I shouldn’t have been surprised to see them but I was. Boy Scouts in Haiti. Dressed up in customary khaki and wearing multi-colored scarves. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Thousands of them. Dressed out with patches and carrying batons and marching and calling and responding… with a lot of singing and dancing thrown in too. It is Haiti, after all. No matter where I went, there they were. In downtown Port-au-Prince directing traffic–efficiently… and often while the Haitian National Police stood by idle and chatting, doing nothing. I found the Scouts delivering food in trucks. Providing a wall of people for offloading goods for scared aid workers. Giving a peace of mind for their order and security. In Jacmel on the streets helping people. At a massive camp in Jacmel housing three thousand in a walled compound the Scouts there had set up and were running–again safely and efficiently–complete with three daily feedings. In Leogane, in Gonaives, in Cap Haitiian. I encountered them guarding a funeral procession.
I came to learn it was by design. The Haitian Scouting association has good leadership and when the quake happened the Scouts were among the first to assemble and rush to the aid of their neighbors. As my good friend and Port-au-Prince Scout Chapter President, Alex, later told me the Scouts were told that this was what they were here for and that they had to decide whether they were going to fend for their individual selves or sacrifice their own wants to help their fellow countrymen. They were told they would have to pass out tents and food and water and always give it all away and keep nothing for themselves. It was a lot to ask. Alex and others told them they would feed them but that they had to accept the call to duty. They accepted, Alex said, and by the thousands the groups joyfully assembled and served.
It wasn’t a sales pitch. Everywhere we encountered Scouts they sought us out to help us and asked nothing in return. This was especially incredible given the fact most of the Scouts were victims themselves. But they gave. They worked hours serving aid workers and their fellow countrymen. They worked with our group to deliver more than four thousand tents.
One day the Scouts had a rally in Port-au-Prince as a show of solidarity and to encourage their entire nation to accept the call to service just like they had been doing. Thousands of Scout troops from all over Haiti assembled in the capital and marched through the destroyed downtown to a little piece of field donated to them for their headquarters. In this photo the Scouts gather in a circle at the beginning of their march and sing and shout before the march. A circle of servants unlike any I had seen before.
Uploaded by: flip holsinger on 8th May, 2010.