Leaving Haiti
April 2, 2010
I must admit, it is always nice to get on an air-conditioned jet after sleeping or trying to, in a hot room, mosquitoes swarming, and sweat dripping for 9 days. It wasn’t hard to get up at 5:30 am to get ready for our 9 am flight. I was already awake. Flying to or from Haiti from the western US always makes for a long journey. We awakened today at 4:30am MDT and will get home tonight at just after 11 pm MDT. Haiti has a new airport building with an escalator in it. So now, Haitians will have experienced a moving stairway in their own country before traveling to the US. We did see one gentleman try to walk down the escalator and nearly fall on his head.
It has been a good team this year. It has also been a different trip because of the “katastrof”. Half had been to Haiti before and were shocked at the devastation, half were new to Haiti and were shocked at Haiti. All worked hard and were glad they came. One of the hospitals CDTI where we worked in January and where half of the team worked this time closed yesterday. I’m not sure why. Prior to the earthquake, it was the nicest hospital in Haiti, privately owned for wealthy private patients. They hospital turned into an acute trauma center on January 12th, and our teams have helped them with surgeons, therapists, nurses and supplies. It was a sad day when they closed their doors. Whispers about running out of money, government pressure, who really knows? Our team came home talking about how the mood was getting surly among the patients getting ready to be discharged to the streets. Some of our team left the hospital early because they were beginning to feel unsafe. A woman with an external fixator on her leg wondered how she was ever going to get it taken off, a 12 year old boy in a body cast for 2 more weeks was going to be put out on the street. Patients crying softly in their beds, in the tents, and out on the lawn. I don’t think I have ever been worn down as much emotionally as I have in the last two trips since the katastrof. All those who could, got out of town this weekend for Easter. They just needed a break for a few days after living with what they do each day. After 9 days of seeing so much, listening to so many stories, and suffering along with the people I treated, I need to get home to my wife and family. I have so much to be thankful for, all of us do who can get on a plane when we want to and leave Haiti for “a break”. My heart, my thoughts and my prayers will remain in Haiti, especially with those who get no break, those who are living in tents, who wonder when their next meal will be, and those who can see no end in sight.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Cap Haitian
Flew in tonight from Cap Haitien. Stayed in the Mont Joli Hotel. I love to stay there because it is on the hill right above the house where I lived 27 years ago as a missionary. For 4 months I used to fall asleep to the sounds of the Twoubadou bands playing Guantanamerra, sweating in my sheets, waiting for the fan to rotate from blowing the mosquitos off of my mission companion and blow them off of me. And sure enough, just as it was 27 years ago, we were sitting by the pool eating dinner and the two wizened old twoubadous started singing the song that used to drive me crazy, but now takes me right back to Cap-Haitian and those long, hot nights.
We flew up to Cap to help Haitian Hospital Appeal. They are run by a young Englishman who came to Haiti to do what he could. He got involved running a new mother and pediatric clinic. He and his bedraggled group of volunteers were doing fine until the "Katastrof" which is what the Haitians call it. There is a hospital in Milot which is a hard bumpy 30 minute ride from their clinic. 19 spinal cord injury patients (think Christopher Reaves) were flown up from PAP for care in the Milot hospital. Some of them got surgery some of them did not. Some of them were incomplete (chance of recovering at least some movement and sensation) and some were complete (almost no chance of ever walking again).
When it came time to discharge them from the acute hospital no one would take them. Carwyn was just building a new clinic and thought they could house 19 patients there. He is not medical so he had no idea how difficult caring for a new spinal cord injury is. It is highly specialized care and requires an entire team of nurses, therapists, doctors, social workers, and psychologists. A complete spinal cord injury (sci) patient has no sensation below the level of her injury and has no control of her bowel and bladder. If I sit on my butt too long it will start to hurt and I will shift my weight. Sci patients have no way of knowing that they are cutting off blood supply to their butt or back, or hips or heels. If they are not turned every two hours they will develop a pressure ulcer. If these ulcers aren't treated, they will quickly deepen until the wound goes through the skin, the fat, the muscle and down to the bone. It's never good when you look inside an ulcer and see white bone staring back at you. That usually means infection, and weeks of antibiotics, a surgery to replace lost tissue, then months on an expensive low pressure bed, lying on your stomach while you hope that the muscle/skin transplant takes. The first 6 patients we examined at the HHA hospital had pressure ulcers-- some bigger than your hand, many with white bone showing through. My heart sank. Some of these patients will die, and fairly soon. We were too late. Some had ulcers when they came to HHA and some developed them there. We couldn't blame the staff. They have a general practice doctor and nurses who were trying their best, but had no training or experience in sci. Prior to the earthquake, sci patients without sensation or bowel and bladder control just didn't survive. Most facilities in the states or Canada would fail at treating sci patients without training or experience. We held classes and did rounds with the nurses to teach them that it is easy to prevent a pressure ulcer, but so difficult to heal them once they have gotten down to the muscle. Carwyn and his head nurse Madame JeanFrancois were eager to learn whatever they could to give these 19 patients the best chance at surviving. For two days we worked with them and made plans to send back teams to do more treatment and training. That's what Healing Hands does. We support rehabilitation efforts any where we find them in Haiti. The University of Toronto is gearing up to send sci expert teams to HHA hospital for the next 6 weeks. We are not too late to save the lives of some of these patients.
It was a tough two days. Almost all of the patients were from Port-au-Prince and don't know anyone or have any family in Cap Hatian. Some don't know if their families are alive. At regular intervals throughout the day, some of the patients would burst in two tears. Tears for the fate of their children, tears of mourning their injury, and tears for fear of the unknown. We wanted to cry with them. We tried to give them hope and courage. We had three young Haitian-American volunteers working with us. One is a nurse, the other two, just wanted to help where they could. They were great. It is people like them who give me hope for Haiti. It is people like them and like Carwyn and his friends who give me hope for humanity.
We flew up to Cap to help Haitian Hospital Appeal. They are run by a young Englishman who came to Haiti to do what he could. He got involved running a new mother and pediatric clinic. He and his bedraggled group of volunteers were doing fine until the "Katastrof" which is what the Haitians call it. There is a hospital in Milot which is a hard bumpy 30 minute ride from their clinic. 19 spinal cord injury patients (think Christopher Reaves) were flown up from PAP for care in the Milot hospital. Some of them got surgery some of them did not. Some of them were incomplete (chance of recovering at least some movement and sensation) and some were complete (almost no chance of ever walking again).
When it came time to discharge them from the acute hospital no one would take them. Carwyn was just building a new clinic and thought they could house 19 patients there. He is not medical so he had no idea how difficult caring for a new spinal cord injury is. It is highly specialized care and requires an entire team of nurses, therapists, doctors, social workers, and psychologists. A complete spinal cord injury (sci) patient has no sensation below the level of her injury and has no control of her bowel and bladder. If I sit on my butt too long it will start to hurt and I will shift my weight. Sci patients have no way of knowing that they are cutting off blood supply to their butt or back, or hips or heels. If they are not turned every two hours they will develop a pressure ulcer. If these ulcers aren't treated, they will quickly deepen until the wound goes through the skin, the fat, the muscle and down to the bone. It's never good when you look inside an ulcer and see white bone staring back at you. That usually means infection, and weeks of antibiotics, a surgery to replace lost tissue, then months on an expensive low pressure bed, lying on your stomach while you hope that the muscle/skin transplant takes. The first 6 patients we examined at the HHA hospital had pressure ulcers-- some bigger than your hand, many with white bone showing through. My heart sank. Some of these patients will die, and fairly soon. We were too late. Some had ulcers when they came to HHA and some developed them there. We couldn't blame the staff. They have a general practice doctor and nurses who were trying their best, but had no training or experience in sci. Prior to the earthquake, sci patients without sensation or bowel and bladder control just didn't survive. Most facilities in the states or Canada would fail at treating sci patients without training or experience. We held classes and did rounds with the nurses to teach them that it is easy to prevent a pressure ulcer, but so difficult to heal them once they have gotten down to the muscle. Carwyn and his head nurse Madame JeanFrancois were eager to learn whatever they could to give these 19 patients the best chance at surviving. For two days we worked with them and made plans to send back teams to do more treatment and training. That's what Healing Hands does. We support rehabilitation efforts any where we find them in Haiti. The University of Toronto is gearing up to send sci expert teams to HHA hospital for the next 6 weeks. We are not too late to save the lives of some of these patients.
It was a tough two days. Almost all of the patients were from Port-au-Prince and don't know anyone or have any family in Cap Hatian. Some don't know if their families are alive. At regular intervals throughout the day, some of the patients would burst in two tears. Tears for the fate of their children, tears of mourning their injury, and tears for fear of the unknown. We wanted to cry with them. We tried to give them hope and courage. We had three young Haitian-American volunteers working with us. One is a nurse, the other two, just wanted to help where they could. They were great. It is people like them who give me hope for Haiti. It is people like them and like Carwyn and his friends who give me hope for humanity.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
March 28th,2010
March 28, 2010
Noel, our driver took us out yesterday. Normally when we bring a team to Haiti we try to expose them to some of the culture and beauty of Haiti. The music, the art, a bit of voodoo, a bit of Haitian history, a night club or going to see Richard Morse perform with RAM at the Olofsson Hotel, the quintessential Haitian experience. The memory of a night under a full moon, the shadows of voodoo icons rising and falling with the flickering kerosene lamps, a hundred Haitians swaying to RAM’s mizik rasin, preceded by a meal of tasso on the verandah will sustain you through the long, cold winter months of your life. On Sunday evenings we take the team for the buffet at the Hotel Montana and watch the red ball of sun drop into the cool blue waters of the bay. Our last weekend we spend at the beach as a reward for their hard work and a decompression from all the emotional stress a rehabilitation mission to Haiti invariably creates.
The Hotel Montana was destroyed in the earthquake. There are still bodies entombed in the rubble. Richard Morse and RAM haven’t played since January 12th. No one on our team felt much like going to the beach this year. We did go up to the Mission Baptiste de Fermathe to buy machetes, paintings and otherwise contribute to the Haitian economy.
On the way, Noel took us past his house, or rather his roof. That’s all that is left of it. He also took us past the market where his daughter and niece were trapped for 3 days. He now lives in a tent in the street with his wife and children. And the 6 kids ages 13-18 who lost their father, mother and uncle who was paying for their schooling in the earthquake. Noel’s wife worked with their mother so Noel and his wife took them in….. well, took them to the street where they have their tent. Joel, our other driver goes home to his family who live in a tent pitched in the soccer stadium. They both told us that they feel lucky because they have jobs and a place to go each day.
They drove us past St. Vincent school, the school for disabled children where we worked before we had our own clinic. It looked like a blue cake that had been sliced in two with a knife, and half of the cake was carried away. All the children inside were killed. My heart fell as we turned onto Blvd. Jn Jacques Dessalines, the main street. Not only was the formerly busiest street in Haiti deserted, ALL the buildings had crumbled. I had to ask Noel twice if we were really on Dessalines. Building after building crumbled or gone. The 6 story Teleco building, the police station, all the shops I used to know as a missionary were gone. There was nothing but dust, and rubble. I almost threw up. Noel told us there were still hundreds of bodies underneath the rubble. We turned down past La Ravine de Bois de Chaine a trickle of a river filled with thousands of Styrofoam take-out meal boxes and plastic water bottles. I wondered where the next million empty plastic water bottles would go. For the first time I wondered if Haiti could ever really recover.
As we drove in silence past row after row of destruction, dirt and despair, Noel said, “You know, I only smile when I’m with a team. Then I can laugh and joke with them, and I can help them help my people. When I go home, there is nothing to smile about”. We will keep sending teams, and if the Haitian people still living in the street after 3 months, can find hope, we will find hope too.
Noel, our driver took us out yesterday. Normally when we bring a team to Haiti we try to expose them to some of the culture and beauty of Haiti. The music, the art, a bit of voodoo, a bit of Haitian history, a night club or going to see Richard Morse perform with RAM at the Olofsson Hotel, the quintessential Haitian experience. The memory of a night under a full moon, the shadows of voodoo icons rising and falling with the flickering kerosene lamps, a hundred Haitians swaying to RAM’s mizik rasin, preceded by a meal of tasso on the verandah will sustain you through the long, cold winter months of your life. On Sunday evenings we take the team for the buffet at the Hotel Montana and watch the red ball of sun drop into the cool blue waters of the bay. Our last weekend we spend at the beach as a reward for their hard work and a decompression from all the emotional stress a rehabilitation mission to Haiti invariably creates.
The Hotel Montana was destroyed in the earthquake. There are still bodies entombed in the rubble. Richard Morse and RAM haven’t played since January 12th. No one on our team felt much like going to the beach this year. We did go up to the Mission Baptiste de Fermathe to buy machetes, paintings and otherwise contribute to the Haitian economy.
On the way, Noel took us past his house, or rather his roof. That’s all that is left of it. He also took us past the market where his daughter and niece were trapped for 3 days. He now lives in a tent in the street with his wife and children. And the 6 kids ages 13-18 who lost their father, mother and uncle who was paying for their schooling in the earthquake. Noel’s wife worked with their mother so Noel and his wife took them in….. well, took them to the street where they have their tent. Joel, our other driver goes home to his family who live in a tent pitched in the soccer stadium. They both told us that they feel lucky because they have jobs and a place to go each day.
They drove us past St. Vincent school, the school for disabled children where we worked before we had our own clinic. It looked like a blue cake that had been sliced in two with a knife, and half of the cake was carried away. All the children inside were killed. My heart fell as we turned onto Blvd. Jn Jacques Dessalines, the main street. Not only was the formerly busiest street in Haiti deserted, ALL the buildings had crumbled. I had to ask Noel twice if we were really on Dessalines. Building after building crumbled or gone. The 6 story Teleco building, the police station, all the shops I used to know as a missionary were gone. There was nothing but dust, and rubble. I almost threw up. Noel told us there were still hundreds of bodies underneath the rubble. We turned down past La Ravine de Bois de Chaine a trickle of a river filled with thousands of Styrofoam take-out meal boxes and plastic water bottles. I wondered where the next million empty plastic water bottles would go. For the first time I wondered if Haiti could ever really recover.
As we drove in silence past row after row of destruction, dirt and despair, Noel said, “You know, I only smile when I’m with a team. Then I can laugh and joke with them, and I can help them help my people. When I go home, there is nothing to smile about”. We will keep sending teams, and if the Haitian people still living in the street after 3 months, can find hope, we will find hope too.
March 28th,2010
March 28, 2010
Noel, our driver took us out yesterday. Normally when we bring a team to Haiti we try to expose them to some of the culture and beauty of Haiti. The music, the art, a bit of voodoo, a bit of Haitian history, a night club or going to see Richard Morse perform with RAM at the Olofsson Hotel, the quintessential Haitian experience. The memory of a night under a full moon, the shadows of voodoo icons rising and falling with the flickering kerosene lamps, a hundred Haitians swaying to RAM’s mizik rasin, preceded by a meal of tasso on the verandah will sustain you through the long, cold winter months of your life. On Sunday evenings we take the team for the buffet at the Hotel Montana and watch the red ball of sun drop into the cool blue waters of the bay. Our last weekend we spend at the beach as a reward for their hard work and a decompression from all the emotional stress a rehabilitation mission to Haiti invariably creates.
The Hotel Montana was destroyed in the earthquake. There are still bodies entombed in the rubble. Richard Morse and RAM haven’t played since January 12th. No one on our team felt much like going to the beach this year. We did go up to the Mission Baptiste de Fermathe to buy machetes, paintings and otherwise contribute to the Haitian economy.
On the way, Noel took us past his house, or rather his roof. That’s all that is left of it. He also took us past the market where his daughter and niece were trapped for 3 days. He now lives in a tent in the street with his wife and children. And the 6 kids ages 13-18 who lost their father, mother and uncle who was paying for their schooling in the earthquake. Noel’s wife worked with their mother so Noel and his wife took them in….. well, took them to the street where they have their tent. Joel, our other driver goes home to his family who live in a tent pitched in the soccer stadium. They both told us that they feel lucky because they have jobs and a place to go each day.
They drove us past St. Vincent school, the school for disabled children where we worked before we had our own clinic. It looked like a blue cake that had been sliced in two with a knife, and half of the cake was carried away. All the children inside were killed. My heart fell as we turned onto Blvd. Jn Jacques Dessalines, the main street. Not only was the formerly busiest street in Haiti deserted, ALL the buildings had crumbled. I had to ask Noel twice if we were really on Dessalines. Building after building crumbled or gone. The 6 story Teleco building, the police station, all the shops I used to know as a missionary were gone. There was nothing but dust, and rubble. I almost threw up. Noel told us there were still hundreds of bodies underneath the rubble. We turned down past La Ravine de Bois de Chaine a trickle of a river filled with thousands of Styrofoam take-out meal boxes and plastic water bottles. I wondered where the next million empty plastic water bottles would go. For the first time I wondered if Haiti could ever really recover.
As we drove in silence past row after row of destruction, dirt and despair, Noel said, “You know, I only smile when I’m with a team. Then I can laugh and joke with them, and I can help them help my people. When I go home, there is nothing to smile about”. We will keep sending teams, and if the Haitian people still living in the street after 3 months, can find hope, we will find hope too.
Noel, our driver took us out yesterday. Normally when we bring a team to Haiti we try to expose them to some of the culture and beauty of Haiti. The music, the art, a bit of voodoo, a bit of Haitian history, a night club or going to see Richard Morse perform with RAM at the Olofsson Hotel, the quintessential Haitian experience. The memory of a night under a full moon, the shadows of voodoo icons rising and falling with the flickering kerosene lamps, a hundred Haitians swaying to RAM’s mizik rasin, preceded by a meal of tasso on the verandah will sustain you through the long, cold winter months of your life. On Sunday evenings we take the team for the buffet at the Hotel Montana and watch the red ball of sun drop into the cool blue waters of the bay. Our last weekend we spend at the beach as a reward for their hard work and a decompression from all the emotional stress a rehabilitation mission to Haiti invariably creates.
The Hotel Montana was destroyed in the earthquake. There are still bodies entombed in the rubble. Richard Morse and RAM haven’t played since January 12th. No one on our team felt much like going to the beach this year. We did go up to the Mission Baptiste de Fermathe to buy machetes, paintings and otherwise contribute to the Haitian economy.
On the way, Noel took us past his house, or rather his roof. That’s all that is left of it. He also took us past the market where his daughter and niece were trapped for 3 days. He now lives in a tent in the street with his wife and children. And the 6 kids ages 13-18 who lost their father, mother and uncle who was paying for their schooling in the earthquake. Noel’s wife worked with their mother so Noel and his wife took them in….. well, took them to the street where they have their tent. Joel, our other driver goes home to his family who live in a tent pitched in the soccer stadium. They both told us that they feel lucky because they have jobs and a place to go each day.
They drove us past St. Vincent school, the school for disabled children where we worked before we had our own clinic. It looked like a blue cake that had been sliced in two with a knife, and half of the cake was carried away. All the children inside were killed. My heart fell as we turned onto Blvd. Jn Jacques Dessalines, the main street. Not only was the formerly busiest street in Haiti deserted, ALL the buildings had crumbled. I had to ask Noel twice if we were really on Dessalines. Building after building crumbled or gone. The 6 story Teleco building, the police station, all the shops I used to know as a missionary were gone. There was nothing but dust, and rubble. I almost threw up. Noel told us there were still hundreds of bodies underneath the rubble. We turned down past La Ravine de Bois de Chaine a trickle of a river filled with thousands of Styrofoam take-out meal boxes and plastic water bottles. I wondered where the next million empty plastic water bottles would go. For the first time I wondered if Haiti could ever really recover.
As we drove in silence past row after row of destruction, dirt and despair, Noel said, “You know, I only smile when I’m with a team. Then I can laugh and joke with them, and I can help them help my people. When I go home, there is nothing to smile about”. We will keep sending teams, and if the Haitian people still living in the street after 3 months, can find hope, we will find hope too.
Friday, March 26, 2010
March 26th, 2010
I went to Handicap International and the Medishare tent hospital today. Handicap International is a French foundation which does acute rehabilitation care for international disasters. They have set up a prosthetic shop and have hired our prosthetic technicians until we are able to get our shop rebuilt. It was nice to see that some of our equipment and our technicians are being put to good use. Prior to the earthquake we were doing 6-8 prosthetic limbs/month. With our help, HI has done over 60 this month. That is still not nearly enough. We met with the director of the International Committee of the Red Cross this afternoon. We are hopeful that they will help fund the rebuilding of our prosthetic clinic. Project Medishare was inspiring. They have several large tents with over a hundred hospital beds, ORs, NICU, and ICU. It appears to be staffed with volunteers from all over the US who come for a week or so at a time. Most of the earthquake victims have already been treated. The guy that I talked to with the external fixator from his femur to his tibia had been in a motorcycle accident. There were palm-sized newborns, kids with diarrhea, and a lot of infected wounds. The nursing staff made an urgent request for pediatric ICU nurses and as luck would have it we picked up two of them at the airport this afternoon! We will have them down at the Medishare hospital for the 7 am shift.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
March 25th, 2010
Haiti is starting to recover. Not so much physically-- there are still hundreds and hundreds of flattened buildings, rubble in the street and large formations of concrete and rebar dangling from tilted houses like man made stalactites. No, the recovery is in the people. There are smiles again. As I greeted our staff at our guest house, the one remaining building HHHIF has, I was met with hugs, smiles and just a bit of the old familiar sparkle in their eyes. It did my heart good. The people are why I keep coming back to Haiti. They have a spirit of resiliency and even joy in the face of living conditions that would drive the average North American right over the edge. Every single person that I greeted today had lost a family member --Every single one. Either, an aunt, a cousin, niece or nephew, father, mother, brother or sister. "Min, moua memn te sove, gras a Die" (But I was saved, thank God). Most of us would find it hard to thank God for anything after what they have all been through.
We showed the new members of our team around our compound. The 70' tall trees are still standing and beautiful. If you go to the bottom of our compound you can't see the collapsed 5 story apartment building or the precariously teetering clinic building. Our MASH tent is set up underneath the trees in the grass. There is enough beauty left for our first time team members to get a glimpse of how nice our clinic compound was before the quake. If you squint your eyes, look up through the trees, and avoid looking at the garbage strewn in the river below our feet, you can imagine a Haiti that could be: tropical foliage, hibiscus and bougainvillea, bright blue skies and an even bluer ocean off in the distance. But, if you open your eyes you will see that the people who lived in the bidonville across the river from our compound have crossed the river and erected new wooden shacks with blue tarp roofs right up next to our fence. We have had to put up razor wire to keep them out. This represents one of the moral headaches of Haiti. We feel badly about keeping the children off of our property. They used to come over at dusk and play on the grass under our trees. Gail, our volunteer team coordinator had a stable of 16 who would come over in the morning, help her open the tent, pick up garbage and do other errands in exchange for a vitamin tablet and a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast. Since we put up the razor wire they don't come over anymore. If we didn't put up the razor wire, no doubt one bold soul would have put up a shack, then another and over night we would have 200 squatters on our property. When it came time to rebuild, we would be faced with destroying the homes of hundreds of people.
I went to a meeting of all the groups focused on rehabilitation in Haiti this afternoon. If they stay in Haiti (there are rumors that most will be gone by the end of July), then working together, we can make a real dent in providing rehabilitation to those thousands who need it. If they don't stay, then Healing Hands for Haiti will do the best we can with what we have. We always have.
We showed the new members of our team around our compound. The 70' tall trees are still standing and beautiful. If you go to the bottom of our compound you can't see the collapsed 5 story apartment building or the precariously teetering clinic building. Our MASH tent is set up underneath the trees in the grass. There is enough beauty left for our first time team members to get a glimpse of how nice our clinic compound was before the quake. If you squint your eyes, look up through the trees, and avoid looking at the garbage strewn in the river below our feet, you can imagine a Haiti that could be: tropical foliage, hibiscus and bougainvillea, bright blue skies and an even bluer ocean off in the distance. But, if you open your eyes you will see that the people who lived in the bidonville across the river from our compound have crossed the river and erected new wooden shacks with blue tarp roofs right up next to our fence. We have had to put up razor wire to keep them out. This represents one of the moral headaches of Haiti. We feel badly about keeping the children off of our property. They used to come over at dusk and play on the grass under our trees. Gail, our volunteer team coordinator had a stable of 16 who would come over in the morning, help her open the tent, pick up garbage and do other errands in exchange for a vitamin tablet and a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast. Since we put up the razor wire they don't come over anymore. If we didn't put up the razor wire, no doubt one bold soul would have put up a shack, then another and over night we would have 200 squatters on our property. When it came time to rebuild, we would be faced with destroying the homes of hundreds of people.
I went to a meeting of all the groups focused on rehabilitation in Haiti this afternoon. If they stay in Haiti (there are rumors that most will be gone by the end of July), then working together, we can make a real dent in providing rehabilitation to those thousands who need it. If they don't stay, then Healing Hands for Haiti will do the best we can with what we have. We always have.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
March 24th, 2010
Headed back to Haiti.
Our tee shirts for my 12th team are brown instead of our traditional white. Fitting I suppose. Somber, subdued and won’t show the dirt and grime from hard work as much. A medical trip to Haiti is never easy, but this year’s trip will be much, much worse. I learned that when I was there in January a week after the earthquake. Our shirts read “Send your love to Haiti”. We are certainly doing that. It is a true labor of love to leave your family, your work, your responsibilities, your creature comforts and pay your way to travel to a place that is not just broken, but crushed. From Utah it is not an easy trip. We met at the SLC airport at 4 am to take a flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth. A two hour layover then another flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Once there, we have to wait overnight, before getting up at 3 am to get on the early flight to Port-au-Prince. Even with commercial flights now going to PAP we still arrive sleep deprived in Haiti.
I have been humbled and touched by all the donations that have come in the mail or on our website since the earthquake. There ARE good people in this world, people who care about their fellow human beings who are suffering, people who want to help. Large corporations have given thousands of dollars to Healing Hands, donations on our website have come from as far away as New Zealand. Two children, a 6yr old girl and an 8 yr old boy decided on their own to raise money for us, one by making valentine’s packages for sale in her neighborhood, the other by organizing donations at his school. When I think of these two children, my hope for a better Haiti, my hope for a better world burns brighter.
My five year old son asked me the other day, “Daddy, are we rich?” I told him what someone once told me: ‘He who has friends is rich’. Our team is made up of two doctors, three physical therapists, four nurses, a social worker and three support volunteers two of whom are HHHIF board members. Since the earthquake, I would bet that our board members are averaging close to 20 hours/week doing Haiti work on top of their jobs, families, and other responsibilities. I am in awe of how much they do in spite of their busy lives because they care.
One of the greatest benefits I have I have gained from my involvement with HHH is the association and friendship I have developed with so many caring, compassionate people in Haiti and in North America. Most are people whom I would never have met or whom I would have only known on a casual basis if not for their commitment to make a difference in Haiti. They are people who truly put “love thy neighbor” into practice. I count myself extremely fortunate to call them my friends.
Albert Schweitzer said, “You must do something for your fellowman, even if it is only a little thing. Do something for others, something for which you get no reward other than the privilege of doing it”.
It is a privilege for me to travel to Haiti and work with such wonderful people.
Headed back to Haiti.
Our tee shirts for my 12th team are brown instead of our traditional white. Fitting I suppose. Somber, subdued and won’t show the dirt and grime from hard work as much. A medical trip to Haiti is never easy, but this year’s trip will be much, much worse. I learned that when I was there in January a week after the earthquake. Our shirts read “Send your love to Haiti”. We are certainly doing that. It is a true labor of love to leave your family, your work, your responsibilities, your creature comforts and pay your way to travel to a place that is not just broken, but crushed. From Utah it is not an easy trip. We met at the SLC airport at 4 am to take a flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth. A two hour layover then another flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Once there, we have to wait overnight, before getting up at 3 am to get on the early flight to Port-au-Prince. Even with commercial flights now going to PAP we still arrive sleep deprived in Haiti.
I have been humbled and touched by all the donations that have come in the mail or on our website since the earthquake. There ARE good people in this world, people who care about their fellow human beings who are suffering, people who want to help. Large corporations have given thousands of dollars to Healing Hands, donations on our website have come from as far away as New Zealand. Two children, a 6yr old girl and an 8 yr old boy decided on their own to raise money for us, one by making valentine’s packages for sale in her neighborhood, the other by organizing donations at his school. When I think of these two children, my hope for a better Haiti, my hope for a better world burns brighter.
My five year old son asked me the other day, “Daddy, are we rich?” I told him what someone once told me: ‘He who has friends is rich’. Our team is made up of two doctors, three physical therapists, four nurses, a social worker and three support volunteers two of whom are HHHIF board members. Since the earthquake, I would bet that our board members are averaging close to 20 hours/week doing Haiti work on top of their jobs, families, and other responsibilities. I am in awe of how much they do in spite of their busy lives because they care.
One of the greatest benefits I have I have gained from my involvement with HHH is the association and friendship I have developed with so many caring, compassionate people in Haiti and in North America. Most are people whom I would never have met or whom I would have only known on a casual basis if not for their commitment to make a difference in Haiti. They are people who truly put “love thy neighbor” into practice. I count myself extremely fortunate to call them my friends.
Albert Schweitzer said, “You must do something for your fellowman, even if it is only a little thing. Do something for others, something for which you get no reward other than the privilege of doing it”.
It is a privilege for me to travel to Haiti and work with such wonderful people.
Monday, February 22, 2010
A 6 year old sells Valentines for Haiti.
I am probably going back to Haiti the last week in March. I have been told that groups that are leaving have dropped off their supplies at our compound...... makes me feel lonely. One group called and told me that they have 200 orthopedic patients on whom they did surgery and could HHH take over their post op care? I am afraid we will be inundated as the temporary groups leave. Meanwhile there are still over 1 million people homeless in Haiti and the rains are coming. We are working on getting a prosthetic lab set up and on demolishing our remaining buildings and clearing away the rubble before we start to rebuild. We are organizing rehab volunteers to plug them in at whichever facility can make the best use of them. Here, I am concentrating on getting people to not forget the plight of the Haitian people now that they don't dominate the news. I spoke last night and have four more speaking engagements this week. After I spoke, a 6 year old girl presented me with a jar of money for Haiti. She saw the suffering and decided she wanted to help. So she made Valentine's bags and sent out an e-mail to all of her friends and family asking them to buy some. She gave all of her profit to HHH. I was very moved by her gesture. When I get discouraged I will think of her. We are all doing what we can.....
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Jerry's Subs Continued......
Lately he found himself often thinking of the trip he took to Vermont while he was in college. He had gone with a girl from Boca Raton who wanted to learn to ski. They flew in late at night and when he stepped off the plane it hurt to breathe. He could never have believed that the air could be so thin and so cold. Ice crystals formed in his nose with every breath. He took a walk very early the next morning to breathe the air and to feel the snow. The air was light and still and the whole world was peaceful and silent. The snow lay everywhere covering and softening all signs of man’s struggle to survive. Here there were no putrid canals, no pigs rooting through last night’s garbage, no women ringing bells just after dawn crying, “savon-laver, savon-laver!” or “Chabon!” hoping to earn a few gourdes to get breakfast for their children. The sun’s early rays shone warm and friendly on his back as he walked up the ski slope. He felt light and strong and confident, as if there were solutions to all the world’s problems and he could solve them if he could just got enough people together to work at it with their best energy. Throughout the day, the sun played in and out of the clouds, always appearing when he got too cold and began to wish for warmth. In Haiti he never wished for the sun. In Haiti there are things you can never escape.
Lately, he found himself wondering more and more if it was too late. He never again felt the way he did that week in Vermont. Now as the days went by, each one dominated by the heavy, bleaching heat of the sun, he felt that the colors of his life were fading and he was slowly dying. Each new day the sun beat down, was one more day the world would not change, and one more day that he had failed to change it or himself.
Jean Baptiste still had not come. He wiped away a bead of sweat about to trickle down his chest and scowled more deeply. He decided to let Jean Baptiste go if business didn’t get better by next week.
Ti Louis was hungry. Nothing new about that. He had nearly always been hungry even when Papa and Maman were alive. A bowl of mais moulu or rice and beans once or even twice a day wasn’t enough for a boy of ten. Paying for school was out of the question. But when Papa and Maman were alive he had a place to sleep out of the rain. When he slept indoors with Maman and Papa he was protected from the gede and the loups garous who roamed the streets at night and changed shapes into pigs or hens or dogs and waited at crossroads for little boys. Then Papa was caught in a manifestation on the Grand Rue. He was found lying face down with a bal in his back after a speeding pick-up filled with chimeres sprayed the sidewalk with machine guns. Maman had gone to work buying crackers and Chiclets in bulk and selling them by the roadside on the route de Delmas. She didn’t make enough to feed Ti Louis even one small bowl of rice and beans per day. Between her tears and Louis’ screams she had dragged him to one of the orphanages run by blancs from New York and promised to come back for him in a few weeks. Ti Louis waited patiently. Three weeks became four and four became ten. At night he would sing the songs that Maman always sang to help him fall asleep and sometimes he would dream that he was in Maman’s arms sleeping safely, away from all the loup garous and all the black magic that was out in the night. After four months he began to forget Maman’s voice and Monsieur Vixamar the director, began to notice Ti Louis’ soft brown eyes. One night just after Ti Louis had stopped singing his mother’s songs, he felt a rough hand on his thigh and smelled the mixture of rum and tooth decay of Monsieur Vixamar’s breath above his face. That was the last night Ti Louis spent at the orphanage. The next day he slipped out the gate and into the street. Better to face hunger, fear and loups garous on the street than submit to the loup garou in the orphanage.
He was hungry now all the time. For the past five months nights were spent in a locked doorway if it was raining or on the grass and dirt in a dark corner of the Champ de Mars away from the chimeres and occasional police patrols who would whip you if they found you lying on the grass. Begging from people with no money was hard, stealing was easier. Ti Louis heard a rumor that his mother had died of AIDS or been killed with a vaudou curse by the bocor . He joined a pack of six other street boys in their daily search for food. They were barefoot, dressed in dirty rags, and the only baths they took were when they couldn’t find shelter from the rain. Soon Ti Louis was just one more of the thousands of street boys in Port-au-Prince who almost certainly wouldn’t live to see his 16th birthday. And if he did, it was through selling drugs, his body, or by joining the gangs of chimeres killing people like his father whenever a Grand Piston ordered a show of force.
Ti Louis liked to dig around in the garbage pile behind Jerry’s Subs. You could almost always find something only half eaten, wrapped in paper napkins if the sun or the roaches or the rats hadn’t gotten to it first. This morning before the rest of the boys joined him, he headed to the alley behind Jerry’s to see if there was anything that would ease the hunger pangs constantly biting his stomach from the inside out.
Already the heat was strong. Before starting the diesel generator Jerry flicked the air conditioner switch. To his surprise it came on with a soft whir. Electricite D’Haiti usually supplied power for a few hours only three or so days a week. He cursed EDH reflexively under his breath and walked over to the back of the store to check the refrigerator. Maybe today would be a better day. He pulled open the refrigerator door and immediately smelled that some of the jambon was beginning to turn. He cleared the top layers of jambon, salami, and sliced dinde and walked to the back door to throw it out on the garbage pile. As he approached the back door he could hear a scratching noise outside. He sighed. A pack of dogs or rats in the garbage pile. Like all the merchants around the champ de Mars he paid a private company to remove his trash once a week. Since the embargo Jerry was lucky if they came once a month. Some of the few blanc customers he had in the past few weeks had complained about the rats around his store. He had begun to keep a pile of stones just outside the door to scatter the rats in case some blancs from the UN or one of the medical missions came in for a sandwich.
He opened the door and felt the burning fatigue of the sun on his face. He stooped over and picked up a large round stone. The searing fingers of the sun reflected off the aluminum wrappers in the garbage pile and blinded his eyes for a moment. He blinked a few times as he straightened up to throw. He blinked a few more times as if he hoped that when he opened his eyes reality would be changed, he would be somewhere else. A small boy with large brown, frightened eyes stared at him from behind the pile of wrappers, stained napkins, and rotting food. Jerry put his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun.
In between Jerry and the boy rays of heat shimmered and danced off the stones paving the alley. The waves of heat rose up into the air and began to vibrate, change colors and form a picture. Jerry saw himself buying a new blue and white school uniform, shoes and a book bag. The colors shifted and the boy was sitting at a table and Jerry was helping him study. A shimmering ray became bright white light and Jerry was at the Cathedral in the front pew as a row of boys and girls in white dresses and white shirts and pants knelt to receive their first communion. The heat became a pale blue and Jerry was leading a large eyed timid boy into the water at Cormier Plage to teach him to swim. Soon Jerry and the boy were laughing and splashing and the waves melted into black night pierced by small stars. Jerry was lying in bed with a fever and the boy, a young man now, was softly singing an old Haitian lullaby while gently sponging Jerry’s head with a cool wet cloth. The blackness of night faded to soft white. Jerry and the boy were dressed like Eskimos and Jerry was laughing as the teenager tried the first time to walk in the icy snow of Vermont.
The snow scene burst into a rainbow. Jerry was sitting in a rocking chair while four little children in brightly colored shirts and dresses opened their Christmas presents on the floor before him. The boy with the soft brown eyes was now a man and stood by the rocking chair with his arm around a woman made even more beautiful by the expression of joy on her face. For a moment, Jerry felt a cool breathe of air brush through his hair, drift down the back alley and out towards the ocean. Jerry blinked again.
The frightened boy had scooted out from behind the garbage pile and was beginning to slink towards the end of the alley. Jerry looked at the rock in his hand. “I can’t do it, I can’t! ” he moaned. “I’m too old and too afraid!” he whispered in anguish. He let the rock slip from his fingers.
When the rock hit the ground the boy slipped out of the alley and back into the dirt and bustle of an early morning on the Champ de Mars. He dodged several taxis as they curled and twisted around one another dropping off and picking up in the Champ’s distorted figure eight traffic pattern. He picked up speed as he broke through the group of pistache and shaved ice sellers on the opposite corner of the street. He jumped the small fence and ran across the grass past the playground that was always closed to children towards the military caserne at the bottom of the Champ de Mars. As he reached the opposite end of the Champ he was out of breath, but figured he was now safe so he slowed to a walk. The sun was brutal now and the run had made Ti Louis glisten with sweat. Thirst had overtaken hunger for the moment.
“Arrete!” Ti Louis heard a voice behind him. Fear leaped up again as he turned. A dripping, red-faced Jerry came running up to him. Ti Louis was too surprised and too tired to run again. Jerry stopped, bent over, gasping for breath. Finally Jerry caught his breath, straightened up and said “Tell me your name?”
Lately he found himself often thinking of the trip he took to Vermont while he was in college. He had gone with a girl from Boca Raton who wanted to learn to ski. They flew in late at night and when he stepped off the plane it hurt to breathe. He could never have believed that the air could be so thin and so cold. Ice crystals formed in his nose with every breath. He took a walk very early the next morning to breathe the air and to feel the snow. The air was light and still and the whole world was peaceful and silent. The snow lay everywhere covering and softening all signs of man’s struggle to survive. Here there were no putrid canals, no pigs rooting through last night’s garbage, no women ringing bells just after dawn crying, “savon-laver, savon-laver!” or “Chabon!” hoping to earn a few gourdes to get breakfast for their children. The sun’s early rays shone warm and friendly on his back as he walked up the ski slope. He felt light and strong and confident, as if there were solutions to all the world’s problems and he could solve them if he could just got enough people together to work at it with their best energy. Throughout the day, the sun played in and out of the clouds, always appearing when he got too cold and began to wish for warmth. In Haiti he never wished for the sun. In Haiti there are things you can never escape.
Lately, he found himself wondering more and more if it was too late. He never again felt the way he did that week in Vermont. Now as the days went by, each one dominated by the heavy, bleaching heat of the sun, he felt that the colors of his life were fading and he was slowly dying. Each new day the sun beat down, was one more day the world would not change, and one more day that he had failed to change it or himself.
Jean Baptiste still had not come. He wiped away a bead of sweat about to trickle down his chest and scowled more deeply. He decided to let Jean Baptiste go if business didn’t get better by next week.
Ti Louis was hungry. Nothing new about that. He had nearly always been hungry even when Papa and Maman were alive. A bowl of mais moulu or rice and beans once or even twice a day wasn’t enough for a boy of ten. Paying for school was out of the question. But when Papa and Maman were alive he had a place to sleep out of the rain. When he slept indoors with Maman and Papa he was protected from the gede and the loups garous who roamed the streets at night and changed shapes into pigs or hens or dogs and waited at crossroads for little boys. Then Papa was caught in a manifestation on the Grand Rue. He was found lying face down with a bal in his back after a speeding pick-up filled with chimeres sprayed the sidewalk with machine guns. Maman had gone to work buying crackers and Chiclets in bulk and selling them by the roadside on the route de Delmas. She didn’t make enough to feed Ti Louis even one small bowl of rice and beans per day. Between her tears and Louis’ screams she had dragged him to one of the orphanages run by blancs from New York and promised to come back for him in a few weeks. Ti Louis waited patiently. Three weeks became four and four became ten. At night he would sing the songs that Maman always sang to help him fall asleep and sometimes he would dream that he was in Maman’s arms sleeping safely, away from all the loup garous and all the black magic that was out in the night. After four months he began to forget Maman’s voice and Monsieur Vixamar the director, began to notice Ti Louis’ soft brown eyes. One night just after Ti Louis had stopped singing his mother’s songs, he felt a rough hand on his thigh and smelled the mixture of rum and tooth decay of Monsieur Vixamar’s breath above his face. That was the last night Ti Louis spent at the orphanage. The next day he slipped out the gate and into the street. Better to face hunger, fear and loups garous on the street than submit to the loup garou in the orphanage.
He was hungry now all the time. For the past five months nights were spent in a locked doorway if it was raining or on the grass and dirt in a dark corner of the Champ de Mars away from the chimeres and occasional police patrols who would whip you if they found you lying on the grass. Begging from people with no money was hard, stealing was easier. Ti Louis heard a rumor that his mother had died of AIDS or been killed with a vaudou curse by the bocor . He joined a pack of six other street boys in their daily search for food. They were barefoot, dressed in dirty rags, and the only baths they took were when they couldn’t find shelter from the rain. Soon Ti Louis was just one more of the thousands of street boys in Port-au-Prince who almost certainly wouldn’t live to see his 16th birthday. And if he did, it was through selling drugs, his body, or by joining the gangs of chimeres killing people like his father whenever a Grand Piston ordered a show of force.
Ti Louis liked to dig around in the garbage pile behind Jerry’s Subs. You could almost always find something only half eaten, wrapped in paper napkins if the sun or the roaches or the rats hadn’t gotten to it first. This morning before the rest of the boys joined him, he headed to the alley behind Jerry’s to see if there was anything that would ease the hunger pangs constantly biting his stomach from the inside out.
Already the heat was strong. Before starting the diesel generator Jerry flicked the air conditioner switch. To his surprise it came on with a soft whir. Electricite D’Haiti usually supplied power for a few hours only three or so days a week. He cursed EDH reflexively under his breath and walked over to the back of the store to check the refrigerator. Maybe today would be a better day. He pulled open the refrigerator door and immediately smelled that some of the jambon was beginning to turn. He cleared the top layers of jambon, salami, and sliced dinde and walked to the back door to throw it out on the garbage pile. As he approached the back door he could hear a scratching noise outside. He sighed. A pack of dogs or rats in the garbage pile. Like all the merchants around the champ de Mars he paid a private company to remove his trash once a week. Since the embargo Jerry was lucky if they came once a month. Some of the few blanc customers he had in the past few weeks had complained about the rats around his store. He had begun to keep a pile of stones just outside the door to scatter the rats in case some blancs from the UN or one of the medical missions came in for a sandwich.
He opened the door and felt the burning fatigue of the sun on his face. He stooped over and picked up a large round stone. The searing fingers of the sun reflected off the aluminum wrappers in the garbage pile and blinded his eyes for a moment. He blinked a few times as he straightened up to throw. He blinked a few more times as if he hoped that when he opened his eyes reality would be changed, he would be somewhere else. A small boy with large brown, frightened eyes stared at him from behind the pile of wrappers, stained napkins, and rotting food. Jerry put his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun.
In between Jerry and the boy rays of heat shimmered and danced off the stones paving the alley. The waves of heat rose up into the air and began to vibrate, change colors and form a picture. Jerry saw himself buying a new blue and white school uniform, shoes and a book bag. The colors shifted and the boy was sitting at a table and Jerry was helping him study. A shimmering ray became bright white light and Jerry was at the Cathedral in the front pew as a row of boys and girls in white dresses and white shirts and pants knelt to receive their first communion. The heat became a pale blue and Jerry was leading a large eyed timid boy into the water at Cormier Plage to teach him to swim. Soon Jerry and the boy were laughing and splashing and the waves melted into black night pierced by small stars. Jerry was lying in bed with a fever and the boy, a young man now, was softly singing an old Haitian lullaby while gently sponging Jerry’s head with a cool wet cloth. The blackness of night faded to soft white. Jerry and the boy were dressed like Eskimos and Jerry was laughing as the teenager tried the first time to walk in the icy snow of Vermont.
The snow scene burst into a rainbow. Jerry was sitting in a rocking chair while four little children in brightly colored shirts and dresses opened their Christmas presents on the floor before him. The boy with the soft brown eyes was now a man and stood by the rocking chair with his arm around a woman made even more beautiful by the expression of joy on her face. For a moment, Jerry felt a cool breathe of air brush through his hair, drift down the back alley and out towards the ocean. Jerry blinked again.
The frightened boy had scooted out from behind the garbage pile and was beginning to slink towards the end of the alley. Jerry looked at the rock in his hand. “I can’t do it, I can’t! ” he moaned. “I’m too old and too afraid!” he whispered in anguish. He let the rock slip from his fingers.
When the rock hit the ground the boy slipped out of the alley and back into the dirt and bustle of an early morning on the Champ de Mars. He dodged several taxis as they curled and twisted around one another dropping off and picking up in the Champ’s distorted figure eight traffic pattern. He picked up speed as he broke through the group of pistache and shaved ice sellers on the opposite corner of the street. He jumped the small fence and ran across the grass past the playground that was always closed to children towards the military caserne at the bottom of the Champ de Mars. As he reached the opposite end of the Champ he was out of breath, but figured he was now safe so he slowed to a walk. The sun was brutal now and the run had made Ti Louis glisten with sweat. Thirst had overtaken hunger for the moment.
“Arrete!” Ti Louis heard a voice behind him. Fear leaped up again as he turned. A dripping, red-faced Jerry came running up to him. Ti Louis was too surprised and too tired to run again. Jerry stopped, bent over, gasping for breath. Finally Jerry caught his breath, straightened up and said “Tell me your name?”
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Jerry's Subs
It seems that I am involved nightly in plans to get the needed resources to Haiti. The USN Comfort is in need of doctors and nurses, the surgical teams are winding up and need people to provide post-op care and follow-up, and we are going to need thousands of new prosthetics, wheelchairs and walkers. Until we find out about shipping, our stocked warehouses cannot be unloaded. It's frustrating because so many people have called wanting to do something to help. We don't have any more room in our warehouses despite the need to get things to Haiti, and we don't have any place to store things if we ship them. We are working on sorting these things out, meanwhile people are getting sick from communicable diseases in the camps, and there are still fights over food and water distribution. I for one, am hopeful that this earthquake will quite literally be the shock that Haiti needed to realize that changes needed to be made-- big changes. If not, I foresaw mass death due to starvation and overpopulation in twenty years. It seems that the corruption in government was too entrenched in Haiti and no one despite his/her best intentions could change the status quo. Well now is your chance! The young members of the Haitian diaspora, the educated people who live in Haiti, need to unite and form a new vision for this country. This opportunity could be Haiti's last chance. I am uploading a short story I wrote a few years ago about how changes can be made in one's life, the lives of others and possibly even the life of a country. Haiti has wonderful, talented individuals.... they just need to start working together with an eye toward the future.
Jerry's Subs
He unlocked the door and swung it open to meet the dust and the first rays of the steaming morning sun. Soon the sun would begin its crawl up the sidewalk and onto the tile floor of his shop at the corner of Rue de l’Enterrement and Rue Tristesse on the edge of the Champ de Mars. Jerry knew it would be another slow day for his sandwich and pizza parlor. The OAS had called for another embargo and the UN troops, missionaries, medical teams and all the other optimistic saviors of the third world who used to come to Jerry’s Subs for “manje amerikan” had been withdrawn or evacuated two months ago.
It was the first week of July, and as he felt the early sunlight lick like flames at his feet, he knew that in a few hours the heat would be suffocating. He cursed under his breath and wondered if he could afford the diesel to run both the air conditioner and the refrigerator. Two months ago Jerry’s Subs was busy every lunch and until ten o’clock on weekends. He kicked at the dust on the broken cement that was once a sidewalk. Ten years of tropical rains followed by burning sun “te boule tet mwan tou” (has burnt up my brain too). He turned and looked down la Rue Tristesse towards the Champ de Mars. The forlorn taxis were just starting the morning rush delivering school children in matching uniforms of white shirts and blue or plaid skirts and pants to the schools around the Champ. Jerry himself had gone to one of the better primary and secondary schools in Port-au-Prince, L’Ecole Gerard Armand Joseph. It was not far from Jerry’s Subs on Avenue Charles Sumner, named after the abolitionist US Senator. Senator Sumner was beaten with a cane in the Senate Chamber by a southern colleague who disagreed with his views on the slavery question.
Jerry left Haiti when he was twenty to go to college in the States. He started at Miami-Dade Community College but never finished. Too many parties, too many girls who loved his accent, his green eyes, and his caramel-colored skin. He started an import business which worked for a few years, but then he got arrested for smuggling ti boules of cocaine and did 18 months. When he got out he found he couldn’t make a profit importing just salad bowls and bad reproductions of Haitian art. All at once he was in his thirties and his parents weren’t interested in supporting him anymore. When his father’s cousin who was the head of the Schnieder family suggested he return to Haiti and run the shop on the corner, Jerry had reluctantly agreed. When your uncle is one of the ten most powerful men in Haiti, one of three businessmen who brokered the return of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, you consider his suggestions carefully.
So he returned to Haiti, whose dirt he had sworn would never again lie in the cracks of his sandals when he left ten years ago. He kicked at the dust again and scowled. Where was Jean Baptiste? He was supposed to be the first to report to Jerry’s Subs in the morning to sweep the broken sidewalk in front of the store. He supposed Jean Baptiste had begun to neglect his duties because each week there were less and less duties to perform.
Since the embargo began he had come to detest the sun. Even in rainy season it was relentless. In dry season he had seen Haitians who had never known anything but the heat of the tropics, crumple and faint in the streets under the weight of the sun’s oppression.
to be continued.
Jerry's Subs
He unlocked the door and swung it open to meet the dust and the first rays of the steaming morning sun. Soon the sun would begin its crawl up the sidewalk and onto the tile floor of his shop at the corner of Rue de l’Enterrement and Rue Tristesse on the edge of the Champ de Mars. Jerry knew it would be another slow day for his sandwich and pizza parlor. The OAS had called for another embargo and the UN troops, missionaries, medical teams and all the other optimistic saviors of the third world who used to come to Jerry’s Subs for “manje amerikan” had been withdrawn or evacuated two months ago.
It was the first week of July, and as he felt the early sunlight lick like flames at his feet, he knew that in a few hours the heat would be suffocating. He cursed under his breath and wondered if he could afford the diesel to run both the air conditioner and the refrigerator. Two months ago Jerry’s Subs was busy every lunch and until ten o’clock on weekends. He kicked at the dust on the broken cement that was once a sidewalk. Ten years of tropical rains followed by burning sun “te boule tet mwan tou” (has burnt up my brain too). He turned and looked down la Rue Tristesse towards the Champ de Mars. The forlorn taxis were just starting the morning rush delivering school children in matching uniforms of white shirts and blue or plaid skirts and pants to the schools around the Champ. Jerry himself had gone to one of the better primary and secondary schools in Port-au-Prince, L’Ecole Gerard Armand Joseph. It was not far from Jerry’s Subs on Avenue Charles Sumner, named after the abolitionist US Senator. Senator Sumner was beaten with a cane in the Senate Chamber by a southern colleague who disagreed with his views on the slavery question.
Jerry left Haiti when he was twenty to go to college in the States. He started at Miami-Dade Community College but never finished. Too many parties, too many girls who loved his accent, his green eyes, and his caramel-colored skin. He started an import business which worked for a few years, but then he got arrested for smuggling ti boules of cocaine and did 18 months. When he got out he found he couldn’t make a profit importing just salad bowls and bad reproductions of Haitian art. All at once he was in his thirties and his parents weren’t interested in supporting him anymore. When his father’s cousin who was the head of the Schnieder family suggested he return to Haiti and run the shop on the corner, Jerry had reluctantly agreed. When your uncle is one of the ten most powerful men in Haiti, one of three businessmen who brokered the return of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, you consider his suggestions carefully.
So he returned to Haiti, whose dirt he had sworn would never again lie in the cracks of his sandals when he left ten years ago. He kicked at the dust again and scowled. Where was Jean Baptiste? He was supposed to be the first to report to Jerry’s Subs in the morning to sweep the broken sidewalk in front of the store. He supposed Jean Baptiste had begun to neglect his duties because each week there were less and less duties to perform.
Since the embargo began he had come to detest the sun. Even in rainy season it was relentless. In dry season he had seen Haitians who had never known anything but the heat of the tropics, crumple and faint in the streets under the weight of the sun’s oppression.
to be continued.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Moral Headaches
I have been reading about the church group from Idaho who were arrested for trying to take orphans out of Haiti without the proper paperwork. "How could they do a stupid thing like that?" some may ask. Others might say, "How could they be arrested for trying to save children from such terrible conditions?" Haiti is full of dilemmas like that. The Haitian government is outraged at people trying to take Haitian children, yet they never seemed to be too upset at seeing hundreds of children living abandoned in the streets before the earthquake. This morning on NPR they interviewed a Haitian woman who was glad to let her own children go to a 'blan' even though she would never see them again. Again, "how could anyone ever do that?' we ask.
Haitian parents love their children as much as any parents. I have seen fathers and mothers carry their sick children on foot for miles, and wait for hours in the hot sun for just a chance at getting proper medical care for their child.
I think Haitian parents give up their children because they love them so much. A small chance, even a glimmer of a chance for their children to escape the hunger, squalor, and grinding day to day life of poverty is enough for a loving but hopeless parent to give up her beloved child to a stranger.
The Restavek system works the same way. Poor illiterate parents usually in the countryside will give their children to a distant relative or stranger for the promise of regular food, a place to sleep and an education. I saw many restaveks (Kreyol for "stay with") while in Haiti on my church mission. Whenever we were teaching a family we would ask if their "cousin' who was always dressed in rags and stayed in the kitchen, wanted to hear the lesson. "Pa okipe-l" (don't pay any attention to him) we were told. I never saw one whipped or physically abused. They were just treated as something slightly less than human. It wasn't until I left Haiti that I learned who these unfortunate children were-- restaveks. It is so sad. Slavery still exists in a country that prides itself in being the first country in the new world to throw off the yoke of slavery.
I understand that Haiti wants to protect its children from the flesh trade, and foreigners want to protect Haitian children from poverty. I believe that Haiti and the International community can and must learn to work together to achieve the same goals. I hope the church group from Idaho is released soon and realizes that they need to work within the system, and I hope that the Haitian government makes the system easier for caring, loving people from other countries to adopt Haiti's orphaned children.
Haitian parents love their children as much as any parents. I have seen fathers and mothers carry their sick children on foot for miles, and wait for hours in the hot sun for just a chance at getting proper medical care for their child.
I think Haitian parents give up their children because they love them so much. A small chance, even a glimmer of a chance for their children to escape the hunger, squalor, and grinding day to day life of poverty is enough for a loving but hopeless parent to give up her beloved child to a stranger.
The Restavek system works the same way. Poor illiterate parents usually in the countryside will give their children to a distant relative or stranger for the promise of regular food, a place to sleep and an education. I saw many restaveks (Kreyol for "stay with") while in Haiti on my church mission. Whenever we were teaching a family we would ask if their "cousin' who was always dressed in rags and stayed in the kitchen, wanted to hear the lesson. "Pa okipe-l" (don't pay any attention to him) we were told. I never saw one whipped or physically abused. They were just treated as something slightly less than human. It wasn't until I left Haiti that I learned who these unfortunate children were-- restaveks. It is so sad. Slavery still exists in a country that prides itself in being the first country in the new world to throw off the yoke of slavery.
I understand that Haiti wants to protect its children from the flesh trade, and foreigners want to protect Haitian children from poverty. I believe that Haiti and the International community can and must learn to work together to achieve the same goals. I hope the church group from Idaho is released soon and realizes that they need to work within the system, and I hope that the Haitian government makes the system easier for caring, loving people from other countries to adopt Haiti's orphaned children.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Blessed are they that mourn
I got home Sunday evening and I’m still exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well. I turn a corner in my car and instinctively look for crumbled buildings. I look at my children and want to hug each one of them and cry. We were warned by the social workers on our trip that we would have a period of adjustment when we returned home. I didn’t think it would be me though. I am so used to going and coming from Haiti. But not this Haiti. Not the Haiti where everyone has a tale of sadness, of death of a loved one, or of a miraculous escape.
There has been talk of salvaging the rubble to make roads. If you use large magnets to remove the rebar, then crush the concrete you can make an admirable road filler. Haiti needs paved roads, clean water, garbage collection and a government that cares about its people. Might as well start with the roads. How will it feel driving down a road made of the pieces of misery? Will each crunch of rubber over what once was someone’s house release a scream?
Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.
A wise friend shared with me this quote by Stanley Jones:
“The most absolutely happy people of the world are those who choose to care till it hurts. The most miserable people of the world are those who center upon themselves and deliberately shun the cares of others in the interest of their own happiness. It eludes them. They save their lives and they lose them.”
I don’t know why terrible things like earthquakes happen. I don’t know why so many people have to suffer. I believe that there are opportunities for each of us to care till it hurts, to comfort those who mourn, to make a difference, just as there are opportunities to turn our faces away from suffering, to ignore those in need, to stay inside our own lives.
Haiti will survive.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Waiting to come home.
I am sitting under a tarp at L’Aeroport Toussaint Louverture as I write. It’s a pleasant day for Haiti in January but dusty, and dirty and hot enough. Various types of aircraft are taking off and landing as soon as they can clear the runway. We left our house in Bon Repos this morning at 7:30 with roughly half our team. The rest are staying until Wednesday or longer. Although I wish I could stay, I think it’s time for me to go home, pay some bills and start planning for the rehabilitation effort that is going to be sorely needed in the coming months. I have had so many messages of support and good wishes for our team and the people of Haiti. It has been one of the few bright lights during this dark tragedy. I hope that everyone will continue to remember Haiti when the next big media event pushes the earthquake from the headlines.
Haiti always gives those who visit a moral headache. There is so much need, so much sorrow, where do you begin? And whom do you choose to help? Two of our drivers are in their mid twenties, speak English well, and desperately want to study at a university to learn skills that are critical for their country. Daniel’s dream is to study mechanical engineering. He was enrolled in engineering classes in Haiti, but it will be at least a year, maybe two before any kind of higher education becomes available again in Port-au-Prince. He wants to go to BYU in Provo Utah, but needs a visa and a sponsor. Dino our other driver wants to go to BYU to study architecture. I am asked over and over for help in obtaining visas every time I come to Haiti. Daniel and Dino are two of Haiti’s best and brightest. They would be a credit to any university in the states. I don’t know if their dreams will ever come true.
We have been on the tarmac now for four hours. We could have gotten on a plane sooner but one of our group isn’t a US citizen and this has held us back. We are watching a C-17 transport plane being loaded with orphans who have cleared immigration and are going to their new families in the states. Brandt, our “get things done” guy is working on getting him on that plane to care for them during the flight. The children emerge from an old school bus painted robin’s egg blue. Some are frightened, some excited, most are too young to understand that they will be leaving their country forever. More and more children come out of the bus and my heart breaks for each one, and for each one left behind.
One member of our group, a medical student, got a message from his wife a few days ago. The two of them had been considering adopting a child and she told him that she had prayed and come up with the address of an orphanage near Port-au-Prince. “Go and find our daughter” were his instructions and she gave him a description of what she’d look like.
How do you choose a child?” he asked. “It’s not like going to the pet store for a puppy”. If those kids only knew how their lives would be changed if this young “blan” happened to choose them. I imagine a young Haitian-American growing up with only the tiniest bit of memory of living in Haiti. No doubt that life in the US would bring challenges that most American kids don’t have to face, but isn’t a home filled with love and attention, enough food and water, and a good education, what all parents wish for their children? I imagine the emotional turmoil of this young child after she grows up and one day decides to return to Haiti—to the orphanage where she was picked by a stranger on a day so long ago that she may not have any memories of it at all.
How do you choose a child? The medical student wandered among the children. They were running, shouting, pulling at his hand, excited at by the break in their routine occasioned by the visit of this stranger. He looked across the dirt yard and saw a shy little girl standing under a tree. After a minute, she looked up at him and smiled. “And I just knew” he said with tears in his eyes. “She was supposed to be my daughter”. He took her back to where we were staying, cleaned her up and watched her eat and eat and eat. Our host and his wife promised to make sure this beautiful little girl was cared for until the paper work can be cleared. Some of our team went back and helped put up a tarp over the other kids’ bunk beds so they wouldn’t have to sleep in the open. The building where they lived was destroyed by the earthquake. I look over and notice that today, even after only a few hours of separation, this new father already misses his daughter.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Oresto Oclor
Why did I come to Haiti? I knew it was going to be heart wrenching. In the best of times Haiti can be completely exasperating. You plan things, review the plan, make contingencies and when you step off the plane the “reality of Haiti” throws an ape sized wrench right into the middle of your well laid plans. You can only imagine how much worse a natural catastrophe has made it. Our church leaders meet late into every night trying to balance coordinating our medical team with the needs of the church members for whom they are responsible. We owe a great deal to our volunteer drivers, translators, and clinic helpers many of whom help our team all day, then go back to the churchyard where they find their families under a sheet or in a tent, hopeful that they have found enough food and water for the day in their absence.
A snapshot of Haiti that makes you want to laugh and cry: Half of our team was busy trying to load 5 patients with leg fractures in our landcruiser early this afternoon. Having done this more times than I can count this past week, I know that you can get 3 patients safely in the landcruiser if one of them is small. With the traffic and disorder in the streets, two trips down to the general hospital could take most of the afternoon. So, at the very moment we were struggling to fit in as many patients as possible, an AMBULANCE drives past the chapel gate and up to the chapel. What great luck! I think. The man parks the ambulance behind the church, locks the doors and walks out of the church and down the street! None of the members thought to ask his name, why he was parking in our churchyard, or why in heaven’s name he wasn’t using his AMBULANCE to transport patients! Haiti will drive you crazy if you let it.
This morning on the way into our clinic we came upon a man lying injured in the street. He was clutching his chest and complaining of trouble breathing. He also had an open tibia-fibula fracture. The strange thing about him was that his injury had nothing to do with the earthquake, he was running to catch a tap-tap (local Haitian taxi) and slipped. He was fortunate to have a team of doctors and nurses jammed into 2 landcruisers and a pick-up come on the scene a few minutes after the accident. We loaded him in the back of our pick-up on top of our supplies and took him to the general hospital which is now the command center for medical care. We have been there so many times delivering injured patients, that the soldiers at the gate barely acknowledge us as we zoom through.
We all have heard the story of the boy and the starfish. A small boy at low tide is picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the water. A man comes by, looks at the thousands of starfish strewn up and down the beach, and tells the boy, “Look at all these starfish! You could stand here all day throwing starfish into the water and it wouldn’t make a difference”. The boy picks up a starfish and throws it into the water. “I made a difference for that one,” he replies.
Why did I come to Haiti? I couldn’t stay away for one thing. I love this country. I cry for the suffering, ache for the innocent in misery and rejoice in the joyful resilient spirit of the Haitian people. I have friends here that I have known for more than 20 years. I met one in the yard of the Petionville church whom I haven’t seen since I was a missionary there in 1983. I also came because if I could, I wanted to get a starfish back to the water.
Because of “the realities of Haiti” we didn’t get on the road to our Carrefour clinic until 2:30 in the afternoon. We had to rendezvous with the other team members back at the general hospital at 5pm. While traffic was at a standstill, we realized that we would have less than an hour to do a clinic. I asked the team if they wanted to continue or just go back home. The vote was to continue. We got lost on they way and got there even later than we anticipated. Most of the people in the church grounds looked fairly well cared for. We asked if there were any injured who needed treatment. We saw a few lacerations and a facial hematoma but most of the patients at the clinic had flu symptoms or were suffering anxiety due to the quake. Then they brought in a little boy. Oresto Oclor was a 4 yr old whose father had fashioned a device with two sticks and a little wicker and wood child’s chair. He and his sister had carried Oresto down the mountain for the past two days in Cleopatra fashion. He didn’t know where to take Oresto and had been sitting outside the church for an hour or two to rest. Oresto’s face was covered with dirt and dried tears. We unwrapped his blanket and saw that his ear was nearly torn off. He had a large chunk of skin torn out of his forehead and another larger chunk from his under his arm over his ribs. We unwrapped a dirty bandage from his hand and saw that it was dead. The quake had killed Oresto’s mother, and trapped Oresto under some concrete blocks. His father told us that another child who died in the quake was found lying on little Oresto’s hand. His wrist was infected and dying and the bones of his hand were sticking through the skin and had already turned black. Liz our nurse, cradled Oresto in her arms and cried as he screamed in pain while she bandaged his wounds. His forehead was burning and we could tell that he was septic and had bacteria coursing through his blood. This child would die if we didn’t get him immediate treatment. We packed up our clinic in a rush, and explained to Oresto’s father that they both had to come with us right now. Liz wrapped Oresto in a blanket and tried to shield him as best she could from the rough bumps in the road. Oresto was brave but cried out each time the car was jarred.
After what seemed like hours we got to the general hospital. We bypassed triage and were led to the pediatric tent. The Swiss were taking care of the pediatric trauma, and a world renowned pediatric orthopedic surgeon saw Oresto within 10 minutes. I don’t think anyone can save Oresto’s hand, but I think that we saved his life. Oresto’s father doesn’t speak any French and we tried to explain everything that was going on and what to expect. He only had one question. “Please, when the doctors are done, they will give me back my son won’t they?”
So many things combined exactly to get Oresto to us and us to Oresto.
I think that is why I came to Haiti.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Jan 21st
I am beginning to understand the impact that this earthquake has had on Haiti and the people. There was another shock today causing the people to run out of the CDTI hospital where our surgeons have been working. The decision was made that the hospital was unsafe and we started evacuating patients. We spoke to the 82nd airborne and got promises to have 12 of the patients at CDTI evacuated to the hospital ships where they would get surgery first thing in the morning. One woman refused surgery and refused to go. They asked me to come and translate for her and when I told her that if she didn’t have surgery on her broken femur she might never walk again, she said, “It’s not the surgery I’m afraid of, I just won’t go back in that building!”
We loaded up 5 patients in our van and a car, wincing ourselves as they screamed in pain, and broke curfew to get them to the state hospital. It took us almost an hour to find someone who would let us unload them, and finally all we could do was put them down on the street, no padding, no stretcher just a thin sheet over the asphalt. One of the men screamed when we put him down, and as I tried to calm him, by telling him that his pain would be treated soon, he screamed, “don’t put me next to that building, put me under that tree where nothing will fall on me!” We rushed back to CDTI hospital to pick up the 7 remaining patients and I notice that there WERE new cracks in the walls which weren’t there yesterday.
Earlier, we drove out to Fontamarra to the LDS chapel to assess the needs there. Noel our healing hands driver was with me. The scenes of destruction and the stench of death were numbing. House after house crumbled or leaning, ready to collapse, one door frame standing unharmed with no house surrounding it. It was hard to believe I was seeing what my eyes were telling me. Noel told me about the quake for him. His daughters ages 18 and 8 were at the market when the quake hit. He ran to the market to find it was not there. Frantic he crawled over the rubble calling his daughters’ names until finally he heard one of them calling “Papa, papa help me!” He crawled as close as he could and spent the next 3 days and nights comforting his children urging them to feel around for something to eat or drink until they were finally rescued on the fourth day. Both were seriously injured but alive. I could see the anguish in his eyes as he described sleeping next to his daughters’ voices. I could only imagine the terror I would feel if I couldn’t get to my own daughters.
Antonio called me this evening and told me that he had an architect go over the guest house and that it wasn’t safe for us to use. So that makes all of our buildings gone. I am saddened not so much for the loss of our compound, but for the fact that in the next few months there will be so many who need rehabilitation services and we won’t be able to provide them. I am glad that Noel’s daughters are alive, and I’m glad that 12 people will have surgery to fix their broken bodies. I have seen strange and terrible things in Haiti this week---things that I hope I never see again.
Jan 20th
I awakened this am to someone shaking my bed violently. I opened my eyes and looked down at the foot of my mattress as it slid back and forth. A 6.1 aftershock which unfortunately didn’t cause any more damage in town. We are staying in Bon Repos in a nice house out on the plain away from Port-au-Prince. They have a generator and if you are reading this then the internet is working. It is a nice place but with traffic, it takes an hour and a half to get into the Central chapel where we have decided to hold our clinic. One of our trauma surgeons and our orthopedist left on a helicopter right after breakfast. Leogane, a small town south of PAP was hit hard. We heard that one of the surgeons was doing amputations without anesthetic. As of 11:30 tonight, they are still not back. Our other surgeons and trauma nurse went to the Sacre Coeur hospital where they worked hard all day. They are running out of pins, screws, and even sterile gowns. They fixed a homeless, parentless 13 year old boy’s tibia fracture today and will go after his crushed femur tomorrow. I presume he is out on the lawn waiting with the other patients for the sun to come up and the doctors to come back. Even in such trying circumstances I’m sure our docs and all the docs working there from dawn until dusk will do a good job for him. It’s what they are trained to do. I worry about what will happen to him after he gets the medical care he needs. What will happen to him then? Haiti’s social services are overwhelmed in even the best of times. Who will take care of him? More and more it seems like whether you live or die in Haiti is all just a cruel game of chance.
After dropping the other docs off at our clinic, we drove up the mountain to the Healing Hands compound. I hesitated going in, even knowing what I would find. It was terrible. Everything is gone, the school, the prosthetic shop, the clinic and our apartments. We walked down the drive and heard a steady chop, chop and the clang of metal against metal. The son of the poor woman who was buried in her apartment had hired 4 or 5 guys to try and dig her out. All they could round up were a few hammers and their own strength, no picks, no sledge hammers, no heavy equipment. I’m not sure they will ever get her body out.
A bright spot in all the sadness—Jean is alive! He showed up at the compound today! He was on the 6th floor of his school when the quake happened. Fortune must have smiled on him as he was by the window. He jumped out as the building began to fall. Of the 30 people in his class only 5 survived. Jean’s leg was injured but not seriously. It was so nice to see his large bright smile.
We walked around the compound and I took some pictures. Some of the staff’s family are homeless and have set up a tent on the grass under the tall mahogany and palm trees. It would be a good place to camp if they were camping. I would hate to be there in the first big rainstorm however.
We drove up to the Petionville chapel in the afternoon. It’s grounds are covered with people. They hadn’t eaten anything since Tuesday morning and they were hungry. Everyone cheered when the 82nd Airborne arrived with an entire truckload of water, and meals. The men quickly formed a line, unloaded the truck and stacked the supplies in the chapel. It made me feel proud to be an American. One of the soldiers said, “if this was Iraq, it would be the women doing the unloading”. I’m glad we use our forces for relief as well fighting.
I helped transport an eleven year old girl to a French clinic in Petionville this evening. They had an awning up in the street and we lay her down in the middle of the street. She was frightened, so we went back to the chapel and brought her grandfather down to stay with her. A French team was using a private plastic surgery center as a makeshift trauma unit with their triage on the street and the sidewalks. The cooperation that exists here is amazing. Everyone is sharing what they have, helping out when they can, and doing their best to ease the suffering. It’s just enough to give one a little bit of hope for the future.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I have been up for the past 36 hours. When we found that we couldn’t get a charter plane from Ft. Lauderdale, we hired a bus and drove the 45 minutes to Miami. We got on a flight to Santo Domingo which got in around midnight. From the airport, we were loaded on two Domnican buses, the really crowded bumpy kind although ours had pink fringed curtains which was certainly a nice touch. Then 8 bumping, grinding, neck cramping hours from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince. The driver blared merengue music from the speakers for most of the journey but no one said anything because we figured it might help him stay awake.
As dawn was breaking, we made it to the Haitian border skirting along the largest lake in Haiti, “L’Etang Sumatre”. I have always wanted to see this lake which was beautiful in the mist of a new moring. Sumatre was supposed to harbor caimans or American crocodiles, and although I tried to keep a sharp eye, I didn’t see one.
It was about 8:30 when we arrived on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Initially things looked as I had remembered. Controlled chaos in the streets. Vendors crying, brightly painted lottery kiosks, cars honking, people hurrying, and shouting. Soon we saw a building whose roof looked like it had been stepped on by a giant, then another and another. We passed the airport and it looked like a weeklong rock festival. Tents of all colors everywhere. Flags from around the world. Large military planes taking off and landing every 30 seconds. Past the airport we saw our first camp. Thousands of sheets draped over sticks in an attempt to give a bit of modesty and to block out the sun. It was then that the magnitude of the disaster began to sink in. As we drove the the city and saw building after building crumbled to pieces, the cathedral, the palace and sadly most large schools which were still in session at the time of the quake, My heart sank. This was worse than I imagined.
We drove to the Central LDS Chapel not far from the Champs de Mars where 500 or so displaced church members are now living, and started a clinic in the bishop’s office. We treated infections, lacerations, fractures and whatever else we could. I accompanied a woman whose arm had been crushed and had acute compartment syndrome to Sacre Coeur Hospital. She needed urgent surgery or she would lose the limb. A year ago Sacre Coeur was the newest, nicest private hospital in Haiti. A large fountain with turtles swimming in it graced the entrance. Today it looked like a war zone. Hundreds of people lying on the ground or waiting patiently in long lines to be seen. We met a team of surgeons from Florida who had been working around the clock and were exhausted. They asked for more x-ray film and for water for themselves. We made a list of their most urgent needs and will send it back to Salt Lake. They promised to look at our lady with compartment syndrome as soon as they could, but we both knew it was too late. She would lose the limb. I tried to explain that to her, but she was adamant that she wouldn’t let anayont cut off her arm. We then drove to Hopital Canape Vert, which had a similar scene—French paramedics and doctors working as fast as they could bringing stretchers from the yard to the OR. It reminded me of a scene out of the civil war. Canape Vert is very near our clinic and as we drove to within a 5 minute walk of our clinic, I had to roll up the window as they smell of decaying bodies was too strong. I will try and visit our compound tomorrow. It has been a long, hard, sad day.
Jan18th
Monday, January 18, 2010
We have been cooling our heels (or should I say "heals") in Ft. Lauderdale since 11pm last night. We were scheduled to fly to Port-au-Prince tonight at 6 pm but apparently all flights but military to Haiti are canceled. Our new idea is to drive down to Miami, catch an American Airlines flight to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic at 8:20 tonight and try to drive or catch rides on helicopters tomorrow. Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
I spoke to Antonio Kebreau our Executive Director today. The guesthouse has a few cracks, but is livable. There is apparently water (at least for now) and hopefully electricity if we can find diesel for the generator. We have other housing options to consider as well. We are trying to decide whether to stay overnight in Santo Domingo or get on a bus and drive through the night to get to PAP. At this point, I just want to get there. We have divided our group into teams in an effort to be as organized as possible when/if we make it to Haiti. The docs are coming to grips with what we can and cannot do once we are there. I got through to Dr. Ben Nau the president of the HHH board this am. He reported that they are dealing with a lot of crush injuries and that there were a lot of US docs there, but not enough plates, screws, and power drills, none of which we have. Then he asked us to bring food. We will bring what we can.
We have two reporters from the Deseret news who are traveling with us. You can see the photos they have posted at deseretnews.com Thanks to all for the many messages of support and encouragement. We really appreciate them.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
“Men anpil, chay pa lou” is the Kreyol proverb. “Many hands make the burden light. I hope that is the case. I met most of our team at the airport this afternoon. There are ER docs, family practice docs, orthopedic and trauma surgeons, nurses and the rehabilitation doc. They all seem like good people. They are earnest, and caring. Lines of concern mark all of their faces. We are all anxious to get there and do what we can to ease the enormous burden of suffering. We loaded bandages, needles, syringes, surgical kits, IV fluids, and as much medication as we could fit into our bags. LDS Humanitarian packed two bags for each of us: one with food, a tent and a blanket, the other with medical supplies. Some of the doctors swung by to raid their hospitals and clinics on the way to the airport for sutures and hard to get anesthesia drugs. In times of emergency doctors are good at doing what needs to be done first and filling out the forms later.
I haven’t done much suturing since my internship, but I still remember how to hold a retractor (it seems that was all I did during my 3rd year surgery rotation). I know Haiti and Port-au-Prince well, I speak the language, know the culture and I have led medical teams to Haiti for the past 12 years, so I’ll try and be of use.
We are worried about security. A few years ago an HHH team scheduled a clinic in Cite Soleil, Haiti’s poorest slum. When the team arrived at the clinic location, a small house in the middle of Cite Soleil, they found hundreds lined up outside. It was immediately obvious that the supplies they had brought were woefully inadequate. The team began to see patients but a rumor quickly spread that leaders had put their own families and friends at the front of the line and that “blans” were going to leave after treating only them. It got ugly quickly. Shouts, threats, pounding on the door and the tin roof, the line broke into a mob and surrounded the little house. The team got to the van and escaped from the crowd by dumping the rest of the supplies out on the street while driving away as the mob fought over pills and bandages.
I have never really felt fear in Haiti with groups of two or three or ten. I have learned to keep far away from groups large enough to become a mob when passion and frustration spills over. I was given a blessing this morning of protection, safety and discernment from one of my church leaders. And I feel good about our trip. I hope however, that they have made progress with getting food and water to the thousands who need it. Even in January the Haitian sun is too hot. I can’t imagine sitting out under the sun all day with a grinding stomach and nothing to drink. Jan 16th.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Getting ready to go to Haiti
Haiti is a country that I have loved for many years. Ever since I served an LDS mission there in 1982 and 1983 for some reason that horrible, wonderful country has had a hold on me. I have attributed it to a voodoo curse in the past, but I have always known that it is the people who made me fall in love with their country. They are so warm, generous, and quick to laugh with the "blan" who keeps tripping my tongue over their Creole. I helped found the Healing Hands for Haiti International Foundation in 1998 and have been back with that group at least once or twice a year since then. HHHIF is dedicated to providing rehabilitation training, treatment, education and equipment to the physically disabled in Haiti.
The past 12 years have been a wonderful experience, visiting the country that I loved, helping people with nowhere else to turn regain a measure of physical function, and meeting and working with some of the most dedicated and compassionate people from all over the US, Canada, France, and of course, Haiti. We had a beautiful 6 acre compound with a PT/OT gym, clinic, rehab training school, prosthetic/orthotic shop guest house and several apartments whose rent helped support our efforts.
All of that but the guest house is now gone. The 7.0 earthquake on Tuesday centered just west Port-au-Prince was my worst nightmare come true. Anyone who has spent time in PAP, who has driven past the cinderblock and tin "bidonvilles" or shantytowns perched precariously on steep mountain slopes has wondered what would happen if..... Then a shudder and a quick turn of thought to something else-- too horrible to even think about. Well, now we know. Now the whole world knows.
Among the thousands of deaths were two of our tenants and the wife of one of our staff members, Annia St. Louis-- recent proud medical school graduate and even prouder mother of a 7 month old and a 4 year old. I can't stop thinking of Annia's husband Jony. He can't stop to grieve for his wife. He has to find food today for his children. Then he has to find food for them tomorrow and the next day and the next.
I have been waiting to get on a plane to Haiti since the earthquake. We are scheduled to leave tomorrow. I am torn with the frustration of not being there doing what I can to help, and the fear of what I will find when I do get there. If I have internet access, I will write daily blogs keeping friends and family up to date. Please keep all of us and Haiti in your thoughts and prayers.
Friday, January 15, 2010
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