While we were in Haiti, the first days of public markets since the earthquake began. Some praised how "commerce" had resumed; if you call thousands of heads of rotting lettuce deluged in the smell of feces "commerce," then, yes, "commerce" had resumed.
Regardless of the conditions under which Haitians were resuming their markets, the fact that the Haitians were doing what they could to continue their livelihoods was undoubtedly uplifting.
Still, the national dish of Haiti seemed to be rice and beans. While staying at a church run by pastors named Bataille, we enjoyed a daily meal of rice and beans with the members of the congregation. Pockets within Port-au-Prince course with an undeniable sense of community. While news reports about looting and civil disruption had amplified my paranoia before arriving in P-a-P, I quickly came to appreciate the unifying forces in Haiti: a common will to recover, a desperation to survive, and a need for community interaction. Often times, these unifying forces prevailed because of faith-based communities.
Father Bataille has reportedly sent over 25 children to universities and colleges--only a small fraction of these being his own kin and the remainder being members of his congregation. He shelters displaced families in the church's walled compound, and he offers the church's grounds as a station for United Nations food distribution. He is active in organizing relief based at his church.
For three days, this relief included our team; we camped in tents, in the church's yard, next to the displaced families, leashed goats, and dysfunctional roosters that cock-a-doodled every five minutes starting at 2 a.m. The communal toilets had the flushing handles removed to preserve what little water was supplied to the church. But, many echoed: "At least there are toilets."
And that seems to be one of the motifs resonating in Haitian minds: "at least." They embrace what they still have, and, as I mentioned in the last post, they may even have a tragically heightened awareness to what truly matters in life: family, friends, love, survival, faith, community, etc.
After a day assisting with a pharmacy for a medical clinic run out of an alley behind a cracked-but-survived orphanage, our team returns to the Bataille's church during a memorial service for the congregation members lost in the quake. Amongst the tents, a small children's orchestra of violins and recorders practice a piece for the service: "Hatikvah," the Israeli national anthem that echoes with tones of sorrow but translates to mean "The Hope."
Pastor Bataille's Creole shouts resonate out of the church--the church is roofless and was unfinished before the quake. The earthquake undoubtedly has cracked the church's walls without quite bringing down the community center that erupts with a solidarity backboned by faith. I am curious about what the pastor is shouting, but the fifty-or-fewer French words that I do know do nothing to decipher Haitian Creole.
And though I am tired from a physically trying and emotionally taxing day, I know well-and-good that I am not nearly as exhausted as the survivors grieving those they have lost, worrying about their homelessness, and contemplating their struggles for food and water. And, I know that I am not nearly as exhausted as the translators who follow our team each day and do all that I do but often do it twice: once in English for our team's sake, and once in Creole for the Haitian patients' sakes.
By the time our team arrives in Haiti (about fourteen days after the quake), most of the severe trauma (that our surgeon, our E.R. doc, and our nurses were preparing themselves to face) had already been treated. There were still a few patients with broken limbs and deep abrasions trickling into clinics and hospitals; these patients lacked access to emergency care or lacked the access to transportation to emergency care.
Being somewhat uneducated in local traditions and voodoo practices, I also speculate at whether a cultural justification has precluded individuals from seeking proper medical care.
The patients are gracious. They have no qualms about subjecting themselves to a privacy-compromised medical process. Whether at clinics in the communities or at hospitals, the vast influx of patients implies overcrowding and volunteers' improvisation to accommodate as many people in pain as possible. In an open-air and poorly curtained auditorium (probably a religious center), a man removes his pants for a doctor to inspect a severe intestinal hernia that has engorged his testicles; a woman hikes up her skirt to reveal puss in an abrasion the width of a pumpkin on the back of her thigh. These patients clearly understand that this medical setting is not suited for modesty.
The handful of translators abidingly respond to the doctors and nurses. An issue of not knowing how to express in Creole or in English never arises; the team is ever-thankful and praising of the translators. Still, translators occasionally "disappear" for much-needed breaks or to help with crowd control of the hundreds of Haitians who have flooded-in from their tent city to wait on broiling benches for the opportunity to see these pale skinned foreigners who may or may not have the "cure" for a malady.
One man creates a fuss in the clinic area because he wants the doctors to come to his half-crumbled house to pay a call to his family; with security threats and the inability to transport, no one on our team can accommodate--the translators tell the man to bring his family to the clinic, but we never see the man again.
My father, a surgeon on our team, points out a stark truth about the situation: "I always wonder what these patients must think. Despite what we bring, they must think: 'They get to leave.'" He means that we, Americans, are only amidst the chaotic suffering for but a brief week, two weeks, month, or however long until we can use our precious U.S. Passports to bring us back to our lives with roofs, central heating, and outlets in weather-proofed walls.
Whether or not this actually crosses the minds of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, cousins, aunts, uncles, or any other relative is unknown. But, the Haitian people all wait patiently for their chance to be seen for a severe injury, for intestinal worms, for diarrhea, or for a headache. The Haitian people tend to have stern facial expressions that imply mourning, fear, and anxiety.
Dehydration and hunger being the origin of most maladies, we run out of Pedialyte and Enfamil for kids within hours. We are told not to share what little water we have for fear of instigating a situation that could easily escalate into a riot amongst those who plead for water.
Unfortunately, the Haitian people must wait for help to come from somewhere. They are driven to help themselves, to rebuild, to preserve their strength of conviction. But the problems are so momentous that the Haitian graciousness needs to meet adequate and organized international support. Unfortunately, the earthquake response seems to be following a similar disaster relief pattern: too little relief too late is too disorganized. There is no central body registering what relief (private and governmental) goes where, and there is no central body creating a list of locational needs. Of course, this may be another development in what is already too beureaucratic of a relief process.
The times I find myself thinking about all the issues and all the obstructions to appropriate relief (including those outside of our control, like geography and time) are the only times that I find myself tearing-up about the tragedy in Haiti. Yesterday (2/11/2010) the first rains of the rainy season fell, promising a difficult battle to protect the displaced persons from inevitable mudslides, floods, and the onslaught of waterborne diseases. There is much to be done, still, and I fear the implications of the marginalization of news coverage.
What must the Haitian patients think when they are placed in a ward housed in a pop-up tent that shelters nearly 100 people at a time? It is void of privacy and there is constant foot-traffic in the narrow aisles: visitors carrying loved-ones' bedpans out of the tent and to wherever the disposal area is. Is there any dignity in these places? How terrifying must it be for these people to wake to a tube connected to their arms? Do they have an understanding of this process? Do they question the paler-skinned men and women wearing blue and claiming to have the answers? What do the patients think when they hear regular screams from compatriots who have never received a tetanus shot before or who just received an amputation a day earlier? Do they fear the doctors and nurses when "G-27," their bed number, is called to the wound care table for a procedure involving ketamine as anaesthesia and saline solution to irrigate a deep tissue wound? Do the patients have any idea what anaesthesia or tetanus are?
So few eyes reveal the answers to these questions. The Haitians generally remain stoic or smile appreciatively. But my heart brakes every time I hear a baby scream over the grinding from a plastering machine while his leg is being casted. And my heart breaks when I see that patient, one in every hundred, with fear in his or her eyes. That is why I can never become a doctor and why I will probably never become a nurse.
But the undeniable necessity for healthcare and human rights workers compels me to continue doing all that I can to help: to teardrop away from the flood that is the problems facing Haitians and others who suffer from marginalization, ignorance, and injustice only amplified by a tragically placed natural disaster.
Wonderfully written.
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