The real Haiti.....finally

After two days of learning the ropes, trying to keep track of who was who and how everything works, a terrible thing happened. I got bored. Bored. In Haiti. I was finding large pockets of time with nothing to do except talk to people, which is nice, but not when you have come to be busy all day and to really do something to help. I kept trying to remind myself that helping the airport run smoothly was helping people somewhere down the line, but it was a hard feeling to hang on to. Especially as I was getting wind of all the politics here. It is tough here. Everyone is out for themselves, which is understandable, but it lends a shadiness to every interaction. You don't ever know who to trust fully here, since everyone seems to have their own secret agenda. And I mean everyone. And I was hearing about it from everyone, non-stop. I had spent a morning translating a meeting, during which one person publicly accused another of soliciting money. Consequently, I spent the rest of the morning translating a private meeting between the accuser and accusee when I hit my limit. Once everyone finally left, I sat in the office for some privacy and cried a little out of frustration.

Jo found me there and decided to take me out for the day and show me Jacmel. We went to Cayes Jacmel, a makeshift hospital that is right next to the beach (Jacmel is along the southern coast of Haiti). Cay Jac used to be a clinic, so has 2 proper buildings, but it converted to a hospital to accomodate the earthquake victims. It was a startling site. Patients were housed within two large tents (kind of like wedding tents, but a lot less nice......and definitely smaller). They were crammed side by side on mattresses that were on the floor, babies and adults alike, with a narrow corrider down the centre for the medical teams to walk. It was swelteringly hot beneath those tents. Medical tems would work on the patients from early morning till 10pm, when they would force themselves to leave for the night, otherwise they would never get sleep. But there is no night shift there. Patients would go the whole night without anyone looking after them, so that by morning, their IV drips would be completely dried out. Jo and I spent a long time talking to one patient, Charlotte. She is a 70-year-old woman who adopted an orphan boy 5 years ago. They were eating dinner when the earthquake struck and as she saw her house start to crumble, she threw hereself around her little boy to protect him. Part of her roof cracked and fell down on her, shattering her leg. She now has a massive metal rod and screws holding her leg all together on the outside. Her son slept on the ground under her stretcher for her first few days at Cay Jac before someone took him in. She now has no home to go back to. (As usual, there were political problems at this hospital - eventually everyone was fired, the meds were kept locked up [with rumours that they were being sold for profit] and the patients were left to find another treating hospital.One 15-year-old girl died because no one could get to the painkillers and meds for her. I cried when I got the email with that info).

We went to another hospital here in town, closer to the airport. St. Michel's actual hospital building was damaged in the quake and is completely unusable, forcing surgery patients to also be in tents. So is the maternity ward. We visited one patient there, an unbelievably skinny 25-year-old girl who has 4 children, aged 12, 11, 9 and a baby. She isn't educated. When asked how she supported her kids, she said she used to beg on the streets. Her right leg is now amputated.

Across the street from St. Michel is a convent for Mother Teresa nuns. They run an orphanage for approx. 90 kids, including babies. Inside the baby room, cribs were lined up one against the other with the littlest little boys and girls in them. Only one was crying, everyone else was sitting quietly, cross-legged in their cribs, just staring. Not smiling or calling for attention or asking for anyone. Just staring. They are all less than 3 years old. Everyday 500 people (all victims of the earthquake) line up outside the gates of the convent looking for food from the nuns, and everyday the nuns cook for everyone. The people line up for hours, in the blistering heat, with a bowl, and wait.

This was it. The real Haiti. I was ready to get right in and help.....and I finally got a chance! Next up: Camp Pinchinat!