years ago or so. This is a colonialistic society with a few members at the top...and everyone else as servants.

I give you....the local government, and international governments/organaizations that still refer to citizens as....peasants.....! This one common theme, prevalent throughtout all entities displays the overall judgement here in Haiti....you are either in the elite, or you are a peasant....I wonder what response the US President or other "Western" leaders would recieve from citizens, if they were refed to as "peasants"...

In first entering Haiti, be advised that you enter the poorest country in the western hemishpere, and a dire situation. You must be able to look at your mission here, and attempt to complete that mission without delving into everything else that are in need here...you can not cure it all....stay specific to your mission.

The most difficult part of settling in Haiti and or doing business is whom you may trust. As and expat, you are considered rich and a target for many undesiareable issues, the best advice I may give is to stay focused on your mission, develop good relations and trust with a few select Haitian citizens and let them help you navigate all the nuances and trials here in Haiti. With out local trusted assitance, they will take you to the bank, and break you.....it is just the way it is.

Haiti is expensive for an expat.....do not think that due to poorest nation status that it is cheap....it is very expensive to live in "western" style with norms of that style.

One of the most difficult issues....every where you travel, you will be begged for money, food, etc......you can not help everyone....keep mission in perspective, help those you can....walk away from those you can not....it hurts, but must be done to survive here.

Watching people in Haiti, real time...is like some of the scenes seen in advertisements for the poor in Africa, etc...except this is reality...not some television show to attempt to recieve donations. In Haiti people die every day due to lack of food, simple illness that is regularlly cured in western societies, and just a total lack of societal support for the majority of the people.

Best single piece of advice for Haiti; Find a true friend that is a peasant Haitian, learn to communicate with this person, learn the obstacles, trials, and diificulties this person and his/her families endure. Then begin to attempt to make a difference, by asking what you may do to help these people, not what you, or government, or some one else thinks is the best way to help! Ask the local people!!!! they know what they need most, we do not!

Haitians are a proud people, they can be very loving and accomodating, they can also be very forceful and demeaning if thier needs are circumvented due to un-knowledgeable forieners attempting to "help" change them.

Should you come to Haiti, befriend a local, where your mission is, listen to what he/she, the community has to say....then try to help. Forget pre-concieved notions.....they simply do not work.

Any where in the world, speak to the local people, determine how you may assist them to better thier lives, the community, and the country overall...then attempt to establish a program that these indigineous people can appreciate and maintain.

"give a man a fish, or teach the man to fish"....

WHV, Helping in Haiti (I hope)

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