From Haiti to Hot Rods

In March I had the opportunity to go to Port-au-Prince, Haiti for a week.  The purpose of my trip was to offer to teach crisis counseling.  The trip was truly enlightening for me in many ways and I want to share some thoughts about this trip with you.

Since I have been back, people have asked what lessons I have learned from my time in Haiti.  That is a tough question to answer.  There are many things you learn when you go to another culture and especially when there has been a devastating catastrophe like the one that hit that country.  To see shattered buildings and shattered lives everywhere you look has to change things in your own life or I don’t think you would be human.

I learned a lot about Haitian history while I was there.  Haiti was the first free black republic in the world, but they have lost some of that freedom to governments that oppressed the people.  Only in the last two decades have they had free and open elections.  The country has a long history of producing vast amounts of grain, fruits and vegetables.  But this resource has been hampered by global politics, poor planning and dated infrastructure.  A once thriving tourism business has evaporated due to the poor conditions in the city.  Even the U.S. has had there hand in Haitian history.  I didn’t know that the U.S. occupied Haiti for several years.  This had its high and low points too.  While roads were built and infrastructure created, the people in charge abused their power.  When I took the time to look at the history of the country, then I began to understand some of the problems they were currently facing.

The one thing that really struck me was the lack of rules.  Traffic in the city was a mess because of a lack of simple traffic rules.  The streets are covered with litter because no one has said that this is wrong.  The hillsides have been stripped of trees for the short term gain of selling the wood for cooking fires.  No one has stopped this and now the hillsides slide into the valleys when the rains hit, leaving huge scars on the mountain sides.  Corruption and extortion has been allowed to remain a norm in the society without anyone speaking out against this injustice.  Sixty percent of the population lives in poverty, many of these people living on less than a dollar a day, yet no one speaks about this.    

So you might be wondering how Haiti and all of its problems ties into hot rods and racing.  In Haiti, no one has stood up for things that are right and denounced those things that are wrong.  In racing, and in all of life, we need to stand for those things that are right and against the things that are wrong.  When we see people being treated poorly, we need to say something.  If we see people cheating, we need to call them on it.  We don’t have to put up with being treated rudely or seeing people have no respect for others’ property.  We are the ones who need to speak out.  When that happens, we can avoid the things that I witnessed in Haiti. When we speak up and make our voices heard, we can continue to live in a civil culture where people respect others and the world around them.

Ken Webb