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.