February 10, 2010
Bonswa,
Hone`!
Respe`!
Honor!
Respect!
If you happen to walk through rural areas in Haiti, you will certainly come across family compounds called lakou, or yards. There are usually several nuclear units in a yard as members of an extended family build their homes on land the family own in common; ancestors are often buried there also. A lakou is usually fenced in with thorny cactus to keep chicken and goats inside! A visitor should stop at the gate and call out Hone`! then wait to hear Respe`!, the invitation to enter the yard, the private space.
It is in this spirit that I call Hone`! to you, hoping that you will once again let me in for a chat, an update.
We are now a month into the disaster, or as some say, “that thing that happened to us”… avoiding to name the event that destroyed their lives. As we read in the media, and know too well from Borgne, the crisis has entered a new phase… and the depth of the devastation is beginning to sink in! The dead are buried, all 230,000 of them; and the living need to be cared for. They need our full attention—their bodies, their minds, and their souls are in need of tender care. An eerie normalcy, complacency almost, is already replacing the hectic pace of the early search and recovery days in Port-au-Prince. “Bedsheet” cities look more and more like neighborhoods where survivors establish tenuous roots and make new friends, scrape a living, find creative ways to build sturdier shelters out of scavenged wood and tin roofing, and … as usual where kids bring life and force adults to plan for an uncertain future.
In outlying areas like Borgne where displaced persons are rebuilding their lives, we feel the aftershock… the picture is slightly different. People from the region who had migrated to the slums of Port-au-Prince to chache lavi, in search of a better life, are returning to their native villages, having lost the little they had. They come back scarred by the events they lived through, often with infected wounds, malaria, fractures that were not treated, hunger, and emotional trauma… their children showing signs of malnutrition. This group is claiming a lot of our staff’s attention… we receive about 60 per day at the hospital and many more at mobile clinics.
Mike Shields came back from Haiti with an interesting take on how the events surrounding the earthquake will unfold: it’s like watching a snake trying to swallow a big frog. At first it looks like an impossible task. Slowly yet inexorably, the frog makes its way down the snake! Well, the frog is reaching us! I mean that the aftermath of the earthquake is now reaching the rural areas… slowly, yet inexorably! The problems of Port-au-Prince are being felt throughout the country, the scope is not the same but the issues are.
The number of inpatients at our facility is not overwhelming yet but we are bracing for the inevitable. Those who were housed in the high school will have to move when classes start again. So our own tent city is taking shape in a vacant lot adjacent to the hospital. A big hangar is being erected to provide shelter from the sun and the rains (it rains frequently in Borgne) and I hear that it will house 40-50 people in individual tents! Hard for me to imagine but this sounds more and more like a semi permanent encampment. A team from Rochester is heading down in a few days to help finish the hangar, hook up water pipes and electricity, and build a kitchen and sanitary facilities… We are feeding a lot of people and the cost of food has increased dramatically. Staples of Haitian diet, rice, dried beans, vegetable oil, flour, sugar, etc that used to come from Port-au-Prince are hard to find. So, tomorrow our first shipment of food will land in Santiago, DR and be trucked to Borgne. Since the refugees have lost everything, they also need clothes and shoes… another shipment! This evening, they added rain ponchos to the list… The logistics of managing this crisis are mind boggling… we face problems we never dreamed of, are called to find creative ways to answer these needs… But as the Haitian saying goes… Bondye bon! God is good, or things will fall into place!!! We have no alternatives…
Last week I told you about this 16 year old boy who arrived to us from Port-au-Prince after losing all eleven members of his family. His name is Kirby. He is having a really hard time. He was doing OK until he dreamed of his sister who perished in the quake. Now he is despondent and withdrawn. The friend he met during his ordeal who accompanied him to Borgne does not leave his side. Dr. Thony bought them phones hoping they could reach out to people they know. Kirby has not used his; he says that he has no one to call and no one to call him… that the only family he has now is his buddy and the staff at the Borgne hospital. I am confident that Kirby will heal. It will be a long and arduous road but he will make it; he is not alone! He has all of us to root for him and support him. I find his story emblematic of what Haiti is undergoing… we know we have friends and that we don’t have to do it all by ourselves.
Mesi anpil e mwen swete nou bonn nwit! Na we pita…
Thank you very much and I wish you a good night! I will be back soon…
Rose-Marie
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