There is a point on the unforgiving mountain that separates Port-au-Prince from Jacmel past which the switchbacks become gentler, signalling, at last, the descent into this halcyon city.
Crossing it signifies the near-end of a stomach-sloshing journey; when Lion Paul passes by, a familiar heat ignites beneath his ribs.
“You might not believe me, but every time I get there, I cannot stop my heart from beating fast because I know I’m coming home,” the 63-year-old doctor said, smiling. “In the U.S., I would dream of myself passing again through these streets.”
Dr. Paul, an orthopedic surgeon based in New York, hasn’t lived in Jacmel for more than 30 years. But the earthquake – and the massive array of complicated injuries it caused – drew him back for good.
Orthopedic surgeon Lion Paul examines Betina Darang's leg, which was crushed during the massive earthquake in Haiti. Dr. Paul, a Haitian who has been away for more than 30 years, opened a free clinic in Jacmel after the quake.— Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Throughout the spring, while Haitian government officials were imploring members of the millions’ strong diaspora living abroad to lend their investment and expertise to the aid effort – and while diaspora organizations were sitting around meeting tables in New York, Montreal and Miami, hashing out plans to help their hobbled homeland – Dr. Paul was busy transforming one of the few intact heritage buildings in Jacmel into a modern physiotherapy and psychotherapy clinic.
For weeks, the doctor trawled auctions in New York State for used wheelchairs, crutches and exercise equipment; he even took the painstaking decision to whitewash the antique brick on the inside of the structure in the hope the effect would ease the minds of patients who are still traumatized by entering buildings.
When the free clinic opened its freshly painted doors last month, therapists there began seeing 60 patients per day and helping to plug a wide gap in the medical infrastructure here, which is so scant that many affluent locals prefer to travel to the United States for treatment.
Beyond that, the clinic has taken on a deeper symbolism: It’s a shining example of the immediate impact that individual members of the diaspora can have on the ground if they’re inclined to take the initiative and spare no expense.
“When I opened this thing, I said if we’re going to start thinking big, now is the time,” Dr. Paul explained. “We’re always begging the international community. We’re always asking for help,” he said, adding: “I’m a product of this town. I felt it was time to do something for Jacmel after all the education I received here.”
So far, Dr. Paul has spent a quarter of a million dollars on the clinic, which costs him an additional $5,000 (U.S.) per month to operate, he said.
“This is a gift from me to the town. But I might not be able to sustain it,” he said. To make payroll, Dr. Paul has kept up his practice in New York and now splits his time between the United States and Jacmel; he’s hoping a development group or international donor will ultimately agree to become a partner and pick up part of the tab. Until he finds a partner though, he’ll use his savings to keep the clinic open, largely out of a sense of “responsibility” to his hometown.
“I think people who have been ‘lucky’ … we can come here and make some small changes, do whatever we can do,” he said.
Dona-Lisa Danies and her mother, Marlene Danies, and daughter at home in Montreal.— Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Many members of the Haitian diaspora spread around the world have expressed those same feelings since the earthquake decimated their homeland. However, the decision to return home and assist in the rebuilding effort is one commonly wrestled with.
“I think they would really like for us to come back and rally around them and take the country to another place,” said Dona Lisa Danies, a lawyer and former banking executive in Port-au-Prince who also worked for the Bank of the Republic of Haiti, the nation’s central bank.
The daughter of an influential Jacmel family known for their close relationship to President Jean-Claude Duvalier – her father was the politician and businessman Eric Danies and mother is Marlene Danies, former maven of Le Jacmelienne Beach Hotel – Ms. Danies spent her youth among Haiti’s upper class. She was educated in the United States and had a successful career in Port-au-Prince before she left the country in 2005, frustrated by corruption and endless barriers to progress among Haiti’s governing elite.
“You had to close your eyes to so many things going on and hope you could still make progress on certain little things,” she said. “I didn’t want to endanger my family. A lot of us left – many of us who could have made a difference.”
Now living in Montreal and helping as a contractor from afar, Ms. Danies said she “feels like a coward.”
“We have for generations invested in that country. And here we are living like immigrants in another country. I go to bed at night and I can’t reconcile with the fact that I’m not there doing something about all of this,” she said, adding: “It kills us. You feel like you’re such a traitor.”
But the stability of life in Canada and the future it offers her children has kept her from returning to Haiti, for now. From afar though, she’ll be able to do only so much.
“There is tremendous opportunity here,” said Port-au-Prince architect Yves François. He moved back to Haiti from New York just over a year ago to do business and learned quickly that to make change, “you must be on the ground every day.”
