Haiti: Part 3

Part 1

Part 2


The first two days were mostly just a lot of the same. I walked all over Port Au Prince, inspecting buildings and helping, and Jose treated lots of people. I think it was the second day before we went actually went to the airport for the first time (Jose might have gone once without me.) Whenever we saw someone who was injured beyond what we could handle, we would need to find a vehicle to take the patent in. The United States Air Force was handling the security at the airport, but they were working with Brazilians in shifts. Without being escorted by an American or someone with credentials, getting into the airport was impossible for the Haitians.

The guys manning the gate couldn't believe we were living “outside the wire”. They spent their entire day dealing with hungry crowds desperately trying to get help. They still had the same skewed view of Haiti that Jose and I had had when we first arrived. To their credit, it wasn’t necessarily all their fault. As they weren’t allowed to get out of the airport area, the only thing they knew about situations in Haiti is what they saw at the airport and what they saw from watching TV. The problem with that is obvious: If a news director has to chose between showing heart-warming images of destitute Haitians worshiping God in the streets because their church is too damaged, or the occasional looting… Well, looting wins every time.

The area around the airport was always busy with lots of vehicles and people. While the area we were staying was only about a mile north as the crow flies, it could sometimes take us up to an hour to drive an injured person into the airport. Between the traffic and the people not having an understanding of urgency, Haiti makes for a great place to learn patience.

Once on the base, there were a number of groups that had set up tents to create make-shift hospitals. The first group that we interacted with was funded by a single person. The guy had wanted to help and had the money, so he sent down about 25 people, plus supplies. They were getting ready to go home, so they let Jose and I go through the supplies and take all that we wanted. By that point, Jose had seen a variety of people. While he would be using notes and/or pictures to ask questions of the doctors regarding treatment options, I would pick through the piles of boxes, looking for stuff that we needed and would actually be able to use. After that group left, our next group that we interacted with was a large tent run by the University of Miami.

Somewhere during the third day before we began to get a bit of the run-around. When we would try to obtain supplies we would have to give intricate explanations about who we were, and how we got there, and why we weren’t with a bigger group. After thoroughly explaining everything, the person would say, “Well, I am not the one you need to talk to. Go talk to X and ask them if you can get supplies.” This scenario happened again and again. Jose and I were beyond exhausted. We had both had next to no sleep and had been pressing it hard, all day in the sun. Jose was close to tears with frustration. All we wanted was to obtain more gear to head back out into the city, so we could help the injured. Trying to cut through the layers of red tape in order to do that was getting to us. Finally, after the fifth or sixth time, one of the doctors taking a breather overheard us. He brought us over some cans of something halfway cold and then led us to the right people. He told them that any time we came in that they were to give us anything that we needed.

It was the encouragement we needed. We loaded up the truck we had brought, even managing to attain a wheelchair for a stroke patient who had lost the use of his right side. When Jose had initially seen the patient, he told Jose that the only thing he needed was blood pressure medication. Apparently he had already been seen by a doctor who informed him that high blood pressure was his only problem. It turns out that the person who had been treating him was a Haitian doctor. We grew to realize that Haitian doctors or nurses often knew next to nothing when it comes to medicine. I was told by more then one Haitian that if you want a license or a degree, if you knew someone or had a little bit of money, you could just buy it.

On Saturday morning a group of pastors got together where we were staying in order to attempt to make a list of the church members who were killed. When they had finished, they took me to an area that was setup with "tents" to house those in the church who had lost their homes. They took me to the church, hoping to get my opinion on whether or not it was fixable.

From the front it looked really bad. The church looked like it was three stories. Most of the taller structures in Haiti had come down, because in Haiti they build each building the same, regardless of how many stories it is eventually going to be. The bottom of the didn't go in very far, as it was built on a hill. You couldn’t really that that until you went in.

If a Hollywood set guy attempted to design a set of a creepy basement, complete with bugs, junk, filth, and pits for the sewer, he wouldn’t have been able to top the inside of this building.

To make it even worse, I had to use my flash light every time I went into a place because the electricity was still off to the whole area. A couple of years ago Haiti started a program to change all of the wooden electrical poles to concrete, because so many of the wooden ones were being destroyed in the Hurricanes. Naturally, all of the concrete poles went down.

Anyways, back to the church. The floors and walls were natural dirt and rock, but the ceiling was concrete. Every so often, while I was looking for damage, a person that I hadn't seen would stand up and walk out. (It reminded me of the story of Saul and King David in the cave.) What had looked like the second floor from the front of the building was actually the main church. Thankfully, it had sustained almost no damage. I pointed out things that could be done to strengthen the building to an architect and an engineer that the pastors had brought along. It was amazing how little they knew. If I was in front of an architect and an engineer here in the states, I wouldn't open my mouth in front of either of them. Out here, though, I was light years ahead of them. Don’t’ get me wrong-- it's not that the people are dumb. It’s that there is just SO much ignorance about so many things that we take for granted here. Once, when my interpreter didn't know the word “ignorance”, I told him that my wife wouldn't know how to cook over an open fire like the women of Haiti do. He laughed at the idea, but it helped him understand.

I went up to the third floor of the church last. The front had come down. While I was looking around, one of the men told me that a 9 year-old girl had been killed in the quake, and that her head was trapped beneath the rubble. Men from the church had come to try to remove her body for burial, but the rubble was too deep. They were forced to remove the leave the head and remove her body so that they could bury what they could. I asked them if it would be okay to take a picture to show people back home. They agreed, and I took the shot.

After I took the picture, I tried to shoot a video but didn't get far before I wept. That same morning Jose had cried at the airport. By then we had both seen a lot, and we had begun to know and love the people.

When I watched from the states, I didn't know these people. I was just was motivated by the idea that if it happened to me, I would want people to come and help. Once we had lived with them, and eaten with them, and slept side-by-side with them, it made the tragedy so much more personal. We had even gotten to know some of the people in the church, because a pastor would come to our area every night at 9pm and lead a time of prayer and worship.

Sunday they held church in the court yard of a mostly intact home. It was very crowded and hot, as we were in the open sun. They later let me know that the service only went two hours because they had no shade. In the states, pastors apologize for the services going on too long. In Haiti, they apologize for going too short. They had us sit up front, right behind the pastor as the guest of honor. I felt bad, because they bumped two older ladies to give us seats. They asked me to share something, but between being tired and sitting in the heat I am not 100% sure what I said. Hopefully, I was not too much of a heratic. It doesn’t really matter what I said, because when the real pastor got going, he showed how it was done: loud, with a lot of emotion, and not mumbling to an interpreter like I had done.

As soon as it was over, the people lined up to be seen. I was able to cut the line in half by taking care of the light patents or turning away those that we had no ability to help. Jose saw the rest. It took a little over four hours to work through the 70-80 people that were left.. Towards the end I was starting to get burnt out, but Jose kept going strong the entire time. The woman whose house we were using to work in was introduced as a nurse from America. She had one of the bigger, nicer homes that I saw while I was there. I later saw a CNA certificate hanging on her wall. In America, a CNA is the bottom rung of the medical professions. CNA's can’t give and medicines and can only do minor care. In Haiti, her certificate made her highly trained.

Often, while Jose and I were going to sleep, we would take about what we had seen and done as we tried to unwind. I always looked forward to those times. Although the Haitians that can speak a bit of English were all eager to try and help translate, because they wanted to get better it was just one more thing to wear us down. All day long, on top of the lack of sleep, and the horror and the tragedy surrounding us, and the constant backlog of whatever else we were doing, we had to try very hard to understand what the people were saying. One humorous example happened while we were walking along beside one of the guys who was helping to translate. Turning to me, he said, “I make you wine.” Thinking that he was trying to offer me some kind of alcoholic drink as a thank you for all the work I was doing, I shook my head.

“No , thank you. I don’t drink.”

He shook his head, and repeated himself. “I make you wine.”

Again, I told him that I didn’t want any. Shaking his head at me, he then turned to the wall to pee. I finally got it. He needed to “make urine”, and I had been telling him that I don’t drink. It made for a good laugh for all, once we understood.

It's been hard to describe how tight Jose and I got in such a short period of time. I am blessed to have some good friends, but those friendships are based on time, slowly getting to know each other. I talked with what is probably my oldest friend last night about it, and what he shared had a lot of wisdom. His thought was that we all tend to go through life needing more connections and friendships then we often have. When we are forced into a situation were we have to share and trust someone, it is like getting water, and we suddenly realize how dry we are. Even though I consider myself blessed with a number of friends, it was odd to go from not knowing Jose from any stranger on the street to being in a situation where our lives are depending on each other in less than a 24 hour time period time. Like I mentioned, we often shared from our lives before we feel asleep. As tired as we were, after the stress and sadness of the day we still had to unwind each night. There were a lot of personal things we would talk about. While the plan early-on was that when it was time for me to leave I would ride the bus back out to Santo Domingo. From there it would take a whole day to fly back to the states. After working together, I couldn't leave Jose a moment earlier then I absolutely had to. I decided I would take my chances and head to the airport at the last second and try to catch a flight out. What we had seen and gone through was so foreign to what life is like in America that we often talked about who we could share any of this with. Jose's girl friend will be heading down to join him for a bit. I think that will really help him.