A Cry for Help From Haiti
Mar. 5th, 2004 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
niankhsekhmetForwarded to me by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
djehutidjesi Please consider helping if you can. Mambo Racine Sans Bout is a friend of many within our Temple. If you can help, please consider it - even if it is just five or ten dollars.
Dear Reader, dear Vodouisants, it is my privilege to lead the Roots
Without End Society. That means that it is also my responsibility to
care for the needs of Roots Without End Society members and
Vodouisants of our community.
Most of my international members have jobs, and health insurance.
Most of my Haitian members do not. This is why I more often ask for
assistance for my Haitian members, who even under "normal" conditions
do not usually get enough to eat.
Right now, because of the recent political changes in Haiti, food
prices are sky-high. Scarcity, panic buying, and rising gasoline
prices have combined to make food prices shoot up like rockets. I
can't stress enough how outrageously expensive even basic foodstuffs
have become. Compared to the daily wage for an adult man, it's just
incredible - the average daily wage for an agricultural worker is
equal to the price of one raw chicken leg. That's right, a man works
hard all day, and the money he earns can buy one chicken leg. Or it
can buy twenty oranges, or about three cups of rice. It can NOT buy
enough food to feed the man himself, not to mention his wife and
children.
This means that people here are HUNGRY. Hungry every day. Hungry
all the time. Hungry to the point of pain. Hungry to the point of
sickness. Hungry, hungry, HUNGRY.
In this condition, nursing a child is a health risk! Getting a cold
is a major problem when you don't have enough protein in your body to
make antibodies.
As Bob Marley said, "A hungry man is an angry man." When people are
chronically hungry, it leads to depression and aggression, fights and
tears and screaming, not to mention illness. People become bestial.
Wives and husbands fight, children wail, old people curl up and
slowly die. Hunger humiliates, hunger kills.
It's true that there are charity organizations in Haiti, very good
organizations much better set up and better qualified than I to do
this kind of work. But much of what they distribute gets funneled
through Christian churches, who deliberately and cruelly exclude
Vodouisants. In any case, I don't see any organizations giving out
any food here at all, with the exception of one very worthy American
woman who has a school and orphanage in Jacmel.
I've been giving my initiates, and also my one employee, the man who
helps me look after my animals, money to buy food. I always give my
Haitian initiates money, and sometimes my American initiates too!
That is what a Mambo is expected to do. My initiates are my children
and I must care for them. But now they need more because food here
is so expensive, so I've been giving it to them. But my middle name
is not Rockefeller, and I'm tapped out.
I've asked our international membership for help for a Haitian
initiate before - remember Houngan Babou? Our international members
raised over $1000 for dental work, and he has a whole new smile. The
Before and After photos are right here on this forum, in the Photos
section in an album marked "Houngan Babou's teeth". The
international members also have an online, downloadable copy of the
dentist's bill.
Now for the very first time, I am asking you all, not just members of
the Roots Without End Society but everyone on this list including
you - please help me. I'm not asking for myself. I'm asking in the
name of hounsi Olita, who is so skinny she is starting to have
fainting spells. I am asking in the name of Houngan Luckner, whose
young, handsome black face has become gaunt and whose clothes are all
just about falling off him because he has gotten so thin. I am
asking in the name of Mambo Simone, who is constantly sick and can't
really recover because she doesn't get enough food to feed her
recovering body. I am asking in the name of our old neighbor Dieu
Commande, a seventy-year-old man who still tills the ground and
plants tomatos "so that the children can have something to eat". He
needs food too, to give him strength to work.
Folks, please help me. I've made a web page and I've included
buttons that you can use to send us contributions using PayPal. I
can then move money from my PayPal account to a checking account, and
a pro-Vodouisant Jacmel businessman has very kindly offered to cash
my checks and change the money into Haitian currency at no charge.
There are over 800 people on this forum. If even half of you go,
right now, and give just $20, that is significant, that can make a
difference in people's lives. The web page that is set up for your
contributions is found at
http://www.RootsWithoutEnd.com/vodouaid.html . Go there, please,
and please help me to feed hungry people.
(Although I have experience managing contributions, for example in
our work with Houngan Babou's dental care, I really don't have much
experience *collecting* them, so any suggestions you can make about
page design, whatever, will be welcome.)
Most importantly, every cent I get, I will use it to buy food
wholesale, by the sack of rice and by the case of condensed milk, and
also medicines like pain relievers and anti-fungal ointments. I will
distribute this food in the Roots Without End Society peristyle, so
that everyone sees that we are a Vodou house that loves our
neighbors. I will give food not just to the members of the Roots
Without Society, but to all Vodouisants in our neighborhood, and even
the most needy Protestants and Catholics if they want it (which they
will! They are hungry too.) If I receive enough, I will share with
other Houngans and Mambos, especially Houngan Fritzner "Po Pwa"
Georges, who helps us with our kanzos.
I will keep receipts, and scan them off, so you all can see how your
gifts are being spent. I'll take photos of distribution and of the
recipients. I can not offer you tax deductions, I am not set up as
a "charity", all I can offer you is the sincere gratitude of hungry
men, women and children when they eat a nourishing meal; and my
conviction that God, the ancestors and the lwa will bless you.
I beg you to help me. In your relative abundance (and I am not
suggesting that you, dear Reader, are rolling in money, just that you
are probably considerably better off than the people for whom I am
begging your help), please give as generously as you can. We don't
know how long this period of political change will last, with it's
attendant hyperinflation. So please help me to feed my children and
my neighbors during this difficult time.
Again, the web page that is set up for your contributions is found at
http://www.RootsWithoutEnd.com/vodouaid.html .
Alternatively, if you prefer, you can send cash contributions
directly to us here in Haiti through Western Union. Send your gifts
to:
Kathy Grey
Jacmel, Haiti
If you decide to use this method, please be so kind as to email me
the transfer number so I know that you have made a contribution and
so that I can easily claim it.
In any case, dear Reader, dear servant of God and of the lwa,
whatever you can give us, I bow very low before you to tell you thank
you in advance. And if you can give nothing but your prayers, I
thank you just as sincerely.
Peace and love,
Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen
"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
Haitian Proverb
djehutidjesi Please consider helping if you can. Mambo Racine Sans Bout is a friend of many within our Temple. If you can help, please consider it - even if it is just five or ten dollars. Dear Reader, dear Vodouisants, it is my privilege to lead the Roots
Without End Society. That means that it is also my responsibility to
care for the needs of Roots Without End Society members and
Vodouisants of our community.
Most of my international members have jobs, and health insurance.
Most of my Haitian members do not. This is why I more often ask for
assistance for my Haitian members, who even under "normal" conditions
do not usually get enough to eat.
Right now, because of the recent political changes in Haiti, food
prices are sky-high. Scarcity, panic buying, and rising gasoline
prices have combined to make food prices shoot up like rockets. I
can't stress enough how outrageously expensive even basic foodstuffs
have become. Compared to the daily wage for an adult man, it's just
incredible - the average daily wage for an agricultural worker is
equal to the price of one raw chicken leg. That's right, a man works
hard all day, and the money he earns can buy one chicken leg. Or it
can buy twenty oranges, or about three cups of rice. It can NOT buy
enough food to feed the man himself, not to mention his wife and
children.
This means that people here are HUNGRY. Hungry every day. Hungry
all the time. Hungry to the point of pain. Hungry to the point of
sickness. Hungry, hungry, HUNGRY.
In this condition, nursing a child is a health risk! Getting a cold
is a major problem when you don't have enough protein in your body to
make antibodies.
As Bob Marley said, "A hungry man is an angry man." When people are
chronically hungry, it leads to depression and aggression, fights and
tears and screaming, not to mention illness. People become bestial.
Wives and husbands fight, children wail, old people curl up and
slowly die. Hunger humiliates, hunger kills.
It's true that there are charity organizations in Haiti, very good
organizations much better set up and better qualified than I to do
this kind of work. But much of what they distribute gets funneled
through Christian churches, who deliberately and cruelly exclude
Vodouisants. In any case, I don't see any organizations giving out
any food here at all, with the exception of one very worthy American
woman who has a school and orphanage in Jacmel.
I've been giving my initiates, and also my one employee, the man who
helps me look after my animals, money to buy food. I always give my
Haitian initiates money, and sometimes my American initiates too!
That is what a Mambo is expected to do. My initiates are my children
and I must care for them. But now they need more because food here
is so expensive, so I've been giving it to them. But my middle name
is not Rockefeller, and I'm tapped out.
I've asked our international membership for help for a Haitian
initiate before - remember Houngan Babou? Our international members
raised over $1000 for dental work, and he has a whole new smile. The
Before and After photos are right here on this forum, in the Photos
section in an album marked "Houngan Babou's teeth". The
international members also have an online, downloadable copy of the
dentist's bill.
Now for the very first time, I am asking you all, not just members of
the Roots Without End Society but everyone on this list including
you - please help me. I'm not asking for myself. I'm asking in the
name of hounsi Olita, who is so skinny she is starting to have
fainting spells. I am asking in the name of Houngan Luckner, whose
young, handsome black face has become gaunt and whose clothes are all
just about falling off him because he has gotten so thin. I am
asking in the name of Mambo Simone, who is constantly sick and can't
really recover because she doesn't get enough food to feed her
recovering body. I am asking in the name of our old neighbor Dieu
Commande, a seventy-year-old man who still tills the ground and
plants tomatos "so that the children can have something to eat". He
needs food too, to give him strength to work.
Folks, please help me. I've made a web page and I've included
buttons that you can use to send us contributions using PayPal. I
can then move money from my PayPal account to a checking account, and
a pro-Vodouisant Jacmel businessman has very kindly offered to cash
my checks and change the money into Haitian currency at no charge.
There are over 800 people on this forum. If even half of you go,
right now, and give just $20, that is significant, that can make a
difference in people's lives. The web page that is set up for your
contributions is found at
http://www.RootsWithoutEnd.com/vodouaid.html . Go there, please,
and please help me to feed hungry people.
(Although I have experience managing contributions, for example in
our work with Houngan Babou's dental care, I really don't have much
experience *collecting* them, so any suggestions you can make about
page design, whatever, will be welcome.)
Most importantly, every cent I get, I will use it to buy food
wholesale, by the sack of rice and by the case of condensed milk, and
also medicines like pain relievers and anti-fungal ointments. I will
distribute this food in the Roots Without End Society peristyle, so
that everyone sees that we are a Vodou house that loves our
neighbors. I will give food not just to the members of the Roots
Without Society, but to all Vodouisants in our neighborhood, and even
the most needy Protestants and Catholics if they want it (which they
will! They are hungry too.) If I receive enough, I will share with
other Houngans and Mambos, especially Houngan Fritzner "Po Pwa"
Georges, who helps us with our kanzos.
I will keep receipts, and scan them off, so you all can see how your
gifts are being spent. I'll take photos of distribution and of the
recipients. I can not offer you tax deductions, I am not set up as
a "charity", all I can offer you is the sincere gratitude of hungry
men, women and children when they eat a nourishing meal; and my
conviction that God, the ancestors and the lwa will bless you.
I beg you to help me. In your relative abundance (and I am not
suggesting that you, dear Reader, are rolling in money, just that you
are probably considerably better off than the people for whom I am
begging your help), please give as generously as you can. We don't
know how long this period of political change will last, with it's
attendant hyperinflation. So please help me to feed my children and
my neighbors during this difficult time.
Again, the web page that is set up for your contributions is found at
http://www.RootsWithoutEnd.com/vodouaid.html .
Alternatively, if you prefer, you can send cash contributions
directly to us here in Haiti through Western Union. Send your gifts
to:
Kathy Grey
Jacmel, Haiti
If you decide to use this method, please be so kind as to email me
the transfer number so I know that you have made a contribution and
so that I can easily claim it.
In any case, dear Reader, dear servant of God and of the lwa,
whatever you can give us, I bow very low before you to tell you thank
you in advance. And if you can give nothing but your prayers, I
thank you just as sincerely.
Peace and love,
Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen
"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
Haitian Proverb
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 09:37 am (UTC)Meanwhile, have you heard of lj-cut?
no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 10:41 am (UTC)Oh yes, I have. And I realized I coded it wrong and now its fixed. ;)