Outside the comfort zone

by Dave Tobin

Monday August 13, 2007, 3:39 AM

Arriving at the airport in Port au Prince, Haitian men surrounded us, elbowing each other to grab our bags and carry them -- to a door, to a taxi, anywhere -- for a little money.

We weren't long in Haiti before we were face-to-face with the moral, historical and economic predicament facing so much of the world: where the few with so much encounter the many with so little. Skin color and race sharpen the divide. As a minority white, a "blan" in Haiti, I was starkly wealthy and privileged. By virtue of European lineage, I am a historical descendant of colonists who brought blacks slaves to Haiti after disease and slavery killed off native Indians.

How does one negotiate such disparity, move past this legacy?

As journalist, I could retreat to role of observer, hide behind questions. Bob Hood and Ruth Colvin were doing the work. Their mission was clear and I was there to document. My engagement with Haitians could be eye contact, a smile, gestures, pleasantries in broken Creole.

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Ruth Colvin: Spreading the power of the word

by Dave Tobin

Monday August 13, 2007, 1:00 AM

By Dave Tobin
Staff writer

Ruth Colvin has been here before: face-to-face with adults who cannot read or write the language they speak, in some remote corner of the world where people on any given day just might get to eat a meal.

It is April, and for the first time she has come to Haiti, where half the population can't read or write.

She is taking on a job with impossible odds: launching an adult literacy program in a language she does not speak, with adult tutors who themselves are for the most part poorly educated.

Colvin's done this in Madagascar, in Papua New Guinea and in Guatemala. She's done literacy work in 26 of the 62 countries she's visited. Back home in Syracuse, she still tutors three Somali women in their native Af Maay, using an Af Maay literacy workbook she wrote herself. Eventually, she'll tutor them in English.

Forty-five years ago, she took on adult illiteracy in Syracuse and ultimately created Literacy Volunteers of America. With her husband's support, she eventually did for adult literacy what Julia Child did for cooking -- simplifying and democratizing a task that had been the realm of the professionally trained.

Now at age 90, she has traveled from Syracuse to Haiti with four men -- two of them a reporter and photographer. She insists on wheeling her own travel bag.

The trip's last leg is a lurching 45-minute truck ride, 20 miles over a cratered moonscape of a dirt road, to St. Ive's Roman Catholic parish in the village of Thibeau. As the truck pulls in, scores of school children greet her with flowers and song, "Welcome Tant Ruth!" Nine prospective tutors and their nine students present her with a personalized straw hat with lavender sash.

"I just hope I can do enough for them," she says.

And then, "I can't say anything. I can only cry."

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More photos from Louder Than Words

by Dennis Nett

Sunday August 12, 2007, 2:02 AM

Dennis Nett / The Post-Standard

Staff photographer Dennis Nett with school children in Milot Haiti. The young boys were fascinated with viewing themselves on the of my digital camera.

Dennis Nett / The Post-Standard

Students from St. Josephs Mission School in Thibeau, Haiti, sing and greet Ruth Colvin to their school. Colvin was in Haiti to start a literacy program by training tutors to teach locals to read and write.

Dennis Nett / The Post-Standard

Parishioners - they are mostly older women -- of St. Ive's church in Thibeau, Haiti, sing during a saying of the Rosary

Dennis Nett / The Post-Standard

A baby sits on his grandfather's lap in Thibeau, Haiti. The average annual income of Haitians is about $300 and the literacy rate is very low. Central New Yorkers Bob Hood and Ruth Colvin have tried to do something about both problems.

Dennis Nett / The Post-Standard

A laborer looks to the top of a truck for the next fifty gallon drum of clarin to be unloaded. Clarin is strong moonshine like alcohlic drink made from sugar cane.

A tutor (right) starts working with a student to teach her to read and write on the second day of training. Nine tutors were selected from the village to teach locals to read when Ruth Colvin, of Syracuse, came to Thibeau to start a literacy program.

Dennis Nett / The Post-Standard

A women balances a five-gallon bucket of water on her head and carries more in her hand home from the well in Thibeau, Haiti. It is a daily errand for villagers. Bob Hood's church, St. James in Cazenovia, raised money for water purification systems.

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From the photographer

by Dennis Nett

Sunday August 12, 2007, 2:00 AM

I'm Dennis Nett, a staff photographer for The Post-Standard.

In April 2007, reporter Dave Tobin and I were given an opportunity to witness the selfless giving of Cazenovia developer Bob Hood, who has worked in Haiti the last five years to provide
clean drinking water to the people of Thibeau, Haiti.

We also saw Presidential Medal of Freedom award winner Ruth Colvin, a Syracuse treasure, spread the word of literacy to the young and old of Thibeau.

I don't think we could have expected the sites, smells and sounds of overwhelming poverty we experienced. I wondered how, with practically no modern infrastructure, these strong-willed people survive the daily struggle of providing for their families. It didn't take long to learn: You just do what it takes. Small gardens to provide food; selling trinkets on the dirt roads or the marketplace of Cap Hatien.

The eight days spent in Haiti was one the hightlights of my time with The Post-Standard. It's the kind of work I would like to do more of; I'd like to return to follow up on some of the stories.

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Rich in Spirit - A Way to Help

by Dave Tobin

Sunday August 12, 2007, 1:02 AM

I'm not a religious guy. Hearing proselytizers too frequently quoting scripture or invoking Christ sets off alarm bells for me.

But in Haiti, I witnessed the power of quiet spirituality at work. Spiritually motivated people are the ones staying put, the ones coming back, the ones still giving. Who else would? Many Haitians live in a state of medieval squalor -- with cell phones and cars. Much of the outside world has turned its back or thrown up its hands in frustration.

Orphanages, health clinics, schools, even the Gift of Water, a secular not-for-profit group, have spiritually motivated people behind them. We met several on our visit.

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Drop us a note

by Dave Tobin

Sunday August 12, 2007, 1:01 AM

We experienced and witnessed far more than what's included in the stories, photos and video. If you have questions about any of it, email Dave Tobin or photographer Dennis Nett.

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Connecting parishes

by Dave Tobin

Sunday August 12, 2007, 1:01 AM

Another program mentioned in the story is the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas. Through it, Cazenovia's St. James Church has linked with St. Ive's parish in Haiti. It's a non-profit, Catholic organization begun in 1978 in Nashville, Tenn.

Since 1978, the program has connected 340 parishes in the U.S. and Canada with parishes in Haiti and Latin America and sent more than $22 million in aid. Its annual budget is roughly $342,000.

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Behind Gift of Water

by Dave Tobin

Sunday August 12, 2007, 1:00 AM

Gift of Water Inc., is a non-denominational, not-for-profit agency that distributes simple home water purification systems in Haiti and Jamaica. Bad water causes roughly 80 percent of diseases in developing countries, according to Gift of Water.

The program was started 15 years ago by Phil Warwick, an engineer, in Melbourne, Fla. More than 20,000 families -- 140,000 people -- have access to the Gift of Water program. Its annual budget is roughly $375,000.

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Bob Hood: A Mission of the Soul

by Dave Tobin

Sunday August 12, 2007, 12:01 AM

By Dave Tobin
Staff writer

On a spring evening, Bob Hood walks a dirt road to a country bakery and buys everything.

He is with friends, so they split up heaping armfuls of rolls. Piece by piece, they give them to the tangle of hands reaching toward them. It costs Hood less than $5 to feed these hungry children and adults, another act of kindness on another day in Haiti.

For five years Hood has been coming to a Roman Catholic parish in this rural village of Thibeau. On the walk to the bakery, he passes people outside their huts of woven sticks and mud and thatch, and they greet him like a godfather.

"Bub! Bub!"

He waves and returns a lilting, "Bon soir!"

As Hood returns from the bakery, children play around the front steps of the Kara Hood Center.

He stops, holds their gaze, stiffens his body and gestures quickly: Arms up. Arms down. Arms bent like wings, quacking like a duck. Hood and 30 kids giggling together in spontaneous "Simon says." He can barely speak Creole, and it doesn't matter.

Hood, a real estate developer from Cazenovia, has found something in this Haitian village of 10,000 people. He has built a community center, brought clean water and started to nurture an economy. Hood discovered he can make things better for these people -- easier than he can make things better at home, 1,700 miles way.

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