Tuesday and before ..
by Mike Chesson
On a side trip to a tourist shopping alley after our arrival
in Port Au Prince, the team members in a van saw a head on collision between
two young men on motos, neither wearing a helmet. One’s head hit the ground hard, and he did
not move. We saw no more. Dr. Bpb at the guest house said there was
probably no hope for either of them if the injuries were serious, because there
was no place to take them.
The drive of more than 90 minutes was the most dangerous I
have ever been on, based on my view of the road ahead directly behind the
driver, who was fast but also careful and cautious, as the best drivers
are. He was wearing a handsome Lacoste
green and yellow polo. Motos passed us
on the right and left, and depending upon the flow of traffic in each
direction, sometimes the outbound tide occupied two or even briefly three lanes
of the unmarked road, at other times one lane.
We were passed by at least one convoy of obvious big shots, the VIP of
the group probably in the BMW SUV, along with a herd of lesser black SUVs,
followed by ordinary Haitians, flashing their lights in identical fashion and
trying to draft the convoy. We also
passed a UN detachment, and one soldier gave us the fish eye, and looked hard
at the van after we had passed, the kind of hard stare that most of us have
seen from police officers.
Service the next morning started at 7:00 and my group
arrived at 7:10, during what I very much hope was the opening hymn. (All Haitian hymns seem to have eight or ten
verses, and all that I heard were beautifully sung.) We entered from the rear, hoping to hide in
the back, but a very forthright usher in a suit took us to the second pew right
up front. He clearly knew his business. Standing next to Father Kerwin was a senior
LEM, perhaps also the senior warden, with a clipboard taking notes. Was he writing down the names of late comers,
of whom there were a few, or of absentees?
The young women acolytes were wearing high heels beneath their
robes. To the right of the altar was a
choir of twenty children and teens, two-thirds of them girls and young women,
led by a pair of sisters, the choir director and a teacher. Most of the little girls were in pink. There were a few young men looking in through
the epistle side door, perhaps hoping to catch the eye of a young woman. Move in a little closer gentlemen, though
women often prefer the rascal to the saint.
As a reform project the saint has little to offer. Walking around the altar during much of the
service were two toddlers, a robust little boy, a “buster,” and a little girl
about the same age, wearing bright red frilly ruffs around both ankles. Each child climbed off the altar stage
differently, the girl by backing off, putting one foot down, then the next; the
boy by holding on to a rail of the cage next to the left side of the platform,
perhaps used for some kind of manger scene.
The congregation of perhaps two hundred was not the frozen
chosen, but God’s chosen. One of our
number noted that the prayers were in French, but God’s responses were in
Creole. The “service” ultimately lasted
two hours, forty-five minutes, and featured a capital campaign and a pitch for
the building fund after worship. Passing
the peace was particularly moving.
Father Kerwin gave prominent mention to the medical mission team in his
remarks, and a number of elderly congregants shook our hands after the
service. Most of the worshipers were
fashionably, even elegantly dressed. It
could have been Easter in an American church.
Toward the end of the service I noticed the young woman in
front of us in the first pew. She had a
Barbie doll of the old-fashioned kind, not the current PC version. The top of this bodacious Barbie had somehow
fallen down, and the young woman was examining her. The older woman next to her, probably her
mother, told her to cover Barbie up.
That afternoon we had a bucolic tour of downtown Leogane in
the afternoon heat, and made it as far as the nursing school, despite heavy
traffic, most of it motorcycles. There
was plenty of street life, and countless observers of the crazy blans in the
noonday sun, clambering over streets that had been torn up for a Japanese
construction project, with open, and mostly unmarked square sewer holes at
regular intervals along the newly installed curbs. We passed the site of a ruined Catholic
church. All that remains is the main
altar, badly damaged, and now without even a tarp as protection against the
weather. The congregation worships under
tarps just behind the ruined church.
It was on this tour that I saw the first, and only happy
dog, that I have seen in Haiti. He had a
beautiful rough reddish coat, and his tail was up, and wagging. He was clearly fed on a regular basis. Some family belonged to him. He patrols the grassy grounds around the
nursing school. Virtually all Haitian
dogs are short-haired, light tan, and despite small size variations, share the
same conformation. Their tails seem to
be locked between their legs as they slink around the streets looking for
something to eat, while avoiding speeding vehicles, and the people who ignore
them. Most of the females are pregnant
or nursing. To be a dog in Haiti is hell
on earth. They are not yet feral
perhaps, but well on their way, should they live so long, approaching the
yellow curs in Kipling’s stories.
Our tour guide and translator, Watson, began by taking us
through a cemetery across the highway from the hospital, church, and guest
house. He said that some, or many of the
victims of the earth quake were buried there.
Later we learned that this was not true.
The cemetery inside is filled to overflowing with a densely crowded
array of above ground tombs and family edifices, some of them quite
elaborate. Watson showed us what he said
was the oldest grave in the cemetery, but knew neither its age, nor that of the
cemetery itself.
On our first medical field trip on Monday I spent the day in
the pharmacy, counting pills, and trying to help the doctors and other great
people on the team. Tuesday was my trial
by triage, taking the blood pressures, temperatures, and pulses of countless
Haitians of all ages, women and children, men and boys. Few had only one medical problem. Most had multiple serious issues. One woman was anxious for me to take her
blood pressure again when I got an “EE” reading. I did, found it ok, and she asked if she
could drink coffee. Not one of them knew
their weight.
Tuesday afternoon I sat in a courtyard in front of our
impromptu clinic with Steve and our translators Nelson and Jack. Almost all who were interviewed by me said
things were bad last year, and worse this year.
Few had jobs. The handsome men
and beautiful women (of all ages) had great dignity and presence. They were serious. They had serious problems. But I could detect enormous pride, and while
being questioned by Jack who conveyed their responses to me, there was a lot of
humor.
On our third trip today, we had a clinic at a higher
elevation, close to some mountains, but to reach it had to cross a mostly dry
river bed, actually driving a good way in the bed before we reached what had
been Mount Carmel Church. Most of the
wall behind the altar was gone, as was a good part of the front wall near the
roof. The roof itself was in good
shape. The altar cross was forlorn and
dusty.
With Jack at my side we did 105 surveys, into early
afternoon. We encountered only one fussy
baby; in an American setting there would have been countless screaming infants
and children. A couple of men were taxi
drivers; a number of men and women were farmers; of the women who reported
having jobs, most were vendors. There
was one teacher, a rugged man about forty, with no wife, children, or support
system: no church, no friends or neighbors apparently, no one to help him. Most had no jobs at all. A few worked part time.
Sharing a room with Reid and one of his Haitian colleagues,
Dr. Alex, we had an AC malfunction Tuesday night. The windows were wide open, and fortunately
screened. About 2:30 after sleeping
soundly for six hours I awoke to the running of the hounds. One dog was just outside the wall of our
compound, and had apparently treed something.
He sounded like a very happy, and hopeful dog. Eventually he stopped, but returned after a
short interval with his pals. About 4:00
the early shift of roosters began a call and response routine that was
remarkable for its volume.
And so it goes in the only nation state to be born as the
result of a successful slave rebellion.
