It's Complicated

This little girl was born over three weeks ago to a young mother who labored the better part of two days with this first child. She had not eaten for a couple of days as she has no food or source of income. The father unknown to the family or community, I was told.
Three weeks later the grandfather of the baby refuses to provide food for his daughter. The grandmother is a girlfriend of the World Vision agent for Sousafilip and she works at odd jobs but earns only enough to feed herself; not enough to share with the daughter.
The young mother, Margorie, obviously has never completed the application World Vision requires to provide food for pregnant women and nursing mothers. She has no milk to nurse the baby, and we found two small song birds tied with string to some flowers, she said would provide food for her this week.
Baby weight at 3 weeks is the same as at birth, which I assisted; just under 4 lbs. The skin is dry, baby lethargic and returned from the clinic with instructions to feed the mother and nurse the baby more. Instant replay of 2 months ago, and that baby is still only 2 lbs over birth weight!
If that narrative does not raise questions for others it certainly does for me. How can the grandmother who provides the home, eat and not share with the mother of the baby? How can she "date" the WV agent and not insist the application is filled out for a food program? How can the grandfather watch as his daughter starves and her newborn fails to thrive, when he has adequate resources to provide for all? How can the community shake their collective head, say "so sad" and excuse the situation because some "just don't trust World Vision or want to fill out forms?"
I walked on down the road yesterday and two men were sitting atop some bags of charcoal, both skeletal and asking me for food. I asked some local fishermen about them and they admitted the two lived in SaP, had no family and seldom are hired to work the charcoal boats. They have no property or livestock and sleep "in empty places." They are not "from" SaP but have been here "a long time." They have no resources or respect.
Conversation goes something like, "if it doesn't rain they may die since there will be no melons or peanuts to harvest. Lots who work the gardens will not eat and some will die." Those who speak, are themselves worried about the crops and have very low percent body fat. For those with money, meals include very small fish, flour patties fried in oil and ground corn. They eat large amounts of rice when available but that remains expensive and there is hope for cheaper melons to replace the mangoes that are now waning as the staple for the very poor.
In two years of living on the island, I discover the more questions I ask the less I understand the reasoning behind the answers. Life in a country with social programs and taxes to support education, health care for the very poor and even opportunity for the determined makes it hard to understand the hopelessness and acceptance of reality of life and death in a country where the government is not "for the people" but "above the people."
In recent conversations many are asking us if there is a possibility Haiti could become the 53rd state of the United States. Jokingly we once agreed with a mission team member that the best La Gonave could do would be to "secede" from Haiti and become a country on it's own. It is not a joke to me as I watch babies die and homeless go hungry. It isn't a joke, but it is extremely complicated. Shirley