I Can’t Help You Right Now
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Things are busy here at Numana, as we work to launch a number of initiatives in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we thought you would enjoy a brief look back in our history. A year ago, our CEO Rick McNary, was chronicling his reactions to his visit to Haiti. This post was originally published on July 20, 2010, enjoy.
“I can’t help you right now.”
It broke my heart when I said those words and it breaks my heart to write them right now.
Let me set the scene: We’re in a village of Balan which is about an hour from Port-au-Prince. This is actually the first village that we had designated to start helping the Salvation Army with their school feeding program. Since there is no census taken in Haiti, it’s hard to tell how many people live in Balan. We intend to find out – we’re going to take a census some day – but in the meantime, we don’t know.
It’s a village of mud huts and thatched roofs and desperately skinny people. It is considered to be the poorest village in Haiti. No water. Very little food supply.
As I was walking through the village, I passed the home of a couple in their late 40′s. That’s getting pretty old in Haiti since the life expectancy is 51. I smiled at them. He pointed at my front pocket where my wallet was. She rubbed her tummy and held out her hand and begged me for food. I had very little money and no food on me.
And it’s not easy to slip someone a few bucks in a country like that for two basic reasons: 1. There are a LOT of people watching at all times whether you know it or not; 2. If you don’t have enough to hand out to the rest, you’re going to do nothing but cause grief. I’ve seen it happen countless times in foreign countries where well-intentioned Americans slip a few bucks to someone only to suddenly have fifty people standing around them begging them for more. And if you don’t have more, those folks get pretty upset.
Telling someone I can’t help them bothers me. It bothers me a LOT. In fact, it keeps me awake at nights trying to figure out a way to make sure I can help them. What they don’t know is that there is help on the way. That Numana food will get into their hands soon.
Just not soon enough to suit me.
