October 13, 1998

Mission trip to Haiti becomes humanitarian effort

       Joel Thacker, a White River Township firefighter, had planned to go to Haiti to help out at the Christianville Mission and maybe do a little sightseeing.  Then Hurricane Georges struck the island.  “Once we got there, our plans changed,” Thacker said. He found an already poor and struggling nation flattened by the storm. He said the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, buffered the storm, reducing the damage in Haiti.  When the 90-mph winds subsided, 200 Dominicans were dead, 600 were missing, and 200,000 were left homeless. The death toll in Haiti, according to Thacker, was 50 to 60 killed and 150 missing. Thacker said dozens were lost when a river near the mission swelled with the storm, and the mud and sheet- metal homes built on the riverbanks washed into the Gulf of Mexico. “Whatever was in its path, it just picked up and took with it,” he said. “There wasn’t a whole lot to do when you went into some of these areas because they were completely gone,” Thacker said. He spent most of the next 10 days working to help the survivors rebuild their homes and villages. He found only a few injured people who needed his paramedic skills. We anticipated using some of our skills,” Thacker said. But since there was no organized relief effort, he found other ways to help. Greg Land, a Brownsburg firefighter whose parents serve at the mission, and Dan Smith, an Avon firefighter, worked for two days at a sawmill cutting wood to replace homes washed away by the floods.  Thacker helped put a new roof on one house, took women to the marketplace to buy new clothes and food with money from the mission and helped rebuild gravel and sand roads.  But he also found time to stop by the local fire station. He said the station had four new trucks, furnished by the United States during the nation’s most recent occupation of Haiti in 1994.  The new trucks always stay at the station despite the four or five fires that burn every day in the nearby city.  “The fire apparatus can’t respond. There’s no gas for the trucks,” Thacker said.  Thacker, a lifelong resident of the Greenwood area, knew a little about the country before his visit. His father went to the same mission with Greenwood Community Church a few years ago. And Thacker talked with his father about the upcoming trip before his father’s death in April.  “I’m still overwhelmed by the whole thing,” Thacker said of his trip. He was struck by the contrasts, the beautiful mountains and fruit hanging from the trees in the countryside, while the filth of the towns spilled out on the surrounding land. Raw sewage ran through the streets.  Yet Thacker brought back more than those conflicting memories.  “I might have learned more from them than they did from me,” Thacker said.  He said he finds the problems that confound him here in Greenwood seem small when compared with what the people of Haiti confront every day. And that was even before Hurricane Georges added to their burden.  “They’re content,” Thacker said.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

     
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