Calling Dr. Phil & Oprah: What Should Happen Next In
Haiti?
10 February 2010By Jane Stillwater
After the telethon fund-raising is over, the
baby-snatching fundamentalists have done their
allotment of good deeds and gone home, "compassion
fatigue" has set in here in America like it did after
Katrina, and the Marines, hopefully, have gone back to
Afghanistan where they may or may not belong, then
what will happen to Haiti after that?
With beach-front property in the Caribbean now selling
for up to $5,000 an acre and Port au Prince's cheap
labor pool, Haiti will probably never be lacking for
new resort developers, more sweatshop owners, even
more corrupt politicians and bigger and better
neo-colonialists. That goes without saying of course.
But what about the Haitian people themselves? What
will happen to them?
I ran into a Haitian woman at the library a few weeks
ago and she still hadn't yet heard from her parents
back in Port au Prince -- whether they were safe,
injured or even alive or not -- even though it had
been ten days after the earthquake. So when I saw her
again today, I asked, "Have you heard anything more?"
"Yes! Most of my family is safe!" Whew.
"So what do you think will happen next in Haiti," I
asked her, "now that the major impact is over?"
"Now we are going to have to deal with psychological
damage. After the immediate physical danger is over,
people will now have time to remember their losses and
their horrors."
"Yes," I agreed. "They don't call it POST-traumatic
stress disorder for nothing." With human beings,
whenever there is trauma or danger, our minds and
bodies go into hyper-drive and we do what we need to
do to survive. But after the immediate danger is over,
only then does the psychological impact of what has
actually happened finally hit us -- and then it hits
us like a ton of bricks. That's what has happened to
many of our servicemen returning from Iraq. Over
there, they are all in good spirits and revved up to
do their duty. But once they get back home, many of
them go into psychological collapse. And the same
thing will probably happen in Haiti.
So. What's to be done? I suggest that we send Dr. Phil
and Oprah down there, to give good advice. If anyone
can heal the psychological scars of a nation, it's
them. They have spent years healing America's
psychological scars. I bet they would be able to heal
Haiti's.
And then it hit me. I know of someone who would be
even better at healing Haiti's psychological scars.
Me! I'm the queen of healing psychological scars. I
know Jin Shin Jyutsu! Send me down there!
But then my daughter Ashley came up with a reality
check. "Calm down, Mom. We know that you are the next
Mother-Theresa-in-training but sheesh. You have bad
knees. You live on Social Security and can't afford
it. And besides, you can't even speak French."
Oh. Then who WOULD be best person at curing the poor
Haitian people's psychological wounds (assuming that
Oprah and Dr. Phil can't make it)? Then it came to me,
right there in the stacks of the Claremont branch of
the Berkeley Public Library while I was desperately
searching for my granddaughter Mena's lost shoe.
Brilliant! Let's call in President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide!
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is the only man in the world
for the job. If the Haitians knew that President
Aristide was coming back from exile, it would fill all
the poor Haitians' hearts with such joy and hope that
it would be like a Balm in Gilead for their troubled
and disaster-seared souls.
As I sat and watched the "Hope for Haiti" telethon in
January, I was shocked and dismayed that President
Aristide's name was not even mentioned even once.
President Aristide represents the heart and soul of
the Haitian people. And if ever there was a time -- in
post-traumatic-stress Haiti -- that a people needed
more heart and more soul, this is it.
President Obama needs to call up United Airlines right
now and buy President Aristide a ticket from
Johannesburg to Port au Prince right this moment -- or
even send Air Force One over to pick him up.
If any of us truly care about the Haitian people and
are not just mouthing platitudes or looking for cheap
beach-front property, semi-slave labor or available
babies, then THIS is the thing that we should do.
PS: Here's a video of me explaining all this stuff to
my granddaughter Mena while eating take-out burritos
and pupoosas from Rosy's El Salvadorian restaurant,
which is located on Folsom Street in San Francisco's
Mission district: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgQr0sTlJZk
****
Reiki anyone? If anyone in the Berkeley area is
interested in taking a Reiki class, hopefully on the
weekend of February 21, 2010, please let me know. The
class is three hours long, tells you pretty much you
ever wanted to know about Reiki, includes an atunement
and costs $100. Coreen Oberlander, a Reiki master I
who know, is offering this class. Interested? E-mail
me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll give you more
info.
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