Live From Cleveland . . . It’s Haitian Hearts!

Since the beginning of the year, Haitian Hearts has spent a lot of time—more than a month—in Cleveland. We’ve been back and forth between there and our home in Peoria several times. There have been three reasons for our presence in this city on Lake Erie, and their names are Jackson, Emmanual, and Jenny. All were cared for by Cleveland Clinic, and two had successful surgery.

However, the name of this blog is Live From Haiti, and we haven’t been to Haiti in 2006. The reasons for that are listed above, along with their compatriots, Marie in St. Louis and Raphaella, of Boston and Miami. Since we haven’t been able to get to Haiti, we’ve brought Haiti to the United States, which is one of the aims of Haitian Hearts. This can be a difficult task as the two worlds—the First World, i.e. the U.S. and the Third World, i.e. Haiti sometimes mix about as well as toothpaste and orange juice. It can be tough to bring kids from a country where running water is a luxury to a place where a main concern is, “Where are we going to go for lunch?” To most Haitians, it seems like we in America have hit the lottery. They would like a piece of this, too. And when they see how arbitrary the whole thing is. . . well, I’m not sure exactly what they think.

The good news for us, since we like spending time in Haiti and of course we want to live up to the name of the blog, is that we should be returning soon to this island non-paradise. We have another patient, Faustina, who has been accepted by a hospital in Joliet. We want to get her up here soon. We also will likely be escorting Jenny back to Haiti. And there are many patients for John to see.

So thank you for your patience (the Haitians have a lot to teach us about that), and rest assured, we will be reporting from Haiti soon.

P.S. Oh yeah, a couple of plugs for Cleveland: it is so lame that the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is located in this great city but the members are inducted into the Hall in New York City. What kind of reverse provincialism is this? You rockers need to get out more. Also, James LeBron absolutely rocks. He may make us relegate Michael Jordan to number two.