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    Haiti After the Earthquake
    Haiti After the Earthquake
    Haiti After the Earthquake
    Audiobook14 hours

    Haiti After the Earthquake

    Written by Paul Farmer and Edwidge Danticat

    Narrated by Meryl Streep

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    On January 12, 2010, a major earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and the greater part of the capital was demolished. Dr. Paul Farmer, U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, who had worked in the country for nearly thirty years treating infectious diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS, and former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, had just begun to work on an extensive development plan to improve living conditions in Haiti. Now their project was transformed into a massive international rescue and relief effort. In his own words, Farmer documents this effort, including the harrowing obstacles and the small triumphs. Despite an outpouring of aid, the challenges were astronomical. U.N. plans were crippled by Haiti#8217;s fragile infrastructure and the death of U.N. staff members who had been based in Port-au-Prince. In chronicling the relief effort, Farmer draws attention to the social issues that made Haiti so vulnerable to this natural disaster. Yet Farmer#8217;s account is not a gloomy catalog of impenetrable problems. As devastating as Haiti#8217;s circumstances are, its population manages to keep going. Farmer shows how, even in the barest camps, Haitians organize themselves, creating small businesses such as beauty parlors. His narrative is interwoven with stories from Haitians themselves and from doctors and others working on the ground. Ultimately this is a story of human endurance and humility in difficult circumstances and seemingly overwhelming odds.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateAug 16, 2011
    ISBN9781611744255
    Haiti After the Earthquake
    Author

    Paul Farmer

    Paul Farmer is cofounder of Partners In Health and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His most recent book is Reimagining Global Health. Other titles include To Repair the World, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor; and AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, all by UC Press.

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    Reviews for Haiti After the Earthquake

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      In January 2010, Haiti experienced a seven-point earthquake that laid waste to an already-struggling infrastructure. The world, for a few moments, paused and sighed a collective, compassionate sigh towards one of the oldest republics in the Western Hemisphere.

      Paul Farmer, known for starting Partners in Health and for being deputy ambassador to Haiti from the UN under Bill Clinton, composed this book about his experiences soon after the earthquake. Paul has spent over 30 years serving this island-nation, and he knows it like few outsiders do. He shares these memories in an attempt to provide a chronological diary for the sufferings of this people and to publicize the weight of their journey.

      At the conclusion of the book lies several stories from individual Haitians. It is nice to hear their patriotism intermixed with their empathetic sufferings of their fellow citizens. Clinton always raved about how resilient the Haitian people are. They will bounce back. This story - these journeys - tell exactly how this bounce-back will occur. For those interested in being more globally minded, this book is worth a read.
    • 4/5
      I received this book as an audiobook through the Early Reviewers Program. I don't usually listen to audiobooks, but this particular book lent itself well to the format because I just felt like I was listening to a lengthy NPR piece. It begins with Paul Farmer's account of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. He describes the devastation to both physical structures, such as the hospital, and public systems, mainly due to loss of life. He also details efforts to assist the Haitians in the direct aftermath and in the months following the earthquake. One of the most interesting sections deals with a cholera outbreak that occurred several months after the initial disaster. This led to a debate in the international community over whether cholera vaccine administration would be effective or worthwhile. Farmer's assessment of the disaster as an "acute on chronic" situation serves as a warning that the scale of this disaster was not inevitable. Haiti already existed in a chronic disaster state in which public infrastructure could not sufficiently serve the majority of its people. The book continues with a variety of first-hand accounts from Haitians and foreign aid workers. These all lend different perspectives to the disaster and recovery. The overarching theme is that the international community must help Haiti to "build back better" and that this is probably best accomplished by direct assistance to Haiti's government for specific items such as teacher's salaries. The old Haiti, an underdeveloped country with a hodgepodge of uncoordinated NGOs running many of the social services, was clearly a disaster waiting to happen.
    • 4/5
      Paul Farmer is very dedicated to his role as Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti and Partners in Health and it shows. Unfortunately, it feels like this book was a little rushed and more like a personal diary than I would have liked. The first 2/3 of the book were written by Farmer where he goes through descriptions of many meetings and throws out a lot of names. There were interesting chapters discussing Haiti's history and politics mixed into the details about the earthquake and some of the aftermath. The better part of the book was at the end with essays from Haitians and other people involved. I would like to hear from more of those people. It is an interesting book but gets bogged down in too many unnecessary details. One other minor complaint: the cover of the audiobook says that Meryl Streep reads the book. She reads a few of the essays at the end but not the majority of the book (the portion written by Paul Farmer).
    • 2/5
      Haiti After The Earthquake is filled with information about the problems that have plagued Haiti’s infrastructure for years, and how that plays out tragically after the earthquake. While I do feel like I learned a lot about Haiti’s history, and also got a good sense of the horrific atmosphere in Port-Au-Prince after the earthquake, I only made it through five hours of this fourteen-hour audiobook before I gave up.For someone who is interested in foreign policy and the infrastructure of Haiti’s government and the lack of services for their citizens, there is a lot of information here, it’s just not arranged in a manner that held my attention. I feel bad giving this book a low rating because I think that the information itself is so important, but this was just a depressing subject that dragged on and on. I began to dread listening to this book, in part because it seemed to be repetitive, at least until it got into the history of Haiti, which was the part that held my attention because it had a solid framework and direction – a beginning, middle and end. With the rest of the book (the parts that I listened to) it was hard to tell which direction the book was going to go. I really did want to see if there was improvement for the people of Haiti, but I just couldn’t force myself to listen to another nine hours.Also, the audiobook says that it’s narrated by Meryl Streep, which is very misleading. Most of the book is narrated by a man who has a nice deep voice that is pleasant to listen too, but the billing on the front of the audiobook should reflect that. (I have read elsewhere that Meryl Streep reads an essay near the end of the book.)If you have an overwhelming interest in Haiti then you might want to listen to this audiobook. The narrator was pleasant to listen to, but the organization of the material left a lot to be desired.
    • 5/5
      Paul Farmer has written another in depth book that should be a must read for anyone interested in global human affairs and Haiti in particular. Farmer is an inspirational human being who has dedicated his life to serving the medical needs of the Haitian people. After spending so many years working in the field as a doctor Paul Farmer also became involved in international politics working alongside Bill Clinton with the goal to help improve the country's economical and social condition. Most people are aware of the earthquake that shook Haiti in early 2010 but only few understand the lasting impact that this disaster had on the country and its people. Farmer does an excellent job summarizing the current state of affairs as well as delving deep into the history of this poor country. Farmer's main focus in this book is the "Building Back Better" goal for Haiti and he goes into great detail on how to achieve this. He also reminds us of the importance of helping the Haitian people to help themselves and strengthening the country from the inside out.There are several Haitian guest writers who contributed personal essays about their experience and those help to make the whole situation more vivid and less stuffy and academic. I really enjoyed listening to the original voices on the audio book edition.Overall, it's a long read but you learn a lot and this book will definitely leave a lasting impression.
    • 3/5
      I have always respected Paul Farmer and his tireless, selfless medical work in Haiti since I first read about him in Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. So I was thrilled to receive an audio version of Haiti After the Earthquake by Paul Farmer from the publisher. I have now learned, after listening to fourteen hours (yes, that’s fourteen hours!) of these CDs that just because you are a wonderful human being, you are not necessarily a wonderful writer. I learned more about Haiti that I ever wanted to know. I learned more about humanitarian efforts to improve an impoverished country than I ever wanted to know. It took everything I had in me to put that next CD into the player and listen for another hour. I felt like I’d signed up for a marathon when I’d meant to sign up for a quick run around the park. I will say that I found the short pieces at the end of the set of CDs to be a refreshing change. These pieces were compelling and personal. In fact, if you are interested in Haiti, I’d advise you to skip to the end and listen to the short pieces only.
    • 4/5
      I've been eying this book on the library new bookshelf for awhile. Paul Farmer, as well as his work for Partners in Health, was the subject of Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains, and the earthquake had a personal connection in its effect on my aunt's process of adopting a Haitian orphan. But the book was too long to read in two weeks, so when it was offered through the Early Reviewers program I was really excited to receive this audio copy.In this book, Paul Farmer - now UN Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti under former president Bill Clinton - details his experiences in the first year after the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010. The majority of the book, 8 CDs in the audio version, is his point of view, but includes copious quotes from colleagues and friends affected as well. Dr. Farmer's involvement was more on a political level than anything else, so while he does include some stories of individuals affected by the quake, he focuses much of his narrative on "building back better," and the political policies that he believes will affect change in Haiti. I did not find this as personally interesting, nor did I agree entirely with his underlying assumption that the public sector is the best way to provide certain services. Dr. Farmer's text is read not by Meryl Streep as the packaging would suggest, but Eric Conger, who does a good job of keeping the narration flowing and making it clear when he is quoting someone else. Since this was a full-cast audio, I half expected quotes from other people to be delivered by other voices, but this is not the case. Instead, each essay at the end - written by various people including Edwidge Danticat, Nancy Dorsinville, Timothy T. Schwartz, and Dr. Farmer's wife Didi - are read by the cast. I particularly liked the narration by the Haitian authors themselves: Edwidge Danticat reading her essay made me want to read her fiction. Because these three narrators' renditions were slower, I found it hard to follow entirely on audio and supplemented by reading the book at the same time. But I loved the individuality and nuance it brought to their essays, and loved being able to hear the Haitian Creole phrases and sentences the way they should sound (for the record, it sounds similar to French, but I wouldn't have guessed that from the spelling). While in some ways this book wasn't what I expected, I am glad I read it, and I will pass it on to my aunt who, I think, will appreciate it even more than I did.
    • 3/5
      The problems of Haiti are multitude and begin before the quake and probably don't have a complete solution at any time in the future. Dr. Paul Farmer has been visiting and working in Haiti a long time, not just because of the earthquake and has many insights into the problems and some of their causes. This book addresses these in great detail.Dr. Farmer is an amazing person who has been entrusted with many gifts--intelligence, a good education, great jobs, positions of influence and power, energy, language ability, to name a few. I didn't feel like he was bragging about himself in anyway as he told the story of Haiti and his involvement there as a medical doctor with a medical NGO and special envoy for the U.S. government. His viewpoint is socialist and this comes through very clearly.I would have liked to have heard more stories of how the quake affected the lives of Haitians and less about the political side of things, but I suppose that must be told as well, especially for certain audiences.To say the book is read by Meryl Streep is a means of selling this audio version. Most of it is read by a male reader, which fits well as the voice of Paul Farmer. Ms. Streep has a minor part and some Haitians read as well. They speak English with an accent and slowly for obvious reasons and that can make one impatient.I had a lot of interest in the book because my husband will be traveling there in December for his work, but even with that, I had trouble forcing myself to finish listening.
    • 4/5
      I first learned about Dr. Paul Farmer's work in Haiti in Tracy Kidder's book [Mountains Beyond Mountains]. Farmer is one of the founders of Partners in Health, a charitable foundation that works to bring health care to poor regions, including Haiti. Taking advantage of Famer's 20+ years of experience in Haiti, Bill Clinton named Farmer as the United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009. When a massive earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, Farmer rushed to lend his medical and political support to the recovery efforts. This book, written a little over a year after the earthquake, provides Farmer's insights about the impact of the earthquake and the initial recovery efforts. He also describes how the history of Haiti and the country's economic status at the time of the earthquake amplified the effects of the natural disaster. Farmer also uses the book to stimulate discussion about how Haiti might use the earthquake as an opportunity to Build Back Better. I very much enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about Haiti, its history, its challenges, and its strengths. I was also interested in Farmer's perspective on the roles of both governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the wake of a natural disaster. Parts of the book were heartbreaking, with vivid descriptions of the suffering that occurred as a direct result of the earthquake and the suffering that continued to reverberate throughout Haiti many months later. Other parts were more academic, providing insight into the challenges of development. Although the audio version of the book was quite well done, I might have preferred to have read some of the denser parts myself, so that I could refer back as needed. In addition to Farmer's perspectives on Haiti, the book concludes with a number of chapters by others who were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake or who were impacted by it. One of my favorite of these chapters was written by Edwidge Danticat, a truly gifted author who used the poetry of her language to reach my heart as well as my head.
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audiobook version. In general, I found the book interesting, but too long and somewhat repetitive. I vastly preferred reading about Dr. Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.The cover of the audiobook highlights Meryl Streep as a reader, but the first 8 CDs of 11 (the part written by Paul Farmer) were read by someone else. The last few CDs were essays by Haitians. Streep read hers well, but on these last few CDs there were also Haitian readers with heavy accents who spoke too slowly, which I found cumbersome.