Action

Its been a week since I've been home now, and last night it caught up to me. This morning I am thinking more and more of Haiti and all there is to be done there. So much frustration on so many levels to get work done, and so much waiting around and red tape to access the funding. Food distribution (aka rice distribution) stopped in Petionville's IDP camp six weeks ago and people are going hungrier and hungrier. Political upheaval is ripe; opposition parties are calling for Preval to step down in favour of an interim government. The people are beginning to make their voices heard louder; demonstrations have begun. Rains continue. And within all this, the frustration of simply finding a hospital to admit some patients makes you want to scream with the anger and injustice of it all.

Below is the link to a video of Sean describing this frustration, when a patient arrived at our hospital with diptheria. Staff drove around the entire city with him ALL DAY trying to get him admitted and find the antitoxin, only to find out late at night that it had been locked up in a warehouse thirty minutes from our own camp. Everyone was devastated, camp morale plummeted. The next day we closed the hospital to prevent possible transmission to other patients. We immunized everyone. We cleaned, disinfected, and prayed for Oriel, the 15 year old who was an only child.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/10/video-diphtheria-epidemic-threatens-haiti/

The resources exist, with the hundreds of NGOs and humanitarians pouring in daily. We just have to get them out there, make them available, accessible. Cut the red tape. Stop the bureaucracy. Lets help Haiti rebuild their future- from scratch- NOW. Lets put words into action.

Photos uploaded below. =) Thanks for listening.

more photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/guineveredorward

Frustrations

Please read this report from a PA at Heartline in Port-au-Prince. Grrrrrrr.

http://barbieboots.blogspot.com/2010/03/injustice.html

Bon Bagay

Leaving Ayti yet again, and it hurts yet again. Yeterday I received the most sincere thank you for all the work done here that I was moved to tears. It came from one of our staff members, an amazing man who works tirelessly for this cause. He thanked me for coming to his country to help his people, and told me that words could not express how much thanks he felt. It was so touching and heartfelt that I immediately welled up with tears. I tried to tell him that it was an honour to be here, that I am in love with the people and culture of Ayti, that their strength and resilience touches me and moves me to remember what is real and what matters in this life. That all the orphans who make their way to the clinic on their own break my heart daily, and that the very least I feel I can do is provide them with basic medical care. But words cannot express how I feel either, and so we sat in silence, thankful for each others' work. He thanked me, I cried, and I thanked him and his people.

I leave behind an entire tent city some 60,000 people strong, strengthened and empowered by our little organization. The camp has changed so much since the last time I was there; ditches and drainage systems have been dug and fortified with sandbags, bridges built, latrines improved, gravel laid down on the main streets, sandbag stairs built within the mud. No longer is it the slippery, sliding mud camp that I visited in march. JP HRO continues to work with the community and campaign tirelessly and thanklessly for the entire capital city of port au prince, and they are doing amazing work. Other NGO workers live in nice houses in ritzy parts of town, with pools and gardens and lounges. We live in tents just outside the IDP camp, more in touch with the routine of camp life, and most importantly, allowing more of our funding to go where it matters most: the people. Grassroots, aware, conscientious, and driven by fierce passion, this small organization manages one of the largest camps in the city, and does it well. Bon bagay. A la prochaine.

Children of Delmas

Mobile clinic to Delmas 32.

We arrive to a dusty IDP camp, pigs amid the central garbage dump, children playing beside them. There is a large white tent that sits beside the school, ready for incoming transient NGOs to provide their medical services. But the rains have washed mud through it, and school is in progress today, meaning the benches are being used.

We spend the first 20 minutes scraping mud off the floor and locating benches, chairs, lumber to create a makeshift clinic with space for patients to sit and be treated. We then walk through the camp, someone finds a loudspeaker, and we announce our presence. It promises to be busy.

This camp does not have the benefit of an NGO residing nearby, and the engineering that has been done in Petionville does not exist here. Their paths are muddy, their garbage and latrines spill out onto the main routes, and malnourished kids run around in bare feet, shouting at us "Blanc! Blanc!".

We tour the camp and return to work. It is busy, with many patients asking for the same things; something for their acid reflux, their headache, their joint pain, their itchy eyes, their diarrhea, their respiratory infections, Oh, and by the way (they add as an afterthought) they can't sleep.

The stories pour in, and before you know it I am crying for a 12 year old girl. And being hugged and kissed by a 9 year old. And trying, trying, trying, to not let the dam burst while caring for these amazing kids. It is 80% children here, and many of them come alone, without parents. So brave, so strong. Earthquake survivors, all of them. Our pediatrician takes only a five minute break all day; her lineup of patients is long and overwhelming to all of us. She works through the hunger and thirst, smiling the entire time. Amazing.

We treat 200 patients in four and a half hours. At the end we pack up and head out, exhausted, thrilled, saddenned, and deeply fulfilled in ways that can never be recreated. THIS is why we are here. THIS is why Haiti needs us. I look at the happy faces of our new volunteers and know that they too have been transformed in a few hours; they are now in Haiti. Living, breathing, working, and loving Ayti.

Tribute to Captain Barry, Robert, and Dimitri

These people amaze me. The stories that come out just crush your soul, making you realize with a sudden sharp inhale why you are here. It's unbelievable how much some of our patients have gone through and still greet you with a smile on their face.

Like the 12 year old boy today with an open wound on his head; a concrete brick had fallen on him in the earthquake and he was hit in the back of the head. Four months later and a stranger who recognized him at an orphanage brought him into our clinic. This boy lost his parents and had no one to care for him other than a distant stranger. Captain Barry happenned to be at the bedside and and we looked at each other. In that moment we both saw with so much clarity why we are here, and I knew why I continue to return. There are those that need health care and those that need so much more. They need love and hope and continued support, and I am trying my best to provide all three.

Later on a woman came to me complaining of common symptoms: cold, acid reflux, joint and back pain, headache. I adressed all these issues the usual way, and then she pulled out another one: insomnia.
Since when?
Since the earthquake.
Did you lose family?
Yes; two children.

Luckily for us, we have Robert, a psychologist, working at the moment, so I referred her to him. Half an hour later, I came back to check on her and he told me the rest of her story, with Dimitri translating.
This woman runs an orphanage of 25 children, and as luck would have it, it collapsed in the event. Now she sleeps on the streets with these 23 children (two died) and has nowhere to go. She can't sleep at night for the stress of finding food and shelter, and feels bad for not being able to sleep because it makes it harder for her to look after them. And there you have it. The psychologist looked at me and said "f*@k". Because in this world, in this reality, how do you help this woman? There is no "refer to social work", no meals on wheels, no welfare cheque she can receive. All you can do is listen. And raise awareness. And hope that by listening, you bless her with hope and some vague sense of relief that we care. These photos come from her private collection, and I share them with you in hope and solidarity.

Arrival in Ayti

Arrived safe and sound in Ayti, and it was so nice to be welcomed immediately by so many good friends. The drive to Petionville is the same; shocking scenes of crumbling buildings amid lively markets and peaceful, resilient, beautiful people.

It is Sunday, which means the hospital is slow, so a few of us went out on a tour of Port au Prince with one of our drivers. The tour was reeling and stirred a deep sorrow within us all. Our driver, Crevois, took us all over the city and then to the area where his business used to be located. It was the largest area of rubble I have seen yet in Ayti, and he moved me to tears when he pointed out what once was his community.

The building that three babies lay under.
The house where eleven people died.
The church that is now benches amid rubble, yet people come faithfully every Sunday to pray and hope for better times.
The fresh skull of an eleven year old boy, still with hair on it, visible skull fractures.

He knew each and every member of that community, including the boy, and yet he calmly pointed out these facts, at peace with them. He himself had left his shop 45 minutes before the quake hit. He lost his entire business, but luckily his family is safe.

He is one of many survivors, some by minutes, others by hours. And he is one of millions just like him, bonded to each other by survival, by being survivors. By knowing so many who didn't make it.

Like the man who was trapped underneath rubble near the church and called his sister to tell her he was alive, could they please dig him out. But they couldn't, they did not have the capacity to move such giant pieces of concrete, and so the man died. Which is worse, I wondered: to be the trapped man or the sister, hopeless? Still alive, with such sorrow? And this is only one story, of millions.

And tonight as the rains came down hard and strong onto my face, my head, drenching every cell in my body, I thought of her; the sister. Likely huddled under a tarp somewhere, pulling it tight to keep the rain off her bed/clothing/kitchen/belongings. And like so many survivors, was she wondering "why me? Why did I have to survive?" Or was she grateful to be alive, to have the rains bring water to the (few) crops and the mango trees? To settle the dust in the air? What was she thinking? What were the sisters of fallen brothers thinking tonight?

And Crevois took us home to our own tents. And we thanked him for sharing, and he went home to his family. And we reeled. And thought. And were far more grateful than we could ever be, for so much more than can ever be written or verbalized. And there is beauty in that, if nothing else.