The reason for the attack and rising religious tension?

Some Voodoo practitioners have said they’ve converted to Christianity for fear they will lose out on aid or a belief that the earthquake was a warning from God.

“Much of this has to do with the aid coming in,” said Max Beauvoir, a Voodoo priest and head of a Voodoo association. “Many missionaries oppose Voodoo. I hope this does not start a war of religions because many of our practitioners are being harassed now unlike any other time that I remember.”

If that’s not terrifying enough, the article goes on to quote a missionary, in Haiti, who pretty much confirms Beauvoir’s fear.

“There’s absolutely a heightened spiritual conflict between Christianity and Voodoo since the quake,” said Pastor Frank Amedia of the Miami-based Touch Heaven Ministries who has been distributing food in Haiti and proselytizing.

“We would give food to the needy in the short term but if they refused to give up Voodoo, I’m not sure we would continue to support them in the long term because we wouldn’t want to perpetuate that practice. We equate it with witchcraft, which is contrary to the Gospel.”

OK, so the heightened spiritual conflict between Christianity and Voodoo
since the quake Pastor Amedia refers to is the result of missionaries vilifying Voodooism; it’s not an accident. Provided all accounts in the article are accurate, some missionaries are igniting and fueling anti-Voodoo sentiment.

This article caught my attention not just because of the scary religious conflict it portends, but also because this is yet another instance of wealthy outsiders dividing people in times of grief, loss and struggle and turning them against one another.  And it reminded me that while I admire many of the faith-based organizations and religious volunteers I’ve come in contact with, conditional aid causes more problems than it solves.

This problematic, ethnocentric “missionary impulse” led 10 American “missionaries” to kidnap 100 Haitian “orphans” last month. Tim Egan, in the New York Times Opinionator blog, sheds light on their presumption and foolishness:

Imagine if a voodoo minister from Haiti had shown up in Boise after an earthquake, looking for children in poor neighborhoods and offering “opportunities for adoption” back to Haiti. He could say, as those who followed [Laura Silsby and jailed for kidnapping Haitian children] explained on a Web site, that “the unsaved world needs to hear” from the saved.

I realize this is an extreme and mostly indefensible situation, but it would be naive not to think that Voodooism in Haiti isn’t attracting a number of eager soul-savers trading basic necessities for spiritual and cultural allegiance and further victimizing people who little left but their relationships, culture and faith.

My friend photographer Linda Jaquez came to visit me a couple months ago and she took the photos in this gallery. I wrote captions for each image and an essay describing the work that non-profit organizations are doing to get people in New Orleans home

I absolutely see non-profits, especially those that use volunteer labor, shouldering the burden four years after the storm and also doing the most high-profile work in the city. However, what my essay doesn’t say explicitly and what I’m still grappling with are my misgivings about the predominance of non-profits in post-Katrina recovery.

That non-government organizations are at the forefront of this work suggests an absence of assistance from federal, state, and city governments. Homeowners and even renters did receive compensation from government agencies (though it was often not sufficient), but the help to rebuild–the contractors, labor, and materials–came from private citizens, companies, and non-profit organizations. Some of these were predatory and some saintly and it goes without saying that any government agency would have been both of those things as well, but my concern is the way that nonprofit organizations while responding to an obvious and gaping need, also inadvertently take the heat off government.

This is not to disparage the work that non-profits are doing. Someone had to step up. It’s more to state my own misgiving and my intention to look more closely at the implications of non-government driven disaster recovery both on individual and civic levels. In particular I’m wondering about what’s referred to as the Non-profit Industrial Complex and the ways organizations start as grassroots, political groups and gradually become more corporate institutions as they take on more responsibility and become more successful.

Now, after months of nailing, blocking, taping, mudding, sanding, mudding again, sanding, and painting—I have a much greater respect for and understanding of THE WALLS. Mostly because I now realize how easy it is to screw them up.

My first experience mudding and sanding drywall is with the Episcopal Diocese Office of Disaster Response. I already knew that drywall goes up in four-by-eight foot sheets because I’d helped to unload several palates with Habitat for Humanity. However, Habitat subcontracts its drywall and I’ve heard from plenty of staff that it’s tricky to cut and what takes volunteers two weeks can be done by professionals in a day or two. But when you’re mostly working with volunteers on interiors of homes—as you are with rebuilds compared to the new building Habitat does–it just makes sense to have them hanging, taping, mudding and sanding drywall.

See, the thing about floating sheet rock (drywall) that’s difficult, and that I had never thought about, is making the seams go away. Turns out you do that with a funny sort of tape stuck to, and then covered with, layer upon layer of “mud.” Mud, or joint compound, is basically wet, sticky clay that you spread on the walls with a knife—about four inches wide for the first layer and progressively larger as you layer–and it’s used to fill in screw holes and cover drywall tape.

With the Episcopal Diocese we were doing final coat mudding and sanding. I was working with a church group from Florida and staying motivated to cover, sand, recover, and resand any visible hole or tape was by far the biggest challenge. We moved in a cloud of drywall dust from all the sanding and piles of scraped mud collected around our feet. Layer on too much mud, or layer unevenly, and you’d have to sand once it dried, too little and you’d need to add another layer. I’d comb the ceiling and walls for uneven spots, visible tape, or a ridge in need of sanding, think, no, swear, I’d gotten everything just to have the house captain come by and point out a some little spot of tape or screw hole that needed to be covered.

At the end of the week, our house captain put the whole exhausting and sometimes discouraging activity in perspective. “I know you’re tired, but as we work, you’ve just got to remember why we’re here and that’s because of the homeowner. Imagine the homeowner having guests over for dinner at the house. You want them to be proud of the work here and proud to entertain in the home. People only notice bad walls.”

But that was just an introduction to walls. I got a much more comprehensive education when I worked on second and third coat mudding with the St. Bernard Project. They were in the middle of a huge push to get a bunch of people home before Christmas. That prospect motivated the crew chiefs and volunteers to mud until my shoulder was so tired I could barely hold my knife. And again, it was never done. I learned to mud corners one side at a time and to use a progressively bigger knife as we put on second and third coat and I was again reminded how important it is to make walls look perfect–seamless, if you will.

All this experience made it easier for me to help Joe with a drywall patch at the Catholic Worker House a few weeks ago. It’s proof that sticking around and developing your skills can make you a more valuable volunteer. Helping to drywall homes—or fix existing walls—is exciting because it’s end-stage work. By the time you’re mudding and sanding, the house has taken form and you can see the move-in approaching.

Walls have pretty obvious symbolic meaning—they lend structure your domestic life, keep you safe and make the clear distinction between a frame and a home—but for a lot of people out here the presence or absence of walls is the difference between living in an abandoned or gutted building and living in a home. Of course you can have walls without electricity, heat or water, but not without windows or a roof. When predatory contractors came into the city, a lot of them just put up walls over molding frames and invited residents back home into rotting houses.

The home besides being a basic human right and need represents security, stability and safety. Its crucial parts then–walls, roof, floor and windows–also become not only materially necessary but emblematic of well-being and comfort.

[I guess walls also function to keep people outside, but, yeah, that's another reading for another time....]

Starting….now.

Homelessness is clearly a problem in New Orleans—it’s a problem in most cities—and since I was volunteering to support people’s access to housing, I knew I needed to be working with the homeless community here. Rebuild and blight are clearly the high profile volunteer cause, and many homeless people in the city lost their housing directly because of the storm, but right now there are at least 11,500 homeless people in New Orleans.

When my friend (and very temporary roommate) Maria Cicci came here a few years back when in school for non-profit management at DePaul, they met with a group of Presentation Sisters who worked at The Harry Tompson Center. The Center has been around since 1999, but in 2007 The Harry Tompson Rebuild Center opened behind St. Joseph’s Church on Tulane. It’s a facility where homeless people can come between 9am and 2pm for breakfast and lunch, to use the phones, do laundry, take showers, and get some mental health, medical and legal services. Run by a partnership between the Presentation Sisters’ Lantern Mission, Catholic Charities Hispanic Apostolate, the Center also has its own director and assistant director. It’s also staffed by Jesuit Volunteer Corp—like Americorp but faith-based–doing a year of service in New Orleans.

Maria wanted to see the place and Sister Vera, one of the sisters she met on her last visit, and I was looking for somewhere to volunteer so we stopped by one sweltering Monday afternoon in September.

The Rebuild Center is a courtyard lined with benches. There are showers and sinks around the perimeter and guests chat or surreptitiously doze (sleeping is not allowed) while waiting for lunch or for to be called for the shower or phones. The Center has bright, leafy planters and that day visitors tried to find space in any available shade. While we waited for Sister Vera at the entrance, I noticed a tired woman sitting on a bench near the check-in desk fanning herself with a piece of paper. A younger woman with a nametag and a genuinely sympathetic look was giving her what I had to assume was bad news. The woman said little, but her face registered resigned frustration. The staffer walked away.

Sister Vera greeted us and immediately launched into a rapid fire tour of the facility:

“In the mornings, people start lining up around 8am. We officially open at nine and we serve a small breakfast and then people are able to do laundry and take showers. We do about 20 loads of laundry a day. Our health clinic is open four days a week, and we’ve got financial services and prescription care–”

As she walked past, a man called out to her:

“Sister, when you gonna come talk to me?”

“Oh, I’m very busy right now,” she said, taking his hand, “but remember, I am your friend.”

Sister Vera was formidable, with short, wavy grey hair. Raised by a lapsed Catholic father and a Jewish mother, I have had limited experience with nuns. But I understand the stereotype: tough, unsentimental and efficient. Sister Vera introduced us to Emily Bussen, the assistant director at the Center who stopped to chat briefly between fielding requests from guests. I asked her about volunteering and she gave me her card and told me I could come whenever.

Without much warning, it was time for lunch. Another nun with a megaphone stepped up and instructed everyone to take a colored ticket. “People seated will receive tickets first!” she repeated sharply. Once the tickets were handed out, it was time to start lining up. The crowd surged, and shifted anxiously—“orange tickets my line up. Only orange.”

The line began to snake through every hallway of the Center, and back onto the patio. Mostly people filed through, but the nuns tolerated little dissent in the ranks. “Feel like cattle being herded” I hear someone mutter. “Ah, these nuns, you like that?” a man to my left asks me. “It’s like being in school all over again. They don’t mess around. You better line up.” The man tells us he just got in from Detroit eight days ago. “They’ve got depression-era unemployment. I’ve had so many jobs, I just know I gotta be able to find work down here, no doubt about it.”

After lunch we chatted with people on the benches about the heat, whether Chicago is better than New York, and someone’s recent trip to Atlanta. The guests to the Center that day seemed to be mostly middle-aged African American men with varying degrees of obvious need. The clean, open-air surroundings—no cafeteria tables or fluorescent lighting–the good company of guests we talked with, and the responsive and upbeat staff made the environment welcoming despite obvious physical discomfort. When a staff member passed by, I smile at her and ask if she needs any help.

“Actually, yeah, can you work the phone list?” She sits me down at a small desk and shows me the list. There are four phones in a small room. People who want to use the phone have to sign up on the list and each person gets about ten minutes to talk. “After ten minutes is up I usually go in and say, ‘two more minutes’ and just keep reminding them.” I sit down and start taking names.

In the following weeks when I volunteer at the Harry Tompson Center, this is my job. I get a chance to talk with people as they wait for lunch or the phone, and it’s a great way to get to know guests. Some days the Center isn’t too crowded and people barely have to wait, but it still feels somewhat wrong that I am in control over when and for how long men and women my parents’ age get to use the phone. Remembering names takes on deep significance for me. I’m not good at this in any scenario, but here I begin to see it as the most obvious and essential way to show respect and build a foundation and I work doggedly at it.

I mention this to Emily and she explains that it’s a way to make the exchange about relationships rather than one-way giving and receiving. Emily has a soft, deeply responsive face and she uses the same warmth and openness when describing to me“the first time you remember their name and it catches them off guard, like, ‘you remember my name?’” as she does when at her job helping someone make an doctor’s appointment.

As I work the phones and slowly get to know several of the guests, I become more aware of the specific challenges facing homeless people in New Orleans. A huge number of the calls made are about jobs—following up with potential employers or trying to pursue leads on work. Many spend most of an afternoon on hold with “welfare” or trying to figure out both government and non-profit bureaucracies. I know this both because people have told me about their struggles and needs and because when you use a phone at a homeless drop-in center, there’s a general lack of privacy as well as control over your own affairs and how and when they’re taken care of.

I get a greater sense of empathy, but still, am reminded of how little I know about life on the streets (It’s hard, sometimes, to even know what that phrase means). One day a man I’d seen before walking, disheveled with a broken backpack,downtown approached me with a fixed stare.

“Do you say your prayers at night?” He asked. I told him that I do, in my own way. “Do you pray for a better world?” He continued. “Yes, that’s definitely what I pray for,” I told him, realizing in the moment how true it was. Things are easy for you.” He continued, “but it’s a hard world out there.” His gaze was fixed on me. “ It’s hard out there.”

“No one is focusing on the semiotics of fashion” in a disaster, said Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “But there’s an important function, when people are desperate for some kind of infrastructure, in someone wearing a white coat or some kind of quasiuniform.”

Though we’re talking about people getting signs and signals from clothes, I think the function of uniforms and dress is relevant to a discussion of non-profit appearances and people’s unconscious attitudes toward particular non-profits.

I’ve been thinking a lot about non-profit branding and brand recognition. The Red Cross is the most obvious example of a powerful and very visible non-profit brand. Maria Cicci told me she remembers seeing the logo on all sorts of relief supplies in Thailand after the tsunami and after disasters the Red Cross seems to be the go to non-profit for private donations. They are also recipients of fundraising from telethons and corporate efforts, and this is not really an accident. They are huge, spending over $143,000 on fundraising alone last year, and deeply connected the US government—the President of the US appoints eight of its fifty board members and is the board’s honorary chairperson.

Habitat for Humanity too is a huge and widely recognized non-profit and what’s interesting to me is not so much whether the big non-profits do good work but the sense of security and confidence these brands inspire. Bear with me because I don’t have much knowledge about branding and its psychology. I’m sure for many this is obvious, but I’ll try to base it in my own experiences and observations so that it’s not too elementary.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve met several Habitat homeowners for whom the fact that they were getting a “Habitat home” meant something. It was an assurance that the structure would be built, and you know what it costs, you know the terms of your 30-year, no-interest, loan, you know what it’s going to look like—especially in New Orleans where the Habitat home is becoming a staple of local architecture in some areas. In a city where thousands of homeowners have been taken by contractor fraud brand security is going to become more important.

Likewise, as a volunteer, when you come to Habitat, you know what to expect. Or at least think you do—different affiliate branches probably run things differently. I don’t know but would be interested to hear if that’s the case. Either way, the idea that appearances and brands send particular implicit messages to audiences and survivor communities in times of disaster demonstrates how disaster relief and community service—charity itself—is a complex and well-orchestrated business and the services provided are in direct response to the expectations of a particular audience or community.

This is true of the news as well. Hence the branding and the clothing:

“We know the rules of what journalists look like have changed a lot,” Ms. Steele said. They have shifted from the military style favored by, say, John Hersey, who was pictured on a United States postage stamp in a combat helmet and uniform. “That’s simply a part of where society in general is going,” she added, referring to the shift away from formality and the hierarchies suggested by wise old owls like Walter Cronkite, with their sandy mustaches, their elbow patches and pipes, toward sexy entertainment news and correspondents with “that international superstar journalist look.”

So the change in newscaster appearance suggests we’re looking for more sexiness and entertainment—kind of creepy things to be prioritizing in coverage of an earthquake that may have killed as many as 150,000 people, but whatever, it’s subliminal, news organizations are gross, we’ve been over it. But I want to know, what are we desperate for? If we don’t need to see journalists with authority or wisdom, what does the Anderson Cooper effect suggest about our needs and desires as an audience?

And then, what can we conclude about the needs of groups of people—donors in particular—based on the messaging and branding of aid organizations?

Especially considering that in New Orleans, it’s private non-profits that are doing a substantial amount of the visible rebuild and social service work. Government funded at times, but if you need your house rebuilt, you don’t call HUD and if you’re in town for the weekend you don’t volunteer with the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency.

I had dinner with Katy, Joe, Dan, Paul and Sue from the New Orleans Catholic Worker a few months ago and found their goal of taking the experience of privilege and hierarchy out of the act of service really appealing. I’m not a Catholic, but recently I’ve come across a number of faith-based organizations and religious individuals I feel are doing productive and thoughtful anti-poverty work in the city.

I’m still learning about faith-based service work, so recommendations on theory and biography would be greatly appreciated. However, my initial impression is that when guiding principals are both shared and widely recognized–for example, the idea that God is on the side of the poor and oppressed and to serve God is to serve victims of injustice–there’s a foundation of common goals that are useful for community service and anti-poverty work. People also in general understand and accept The Church as a charity or place of community service so it can be easier for religious organizations to gain trust of a community.

The Catholic Worker goal of serving those in need and without judgment or hierarchies is appealing especially because I’ve worked with so many volunteers who come looking for gratitude for their service. It’s been my experience that traveling to a place like New Orleans to volunteer can sometimes reaffirm someone’s experience of privilege. Showing you how different you are from the person you’re serving, giving the impression that their circumstances would never be your own, and creating a divide rather than a sense of common humanity.

I’d fallen out of touch with the New Orleans Catholic Worker group during the holidays. But when I finally reached out last week, I was excited to learn they’re planning to move into a house February 1st. There’s a fair amount of work to do on the place before they move in next week and Dan invited me to a working day on Saturday.

I showed up with no idea what we’d be doing. Joe asked if I knew how to float drywall. I told him I’ve sanded and mudded, but never cut or hung drywall. “Perfect, I need someone to tape and mud some drywall patches.”

Katy gave me a quick tour of the two-story double shotgun. They’d brought down a wall in the front room so that the two apartments would be connected. From what I could tell, the house needed paint, tile, and general interior beautification but was would be warm and comfortable once the interior was fixed up. Joe pointed me in the direction of the drywall patches and I told him my ideas for mudding and taping the seams. “I’ve done this once, like 10 years ago, so whatever you want to do, go ahead,” he said.

And here, finally, after months of volunteering, I found myself in a unique position to do something that needed to be done and that I had experience in. Joe, or Katy, or someone else, would of course have been able to fix the patch (Joe finished all the mudding and sanding himself), but to go into an unfamiliar situation and understand the task felt amazing and was such a difference from the way things were when I first got here and barely knew how to use a saw or hammer nails.

I can see the benefit of my investment of time and I can see myself becoming a better construction volunteer because of the work I’ve done these past few months.

The walls won’t be perfect—they weren’t perfect to begin with, but I got the work done and I even taught Isaac, another volunteer who’ll be living in the house, how to mud. There was a feeling of purpose. People were here, figuring the tasks out because that’s what needed to get done. Volunteering to help the on the Catholic Worker house wasn’t just something to do to feel good about myself, it was a way to help friends who would in turn be helping others.

I’m excited to see what the house will become in the next year. For now, Katy, Joe, Dan and Isaac will live there and try to connect with the Irish Channel community served by organizations like Hope House (a faith-based org that provides a variety of services). Hope House actually owns this property and their experience and connections in the neighborhood will ideally give the Catholic Worker a stronger foundation in the Irish Channel.

She makes a valid and thoughtful point about the US military dispatch of 10,000 soldiers:

But ten thousand is also half the number of soldiers dispatched by Washington to Haiti in 2001 when Jean Bertrand Aristide needed support as he was forging a new chance at Haiti’s revival. Three years later, when he failed to deliver, it was a U.S. Air Force jet that flew the once popular, ever populist, but increasingly despotic president to Africa with instructions to not come back. Aristide then was not up against a task as large as the one that confronts his country today. Aristide today only weeps and begs to be returned to help his homeland.

And again points out possible contradiction in military relief:

When I read about the Global Hawk, the state-of-the-art U.S. Air Force drone currently making sorties over the battered island, I want to cheer the utility of its images in helping establish safe places for resettlement, supply deliveries, and areas where rescuers may still find survivors. I try to ignore the promotional claim that the Global Hawk “helps commanders know the most current information about enemy locations.”

This reminds me that Haiti is no stranger to militarism, and renews my (quite possibly foolish) hope that troops will remain civil peacekeepers.

How to use a jigsaw—hint: slowly, and clamp whatever you’re sawing.

Roofing—roofing is deceptively difficult because you’re bent over rolling out tar paper, nailing button cap nails—little nails with plastic caps on the top so thin materials won’t rip—and then shingles. The work is repetitive and easy, but after a day of it, especially in the New Orleans heat, you’re physically obliterated. There were two weeks where it felt like we roofed every other day.

Blocking—putting blocks of two-by-fours between studs in the walls of the kitchen and bathroom so that you have something to nail cabinets into. It is some of the hardest work with a hammer and nail I’ve done. You keep nailing and the block keeps falling out of place—until David comes along and tells you to put a nail underneath the block and hold it in place while you hammer. Does this make sense? I don’t know, but trust me, it was hard, Dave made it easier.

David moved to New Orleans during the summer of 2006. He gutted houses for a while but throwing out the entire contents of other people’s lives got to be too much so he started volunteering with Habitat—constructing homes instead of deconstructing them.

After volunteering for a few weeks he was hired at Habitat and started running volunteers soon after. Dude didn’t have much construction experience, but construction experience can be taught—what he did have, and what would have been harder to teach, were patience, an even temper and a genuine desire to help people in New Orleans. Three years later, none of that has changed, but he also knows how to build houses.

His girlfriend and I were chatting last night, and I was expressing affection for David and all the good feelings that spring up in volunteer situations. She told me that he gets tons of letters and cards and emails from people who volunteer with him, which is really not surprising. David, like all the Habitat staffers I’ve worked with, is genuinely pleasant to be around, also he’s going to be very annoyed that I’m writing these things about him because he’s a pretty self-effacing, modest guy.

OK, so I’ll make a larger point to avoid this being a weird David Currier love fest—

While there’s still a question about whether a particular volunteer opportunity or experience—Habitat included—is of small or great value to the recipient of the services, there is no question that volunteering is great for the volunteer. I’m writing this about David because he was the staff person I happened to work with every day, but I could just as easily be writing this about almost any rebuild or new-build staff person I have volunteered with.

The experience of giving time for me was almost addictive. This was in large part because I was learning all sorts of new things and I had nice teachers who didn’t yell at me or make me feel bad when I screwed up. No one is ever going to pay me to roof a house when they can pay someone who actually knows what to do. But because I’m free, I get to go up there and nail in shingles—with a nail gun!

There is unmistakable privilege in this. I can afford to donate the time so I get to learn. But David donated the time, got a job, helped a bunch of people and was able to pay his rent. Who’s to say if I hadn’t been a little more driven to do this work…well, no, I’m never going to get paid for construction, but do feel like I could have been doing the equivalent of an internship in carpentry for the a couple months this fall and if I ever need a new roof, I could probably figure it out myself.

Daniel and many others are concerned that Haiti is a dangerous place to be right now. The question we debated is whether the media has overstated possible dangers to aid workers or in Port-au-Prince. We’ve both heard that recovery aid has been slow—Damon Winter on the New York Times Lens blog says in an interview with James Estrin:

I’m just amazed at the lack of relief that we’re seeing here. Every day, we go out with the intention of finding some kind of relief program happening here. And we just don’t find it. I’ve seen one U.N.-sponsored food distribution food line and that’s pretty much the only thing I encountered, beyond a local police officer who owned a water truck and who was distributing water to these really, really desperate people.

But as Estrin points out, can you really call some people fighting over meager supplies looting? Natalie Hopkinson at The Root argues that the media, in this case, the New York Times, is too quick to interpret images of black survivors who are possibly foraging for food both in Haiti and New Orleans during Katrina as looters.

And there’s a sense that looting, violence or other security issues could be part of the reason aid isn’t getting disseminated across Port-au-Prince quickly or efficiently. Daniel says the videos that he’s seen on CNN and online look like “Hell on Earth” (I haven’t watched any video coverage, have just been reading articles). He saw it reported on Rachel Maddow’s show that neighborhoods have set up roadblocks of corpses. We both heard that two aid workers from the Dominican Republic were shot. And Lt. General Ken Keen of the U.S. Southern Command has said that “incidents of violence” are hindering aid workers and “fear of looters and robbers has been one of the factors slowing the delivery of aid.”

This seems to me like a justification for the military to come to Haiti and act like, well, the military. Implementing and enforcing curfews, controlling citizens through force and threats of violence and generally dehumanizing the already terrified population. Creating an illusion of a state of chaos in part because the military functions more efficiently and effectively when it has permission to use force and is free from restrictions of peacetime civility. It is the military, after all—but, of course, I’m not there, I can’t confirm or deny reports of violence and this is my paranoid mistrust of troop activity in general, I admit.

I would have imagined the collapsed port and single airport runway are bigger impediments to aid workers, especially since others, including Paul Farmer of Partners in Health and Michael Appleton, another photographer for the Times Lens blog, both denied rumors of widespread violence or looting—

Appleton compared it to the 2004 coup in today’s post, saying:

“It feels much safer than 2004, when there were people with knives and guns everywhere. There is much more suffering now, but people are together — in groups of hundreds — still sleeping in the street, still singing prayers.”

This leaves me no more or less convinced that Haiti is dangerous for aid workers right now. I can imagine that distributing food, water and medical supplies to desperate people can get chaotic, but isn’t that always the case in disaster response? Aren’t these organizations trained to diffuse situations and address need peacefully and efficiently?

My sense is the true danger in Haiti is to Haitians approaching a week post-earthquake without adequate help.