Live From Haiti

Remember and Honor By Serving Redux

2012-01-16T13:33:00.003-06:00

John has been in Pestel, Haiti the last several days. In my last post, I used the word remote to describe Pestel and its environs. Even though Haiti is only 600 miles from the United States, the whole country can see isolated, given its disastrous infrastructure, its scarce government, its disjointed relief efforts; when you are bumping along a road in Cite Soleil, a slum in the teeming capital, you can feel like you're on another planet. But Pestel takes the remoteness to a new level. Surrounded by the ocean and mountains, the town/area on the northern coast of Haiti's southern peninsula is difficult to get to, and then, once you're there, difficult to get aound. In traveling between Pestel and the surrounding mountains, John said he rode on the worst road he has ever been on in Haiti. That is saying something, as many of the roads there eat tires and axels for snacks, and John has had a lot of opportunities to ride on these roads in his 30 years working in Haiti. People in Haiti who are trying to make contact with John are calling me, at home in the States, figuring I might have a better chance at getting ahold of him.

John gives an excellent account of his trip on his blog at the Peoria Journal Star.

Most of the cholera patients at the small, dirty, and understaffed hospital in Pestel are coming from these mountainous regions, where patients have to walk or are carried in by their families. This journey can take several, arduous hours.

One of the men who was laying with calm resignation on a cot in the hospital said to John, "I'm waiting on God." I'm continually amazed at how poor Haitians, those who we would say have gotten the short end of the earthly stick, at least from a material perspective, those who might have less reason to believe in God, believe with such peaceful strength.

If we could give a good answer to "life's most urgent and persistent question" posed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we could help validate this faith.

"What are you doing for others?"

Pictured above, the crowded port at Pestel.

Remember and Honor by Serving

2012-01-12T14:17:00.004-06:00

I heard on the radio this morning that Michel Martelly, president of Haiti, has made today, January 12, the second anniversary of the earthquake, a holiday.

Also today, my husband John is making his way from Les Cayes to Pestel, a remote town on the north coast of Haiti's southern peninsula. Cholera is hitting the Pestel area hard, including in the difficult to reach mountains surrounding the town. A recent report stated that 55 people have recently died of cholera in this area and that there may be more than 300 cases. Because of the difficulties of data collection in Haiti, the numbers are probably underreported.

John will work with cholera patients. He is also going to gather information for public health officials working in the U.S. and Haiti who are trying to limit the deadliness of the cholera epidemic.

Perhaps the best way to commemorate the lives of those who died in the earthquake is to try to help save the lives of those who are suffering from this new disaster.

Pictured above, John working at a Cholera Treatment Center in 2011.

Thankful

2011-11-24T10:44:00.004-06:00

Above is my rugged husband John, who is spending Thanksgiving in Robillard, a small town in northern Haiti, not far from the country's second largest city, Cap Haitian. He is working at a Cholera Treatment Center and clinic run by the parish of Father Andre Sylvestre. Father Andre put out a plea for help earlier in the month, as the many people with cholera who were coming to his clinic were overwhelming his small staff of one doctor and two nurses. John responded to this call and flew to Haiti six days ago.

Thankfully, the cholera cases have at least temporarily decreased. However, there is still plenty of medical work to keep John busy, including a man with terrible machete wounds on his hands and a 90-year-old man with cholera. I know John is grateful to be able to practice medicine in Haiti and that the people he is serving are grateful to have him among them.

I am thankful for so many blessings. I will list a few of them here.

1. That I am married to such a wonderful, generous man whose life work is caring for those who have so little.

2. The sound of our son Luke singing in the morning as he dresses for the day.

3. Having two such great families--the Kings and the Carrolls--to celebrate Thanksgiving and life with.

4. Our parish, St. Mark, a beacon of love on the hilltop.

5. Being born in a time, place, situation, and family that allows me to however imperfectly contribute to God's plan.

Really, the things I am thankful for are infinite, like God Himself. I hope that wherever you find yourself, you have a gratitude-filled Thanksgiving.

Nowhere To Go

2011-09-08T21:09:00.003-05:00

I've been with my husband, Dr. John Carroll, as he's worked in different settings in Haiti: temporary clinics, hospitals, permanent clinics, whatever room we might be staying in. One of the consistent frustrations for John is that after he's helped a patient as much as he can, he often doesn't have a place to refer them to get more care. A patient might need a blood test, an x-ray, or to be admitted to the hospital. Frequently, there are no good options for the patient. Either there is no place close that can help them or they don't have the money to pay for care. John takes his time with patients and does everything he can for them. But the hardest thing about practicing medicine in Haiti for him, is when these patients leave him and he knows they need more medical care.

I got a small taste of this frustration when I worked at discharge planning at the Navy clinic. Many of the patients we saw would have qualified for one of the USNS Comfort's surgical slots if there were any left. In particular, there was one woman who had female problems such that she was bleeding. She was wearing a print sundress and carrying around a large, cotton-lined pad that she would sit on. At the discharge planning table, she was referred to a gynecological clinic. But she told us that she had no money to pay for this care. She said, "Can't they at least give me something for the pain?" I had some ibuprofen in my backpack, and I gave her several of them.

It felt like a very weak response.

Above is a view of the USNS Comfort from Cite Soleil.

Labor Day in Haiti

2011-09-05T21:27:00.003-05:00

If jobs and employment are a big deal now in the United States, in Haiti, with an 80 percent unemployment rate, they are always a big deal.

Of course, it's not as if Haitians aren't working. Like the woman pictured above, the Haitians have plenty of work they do to survive--haul water, scrounge food, clean clothes. But there aren't enough paying jobs. so the majority of Haitians limp along--or not--trying to make it through another day.

Views from Delmas 5

2011-08-31T11:20:00.009-05:00

While we were in Port-au-Prince, we stayed at the home of Vanessa Carpenter (AKA Mama V), who lives on Delmas 5. Vanessa runs the organization Angel Missions Haiti, which, much like Haitian Hearts, provides medical care to children in Haiti and also brings children to the States for surgery. They are also getting ready to open a school.

Vanessa was instrumental in helping coordinate the Navy's efforts in Haiti. She found most of the translators and also recruited others to help. We are grateful to her for asking us to be a part of the mission and for her hospitality to us.

At the beginning and end of each day, I would usually go up on Vanessa's roof, which had an amazing view of Port-au-Prince. All of the glories and agonies of Haiti were spread out before us: the mountains in the distance, the beautiful skies and ocean, tent cities and other little collections of shanties, kids playing soccer and kids singing, Hayti Tractor, the Caterpillar dealer, bustling tap taps. I would walk the roof and contemplate the day, suspended above the city.

Mildrede, one of the Haitian translators, and me on the roof.

The Price of Peace

2011-08-30T20:27:00.003-05:00

The amount of logistics it took to set up the Navy clinic was mindboggling.

The Navy had to find a site--actually two sites, one for the surgical-screening clinic and one for the medical clinic. This second site needed to be leveled, and then they laid down a bunch of rocks so the area wouldn't be so prone to muddiness. They set up dozens of tents, and some of them, like the dental tent, needed a power source. Then there was all the equipment, food, medicine, and supplies that needed to be brought in on smaller boats from the USNS Comfort. Communication between the First World environment of the ship and the Third World environment of Haiti was also tricky. And then, of course, the possibility that Hurricane Irene would strike Haiti threw a huge wrench into the proceedings. Everything had to be taken down, and the ship left for a couple days. When it returned, everything had to be set up again. To accomplish all of this, the Navy used its own people and also contracted with others.

Observing some of this arduous preparation, I commented to a soldier (the Army and the Air Force were involved too), "Now, I have some idea of what it's like to go to war."

The soldier shook his head and said, "This is harder than going to war."

I was amazed when I heard this but upon reflection, it made sense. The military's typical mission is fighting wars. It's what they are used to. In this case, the Navy was having to work with all of these NGO's and to a lesser extent, the Haitian government to implement this mission. They didn't have the control of their environment that they are used to. But all of this collaboration was the point: the mission was classified as a training mission, in which the Navy would learn to successfully work with a number of different organizations, as frustrating and difficult as that can be.

My first reaction to his statement, however, was a swirl of thoughts and quotes: the constructive process is a lot harder and takes longer than the destructive process; what we need is a moral equivalent of war; it's easier to run an authoritarian organization than a democratic one; if you want peace, work for justice.

And yes, justice is hard and expensive, but really only in the short run. When people are treated fairly, when they have enough food to eat, clean water, adequate shelter, medical care, education, safety--all the things we need for life--war isn't as great a possibility. To achieve this state of justice takes a lot of messy, time-consuming work.

But it's worth it, don't you think?

Haitians Not in Haiti

2011-08-29T10:15:00.004-05:00

At least half of the translators who worked with the Navy during the past couple of weeks were junior high and high school students from two schools in Port-au-Prince. where the students are taught in English. Most of these kids are essentially bilingual, being fluent in English and Creole.

I had the opportunity to talk with one young woman, an eighth grader, whom I'll call Jocelyn.

Jocelyn spent her 6th and 7th grade years in Brooklyn with her grandmother, attending school. She returned to Haiti for her 8th grade year and lives with her parents, who both work in Haiti. Jocelyn is an American citizen; her English is actually better than her Creole. Jocelyn said to me,

"The media is always showing only the bad parts of Haiti. They never show the nice places in Haiti, like where I live. People think there are only poor areas in Haiti."

I have heard this criticism of Haiti news coverage before, though usually from people older than Jocelyn. I can't completely disagree with it; most of the coverage of Haiti focuses on the poor. On the other hand, poor people do make up the huge majority of the population.

On this trip, our 22-year-old nephew Tommy accompanied us. This was his first trip to Haiti. After we worked in Cite Soleil and toured other slums, for balance, I wanted Tommy to see a more prosperous part of Haiti. On one evening, we went to Petionville, a Port-au-Prince suburb, and had dinner with some upper-middle class friends of ours. On the way to their lovely home, we stopped at the Haitian bakery, Epi D'Or. Inside the modern building, Haitians ordered sandwiches, ice cream, or had a meal at the cafeteria. "These are all middle-class Haitians," our friend told us.

Back to Jocelyn: I asked her if she was going to attend high school in Haiti. Her answer was instructive: "Oh no. I want to attend high school in the United States."

So despite the good parts of Haiti that are overlooked by the media, Jocelyn wants to go to high school in the United States. I can't say I blame her. But I do see that she is already exhibiting a behavior pattern that is disturbing: she will defend and praise Haiti from afar.

The thing is, Haiti doesn't need her praise or the praise of other people from the diaspora. It needs their brains, their ambitions, their talents.

Haiti needs their presence.

Discharge Planning?

2011-08-28T20:45:00.004-05:00

Today is the last day of the USNS Comfort's presence in Haiti. The ship will now sail home after five months conducting its training mission in nine countries. Besides helping people who needed medical care, the Navy's other goal was to improve its ability to work with governments and NGO's to coordinate health care. I am sure everyone learned a lot.

My last day working at the Navy's clinic was on Thursday. After the translators had checked in and were working, I was assigned to Discharge Planning. This unit referred patients who needed follow up care to providers in Port-au-Prince. The NGO's in Haiti had helped compile a small list of places patients could go to get help. Or, I should say, attempt to get help.

As an American nurse who was helping translate and refer put it, "This is depressing."

For one, many of the patients we saw clearly needed surgery. They had hernias, huge facial tumors, bone fractures that hadn't healed properly, terrible burn scarring, breast cancer that had broken through the skin wall, gynecological problems, eye tumors. These are people who would have been eligible for a surgical slot on the ship but with only 120 places, they filled up quickly.

Secondly, almost all of the patients we saw didn't have money to pay for follow up medical care, surgical or otherwise; that's why they came to the Navy clinic to begin with. I doubt many--any?--of them received any follow up care.

On the plus side, most of these patients left with some medications. I was also surprised at how many of the patients were able to write their phone numbers. We were collecting these in case a a NGO was able find the patient a place for surgery.

I am very happy for the patients who were able to be operated on or receive medical care on the ship. They are the big beneficiaries of the Navy's good work.

Soleil Clowns

2011-08-27T22:00:00.004-05:00

Believe it or not, an organization called Clowns Without Borders exists. Two professional clowns live a couple houses down from us, and they told us about the group.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, children need to laugh and play. On the other hand, I've seen children in Haiti who were too sick or weak to do either. I think I'm too wedded to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as an explanatory philosophy to believe that the poor children of Haiti can benefit from clowns. It reminds me of my working-in-child-welfare-days when we used to mount these drives for Christmas presents for foster children. Yes, Christmas presents are nice, but they were not what these children really needed.

When John was working in Cite Soleil a few days ago, he stopped by Catherine Laboure Hospital to see how the patients he referred were doing. He said a few clowns were there and that it was kind of pathetic and bizarre. I know I find the idea absurd. But then Haiti is an absurd place.

One Life

2011-08-25T20:51:00.002-05:00

There is a saying—“One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic,”—that is depressingly true from a PR point of view. Once when I was teaching English 110 at a community college, I talked some about Haiti, including the depressing maternal and infant mortality rates, the low life expectancy, etc. I got empty stares from my class.

But then a couple of days later, I talked about a sick child whom John was working with in Haiti. The class was spellbound as I described Mariella’s struggle for life against the ravages of malnutrition and diarrhea. “What can we do?” they asked.

Some of my recent blog posts seem a little vague to me, so I thought I’d focus on a particular child, Fernandez, pictured above. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Fernandez at the Sisters' malnutrition program in Cite Soleil. The Sisters are concerned about Fernandez because he is three years old and only weighs 18 pounds. Sometimes he is interested in eating, and sometimes he isn't. Although Fernandez has recently had a clear chest x-ray, many members of his family have tuberculosis, including his twin younger siblings and his grandmother.

For the most part, Fernandez's affect is flat. But he allowed me to pick him up and we walked around for a little while. He's kind of like carrying a small sack of potatoes; he's dead weight with no muscle tone, due to lack of protein. When I picked him up, there was no catch under his arms, of the muscle tensing, as he isn't strong enough.

But the good news, is that when I pulled a cheese and cracker out of my backpack, he ate it. And then another one. And then another one! I put him down and we walked around for awhile, until he spotted his mother and wanted to be with her.

The next day, I saw Fernandez scooting around on a small tricycle. He smiled and waved at me. A little while later, he came over and I picked him up. We walked around some more, and then I noticed Fernandez's head starting to bob, and conk, he was out. I sat down in the courtyard, and he napped on my lap until his mom came to retrieve him.

So though Fernandez is poor, with its frequent health problems, and lives in Cite Soleil, he has a couple of things going for him: he is enrolled in the Sisters' malnutrition program, and he has a mom who really loves him.

Return of the USNS Comfort and the Attack of the Killer Mosquitoes

2011-08-24T12:05:00.002-05:00

I’m happy to report that with the threat of Hurricane Irene gone from these parts, the USNS Comfort is back in the bay of Port-au-Prince. We saw it at 5:30 this morning from the roof of our house on Delmas 5. The plan is that today they will resume surgeries on the ship, and tomorrow the onshore clinic will begin again. They didn’t need doctors at the clinic today, so John headed back to Cite Soleil, to work at the Sisters’ clinic.

So this morning, my nephew Tommy, some other volunteers, and I rode a tap tap (not quite as crowded as the one pictured above), the battered pick up trucks that serve as Haiti’s public transportation, up Delmas to retrieve another member of our crew. We would then head to the clinic site to see if they needed any help setting up.

Delmas is a one of the main thoroughfares through Port-au-Prince, leading up to Petionville, a more prosperous suburb. I pointed out different landmarks to Tommy. There is what’s left of One Stop, where we used to buy groceries (some of the Delmas area was hit hard by the earthquake); there’s Alta Grace, where we occasionally went to church. There’s the road that leads to Luke’s orphanage.

When we reached Delmas 91, we turned down a very steep hill, rutted with large holes and rocks. We bounced down it carefully, if, indeed one can bounce carefully; it’s all fun and games until the breaks go out.

After we picked up Jenny, we headed back down Delmas, bound for Terminal Varreux.
The ocean was in the distance, blending with the sky, making it impossible to tell where one stopped and the other began. As we got closer, we saw the USNS Comfort; the all-white ship with the red crosses appeared to be suspended in the sky, sent down from heaven.

At Terminal Varreux, a small group of patients were waiting. We made our way through the newly created mud from last night’s rain, heading toward the dock, where the translators and patients would board a small boat to take them to the ship.

I rubbed my hand, and then noticed I had some black mud on it. How did that get there? Then I saw what I thought was a fly on my arm. I attempted to brush it away, but it didn’t go. I looked more closely at my hand, and saw that it was no mud; it was a squashed mosquito. I looked around at others and saw the huge bugs alighting on any patch of bare skin. I mean these suckers were ginormous! They were getting tangled in Tommy’s leg hair, so I sprayed him down quick with my mosquito repellent. For the next several minutes, we were consumed with repelling the hoardes through spray and slapping. This sounds exaggerated, but it was bad.

In my experience, Haiti mosquitoes are small, silent, and stealthily, less obvious even than the type we have in the States. These mosquitoes were not going to be put off by a mere brush away. They had to be smacked. These were like the Special Forces mosquitoes; they weren’t going to be leaving your skin until they had some of your blood. As our friend Kristin said, “This is like inviting malaria.”

Fortunately after only a few minutes of this onslaught, we were able to take refuge in one of the military’s SUV’s. Since our presence wasn’t required at Terminal Varreux—as much set up had been done as possible—we rode back to Delmas 5. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Different World, Different Risks

2011-08-24T10:45:00.004-05:00

A recent New York Times op-ed listed some of the health risks and threats to children today. They include obesity, due in part to the marketing of junk food, exposure to violent and sexually explicit electronic media content, thanks to little regulation, the increasing number of children who are medicated with psychotropic drugs, again facilitated by little regulation. These are all real risks, and the writer ties them to the rise of the corporation, a legally defined person, whose goals (profit) are at times in conflict with the best interest of other legal persons, like children.

Now, you probably know where this post is going. The risks that the writer details only apply to a certain small (relatively speaking) group of children: those from the developed world.

For our friend, above, from Wharf Jermie, a slum in Haiti, and billions like him, these risks don't threaten him, but a host of others do, some of which you can see in the picture. Dirty water carries all kinds of deadly diseases--typhoid fever, cholera, diarrhea. Malnutrition leads to stunted growth and development and sometimes death. Lack of health care, schooling, safe housing, a safe environment all pose huge risks to children, as do the lack of competent child welfare or criminal justice systems. There is a lot of child abuse in the developing world.

The children of Haiti don't have to worry about obesity, violent video games, or psychotropic drugs.

On the plus side, they are forced to exercise their creativity. This boy and his friends were having a lot of fun with their car, made from a plastic bottle and lids.

Hurricane Irene Misses Haiti

2011-08-23T21:27:00.004-05:00

Despite the original predictions, Hurricane Irene fortunately largely bypassed Hispaniola, the island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Well, at least, I say "fortunately" as I think it's a good thing that one of the poorest countries in the world which lately has experienced a string of horrible luck (earthquake, cholera, other hurricanes) was able to dodge Irene.

But I guess the view that it's fortunate depends on your viewpoint. Here's a quote from an article in the Los Angeles Times:

"Earlier, meterologists had hoped that Irene might slow down; it was headed straight for Hispaniola and the mountain range saddling the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 'It would have disrupted and likely weakened the storm,' Feltgen said.

That didn't happen."

Thank God, I and all the Haitian meteorologists say.

Pictured above are the clouds above the bay of Port-au-Prince at sunset, remnants of Hurricane Irene, the storm that missed Haiti.

Some Happy Haiti Pictures

2011-08-23T21:13:00.004-05:00

Baby Central

Can't you see the whole universe in those eyes?

The Pied Piper of Wharf Jeremie

Two Life Changing Events on January 12, 2010

2011-08-23T19:09:00.006-05:00

As for most people in Haiti, January 12, 2010 was a life-changing day for the woman pictured above. She gave birth to her son, whom she is holding, a little while before the earthquake. When the ground started to shake, the doctor yelled at her to get out of the building. But she didn't get out in time, and her arm was crushed. Fortunately, she and her son lived. She brought him into the Cite Soleil clinic, and John examined him. He was very dehydrated.

Back to Normal

2011-08-23T15:31:00.003-05:00

Please don't miss the irony in the title of this post. As a friend who visited Haiti right before we did told us, Port-au-Prince looked as close to its pre-earthquake condition as she has seen it. And she's right. A lot of rubble has been cleared away, people are moving about more easily, much of the shock seems to have dissipated. But what passes as normal in Haiti is unbelievably harsh. Take the fellow above, hauling a car on his back; he was likely doing this before the earthquake too.

Ot take Cite Soleil, which sustained little damage during the earthquake. John told us about a saying that went around Haiti after January 12: Earthquakes don't kill people; buildings kill people. Cite Soleil has few big buildings capable of killing people when they collapse. Lucky them.

But as we saw today in the clinic and when we toured St. Catherine Laboure, a Doctors Without Borders hospital and the only hospital in Cite Soleil, a community of 250,000 plus, people are suffering from poverty and sickness that should be inexcusable in the 21st century. Septic babies near death, a two-year-old with congenital cataracts, dozens of children in the Sisters' malnutrition program, a baby with a terrible, open, fast-growing staph infection on his groin.

Yes, things are back to normal in Haiti and normal isn't good.

Some Haitian Culture

2011-08-23T07:32:00.004-05:00

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to visit the Musee du Pantheon National Haitian, located across from the National Palace. The museum is built into the ground and--I don't know if this is the reason--sustained little damage in the earthquake.

The museum has two small wings, one devoted to the seven epochs of Haitian history and the other to artwork. A guide led us through both air-conditioned wings.

The historical wing was fascinating. As best I can remember, the seven eras of Haitian history are: the native period, the Spanish colonial period, the slavery period, the revolution period, two empire periods, and the presidential period.

The most famous artifact in the museum is the anchor from the Santa Maria, one of the three ships that Christopher Columbus sailed on his initial voyage. We snapped a few pictures before the guide told us no photography allowed, so we didn't get a photo of the anchor. However, we estimate it was about 10 feet tall and had the typical shape of an anchor.

The museum also contains the remains of the four men considered to be Haiti's founders: the great Touissant L'Overture, leader of the revolution, Jean Jacques Dessalines, founder of Haiti, Henri Christophe, the builder king, and Alexandre Petion, founder of the republic.

Pictured below are irons that would be put on slaves who escaped (maroons) and were recaptured. They would have to carry the 50-pound weight on their head. To this day, when Haitians refer to something very heavy, they say, "Cinquante livres," or 50 pounds.

Pictured above is a painting from the art wing of the museum. It shows the metaphorical birth of Haiti, with many of the country's influences.

Bel

Life in the Slums

2011-08-22T19:10:00.000-05:00

Since the Navy operation has been shut down until Wed. thanks to Hurricane Irene, we've had to find other things to do, which hasn't been difficult. Both yesterday and today, we spent time in two of Haiti's poorest slums: Wharf Jeremie and Cite Soleil.

We'd been staring last week across the water at Wharf Jeremie from the Naval clinic at Terminal Varreux. A friend of ours, Jean Claude, who is helping to build houses there, took us to look around. It's difficult to describe these places in words or pictures, but they hardly look fit to support human life. And really, they don't, or at least not very well. Rocks, dirt, sewage, rusty tin, gray-brown water form to combine a hellish scene. Yet children, with their unnatural pot bellies, often naked from the waist down, laugh and play there, just like they do everywhere.

Before visiting Wharf Jeremie, we had stopped by the ruins of the Port-au-Prince cathedral. The semi-professional beggers descended on us, while not once in Wharf Jeremie did anyone ask for anything, other than to see the picture we had taken of them. Below are some children in Wharf Jeremie, carrying a picture of Haiti's most appropriate patron saint, Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Today in Cite Soleil, John worked at the clinic run by the Daughters of Charity. The Sisters have an oasis in the middle of another harsh environment, where children receive medical treatment, food, and schooling. Their mothers learn to sew and embroider. Once again, John Claude was our driver. He knows Soleil well, having grown up there.

We saw this champ in Cite Soleil, enjoying his bath.

My thanks to John and Tommy Carroll for the generous use of their pictures.

Say It Isn't So, Irene

2011-08-21T21:31:00.008-05:00

We received some disappointing news this morning. The onshore clinic was cancelled for today and the next two days, as Hurricane Irene is headed for the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The most recent prediction that we have heard has the storm over Haiti in the early morning hours of Tuesday, August 23.

Unfortunately, the hurricane isn't only affecting the clinic; the surgeries for these three days have also been cancelled. This afternoon, the USNS Comfort evacuated the patients, some non-military medical staff, and the translators. The ship will likely be moving as to stay out of the path of the storm. At this point, the Navy's plan is to resume clinic and the surgeries on Wednesday, August 24, if possible.

We are hoping and praying that both for Haiti's sake and for the success of the USNS Comfort's mission that Hurricaine Irene does not prove to be too destructive. As you can see below, the first day of clinic was very popular.

Working with the Translators

2011-08-21T09:20:00.003-05:00

My job on this trip has been helping to coordinate the translators.

First, a little background: the USNS Comfort has been on its humanitarian tour since March. They have brought medical care to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Jamaica, and Columbia, among others. Haiti is their last stop before returning to Norfolk, Virginia.

At each of the countries the Navy has visited, they have needed translators to work with the doctors and patients. Because the other countries the ship visited are Spanish speaking, they haven't needed as many translators, as many people on the Comfort speak Spanish. In Haiti, they were asking for 100 translators for each day. And by the way, this is a volunteer position; the only pay is a meal and water each day and then at the end, a much-coveted certificate stating that the person did translation work for the U.S. Military. Many of the translators travel up to two hours each way on their own gourdes.

Nonetheless, this did not stop about 150 translators from showing up to work. These translators were referred by various organizations: schools, the US Embassy, churches, and NGOs. My job has been to take down the names of the translators (for the all important certificates, so the translators are very eager to check in with me), ascertain that they are capable of translating, get them their ID badges, help assign them to an area, and troubleshoot for them during the day.

I quizzed them on where they learned English. Quite a few are self taught. Some of the best English-speakers are kids ages 13-18 from a school in Port-au-Prince. They are basically bilingual in English and Creole.

It was a little chaotic the first couple of days, but having too many translators is a much better problem then too few. The translators are assigned to a doctor or a tent. There are tents dedicated to registration, pediatrics, general medical, dental, opthomology, women's health, pharmacy, and discharge planning. Other translators help escort the patients from tent to tent. The system runs a little more smoothly each day.

The clinic is in a hot, shadeless area, so water is very important. The Navy is passing out Meals Ready to Eat, which I'll write more about later.

Pictured above are some translators arriving on the first day of clinic.

Haitian Hearts with the USNS Comfort in Haiti

2011-08-20T17:19:00.003-05:00

Now that the USNS Comfort has been docked off Haiti for three days, what’s been going on? The Navy, with the help of other branches of the services, the Haitian government, and a whole lot of NGO’s, including Haitian Hearts, set up a clinic specifically to screen patients for surgery on the boat. John was immensely important in this process as the Navy had him initially screen the patients. With his knowledge of tropical medicine, which is a nice name for trying to help people in poor countries with their health problems, and fluency in Creole, John was able to direct people to the appropriate station. It took only a day and a half for the ship’s 120 surgical slots to fill up. We were happy to see that one of our Haitian friends was able to get a surgical slot on the boat. We saw her off this afternoon in a smaller boat that was ferrying her to the ship.

Also for two days, and continuing on to the end of August, the Navy is running a shore side clinic at Port Verrieux, a private port the Navy is leasing, for people with non-surgical medical problems. Today was the second day of this clinic; 777 patients were seen today and 737 yesterday. John started working at this clinic today. It is not far from Cite Soleil, and many of the people who come to the clinic are from there. In many ways, this clinic is similar to others that John has worked at in Haiti.

So what the heck am I doing in Haiti besides writing this post and trying not to get sunburned? Check back next time!

We're Back in Haiti

2011-08-18T21:06:00.004-05:00

We've come to help the good folks on the USNS Comfort, a great-looking ship, as you can see below, docked in the Bay of Port-au-Prince. . . .

Help very important people, like this little boy and his mom. Stay tuned for more stories.

Live from Montgomery, Alabama

2011-07-27T23:06:00.005-05:00

For the past few days, John, Luke, and I have been traveling to see some of the Civil Rights sites in Alabama. In Birmingham, we toured the Civil Rights Institute and saw the 16th Street Baptist Church, where four little girls were killed in an explosion detonated by white racists. We walked the streets around Kelly Ingram Park where black adults and children who were peacefully marching and demonstrating were attacked by dogs and fire hoses.

In Montgomery, we went to the Rosa Parks Museum. She was the seamstress who in 1955 wouldn't give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Her arrest launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott which began the modern day Civil Rights movement. We toured the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was pastor from 1954-1960. In Montgomery, King's home was bombed with his wife and baby girl in it.

I have to hand it to the people of Alabama; it takes a certain amount of humility to make two huge and long lasting mistakes of your history (slavery/Civil war and racism/Jim Crow laws) the basis of much of your tourism. Visiting these sacred national shrines has been an education and one that I keep trying to apply to Haiti. I think part of the difficulty for Haiti is there are so many problems and the foes are many: a long history of the international community meddling in a destructive fashion in the affairs of Haiti; a corrupt, incompetent government; rich Haitians who have a vested interest in things remaining the same; natural disasters of Biblical proportion.

In Alabama and throughout the south in the 50's and 60's, through all the insults, harassment, attacks, and killings, King and other movement leaders, like the unsung Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, insisted that these awful sins be met with nonviolence and love. It is amazing to learn about the devotion and bravery of the people in the Civil Rights movement. They had no real reason to think they would succeed anytime soon. Of course we know now that in large ways they did, but it wasn't a foregone conclusion, it wasn't inevitable. History always seems much neater than the messy present.

Perhaps this messiness and the peculiar paradox of American history can best be illustrated by the fact that the Alabama Capitol, where Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the Confederacy, and the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the Civil Rights movement began in the meetings to plan the bus boycott, are a block away. You can stand on the porch of the church and look up at the domed capitol. Yes, Montgomery is both the cradle of the Confederacy and the cradle of the Civil Rights movement. Welcome to America.

Three Weeks Working at a Cholera Treatment Center

2011-07-15T13:15:00.003-05:00

John returned home this past Tuesday after three weeks in Haiti working at the Cholera Treatment Center at Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles. We exchanged many emails during the course of his stay. I reread his emails and constructed the passage below from them. Each sentence is from a separate email and they are in chronological order. It gives a compressed idea of what his stay was like.

For a more detailed account of John's work in Haiti, please check out the blog he wrote for the Peoria Journal Star.

The airport was disastrous: no luggage. . . I think cholera is very bad here, but will know more in a couple of hours. . . It is so weird sitting here hour after hour as people stuff themselves with the buffet while a large tent city looms just down the block from here and cholera is going crazy. . . There are five cholera tents and one building with walls that house cholera patients. . . I have never admitted and taken care of so many sick people in one day in my life. . . The chest compression man yesterday who is Fleurisma was sitting on his cot today talking and he was dying last night. . .Patient after patient in semi unconscious states are the bad ones, and others with mild cholera act good and just need oral rehydration solution and some observation, and if they look good in the afternoon, we send them packing back up the mountain. . .My hands cramp up each morning. . . About 280 patients on campus for cholera yesterday was the official estimate. . . I didn't lose any patients last night because God made them strong. . .The heavy afternoon rain caved in our tarp and many cholera patients on cots are drenched in cold rain and they are very sick, very pathetic, horrible scene. . . A little old man that came in late this afternoon just died. . . I put an IV in her ankle and her hand and we squeezed fluid into her for an hour and she woke up. . . Picture hundreds of people with their hundreds of relatives in hot sweltering tents in Haiti right now and the sick ones are vomiting and having diarrhea. . . A hellish morning here. . . Many saves today: old people, young people with no pulse and they come back. . . Worked on five people at once, and when one was strong enough after a liter of fluid I would ask him or her to stand and let another sit who could not stand anymore. . . I just don't know what to make of this experience. . .

The Eyes Have It

2011-07-08T11:29:00.004-05:00

Besides doing his good medical work and writing his blog for the Peoria Journal Star about the cholera epidemic in Haiti, John also takes amazing pictures, like the one above. It particularly struck me, as pictures and individuals do from time to time. John used this picture to illustrate the practically nonexistent state of dental care in Haiti and what that does to people's teeth.

But despite the awful condition of his teeth, this 20-year-old's big, beautiful eyes are what grab me. His overall expression is one of discomfort, as cholera is a painful, sapping disease. But his eyes seem to contain so many other qualities: sadness, acceptance, sensitivity, knowingness, longing.

In their expressiveness and beauty, they remind me of my son's eyes. I think about how many more Lukes of all ages there are in Haiti.

Becoming American

2011-07-04T15:34:00.004-05:00

This is an article that, between the interviewing and the writing, I worked on for a couple of years. I thought posting it on Independence Day would be appropriate as I hope it reflects on some of the strengths of the United States of America. In part, it also tells the story of a little Haitian boy who is now a U.S. citizen.

Young La first experienced America on the receiving end of a bomb. He was seven-years-old, and he and his family huddled in a cave near their home in Cambodia. In 1970, the Vietnam War expanded to Cambodia as President Nixon ordered airborne attacks to try to root out the Vietnamese soldiers who were taking refuge in this neutral country. Bombs exploded for five hours as two planes dove and dropped their deadly cargo around Young’s family. "But the soldiers were in the jungles, not the towns," explained Young. The bombs killed villagers and animals, turning the water of their ponds black. During a break, Young and his family ran out into the country where his father had a threshing machine. As they were running, another menacing plane approached. "Keep running!" urged Young's mother. "Don't look back!”

They spent most of the next decade dodging bombs, bullets, and the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge. They farmed, made wine, and worked on a bicycle assembly line to survive. They moved from Cambodia to the border area of Vietnam and back again to avoid the violence, as both countries warred with themselves. “I spent most of my early life in Cambodia,” said Young. “All of it was war.”

Young La’s family chose him to try to get to the United States, as improbable as that journey seemed. They paid a man several ounces of gold to lead Young through the jungles to a UN refuge camp in Thailand. And, here, Young’s luck began to change. He spent only seven months in the camp, unlike his cousin, who spent seven years there, before he got on a Pan Am flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong to Seattle and onto the Midwest. The country that inflicted chaos and destruction on Young’s family and nation would become his new home.

A friend of my mine has a philosophy about being American. He says if you believe in the American idea, than you are an American, no matter where you live. The fundamental American idea is expressed with power and economy in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This truth doesn’t only apply to people who live within our borders. Maybe realizing that should be part of being American.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Joe Billy McDade is a federal judge, senior status, in Peoria on the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. McDade was born in Texas in 1937, but he didn’t have access to his full rights as an American for another three decades.

McDade’s parents died when he was a young boy, and he and his sister were raised by his paternal grandmother. He experienced one of those life-defining moments when he was ten. “My grandmother was only two generations out of slavery and she was subservient to whites,” recalled McDade. “In those days, we had peddlers who would go from house to house selling things. A white peddler came to our door peddling brooms. My grandma bought a broom. I said, ‘Mama J, we can't afford to buy a broom.' We needed that money for our rent. I thought, 'When I grow up, I'm going to be an attorney so that I don't have to buy a broom.' In my mind, lawyers were the epitome of justice."

McDade attended Jack Yates High School, one of three black high schools in Houston, and graduated in 1955, a year after the Brown decision, desegregating schools. Upon the recommendation of a teacher, he applied to and was accepted at Bradley University in Peoria.

McDade played basketball at Bradley and earned a bachelor's in economics and a master's in psychology. He attended law school at the University of Michigan. After he graduated in 1963, he interviewed with some of the top national law firms. None of them offered him a job. He then interviewed with Peoria law firms. "They took me out to lunch and told me no. That was the difference between them and the national firms; they took me to lunch to tell me no." Later on, when McDade returned to Peoria, he was still well known for his success on the hardwood at Bradley. "One man was happy to have my autograph, but then told me, 'No, I won't rent to you.' It was painful."

As late as 1964, the law in the United States did not reflect the core American ideal of equality. The Civil Rights Act redressed this inequity by preventing baseless discrimination and promoting fairness and equality of opportunity. All are created equal was a long time in coming.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In 2005, my husband, Dr. John Carroll, was making rounds at Grace Children’s Hospital in the Delmas section of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. For almost 30 years, John has spent several months a year working in this medically understaffed county. He went to a baby bed and put his arms out to the toddler sitting there. There was no interest; however, the child in the next bed observing this interaction, pulled himself to his feet and put his arms up. It was the moment upon which our son’s fate turned.

John lifted the boy out of the bed. As he carried him around the ward, he thought, “This child doesn’t really look sick.” He approached the nurse’s station and as if reading his mind the nurse said to him, “Abandone.” A couple months later, we would begin the lengthy, complex American and Haitian processes of international adoption.

We moved the boy we were calling Luke from the hospital to an orphanage. We visited him every couple of months on our regular trips to Haiti, as the paperwork wound its way through the system. He loved playing with my watch, staring at the words in a textbook as if he knew how to read, and gobbling down the protein bars we brought him.

For a poor, parentless boy in a poor country, adoption was a miracle route to U.S. citizenship. Since 1989, around 300,000 children from outside the United States have been adopted by American citizens. This may sound like a lot until you consider that UNICEF estimates that there are 163 million orphans worldwide. Luke’s citizenship wasn’t an accident of birth; it was an accident of circumstance.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

After McDade couldn't get a job in Peoria, he was hired in Chicago by the U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust division. He worked there for 18 months and returned to Peoria, having been offered a job in the executive training program at First Federated Savings and Loan. He later went on to work at the Greater Peoria Legal Society, which provided legal services to the poor. Under his leadership, the office expanded from one attorney to four attorneys. He worked in private practice from 1977 to 1982, when he was appointed associate judge in the 10th Circuit District. In 1988, he ran as a Republican for resident judge of the 10th District. He received more votes for this position than anyone running from either party had ever received before. So, though he may not have been able to get a job at one of the law firms in town, "it appeared that I was popular among my customers," said McDade.

Reflecting on the journey that took him from his hardscrabble roots in Texas to his position as a judge, McDade said, "In my life, I've been given opportunities. I was born in such poverty and had restrictions on my freedom, and now to be a U.S. Federal judge. . . it's an example of what can happen under our system. My appointment as a federal judge--you don't get this just because of merit. A lot of people are capable and there is a lot of luck involved."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Luke is eight now and no longer the 25 pound 3-year-old with the orange-tinged hair whom we brought home from Haiti. He is a third grader who does well in his school work and received an award for demonstrating Christian leadership. He loves to wrestle with his dad and play soccer. He was born a go getter and now lives in a place that channels and rewards that quality. He wouldn’t mind being president, but we will have to expand our idea of who is eligible for this position and then write it into the Constitution for that to happen. It’s not an impossibility.

When we landed with Luke at the Miami International Airport on February 19, 2007, he automatically became an American. A couple weeks later, Luke received a letter from President George W. Bush, congratulating him on his citizenship. The letter contained these words:

“Americans are united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, and that no insignificant person was ever born. Our country has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by principles that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every citizen must uphold these principles. And every new citizen, by embracing these ideas. makes our country, more, not less, American.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Young La was resettled by Catholic Charities in West Peoria, Illinois. For awhile, he lived in their residential facility, Tha Huong, which in Vietnamese means home away from home. Young would ride his bike in the neighborhood and one day, he met my mother-in-law, Mary. She was interested in Young and offered to tutor him in English. They became friends and some years later when Young needed a place to live, she told him he could stay with her so he could save some money. Mary helped find him a good job, too, constructing meat smokers. In turn, he could fix anything in the house, cooked delicious meals, and became like a loyal son to her.

Young graduated from Illinois Central College with an associate’s degree in electronics. He became an American citizen in 1992 and several years later returned to Cambodia where he married a lovely, smart, young woman, Chhoung Tang. He returned to Peoria and began the arduous visa process to bring Chhoung to the United States. After a three-year wait, the visa was granted and Young brought his wife to her new home. They now have two darling daughters. They own their home in West Peoria.

A couple of years ago, Young’s wife Chhoung, took her oath of citizenship in Judge McDade’s courtroom, like Young did 17 years earlier. As the judge entered the courtroom, all stood. "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes! God save the United States and God save this honorable court," cried the clerk.

A statement was read by an immigration official that the gathered individuals had passed an interview and an exam and should be admitted to citizenship upon taking the following oath of allegiance.

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

After the oath, McDade had everyone rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we broke out into song. Judge McDade told us that he would sing the first verse of "America the Beautiful” and for us all to join in if we wanted to. We sang it and it went so well, McDade said, "That was really nice. Let's sing it again." So we did.

"I just love that song," said McDade. "It hits me where it's good to be hit once in awhile."

Next, we heard from dignitaries who assembled to address the new citizens. There were representatives from Rep. Aaron Schock's office, Sen. Roland Burris's office, the Social Security Dept., the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Legion, Post #2, and the League of Women Voters. All offered their welcome and words of advice to the new citizens.

At the end of the ceremony, Judge McDade made some remarks.

"I get a little sentimental on these occasions," he said. "As a judge, I am usually doing things that are injurious to people, like sending them to jail. I don't like to do this, but it's necessary."

"We just want you to know that we're glad you're here. I appreciate that this has been a tough road. You did it the right way. To a certain extent, I wish that all Americans could go through this process. Some of us who are native born don't fully appreciate the benefits of citizenship like you do."

Nodding at the dignitaries, McDade encouraged the new citizens to get involved. These volunteer organizations are "the essence of participatory democracy. Join them because that's how things get done in this country. You will bring something very unique to these groups. Your involvement is a great opportunity for this country to learn from you."

"This is one of the most important tasks I have,” said McDade. “I'm helping this country grow by helping with the naturalization process." Because all Americans, “with the exception of two groups, are ancestors of immigrants or immigrants: the American Indian and Black Americans who were brought here in chains. Some of you came from countries where freedom is not complete. . . yet."

The judge then read through a list of all the countries represented by the new citizens and asked them to stand as he read their country's name. "I want to get a good look at you:

"Bolivia, Cambodia, Canada, People's Republic of China, El Salvador, India, Korea, Macedonia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, the UK, Sudan, France, and Vietnam."

One by one, or in the case of China several at once, all rose as their country of origin was called.

"Now turn around and look at each other," said McDade. "Go ahead. Do it. Look at each other. You're beautiful. This is America. You see how different you are. You are all equal as Americans. You've got a lot of other countries and everyone looks alike: their skin color, languages, customs, religion are all alike. In this country, that is not true. Almost everyone is different."

My husband John, along with other friends and relatives of the new citizens, was up with the new citizens, taking pictures. I was back in the visitors’ gallery with Young and his daughter Annie, who had fallen asleep in her father's lap.

Judge McDade continued his remarks: "In America, we believe strongly that freedom and liberty are precious things. With freedom, you can do good things or bad things. But you have the opportunity to create your own life here, the way you want to. Everyone has this opportunity. I grew up without any parents, picking cotton in the South. I was subjected to discrimination, some of it legal. Now, I'm one of 1,000 federal judges. One of your descendents will hold important positions in the government--perhaps even president."

"Now, I'm going to be the one to tell you this, because you'd find out eventually. Some people don't want you here. They don't want me here. They want people who only look like them and think like them. This country is big enough for all of us. We need you to make America better. I'm glad you're here. I expect a lot out of you. I expect you to make this country better than you found it."

And with that citizenship certificates were handed out and Judge McDade was the first person to shake the new Americans' hands. He told them he would stay in the court room for pictures as long as they wanted.

America for all, and all for America.

What a World. What a World.

2011-06-27T23:15:00.007-05:00

Today two patients died in the Cholera Treatment Center where John is working. With the number of patients they have had coming to the center, and the severity of the disease, it was inevitable. But still very hard and very sad.

Sometimes I feel a little inane when I send John emails about what I am doing in the States: today Luke had swimming lessons and then we went to the park; the weather has been rainy and cool; we had two deliveries from Amazon; while he is trying to keep death at bay for dozens of patients. At best, I hope my emails will provide a little needed distraction to John from the difficulties of the day.

It is a mind boggling concept to reflect upon: while many of us in the developed world go about our relatively cushy lives, people all over the world are dying in wars, from starvation, from preventable diseases. Children are abused and even sold as slaves. People are rotting and tortured, unjustly held in unknown prisons. All of this is going on at this moment.

We may shrug and give the winner's response, "That's life. It's always been that way." But why does it have to be that way? Of course, there is no avoiding suffering for any of us, but why does life have to be so horribly miserable for so many? I don't think there are satisfactory answers to this question. We've managed to construct fairer societies for hundreds of millions of people; we can create a world where everyone receives the basics.

If we want to badly enough.

Pictured above, a boy and his mother at the Cholera Treatment Center where John is working.

Why Cholera Is Only A Disease of Poor Countries

2011-06-25T17:44:00.003-05:00

Since John has been in Haiti working at a Cholera Treatment Center, a few people have asked me how he makes sure he doesn't get the disease. What I tell them is that he doesn't really have to worry about it. People get cholera by drinking dirty water. It is rarely spread through person to person contact. In theory, cholera could be spread by the feces or vomit of an infected person, but as long as John and other health care workers take regular precautions in working with patients, they aren't in danger of contracting it.

There have been a few people who have entered the United States with cholera since the Haitian epidemic. In fact, an article in John's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that arrived today discusses a man in Massachusetts who had been in the Dominican Republic where he contracted cholera. As the doctors in the article reiterated, cholera epidemics are a function of dirty water and inadequate sanitation, neither of which those of us in the United States or other developed countries have to worry about. And most of the citizens from these developed countries don't have to worry about contracting the disease, even when they are in a country, like Haiti, where there is a cholera outbreak.

Cholera, like many other rotten things, discriminates in favor of poor people.

Pictured above is a patient from the Cholera Treatment Center where John is working at Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti.

How Cholera Kills

2011-06-22T20:08:00.004-05:00

If you're from the developed world and you hear the word diarrhea, you probably think of a runny, brown substance, like liquid stool. The picture above is of a bucket containing diarrhea from a patient who has cholera. As you can see, it looks like water: hence its deadliness. Cholera, a bacterial infection, can cause copious vomiting and diarrhea. Fluids are leached from the body, severe dehydration ensues, and if untreated, death can occur within hours. Because of its watery appearance, cholera diarrhea is often referred to as "rice water."

After its initial outbreak last October, cholera is surging again in Haiti, abetted by the recent rains, which have spread the bacteria. John is currently working at a Cholera Treatment Center at Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles Haiti, in the Artibonite Valley, where cholera was introduced to Haiti, most likely by UN troops. You can read about his work at a blog he his writing for our hometown newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star.

The good news about cholera is, though it is deadly, it is easily treated with fluids. People who are practically comatose are sitting up and talking after a couple of hours of IV fluids.

The bad news for Haitians is that cholera is often not the only health problem they are battling. In the picture above, which John took at the Cholera Treatment Center today, you can see a large, white worm that was excreted out with the fluid in the bucket. As John said, "Chronic worms and acute cholera."

The Doctor is In

2011-06-20T22:39:00.004-05:00

Sometimes it's easy for me to take for granted what my husband John does for all of his patients. Take Excellent, for example. He is a Haitian man in his fifities who for an unknown reason, has a large amount of fluid in the space around his heart. When John was in Haiti on his last trip, he saw Excellent and all of the fluid was making it very difficult for him to breathe. So John put a needle in Excellent's chest and drained off a lot of this fluid. This was a brave thing for John to do and a brave thing for Excellent to endure. It is no small thing to insert a needle in the chest without the benefit of xray to help guide the process. But it paid off, and Excellent was much improved. He could breath easily again, and he and his wife were very grateful to John.

This was enough in my book to qualify for amazing. But once John was home he continued to call Haiti for reports on how Excellent was doing. Unfortunately, his pericardial space was filling up with fluid once again. Now, there was no doctor in Excellent's town who was able to drain away the fluid. Even though he was in the United States, John considered Excellent his patient, and he feels an obligation to his patients. John made many phone calls and sent many emails to Florida and Port-au-Prince, and he found a clinic in the capital city with doctors willing to see Excellent and possibly drain the fluid out of his chest. John made many more calls to Haiti and arranged for a bus to transport Excellent, his wife, and an escort the five hours from his home to Port-au-Prince. And last week, Excellent was once again breathing easier because, thanks to John's advocacy and efforts and the skilled doctors at the clinic, Excellent got the fluid that is choking his breath drained from his chest.

I am very proud of John for his efforts on behalf of Excellent. It is humbling to me too, because I think of all the times I haven't gone the extra mile, or even the extra inch for someone in need. Wouldn't it be great if we all derived such passion and joy from using our talents and opportunities to serve those most in need of them? What a world it would be! Thanks John for living this lesson.

In the picture above, John removes the stitches from the forehead of a neighbor.

Behind the Scenes of the Today Show segment on Haitian Hearts

2011-02-23T12:24:00.013-06:00

Widnerlande and Haitian Hearts were profiled on the Today Show on February 22, 2011. Here is a link to the segment.

I thought it would be fun to let you know some of the behind-the-scenes stuff regarding our appearance on the Today Show. When we were in Sacramento at the Ronald McDonald House awaiting surgery for Widnerlande, the family that is hosting Widnerlande contacted their daily newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, and the paper did a story about her, which you can read here. Pam Adams of the Peoria Journal Star also reported on Widnerlande when she was in Peoria, prior to going to California.

NBC producer Dana Roecker saw the story in the Sacramento Bee, and he emailed me about the possibility of doing a story. Dana wrote:

"I was struck by your amazing organization, Haitian Hearts, your focused persistence on bringing care to an impoverished country and the chaotic trek of a little 7 year old girl. Your efforts, I am sure, are probably often overlooked, and I am also sure that for you, the focus is on the children."

So, right away I liked Dana! He went on to say that he works with reporter Jenna Wolfe, who was raised in Haiti. Dana emailed me the morning that Luke and I were leaving Sacramento to return home. We exchanged a few more emails, notified the hospital, Sutter Children's Center, about the Today Show's interest, and then Dana talked with John. The next day, Dana flew from New York to Sacramento. He filmed at the hospital and got some footage of Widnerlande, John, and the host father.

A week later, on January 31, Dana and Jenna Wolfe flew from New York to Peoria. They were in town for about a total of 4 hours. They pulled up at 11 am in front of the house in a rental van loaded with all of Dana's sound and light equipment. While he set up everything in the living room, John and I chatted with Jenna.

Jenna was born in Jamaica, but lived in Haiti until she was 14. Her father runs a factory there and, he splits his time between Haiti and New York. Jenna went back to Haiti, shortly after the earthquake to do some reporting. After much searching, Jenna found the woman who served as her nanny when she was a child. This woman survived the earthquake, but was living in a tent, and Jenna said it was a very emotional moment to see her again.

Jenna interviewed John on camera for about 10 minutes and then me for about five minutes. There are two cameras set up, so that both Jenna and whomever she is interviewing can be filmed. They then took some shots around the house: of us at the computer, John looking at Widnerlande's medical notes with Jenna.

Jenna told us that she had received a 3 am wake up call, and a driver had picked her up to go to the airport around 4:45. They flew from NYC to Chicago and Chicago to Peoria. Jenna was traveling on to Dallas to do some reporting about the Super Bowl, and then after that she was going to Florida. Ooh, these kinds of national reporting jobs seem grueling, and I told Jenna it is good that she is young! Dana was returning to New York to put together the story.

On top of this, we were all bracing for the Blizzard of 2011. Jenna and Dana finished at our home at about 12:45 pm and they needed to be at the airport at 1:30. But they wanted to do some filming in front of a Peoria landmark or population sign. The closest sign I could think of was on the lovely Farmington Rd. For those of you not familiar with Peoria, Farmington Rd. is a main thoroughfare through the western part of town that has a rather unincorporated feel about it. It boasts lots of bars, a speedway, comedy club, strip joint, tattoo parlor, etc. But we were pressed for time and so Grandview, which overlooks a beautiful river view, or downtown were out.

Dana packed up his equipment, and we went trucking the half mile to Farmington Rd. The Peoria sign is not far from one of the aforementioned bars, I believe it was The Dormitory, and we parked in their parking lot. Poor Jenna--she is tiny--had to climb up on this snow mound for the filming. And of course, while the camera was rolling, every loud truck in Peoria decided to roar up the road. Thankfully, I think they could edit out the background noise. They did several takes; Jenna recited her copy from memory, or maybe she was just making it up as she went along. But it was good. Both she and Dana are real pros; they were exceedingly gracious.

From there, we led them to the airport and off they went, thankfully, before the big snow hit. After their trip to Peoria, we exchanged several emails with Dana to provide additional info. And then it was just the wait for the air date.

A few observations about this experience: it is mindboggling how much travel, work, and expense goes into what turned out to be a 4 1/2 minute report. I will remember that as I watch news programs in the future. We are grateful to Dana and Jenna for spending their valuable time and talent letting people know about Haitian Hearts and to NBC for broadcasting the report.

It is also humbling, the nice things that people have said about us and the work that we do at Haitian Hearts. All credit to John. Without him, these children who've needed heart surgery would not have made it to the United States. As I indicated in my prior post, he personifies perseverance. John is in Haiti now, and I don't even know if he's had the opportunity to see the Today Show report. As he would tell you, a lot of people help with Haitian Hearts. But he is the one indispensable person.

Good publicity is nice for its own sake, but what do we hope is accomplished by the report on the Today Show? More than contributions, which are always helpful, we need hospitals that are willing to accept a Haitian child for surgery. We are hoping that this media attention will allow us to make some connections with hospitals. Please go to our website at http://www.haitianhearts.org/ to learn more about how to help.

Beyond that, I hope that the segment on Widnerlande helps put a face on the problems that exist in Haiti. It's easy to become overwhelmed by the huge difficulties that the poverty and the earthquake, on top of that, have created in Haiti. Learning about one person's challenges and story can be an entree to getting involved in some way.

Thanks for reading.

Pictured above, the Peoria sign on Farmington Rd. that appeared in the Today Show segment.

This Is Perseverance

2011-02-19T23:40:00.004-06:00

The virtue of the month at my son's school was perseverence. The accompanying handout had these words: "Remember the story of the little engine? Let that be our motto: 'I think I can. I think I can. I know I can!' With God's help, all things are possible. Never give up!" And also, Look at the examples of the saints. How many of them were quitters? None!"

Living and working in Haiti requires perseverance. The family of the woman in the picture above displayed much perseverance in getting her to the hospital. She has persevered to stay alive long enough to have grey hair.

John has made six trips to Haiti in the last 10 months. Last month, he arranged for the 143rd Haitian Hearts patient to travel to California for surgery. He found the patient pictured below in Cite Soleil. He's a three-year-old boy with a heart defect, an atrial septal defect (ASD) and John has been contacting people trying to find a hospital. Could this little guy be patient 144?

Perseverance.

Widnerlande is Out of the Hospital!

2011-01-30T22:26:00.002-06:00

I am happy to report that Widnerlande is out of the hospital and dancing with her host family. Her recovery has gone very well and we pray that it continues. She is in the loving care of her host family in Sacramento and we know that she will enjoy life in northern California.

We are very thankful to her host family, Helen Nusbaum and Steven Meinrath, for hosting Widnerlande during her stay in California. She will continue to be monitored by the doctors at Sutter until she is discharged from their medical care, probably in four to six weeks.

It truly takes a village!

Widnerlande's Successful Surgery!

2011-01-26T13:19:00.003-06:00

At long last, Widnerlande had surgery at Sutter Memorial Medical Center in Sacramento on Monday. I am happy to report that the surgery was very successful and her recovery is going well. In the operating room, they discovered that she had two VSDs (Ventrical Septal Defects), which are openings between the lower chambers of the heart. One was so small, it wasn't visible to the naked eye. Both openings have been patched. This surgery will add decades to Widnerlande's life. Her resting heart rate would go has high as 164 a minute and her respiration rate could get to 80 breaths a minute. These were signs that her little heart was having to work too hard. With the repairs, her heart and lungs and whole body will have an easier time of it.

So many people helped make this happen, (please read John's account) but the two guys most responsible are pictured above: my wonderful husband John Carroll, who for six years, never gave up on Widnerlande and Dr. Teimour Nasirov a great guy and a great surgeon who worked his magic in the operating room.

We also thank from the bottom of our hearts, Sutter Memorial Medical Center for their generosity to Widnerlande. Because of everyone's efforts, a little girl from a very poor family in Haiti will live decades longer than she would have.

The Patient Gets Sick

2011-01-20T23:01:00.003-06:00

So at 5:30 this morning, I'm helping Widnerlande get dressed, as today is the big surgery day, and as my hand brushes her stomach, I think, "Gee, she feels warm. Really warm." And, of course, she was running a 101 degree temp and, of course, surgery was postponed until Monday. I say of course, because if you've been following the journey of Widnerlande then you know it's been full of obstacles, large and small. In the scheme of things, this is a small one, though, of course, it's easy to get a little discouraged.

But what is the point in that? We are so blessed to be here in Sacramento, so blessed to have Widnerlande accepted by Sutter Memorial and Dr. Teimour Nasirov, who will fix the hole in her heart on Monday, instead of Friday, so blessed to be getting a break from the harsh Midwestern winter, and so blessed to have met so many wonderful people. Blessed, even, to discover that Widnerlande has a little virus before surgery. We can't control everything and there is no use fretting about what we can't, a lesson I seem to have to relearn on a regular basis.

One of the things we can control are the choices we make in this moment, this one right now. We can choose our attitude, and I'll leave you with a quote that helps me with mine.

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company. . . a church. . . a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. . .we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. . . we are in charge of our Attitudes."- Charles R. Swindoll

A Reprieve Before Surgery

2011-01-19T23:25:00.004-06:00

Today was the day in between the medical tests of yesterday and the surgery which is tomorrow. I'd like to use this lull before the storm to talk about the Sacramento Ronald McDonald House, where we are staying. This is our second experience staying at Ronald McDonald House, the first being in Cleveland, and both experiences have me thinking that we should run our communities in a similar manner.

Both of the facilities are very nice. In Sacramento, we are staying in a lodge-like building. We have a nice room with three beds, a futon, linens, towels, and a bathroom, one of eight such rooms in the building. There is a common kitchen (each room has its own refrig and cupboard), dining room, play room, computer room, a couple of lounges and two washers and dryers. There are also cool play areas outside with equipment and toys. We use punch codes to get into the facility, building, and room, so no need for keys. Volunteer foster grandparents bring in soup twice a week for supper and bake cookies. The kitchen is fully applianced and stocked with dishes, etc. We are responsible for our own meals, cleaning up, and watching our children when they are in the common areas. The rules are strictly enforced.

The cost for staying at Ronald McDonald in Sacramento is $20 a night, if a family can afford it. Many of the expenses of the house are underwritten by McDonalds and other corporate sponsors. We feel grateful to be able to stay here; it's much better than a hotel. As I said, maybe we should run the world more like a Ronald McDonald house.

Above, Widnerlande and Luke with Ronald in Sacramento

Widnerlande Will Have Surgery!

2011-01-18T23:31:00.003-06:00

We found out today that, without a doubt, Widnerlande needs surgery. Part of her heart is as big as an adult size heart, and as John says, physically but not metaphorically speaking, "A big heart is a bad heart." The hole between the lower chambers of her heart needs to be patched or she will run into big problems as she grows.

Widnerlande's surgery is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I will post updates, but in the meantime, I will leave you with a piece that ran this past Saturday in the Peoria Journal Star.

Haitian girl finally makes it to the U.S. for surgery.

By PAM ADAMS (padams@pjstar.com)
Journal Star
Posted Jan 14, 2011 @ 10:58 PM
Last update Jan 14, 2011 @ 11:59 PM

WEST PEORIA —
Widnerlande sat at the kitchen table Friday afternoon, smiling and singing to a Barbie doll, oblivious to the harsher details of her biography as told by the adults in the room.

She is 7, her name sounds a little like Gwendolyn. Dr. John Carroll, founder of Haitian Hearts, met her and her mother six years ago when he examined her at a clinic just north of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. He heard a loud murmur in her heart during the exam.

Ever since, he's been trying to get her to the United States to repair the small hole in the wall of the lower chambers of her heart. Finally, she's sitting at a table in his West Peoria home.

Widnerlande Jean Louis arrived in Peoria on Wednesday, the anniversary of the deadly earthquake in homeland. The Carrolls will take her to California on Sunday for an evaluation and, probably, heart surgery.

"She has survived almost everything she can survive," Carroll said.

Somewhere between three hurricanes and a tropical storm in 2008, her medical records were destroyed. Her family has been living in a hut of rock and mud since the earthquake, which left upwards of 300,000 dead and millions displaced. Her village happens to be located on the river at the epicenter of a deadly cholera outbreak, unseen in Haiti in 200 years.

This does not include several moves, food riots, political unrest, the bureaucratic wrangle of getting a visa for a Haitian child, or her mother's decision to place, then remove her from an orphanage after she realized the orphanage was as poor as she was.

Widnerlande's mother managed to stay in contact with Dr. Carroll. His initial plans to bring her to the United States fell through because of the earthquake.

"A lot of the patients John sees are almost self-selected," Maria King Carroll said. "They're the ones whose parents don't give up."

In the past 15 years, Haitian Hearts has brought more than 140 young Haitians to the United States for medical care. Most were heart surgeries and, originally, almost all of them were performed at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria. Since 2003 - after Dr. Carroll and St. Francis, his former employer, split over the program - about 80 of those surgeries have been performed at medical centers in 10 different states, from Florida to New Hampshire.

Volunteer doctors at Sutter Children's Center in Sacramento will do the evaluations and perform Widnerlande's surgery.

Though Haitian Hearts has less of a medical presence in central Illinois, many local residents still support the program with donations and other services. One woman dropped off a large bag of clothes for Widnerlande on Thursday morning. Others donated toys and, of course, money.

"Her case epitomizes Haiti a little bit," Maria King Carroll said. "We met her before the hurricanes, before the earthquake, before the cholera. There's just always obstacles to get something accomplished."

Pam Adams can be reached at 686-3245 or padams@pjstar.com.
Copyright 2011 pjstar.com. Some rights reserved

California, Here We Are

2011-01-17T18:53:00.003-06:00

After a smooth, four-hour flight from Chicago's Midway Airport, we landed in Sacramento at 11 am yesterday. We were met by the host family at the airport and are now happily ensconced at the Ronald McDonald House near the campus of the University of California-Davis School of Medicine. Tomorrow, Widnerlande will have a presurgical work up, including an echocardiogram, at Sutter Memorial Medical Center.

Little Miss Jean-Louis has been with us for almost five days and here is what I can tell you about her:

She has a very good appetite and loves eggs.

She likes to mimic us, especially Luke, and I calm him down by telling him this is how she will learn English.

She is a good colorer and stays neatly within the lines. She also did a very good job tracing and then writing the letters A and B.

She sleeps very well.

She took the midwestern cold and snow in stride.

She loves to play with dolls and demonstrates excellent fine motor skills.

She loves to laugh and sing and dance.

We will know more details about her medical situation tomorrow after she has her state of the art medical workup.

Widnerlande is Here!

2011-01-12T22:31:00.003-06:00

On the day of this terrible anniversary, I am happy to report some good news about a Haitian. After a six year odyssey, seven-year-old Widnerlande was last week granted a visa by the US embassy in Port-au-Prince and arrived in Miami yesterday. In keeping with the obstacles that have hampered this entire process, of course, the flight to Chicago was cancelled yesterday. However and hooray, the flight actually landed early today and we were at O'Hare to greet Widnerlande as the American Airlines employee pushed her in a wheelchair to the baggage area. We owe grant thanks to Gertrude and Rachel in Haiti who were instrumental in getting Widnerlande a visa and Joanna, who accompanied Widnerlande from Haiti to Chicago.

Our lovely Haitian patient arrived in Illinois on the one year anniversary of the earthquake. And now the American portion of the journey begins!

Annus Horribilis for Haiti

2010-12-31T23:00:00.003-06:00

No one who cares about Haiti can be too sorry to see 2010 end. I wrote an essay that was recently published in a local newspaper and I will share it here. Here's hoping that 2011 begins the resurrection for Haiti

My husband John Carroll and I are asked to give presentations on Haiti and the work that we do with our organization, Haitian Hearts. Haitian Hearts brings children and young adults from Haiti to the United States for heart surgery and also supports general medical care in Haiti. During the question and answer period after the presentation, we sometimes are asked, “Do they know about birth control?

I confess to feeling upset when I hear this question. I don’t like what the question implies: “It would be in those people’s best interest if their parents had used birth control, and they didn’t exist.” Despite their difficult circumstances, the Haitians themselves are glad they are alive, just as we who are more materially privileged and have less life-threatening problems are glad we exist. Upon hearing this question, I wish I had the magical ability to transport the person to Haiti. When you are sitting in front of a person who needs food, or medical care, or even a hug, their existence seems inevitable and good, just like yours and mine does.

When we think of people in an abstract way—as huge masses of the suffering, poor—we are more likely to draw conclusions that aren’t respectful of human dignity and the right to life. We view the people themselves as the problem and not the appalling conditions that exist in the world and that our sinfulness has helped create. This distancing is a form of denial.

The answer to the problem of poverty that kills is not birth control; it is living the Gospel, bringing the Kingdom of God to our world. Jesus personified it and preached it, and 2,000 years of Church tradition reinforce it. Perhaps Jesus’ strongest statement about how we are to treat the poor is in Matthew 25, where he links our care of those most in need to our salvation. Those who feed the poor, clothe the naked, care for the ill, visit the prisoner inherit the kingdom.

From the document, The Church in the Modern World, comes these challenging words: “. . . the right of having a share of earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one’s family belongs to everyone. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church held this opinion, teaching that men are obliged to come to the relief of the poor and to do so not merely out of their superfluous goods. If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others. Since there are so many people prostrate with hunger in the world, this sacred council urges all, both individuals and governments, to remember the aphorism of the Fathers: ‘Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him.’”

Before 2010, a good day in Haiti, particularly in Port-au-Prince, was already like the aftermath of a natural disaster. But this past year, the people of Haiti have borne an inconceivable level of suffering: a devastating earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in a matter of seconds; seemingly permanent tent and tarp cities with all their problems of poor sanitation, lawlessness, and inadequate protection from the elements, including hurricanes; and as I write this, a deadly cholera outbreak that will likely kill thousands more people. The people of Haiti seem to be carrying the cross for the entire western hemisphere.

I don’t like typing that word thousands in the paragraph above—too many people gone and no names, faces, or stories with the number—so let me tell you about one bright spot: a four-year-old girl who survived for several days in a collapsed building destroyed by the earthquake, trapped next to her father who was dead. A relative brought her to a hospital where John was working and upon exam, he detected a heart murmur and sent her for an echocardiogram. She has a fixable heart problem, and we are searching for a hospital for her. So there is hope for her.
Faith, the faith of the Haitian people and our own faith, gives me hope. Poor Haitians who have so little materially have the greatest faith. They are constantly praising God and depending on Him. They show no self pity in the face of such painful, heartbreaking circumstances. When I get discouraged thinking about Haiti, I try to contemplate Jesus. God sent His only Son to walk among us and how did we treat him? How much darker can things get for us than God nailed to a cross? And yet, this was not the end and out of the Crucifixion came the Resurrection. I have faith that if we follow God’s great commands to love Him and each other, Haiti, too, will have a resurrection.

Patient 142 Has Been Patient

2010-12-12T23:15:00.006-06:00

We have many challenges in bringing patients from Haiti to the United States for medical care. From the moment John hears a not-so-innocent murmur as he listens to a child's heart, a process is set in motion, which if it is successful, results in the child coming to the United States for surgery.

In a normal situation--as if there was such a thing as normal in Haiti--John gives the family money and instructs them to take the child to a cardiologist for an echocardiogram. This test is recorded on a videocassette, which the family must bring back to John. Then if the child doesn't have a passport, one must be procured. The family is instructed to check in regularly with our Haitian helpers. All of this must be done in a country with roads that wouldn't be called roads elsewhere, where death trap transportation is the main mode of travel and by families with few resources, who are struggling just to live.

In the United States, we send the echocardiogram around to doctors who have expressed an interest. And we tap any connection we can think of to find a hospital that might be willing to accept a charity international case.

Once we get yes from a hospital and doctor, we look for a host family. Then we have to get through a whole lot of visa and travel paperwork that I won't bore you with describing right now. Really, it takes a series of miracles for us to get anyone out of Haiti and to the United States.

That is doubly, triply, quadruply the case for Widnerlande, pictured above. John first saw her in a clinic and sent her mom and her off for an echo when she was 18 months old. She is now seven. Some of the obstacles included: an echo that got lost in Haiti. inability to contact the family, who lives hours from Port-au-Prince (this always makes things more difficult as passports and visas can only be gotten in the capital), and lack of passport for Widnerlande until recently, to say nothing of the natural disasters that have hit Haiti--hurricanes and the earthquake that devastated the country. For weeks, we didn't even know if Widnerlande and her family were alive. And now cholera is blighting the land.

Despite all of this, we found a surgeon, a hospital, and a host family. Our Haitian helper assisted Widnerlande in getting a passport. All of the visa paperwork has been sent to the embassy. Widnerlande and her mother are in the capital and so is John to transport her to the United States, and we have someone in country to help get the visa. And so it appears that our--can I dare say?--last obstacle is the political violence in Haiti, which has shut down the airport and the embassy and made travel in Haiti dangerous. It will eventually end, and we have faith we will get the visa.

We thank Widnerlande for her patience.

The Price of Cholera

2010-12-06T22:35:00.004-06:00

Meet Renaldo. I wish we could. He died this morning about an hour after this picture was taken. His mother is terribly sick with cholera and was too weak to even react when her son died.

Renaldo had been admitted to one of the Cholera Treatment Centers yesterday with diarrhea. The nurses said that he didn't look too badly. But he began vomiting this morning. Cholera can kill quickly.

God bless Renaldo and God help us.

He Should Be Mad: "Haitian Government, Release Those Containers!"

2010-11-14T22:28:00.003-06:00

After watching the weak 60 Minutes report on Haiti this evening, I feel validated in my opinion that Haiti's government doesn't know what it's doing and also an awful sense of deja vu. Part of the story focused on a man from South Africa with the 7th Adventist Church who is building housing in Haiti. His organization had shipped containers filled with building supplies to Haiti for 1,200 temporary houses. However, the 24 containers were sitting at the Haitian port where they had been for months, despite the South African having all the necessary documentation and a $6,000 check to pay the Haitian government for storage costs.

When the 60 Minutes correspondant Byron Pitts described this situation to the Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, he agreed with the Pitts leading statement that obviously something had not been done properly or the containers would have been released. (Nice hard hitting reporting)

Shortly after the interview, the containers were released. The South African was told the containers had been missing a Haitian government seal. Yes, for months the containers filled with materials to build houses for people living in tarps were held up because they lacked a government seal. Why did Pitts not press Bellerive on what was either a lie or gross incompetence?

The old, missing seal story is a familiar one to us. After our son Luke's adoption was completed by the Haitian court, the papers had to make the rounds of many Haitian ministries for their seal. In one case, we were told the stamp was broken and they had to send to Germany for another stamp. I kid you not.

For Those Who Would Like To Become Haitian: Dual Citizenship

2010-11-10T22:35:00.007-06:00

If you didn't have time to read the lengthy and thought-provoking article by Rene Bruemmer of the Montreal Gazette that I posted last week, here are some of the points that drew my attention.

"Political instability and poor governance [are] the most important drivers of failure from which all other negative consequences follow."

Building roads, school, and hospitals is relatively easy compared to maintaining and running them. The latter takes an educated bureaucracy to manage the never ending tasks associated with governing and running institutions.

Sixteen thousand civil servants were killed in the earthquake, more than 20% of the country's public administration workforce. There is joke in Haiti that those killed were the most dedicated employees as they not only bothered to show up for work, but were still there late in the afternoon when the earthquake hit.

Powerful elites limit institutions because the institutions usurp the elite's power. Instead the elites create patronage networks, based on loyalty to the elites.

Eighty percent of Haiti's college graduates flee their homeland "for the brighter future of elsewhere."

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) provide 75% of the health care in Haiti.

One of Bruemmer theses is that Haiti needs educated bureaucrats who can help run the state. He believes that some of the money pledged to help Haiti should go for this purpose. He acknowledges that the process of building institutions takes years or even decades.

Haiti needs an influx of educated people to help build these institutions. One could argue that Haiti has that in the many NGO's and the UN which have a presence in Haiti, but given their huge presence, the successes seem minimal. As well meaning as all these outsiders are, they remain, to some extent outsiders. A lack of experienced, educated, committed Haitians exists. What to do?

As I pondered this question, a thought popped into my mind: What about dual citizenship? What if the United States, Canada, and France, with Haiti's permission, allowed their citizens to have dual citizenship with Haiti? These three countries come to mind because of their historical relationships with Haiti and also because of the large numbers of Haitians who live in these countries, particularly the U.S. and Canada. People of Haitian descent or others who have a connection to Haiti--perhaps those who have adopted children--might be interested in becoming citizens of Haiti and more fully participating in the building of the country if they could retain their current citizenship.

I realize this idea is a little half baked, and I will explore its pros and cons in further posts. But things must change in Haiti, or as Bruemmer says, the tragedies of the present will join the tragedies of the past that are"waiting in the wings to hobble the future."

Cholera Update

2010-11-02T19:42:00.003-05:00

I know that in my last post I said that the next post--this post--would be about the problems of a (non) functioning government in Haiti. But in the meantime, the AP ran an article about the source of the cholera in Haiti. I won't reprint the entire article, but here are some excerpts:

A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 300 people in Haiti matches strains commonly found in South Asia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

The finding intensifies scrutiny on a U.N. base above a tributary to the Artibonite River that is home to a contingent of recently arrived peacekeepers from Nepal, a South Asian country where cholera is endemic and which saw outbreaks this summer.

The Associated Press found questionable sanitation conditions in an unannounced visit to the base last week and an exclusive tour of the facility given by peacekeepers Sunday. The U.N. defends its sanitation practices and has repeatedly denied it was a source of the infection. The peacekeeping mission said officials were looking into the matter Monday following the announcement.

The AP visited the base last Wednesday to follow up on a statement by the mission that its sanitation measures met U.S. and U.N. standards. The area between the base and the river reeked of human waste. Several pipes were leaking, including a broken plastic pipe emitting a foul-smelling black liquid near what the soldiers identified as latrines. The dump site for the waste was a few hundred yards (meters) away in shallow, shovel-dug pits, next to several homes. Neighbors said the pits often overflow and run to the river, and they stopped drinking from the river and sought fresh water uphill.

Okay, so we don't know for certain if the cholera came from the UN forces. But it seems like this is a likely possibility. One of the mysteries of the outbreak is where the bacteria came from as cholera is not endemic to Haiti. We now have at least a hypothesis.

So if the cholera is coming from the troops, it would mean that the UN forces who are in Haiti as peacekeepers. to protect Haitians-though many living there would say that the UN troops make Haiti a more dangerous place--have spread a deadly disease because they did not properly dispose of their waste. The deadliness overwhelms the irony.

How Do You Have a Country Without a Functioning Government?

2010-11-01T16:57:00.004-05:00

The title of my post is a questions that has perplexed me for sometime. In my opinion, one of Haiti's main problems is that it doesn't have a competent, functioning government. This was true before the earthquake and it is even more painfully true now.

I read the article below from the Montreal Gazette on the Corbett listserv. It articulates this problem in much detail. The article is lengthy, but worth the read. In my next post, I'll offer some thoughts on Haiti's lack of governance.

Haiti civil service in ruins
Montreal Gazette By Rene Bruemmer, October 27, 2010

How do you fix a failed state? How can the world help a nation in wretched disrepair, unable to feed, educate, employ or heal the majority of its people, become self-sufficient and capable of giving its citizens decent lives?

The short answer, according to one school of thought gaining currency in international development circles, is bureaucrats. Train and hire lots and lots of bureaucrats. And use them to bolster and maintain the institutions that manage the endless day-to-day needs of providing potable water, health care, schooling, land titles, policing and justice.

Foreign governments and NGOs can build all the roads, hospitals and schools they want in Haiti, Andrew S. Natsios, the former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Aid, said in an interview with The Gazette. But without a functioning public service in place to manage them, those roads, hospitals and schools are doomed to fail.

"Clearly, port facilities, roads, bridges, schools, health clinics and water systems (which were already crumbling before the earthquake) must be rebuilt," Natsios said in his testimony before the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Haiti last May. "But, if that is the extent of our reconstruction efforts, then Haiti will simply revert to its failed state status and whatever is reconstructed will begin to crumble over time without institutions to ensure maintenance."

The magnitude of the tragedy surrounding January's earthquake, which killed more than 230,000 people and left 1.3 million homeless, is in many ways due to Haiti's lack of institutions -a man-made tragedy. Buildings were poorly constructed with shoddy materials on unstable land, with no government system to inspect them, no legal system to punish builders, no insurance system to allow citizens to bury and rebuild. A similar magnitude quake in Chile that occurred six weeks after Haiti's resulted in just 500 deaths, due in large part to Chile's push to build earthquake resistant buildings. Chile is considered among Latin America's best-governed countries.

The problem, Natsios said, is that while rebuilding roads and schools is relatively easy, creating institutions -a functioning ministry of health, for example -is complex, costly and can take decades. It is also risky, as Haiti's political instability could destroy much of the work done, as it has in the past. Humanitarian food aid and health care make up the majority of
foreign assistance to Haiti. Compared with handing out bags of rice to the starving or building a hospital, the work that goes into building institutions -educating workers, bettering management systems, improving transparency to limit corruption, developing clear hiring and promotion practices based on merit -is not very visible. The benefits can also be hard
to quantify. All of these elements make it difficult for the political leaders of foreign nations, who have to justify their expenses to their taxpayers and voters, to invest heavily in institution building.

But as Haiti slowly rebuilds after the earthquake, development experts warn that reconstructing infrastructure without addressing the country's governance issues could be akin to throwing the money into a bottomless pit. In Haiti in the Balance: Why Foreign Aid Has Failed and What We Can Do About It, author Terry Buss notes that unlike many failed states, Haiti has received billions of dollars in foreign support, along with the aid of
thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the presence of UN security troops. International governments and organizations gave more than $5 billion in foreign aid between 1990 and 2005, yet the standard of living in Haiti dropped in that period.

"Aid shortcomings likely originated because donors collectively fail to deal with political instability and poor governance as the most important drivers of failure, from which all other negative consequences would follow," Buss wrote.

Businesses, Buss noted, do not invest in failed states, buy their exports, or start companies there. Without investment and jobs, there is little tax revenue with which to pay for civil servants to run the state. It is a vicious circle.

In the absence of institutions, NGOs have moved in to fill the void -well-intentioned, for the most part, but also a crutch the Haitian government has come to rely on, at the expense of creating its own civil service networks that could oversee the needs of the whole populace. NGOs provide 75 per cent of health care in Haiti.

The problem has become even more dire today. The earthquake killed 16,000 civil servants, more than 20 per cent of the country's total public administration workforce. (A cynical Haitian joke grounded in truth notes that those who were killed were the good civil servants -the ones who actually showed up to work, or bothered to stay until 4:53 p.m., when the
earthquake struck).

Most of the ministry buildings, with their tax receipts and property titles and legal records, were destroyed in the quake. Most of the government ministers were killed.

Ten months after the earthquake, Philippe Mathieu, the country's former agriculture minister and now the Haiti director for the Quebec branch of international aid organization Oxfam, is still living in a tent beside his home. Repairs are needed to secure his house, but repairs are slow in coming, even for a former agriculture minister.

Asked how a lack of public service institutions has affected his country, he offers this example: In his district of upper Delmas in Port-au-Prince, there are now about 60 tent camps for the homeless. Some house as many as 600 people, yet many camps have not reported any cases of diarrhea for months. Camp residents have organized themselves to ensure water delivered
to the cisterns is treated regularly with chlorine, and tested to make sure it is free of bacteria and hasn't been over chlorinated.

"People realize this, that the water is better than before the earthquake," Mathieu said. He is part of a group trying to get clean water to the entire district. Except they can't because many of the pipes are broken, leaking water out and letting filth in, and the pumping capacity isn't strong enough to get the water up to the higher regions in hilly Port-au-Prince. The
organizing committee can't find the plans for the aqueduct system to tell them where the pipes are located -either because the records were destroyed in the quake, or because they never existed in the first place.

"Before the earthquake, water was purchased -people had to pay for it. . . . All countries get treated water. Why can we not do this in Haiti? You see the government has no global idea of how to manage the country.

"As a Haitian, this is what bothers me -there are no real plans. It's like all Haitians have the capacity to think, but they think only for themselves.

"We will never get the people out of the camps and back to their homes because they won't have water -the conditions will be worse than in the camps."

The hardships of the average Haitian's life are difficult to fathom for residents of comfortable nations like Canada. Three-quarters of the population lives on less than $2 a day, and more than half live in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day, Buss notes. Half the population of 9 million has no access to potable water, and 90 per cent don't have electricity. Half the population can't read, and less than one quarter of rural children go to school.

Two examples of the impact of the lack of public administration on the lives of Haitians: Eighty per cent of the schools are private so many Haitians can't afford to go, and they're of "dismal quality anyway," Buss writes. And only 24 per cent of pregnancies are attended by a trained health professional -most Haitian women give birth outside of a hospital or clinic,
without medical help, reports the International Monetary Fund.

According to the UN Development Program, Haiti ranks at 154th out of 177 countries on its Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, education and standard of living. Every country below Haiti is in sub-Saharan Africa, and "Haiti ranks at the average of all sub-Saharan African countries," Buss notes. The nations of the Caribbean and Latin America, Haiti's geographical cousins, rank much higher.

How Haiti came to this miserable state of governance is the stuff of tragic history, foreign interventionism and chronic political instability. The only slave colony to win its independence from its colonial rulers through armed revolt, Haiti became an international pariah after becoming a free nation in 1804. It was forced to pay the equivalent of $22 billion in reparations to France for that country's "losses" in revenue from its slave-operated coffee
and sugar plantations, a debt that was only cleared in 1947 after more than a century of payments and hobbles the country's development to this day. It was the victim of numerous economic blockades by foreign powers trying to control its lucrative export trade, especially by the United States, which did not want Haiti's example inciting slave revolutions on its own
territories.

Meanwhile, the Haitian revolution gave rise to two distinct populations: a small urban elite and a Creole-speaking majority of subsistence farmers. "The mercantile elite and thus the state derived their income from taxing the export of the peasant surplus, via custom houses," says the CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, a Massachusetts-based non-profit research centre. "The structure of this economic division . . . gave shape to the extractive, predatory nature of the state that has lasted into the present."

The state itself was volatile, with its leaders more intent on preserving power and fighting with parliament than ensuring the well-being of its citizens, especially those living in rural regions. Of its 55 elected presidents since 1806, Buss writes, only nine completed their full term -the rest were overthrown, killed or died in office. Such instability does not
lend itself to the creation of a stable, well-functioning public administration.

What was created, as is the case in most developing nations, was a patrimonial state -"a state in which the power of the government and even the private sector is in the hands of an elite that uses the levers of economic and political power to retain control," said Natsios, the former administrator of USAID, the United States government's main agency for providing international assistance, and now a professor of foreign policy at Georgetown University in Washington. "I don't mean necessarily repressive control. Through patronage jobs, contracts, monopolistic control of the economy -they develop patronage networks."

Government ministries, Natsios said, don't necessarily do ministry work. "The government hires people who are part of networks, sort of like tribal chiefs, and they have followers and you basically give the followers paid jobs. They don't necessarily show up or have

qualifications, but they remain loyal to the regime.

"That is characteristic of a lot of poor countries, but Haiti is the most thoroughly patrimonial state in Latin America."

A World Bank study found that 30 per cent of civil service workers were phantom employees. One ministry had 10,000 employees, only about half of whom were ever at work.

"People think it's corruption," Natsios said. "It's not corruption ‹ people are using the system as a glue that holds the society together."

That being said, corruption is endemic -Transparency International ranked Haiti as among the fifth most corrupt countries in the world in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Natsios refers to the recent book Violence and Social Orders, written by Nobel-prize winning economist Douglass North as well as John Wallis and Barry Weingast, in which the authors say it is the density of institutions that distinguishes rich from poor nations. Countries like America and Canada have groups that administer public service, keep public order, ensure the
rule of law and build a market economy. Organizations, the authors note, keep governments and societies in check by controlling conflicting interests of various groups in an impersonal manner, maintaining public accountability and transparency, and on the economic side "ensure open entry and competition in many markets, free movements of goods and individuals," and use the creation of institutions to promote opportunities, protect property
rights and control violence. Free markets spur the economy and aid political stability, the authors write, which in turn allows governments to provide services.

More traditional societies, like Haiti, have powerful elites that limit these types of institutions because they impede their power -instead, they create patronage networks through the government to restrict economy to their own class and hand out public service jobs to their own supporters to keep them loyal. In these societies, it is who you know that counts, whereas
in institutionalized societies, it is largely impartial bureaucracies that make decisions based on impersonal regulations, equal to all.

In Haiti, public service is not a popular profession, due mainly to low wages, especially compared with what could be earned in the private sector. There's a lack of skilled people to fill the jobs, anyway -80 per cent of Haiti's college graduates flee their homelands for the brighter future of elsewhere. Less than one per cent of Haiti's population is employed in the public sector, as compared with two per cent in Africa and more than seven per cent in many developed nations. The lack translates into gridlock in all areas, including economic -a World Bank study found that the average time to start a new business was 25 days in the most developed countries, 75 days in Latin America, and more than a year in Haiti. It was also relatively much more expensive.

"Without formal institutions capable of providing the enforcement mechanisms necessary to decrease risk and uncertainty, businesses will not pursue economic opportunities," Natsios said. "Thus any effort to build new institutions must incorporate private sector development; it cannot solely target the Haitian state in a vacuum."

Without a proper public sector, the IMF notes, Haiti is even unable to properly manage the money that is flowing in from donors.

How then, do you fix a broken public sector? One way is to ensure a good portion of the $11 billion in aid promised to Haiti is earmarked for civil service reform, creating jobs and helping to institute an incentive and accountability program that would reward and motivate its employees. Natsios urges incentives for Haiti's vast educated diaspora, numbering more than 2 million in the United States and Canada alone, to be allowed to return, if only temporarily, to help its country rebuild. He also called on the U.S. government to reinstate a university scholarship program that used to bring 18,000 students a year to American schools to be trained, with the proviso that they had to return to their homelands to work and rebuild.

There are signs of hope. In the decade before the earthquake, Haiti made efforts to improve its governance issues, saw a decrease in gang violence and lawlessness and experienced five straight years of economic growth. After the earthquake, Haiti's government presented its Action Plan for National Recovery and Development of Haiti, which focused heavily on
improving governance and decentralizing services, giving powers to smaller, provincial governments spread throughout the country, instead of concentrating them all in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Haiti and the international community have set up the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) to oversee allocation and spending of all donations over $500,000 and deal with administrative issues like issuing permits to build hospitals and schools, as well as carry out economic development projects. Included among more than $1.7 billion in projects approved by the IHRC in August for new roads, housing and agriculture, was $25 million to go toward
a project to help the government provide services and increase transparency and reduce corruption.

In Montreal earlier this month for a conference to promote business ties between her countryand Quebec, Haitian Commerce and Industry Minister Josseline Colimon Fethiere said the government is aware of its shortcomings, and trying to address them. The government has created lists of its remaining employees, those who were not killed or fled the country, and
continues to employ and pay them as long as they show up to work. Training programs are planned, as are improved computer systems. And the time to start a new business in Haiti has been reduced to six weeks, she pledged.

"What we're doing is trying to rebuild the structure," she said. "We're making steps in the right direction."

Now all Haiti needs, in theory, is the political stability to maintain the progress. But the ability of the country to host fair presidential elections Nov. 28 is already being put in doubt. Haiti's electoral commission has excluded 15 candidates without giving a reason, and blocked the Lavalas Party, popular with rural voters, from running. In addition, the names of at
least 230,000 dead have to be purged from the voter roles and 1.3 million homeless need to be re-registered, Newsweek reported.

In Haiti, the tragedies of the past are ever present, waiting in the wings to hobble its future.

Mass Production of Mud Cookies. Really.

2010-10-27T22:29:00.006-05:00

Maybe you've heard of mud cookies before. If you have, you probably try not to think about it. We have a couple sitting on top the piano in our living room. They are a reality check. They are a perspective check.

Here's the reality: people are so hungry in Haiti they will resort to eating mud cookies to fill their stomachs. In Cite Soleil, John came upon a place where, as you can see in the pictures above, they mass produce mud cookies. The woman who makes them say that the dirt comes from Hinche, a town of 50,000 in central Haiti. We haven't been able to discover why the dirt from Hinche is special. The woman making the cookies said that pregnant women eat the mud cookies.

It is really difficult to think about people eating mud cookies. Sometimes when we've shown people in the United States our mud cookies, we get blank faces in response, as if they can't or don't want to acknowledge the reality of what the mud cookie means. It does put one's own problems into perspective. To some, it may seem cruelly unnecessary to show people the mud cookies when it doesn't seem as if there is anything they can directly do about the conditions that cause people to eat mud cookies. But you never know when an experience like this will change a person's life. And at the least, as Dr. Albert Schweitzer says, the encounter may encourage people to "Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight."

Cholera: A Terrible Disease

2010-10-26T17:05:00.003-05:00

"We found Radha lying on a thin blanket in her hut. Her body was twisted into a knot of pain. Her hair was wet, saturated with sweat, as was the pink sari she wore. The smell in the hut was terrible. . . (her) mother was trying to keep her clean, but Radha's fever rendered her incoherent and incontinent. She vomited again violently as we watched, and that provoked a new dribble of diarrhea. . . what kills people who are contaminated with the cholera bacterium is dehydration . . The word cholera comes from the Greek word kholera, meaning diarrhea. The diarrhea of the cholera sickness has a singularly vile smell, and you never get used to it."

I shuddered when I read the above passage, just a few months ago, from the novel Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. The novel is based on Roberts' experiences in India. I remarked to John how horrible cholera sounds and he confirmed that it is.

Cholera hasn't occurred much in Haiti. Back in 1990 when I went to the country for the first time, the health department recommended many vaccinations (typhoid fever, hepatitis) for travel to Haiti but not cholera, though the vaccination was suggested for travel to other parts of the world. (Note: if I read the literature properly, for the last several years, cholera vaccinations have not been recommended for travelers going anywhere).

Things have changed in the last few days and now Haiti is battling this terrible scourge. Cholera can kill in hours. The loss of fluids causes extreme dehydration, which leads to dangerous electrolyte imbalances.

The treatment for cholera is Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT), a solution of sugar, salt, and other minerals dissolved in water that is administered to patients to keep them from getting dehydrated. In time, the bacteria works its way out of the patient's system.

We hope and pray that the cholera is contained and does not spread to the camps or other places in Port-au-Prince.

Valses to Voodoo

2010-10-18T21:10:00.004-05:00

This past Friday we attended a piano concert at Bradley University's Dingledine Music Center. Pianist Joshua Russell played pieces composed by Haitian pianist and composer Ludovic Lamothe, pictured above.

The concert was a revelation. I didn't know that Haiti had a tradition of classical music. The music was energetic and full of surprises. Russell, who teaches at Bradley and who has taught music in Haiti and did his doctoral dissertation on Lamothe, described hearing a recording of Lamothe's playing as life changing. He said that even though the compositions were all written, Lamothe sounded as if he was inprovising, playing with a captivating freedom. Russell has recently released a CD of Lamothe's music called Valses to Voodoo.

In Lamothe's compositions, one can hear the influences of Haitian folk music, the rhythms of voodou drums, Latin American rhythms, and the music of Frederic Chopin. Lamothe was sometimes referred to as the black Chopin.

It's impossible to convey the magic of music in words, but if you want to learn more about Joshua Russell's interpretation of Lamothe's music, check out his website.

Big Problems; Little Solutions

2010-09-29T17:39:00.005-05:00

The illnesses and injuries that John saw in patients on his most recent trip to Haiti were staggering. One woman's foot was literally rotting off her leg due to untreated diabetes. Because there was no anesthestist available, the woman had to wait a week for surgery. So instead of having her foot amputated, she had to have her leg amputated below the knee because the gangrene had spread.

The left side of one man's face was swollen to unbelievable proportions because of untreated tongue cancer that had spread to his jaw and neck. All John could do was give him pain medication.

One man had lockjaw from tetanus. His family would bring him liquid food that they were able to feed him.

A 30-year-old man fell out of a tree and broke his back. The staff was trying to figure out the best way to tell him that he would never walk again.

A married woman was trying to come to terms with the fact that both she and her husband tested positive for HIV.

Delayed treatment, lack of prevention, a hazardous envirnoment, lack of adequate medical care--these are some of the reasons that people are so ill. It can be overwhelming to learn about, so much so that we can throw up our hands and say, "It's beyond me."

But that attitude ensures that things will stay the same. I want to challenge everyone reading this to do one small thing to help Haiti. Think about what that could be.

Haiti and Murphy's Law

2010-09-26T21:15:00.004-05:00

This past Friday just after 3:30 pm, John received an e-mail from our friend Frandy in Haiti. It was short and in its entirety read:

A big wind is hitting Port-au-Prince this afternoon.I wished i could take pictures but i had to run in order to protect myself.Please pray for Haiti!

We didn't know exactly what to make of this e-mail. A big wind? There were no hurricanes heading toward Haiti. However, we found out just how big of a wind over the next couple of days. This from a contributor to Bob Corbett's list:

We've just gone through an hour of the worst Wind and rain storm I've
encountered in my 13 years here. It was worse than any hurricane I;ve gone
through. I kept thinking it was like a typhoon - it was so strong and very
frightening.I was sure all the trees would come down with the force. It was just awful. There's still thunder around but the rain and the wind have calmed down now.
I'm trying to find out something on the Radio. A friend rang me from Jacmel
and he said he had heard that there was a problem in Delmas so this is why
he called. He said people were saying the "earth had turned" - not an
earthquake, but "terre viré". He said people said that many people had died,
but I don't know if this is true.What I can say is, I don't know how the tent people have survived this, if indeed it is throughout PauP and not just in Delmas.

We're still finding out how many "tent people" died, but according to one report, the freakish storm destroyed or damaged at least 8,000 tents.

Let's do more than just pray for Haiti.

See No Evil

2010-09-11T08:58:00.005-05:00

When we are in Haiti, we take a lot of pictures and use them in our blogs. Some of the pictures are of people who are suffering terribly due to illness or injury. We sometimes send these pictures to people in efforts to find medical care in the U.S. for people who are beyond the help of Haiti's meager system. Such is the case with the man pictured above who likely has cancer of the tongue and has received no treatment for it. All John can do for him is medicate his pain. Sometimes we send pictures to show people the kinds of problems that people in Haiti have. We also give presentations at home and we use the pictures to illustrate the difficulties of life in Haiti. Sometimes, as with the picture above, these pictures are hard to look at.

At least on the surface, people's responses to disturbing pictures fall into one of a few categories: shock and sadness; apathy (what can I do about these problems that have been around as long as human beings themselves); anger (either at the situation or at us for showing them the pictures); or a non-response (perhaps this is a form of overwhelm).

With our 24 hour media beaming images of the latest disaster into our living rooms round the clock it's not surprising that people can become jaded. We're all busy with important things and having our attention grabbed however momentarily by a picture like the one above isn't a pleasant experience. For myself, though, and despite the much greater exposure we have to the world's suffering than we did even 25 years ago, I find seeing pictures like this a necessary experience. For despite my access to information, it's too easy for me to forget.

As I was pondering the above issues earlier in the week, I came across a bumper sticker with the following wisdom:

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.-Albert Schweitzer

So at least for today, we are not spared.

A Grateful Family

2010-08-23T20:12:00.003-05:00

Poor people with heart problems in Haiti are in a lot of trouble. Most of the time, they die deaths that could be avoided with surgery that we in the United States take as our birthright if we need it. Once in awhile, though, a miracle occurs, and a patient is accepted for medical care in the United States or another country. I call it a miracle, and given the rarity of the situation, it is. But it takes a lot of hard work on the part of my husband John. Through his efforts, a man with a serious heart problem was accepted for medical care in Florida. As you can read from his nephew's letter below, Haitian people have a great capacity for gratitude and a beautiful manner of expressing it, even in another language.

Dear doctor,

May God Bless you and your family for longer! doctor me and all my family we're very happy that God sent you on our way just to help us with this great problem.Beleive me we haven't enough words to show you franckly our joys for that.In more ,say to you only "Thank you"it's too light.Cause you merit more.So,as we know God has eyes open on everything we do good or bad.Of there,we hope deeper of our heart he will reward you not only for today.But for all the rest of your life.And why not of generation in generation.

In fact doctor,as i said to you we had an appointment yesterday to the american consulate.thanks to the lord they gave to my uncle the visas for a short time,three months.then we are grateful toward jesus for that.Cause he's done the main thing for us.And then ,after all things you did also,i see it's not good to keep on calling you:dear doctor, dear doctor... it could be better to consider you as a member in our family.cause the job that you've just done for our family seems like the job of a cousin,a brother a father and so on.For all things, i decide to pray for you and write you every time i get chance to do it just to get informed about you.Of all my heart you're a good one. . .

Don't forget to let the other doctor to know how much we were so happy when he did accept to write the American consulate a kind of letter to help my uncle found the visas.We need to think your wife also doctor.Cause,we saw her determination to help us to succeed too.Please say "hi" to her for us.

Doctor,as a good one. stay like that,don't be changed.Cause God has a plan for you too.Beleive in that,there will be a day you will feel it.Yeah! you deserve that!!!!!!

Blessing,

D

Some Thoughts from the Ground in Haiti

2010-07-02T14:20:00.003-05:00

Here is an excellent guest post from my husband John. It describes what we saw in Haiti on our recent trip and some thoughts about it.

My wife Maria and I worked in Haiti during part of the months of May and June. We stayed in a guesthouse-orphanage just outside of Port-au-Prince.

A lady named Yolande lived right across the street from us.

Yolande is 78 years old and lives under a blue tarpaulin which encloses a small pup tent inside.

During the earthquake on January 12 her shack, which was located several miles away, was so damaged that she had to move out. Yolande suffered some leg injuries at the time of the quake and still has one lower leg wrapped in a rag. But Yolande smiled and told me that her legs were "much better".

One afternoon shortly after we arrived, I entered an opening in Yolande's blue tarp. The stifling heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and flies were overwhelming.

The tarp was fastened to thin wooden poles and tied above with shoe laces and other fragments of cloth.

Yolande's family brings her rice and vegetables when they can and she cooks in a metal bowl over pieces of charcoal.

I found Yolande to be a practical and pleasant woman. She did not complain about her living arrangements and even said that Americans are the most charitable people in the world. I sure did not feel that way right then as I hurried out from under the tarp so I could get a breath of cooler air in the street.

During this time of the year in Haiti, the rain comes in torrents in the late afternoon or evening, and now this rain seeps through Yolande's tarp and leaks into her tent. So on top of roasting, Yolande and her family are wet much of the time too.

These hardships are not isolated to Yolande.

Haiti has an estimated 9 million people with one third of the population living in the capital, Port-au-Prince. In this city there are over one thousand tent cities, and an estimated 1.5 million people are still homeless five months after the quake. Many people told me that they are simply too afraid to move back inside of their houses. If their houses are still standing, the walls may have been fissure (cracked) and people fear they will collapse on top of them.

Several miles from us downtown Port-au-Prince looks like a nuclear bomb struck it. The once beautiful Haitian National Palace is collapsed and the majority of nearby Haitian government ministry buildings downtown were destroyed in the 47 second earthquake. Haiti's tax building is pancaked just across from the Palace with its director's body and many employees still inside under tons of concrete.

A densely populated tent city now sits in front of the vacant Palace in Port-au-Prince's largest square called Champs de Mars. A young man who identified himself as Carlos told me some of their problems after I walked through his section of the tent city. Carlos seemed fatalistic and did not see any end in sight to their misery.

Rape is common in Port-au-Prince's tent cities and seldom gets reported. Poor women in tent cities have no rights.

Fountains and small decorative pools in Champs de Mar have turned into large toilets filled with stagnant sewage. Kids play nearby with their family's tent abutting these toxic cesspools. Sewage drainage and treatment facilities are more or less nonexistent.

In the chaotic months following the quake, millions of dollars flowed into Haiti from generous people all over the world. (One out of two American households gave to the Haitian relief efforts.)

And five billion more dollars from the international community has been pledged to Haiti over the next two years. Bill Clinton who is UN Special Envoy to Haiti. Recently Mr. Clinton along with Haitian officials have been in charge of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission. One of the objectives of this Commission is to allocate these funds to ensure that the money is used in a transparent fashion for Haiti's post earthquake reconstruction.

Mr. Clinton and Haiti's Prime Minister Belleriviere announced the Commission's first approved spending projects:

- $45 million from Brazil and Norway in direct funds for the Haitian government, closing a quarter of its estimated $170 million budget shortfall.

- $1 million from the Clinton Foundation for buildings that can be used as storm shelters in the quake-ravaged towns of Leogane and Jacmel, which are often in the path of Atlantic hurricanes.

- A $20 million fund to provide loans to small- and medium-sized Haitian businesses.

But despite international pledges of some $5 billion over two years at the United Nations donors' conference for Haiti in March, only a fraction has actually been delivered - just $40 million from Brazil.

Even though other pledges are supposed to be delivered soon, I spoke to no Haitians during our entire time in Haiti who trusts that the money will be spent properly. People that I spoke with don't really trust Mr. Clinton any more than they do their own fragmented and dysfunctional government. Many are very angry with Haitian President Preval for his perceived lack of leadership and poor communication through Haiti's largest crisis in its history. They also feel he is cuddling up to international powers for business interests that will exclude the majority of poor Haitians.

And why should 9 million poor Haitians trust any one? They and their ancestors have been on the short end of the stick since Haiti was founded as a Republic more than 200 years ago. The corrupt Haitian state is considered to be a fact of life... not unlike corrupt Illinois politics.

So what do "we" do with hundreds of thousands of displaced and homeless Haitian people? Although Haitians are a tough lot, they are not as resilient as our defense mechanisms would like us to believe. And on top of this earthquake which was "biblical" in size, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted a terrible tropical storm season coming Haiti's way in several months.

But so far (as of this writing) the Haitian government has relocated only about 7,000 vulnerable people to two safer camps. The relocation is slow because the crippled government doesn't have enough money to complete a job that includes not just setting up new tents, but providing work, schools and services.

First of all, should the tent cities continue to exist? Are they good enough?

No. These places are inhuman and horrible. Lack of food and water, lack of security, and the rain are a few reasons.

And the rain is quickly bringing more problems.

Malaria and typhoid fever were everyday occurrences in the area of the city where I was working. Stagnant dirty puddles of water are everywhere and are good breeding grounds for mosquitoes who will carry disease. I saw a teen-aged boy scooping up water in his hands drinking from a puddle in the road. Medical and public health interventions will not help the majority of Haitians unless their dangerous living environment is changed.

Also, heavy rains tempt unstable hillsides to unleash their mud. And serious flooding and mudslides could endanger not only Haitians but relief workers also.

Port-au-Prince, before the earthquake could have accommodated 300,000 people, not three million people. There has been decades of urban decay. This city is doomed right now unless a paradigm shift in thinking takes place.

We need to be honest and understand that many people are dying now and are still going to die no matter what is done. I saw children starving in front of me. I often wondered what good was my stethoscope in times like this.

So what needs to happen? What interventions will minimize the final death count? How can Haiti's problems be prioritized and triaged appropriately? What can be done to give some dignity to the life of over one million displaced Haitians? How do we stop the violence aimed at Haitian society's unfortunate losers?

Haitians tell me they want jobs. Who would have thought?

Jobs earn them money to repair their lives and their family's lives. Jobs allow one parent to stay at home during the day and take care of their babies and toddlers. Kids suffer alot mentally and physically when they are alone or being watched by a neighbor who is already swamped with problems. Children are literally down in the dirt and sewage and their chances for survival diminish without a parent home.

Mother's can breastfeed if they are home. And when mother's breastfeed, they save money because they do not need to purchase milk. And if they purchase powdered milk, they may accidentally prepare it with dirty water which can sicken their children.

With the billions of dollars that hopefully will come to Haiti, big firms with heavy equipment should be hired. Skillful urban planners from all over the world need to work with the Haitian government.

And most importantly poor Haitians need to be hired.

Hundreds of thousands of young, strong Haitian men and women that live in the capital would jump at the chance for a job. Hire them and pay them fairly so they can feed their families while they make a new and better Haiti. The billions of dollars of international pledges need to go for displaced Haitians while they perform the back breaking reconstruction of Haiti.

Pay Haitians in tent cities to repair or rebuild their own homes--the structures where they were living pre earthquake. Or pay the man that rents the home to these people. And these homes need to be earthquake proof homes using Western building codes. Earthquakes don't kill people, bad buildings do.

The huge mounds of rubble on the Port-au-Prince streets needs to be cleared so the streets can be navigated by cars and big equipment. The traffic jams in the capital now slow progress for everyone.

Many people have returned to their neighborhoods after inspections found their homes safe, but often return to the tent camps when word of aid distribution spreads. So food and water distribution needs to be local--- brought to people in their neighborhoods as their homes are rebuilt.

Port-au-Prince needs to be decentralized. The earthquake negatively influenced 80% of Haiti's economy because PAP was and is the hub of the country. Now the hub is critically ill. The capital is built over fault lines and this all could happen again. Three million miserable people living on top of each other need to be spread back out to Haiti's provinces.

But for people to move to the Haitian countryside or smaller cities outside of PAP, there has to be jobs, family members with adequate housing that can accept their homeless relatives, and some basic services like schools, roads, water, electricity, and medical care.

Trees need to be planted and gardens started in these communities. Listening to Haitian grass roots organizations and the Haitian farmer is very important. These people know what they need to stay alive.

The local Haitian community in the province needs to be involved in all decision points.

Foreign aid that flowed into Haiti after the quake has hurt the Haitian farmers. Most of the people in Haiti's central plateau (L'Artibonite) earn their living by growing and selling rice, Haiti’s staple food. But the influx of foreign food aid has meant that many Haitians can now get rice for free. As a result, the price of rice grown in Haiti has plummeted and the Haitian farmer finds himself in more trouble.

Several months ago even Mr. Clinton was quoted as saying, "...we made a devil's bargain" when he was President. He publicly apologized for forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on imported, subsidized US rice. His policy hurt Haitian rice farming and, as reported by Kim Ives, "seriously damaged Haiti's ability to be self sufficient".

And let us not forget that Haiti, believe it or not, is in the digital age. The Haitian people in the countryside have cell phones and access to the Internet. Many Haitians are adept at using both. This means that they still communicate with Haitian relatives, the diaspora, overseas.

Haiti's diaspora has sent back billions of dollars over the past few decades to needy Haitian relatives, but this obviously has not been enough. The diaspora need to physically come back to Haiti and revitalize Haiti's industrial sector. But they won't come back and invest in Haiti unless than can do so safely. Most diaspora tell me they fear for their personal safety in Haiti. Security everywhere needs to be improved. And the economic climate for joint business ventures, to stimulate Haiti's diaspora to invest in Haiti, has to be improved by the Haitian government.

In conclusion, Haiti was a severely damaged country before the January earthquake and is even more damaged now.

Haitians are a beautiful and wonderful people, but they are not as "resilient" as we would like to believe.

Yolande, the little old tent lady who lived near us, should not be living like this. If Yolande were your grandmother, you wouldn't refer to her as "resilient" as she suffers the Haitian heat and mosquitoes, would you?

The huge international monetary pledges need to be allocated in a transparent fashion to help these neediest Haitians.

2010-06-23T20:18:00.003-05:00

Driving in Haiti--or even being driven--is nothing if not a adventure. The poor condition of the roads and the vehicles--and poor is a nice word to describe them--makes the strap hanging down from the car ceiling by the window, not just for decorative purposes. The holes and rocks in the road, the lack of driving patterns and lanes, the road-clogging number of cars trying to get someplace in a hurry all combine to make driving challenging at the least and dangerous at the worst.

Drivers in Haiti have to have the reflexes and judgment of expert video game players as negotiating the roads of Haiti, particularly Port-au-Prince, is like being in a real-life video game. More trucks than not have cracked wind shields. They belch black smoke, their interiors are stripped of all but the necessities (and seatbelts aren't considered necessities), and often there are empty beer cans rolling around on the floor.

We were fortunate on our most recent trip to have a fine driver, Jean Claude. He drives for the sisters who run the clinic in Cite Soleil. Besides being a good driver, Jean Claude, like most Haitian drivers, has to know how to keep his truck running. I can't even guess how many miles it has on it, and one Haitian mile has to be about the equivalent of 100 U.S. miles. Jean Claude faithfully and cheerfully got us where we needed to go, and we are grateful to him.

Jean Claude is pictured above with his truck, outside our guest house.

Earthquake Stories

2010-06-21T21:00:00.004-05:00

It's been remarkable to hear people's stories about where they were when the earthquake hit. Our friend L was driving home from work. As his vehicle bounced over the rutted roads, he thought, "I need to slow down." He braked but his car continued to rock back and forth. He wondered if he had a flat tire until he looked up and saw the telephone wires swaying wildly. Earthquake. When it was finished, in less than a minute, he continued his drive to his home, part way up the mountain, having no idea of the devastation.

L's wife, who teaches at a school, was home and worried about him. Their cell phones and television were out, and they didn't find out about the extent of the damage until much later. Even until today, there is no cable television in Haiti. It apparently ended with the earthquake.

L was lucky in that his factory wasn't damaged much. Donations from his business associates abroad flooded in, and he and his co-owner divided up the money between his 500 plus employees. One of his employees, Nadia, is the sister of Jackson Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian Hearts patient who died in 2006. L often gives her a ride to and from work.

When we went to supper with L and his wife, he told us about how for fun he had an American Idol-type talent competition among the workers in his factory. He was impressed with some of the singing and dancing talent and would like to have them perform at restaurants, like the one we were at.

L's wife, N, worked at the Union School, a private, American-style, college prep, English language school with grades pre-K through 12. Fortunately, the quake occurred after regular school hours and those who were still on the premises managed to get out safely. Before the earthquake, the school had an enrollment of 300 plus; months after the earthquake when the school started up again, there were only 35 students, as many left for the United States or other countries.

L & N opened their home to medical teams from the United States. For them, life has now largely returned to normal.

Through A Mirror Dimly

2010-06-16T17:55:00.004-05:00

We talk to all kinds of different people when we're in Haiti, and we hear different opinions of what the problems and solutions are. One of the last nights we were in Port-au-Prince, we went out to eat with an American couple who have been in Haiti for more than 30 years and raised two children there. The man, L, owns a manufacturing business, and the woman, N, is a teacher.

We had dinner in a restaurant. Our friends had to fight a lot of Saturday night traffic on Delmas to pick us up, so we didn’t sit down to eat until about 8 pm. We asked the couple what they thought the solution was to the tent cities. We agreed that it is a difficult problem to solve. L has met with one of the camp leaders to offer employment to some of the people living in camps who qualify.

We heard from another man who runs a business and offered to help one of his employees who lives in a tent get back into a house that his employee didn't want to leave the tent because he didn't have to pay rent and he and his family received free food and medical care. Going along with this, L said that a man who sells water reported that his sales are up, despite free water being available. They decided that some people have more money to spend because, again, they aren't having to pay rent. As we think about this, we have to take into account how terribly inferior housing conditions were for the Haitians before the earthquake for them to view living in tents as not that big of a step down.

This reminds me of a statement that John made earlier in the trip. We were walking along the partially destroyed street of Delmas 31 when we heard, "Clank! Clank! Clank!" the sound of metal on metal. It was a man, whom we've dubbed the "clanking man." Prior to the earthquake, he lived in a tent below a bridge and fashioned items out of scrap metal. After the earthquake, same thing. Back then, we went into his tent and it was hot and mosquito-ridden. As we walked by him this time, John said, "You know who was affected least by the earthquake? Clanking man." His life was so awful already ("We are living in misery," he told us before) that it could hardly get worse.

But it has. A good day in Haiti, particularly Port-au-Prince, before the earthquake, was like a natural disaster. It is imperative that we understand how bad things are now that they have had a most devastating one. Hundreds of thousands of people are living in tents, which won't last long and will be inadequate when hard rains come. Poor sanitation and people living on top of each other create conditions that can breed epidemics.

I can't imagine what the environment inside the tent is like at night. We spent our last night in Port-au-Prince in a guest house. The heat and humidity were stifling, suffocating. During the night, I didn't think I was going to be able to take it, I was so uncomfortable. And then I thought about all the people sleeping, or trying to, zipped up in the tents, and I was ashamed of myself.

A Haitian Bus Ride

2010-06-13T10:49:00.005-05:00

The day before yesterday, we travelled by bus from Les Cayes back to Port-au-Prince. We decided to take the bus instead of fly back because it is cheaper and we would be able to see some beautiful coastline scenery.

Departure times in Haiti are a moving target. First, our bus was going to leave at 4 am, then at 3 am and finally at 2:30 am. As John says, if you can't take a joke, don't blame Haiti. A group of hardworking gentlemen from Grand Rapids, Michigan had to get to the PAP airport to catch their flight, and they chartered the bus to take them. These men had been doing construction projects at the hospital near our guest house in Cite Lumiere. There was room for us on the bus, though, and we decided to go with them, rather than try to catch a bus later in the day when the traffic would be worse. We wouldn't be able to see the scenery but we would arrive in PAP early in the day. Plus we heard the driver of the 2:30 bus was good, nothing to be taken lightly in the challenging driving conditions of Haiti.

The bus was able to go fast on the smooth road, lightly trafficked road (at this hour) leading out of Les Cayes. As we left the coast line and crossed the southern peninsula, the sun was rising and we began driving through some towns as we approached PAP. Even at 5:30 am on a Sat. morning, the streets and towns were filled with people and vehicles. Haiti is on the same time as the midwest, giving them early morning light.

As the traffic picked up, our bus began passing other vehicles. We had one scary moment in the passing lane when we were barrelling toward a truck and it didn't seem as if we had time to get over. "Yikes!" I said right before our bus driver pulled back into the right lane ahead of the truck we were passing, avoiding an accident by the hair of his chinney-chin-chin. "I can't believe there aren't bodies all over the road," muttered the man next to me.

We drove through what was left of Leogane, the epicenter of the earthquake. Lots of tent cities. Carrefour, a sprawling suburb of Port-au-Prince was in bad shape. Carrefour is an oceanside town that then goes up the mountains. In between the ocean and the mountain is a flat, fairly narrow piece of land. It seemed as if all of the rubble from the earthquake had been swept into this flat area and was competing for space with all of the people, markets, and structures that didn't collapse. It is a jumbled mess.

We arrived at the airport and got a ride to Gertrude's guest house, where he headed out on another adventure. More in the next post.

Digging Up Haitian History

2010-06-12T14:26:00.006-05:00

Since John's last trip to Les Cayes, he had been wanting me to meet a German man, Johannes, who lives in the area and knows a lot about Haitian history. As you will see, in fact, he and his wife Luise are living on top of it.

We met them at their home just up the hill from our guest house. Johannes and Luise have been living in Haiti since 1975. Since then, Johannes has learned a lot about Haitian history. He explained to us the difference between the two native groups who populated Haiti before Christopher Columbus arrived. The Tainos, the majority group, were originally from Brazil and were peaceful. The more aggressive Arawks, who came from the northern islands of South America, like Guyana, would send attacking parties to fight the Tainos, and, according to Johannes, also practiced cannibalism.

Johannes then brought out some of the pottery and other artifacts that he has found on his property.

The dirt holds layers of history: the lower you go, the more ancient the history. He has also found bottles and other things that the French brought over. Johannes held out a part of a bone and said, "Here's just a little piece of someone's body that tells how they died." It was a vertebrae with part of a iron rod through it.

The Haitian Revolution, which started in the 1790s was a bloody war. "It was based on dishonesty," said Johannes. The French told the slaves that if they helped them defeat the Spanish, who were attacking from the east side of the island and the English, who were attacking from the sea, that the French would give the slaves their freedom. Napoleon reneged on the deal, though, and things got ugly. With its massive production of coffee, sugar, and other products, he thought Haiti, the richest French colony and one of the richest colonies in the world, was too valuable of a colony to lose. When the Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon's troups, the first and only black republic started by freed slaves was born.

The picture at the top of this post is a view from Johannes' backyard. After breakfast, we went outside and Johannes showed us a wall of dirt where he began picking out little pieces of property. It's amazing what history we are living on top of!

Of Amputees and Assumptions

2010-06-11T14:19:00.005-05:00

For most of our week at the guest house near Les Cayes, a couple of guys from the United States have also been residents. One of them Peter, a recent high school graduate, was born in Haiti, but grew up in Florida. He was assisting Derek, a doctor and the other resident, with translating in a clinic where they were working. Peter's father is from this area, as his some of his family.

One evening, I was sitting at the desk in our room typing, I heard the front door slam. When I got up to look in the living room I saw it was Peter along with a man who didn't have any arms. "Wow, that guy really suffered in the earthquake," I thought as I ran through a list of everything he wouldn't be able to do: feed himself, get dressed, write, or even give someone a hug

Later in the evening, I asked Peter if the man he was with was one of his patients. Peter looked puzzled, so I continued. "The man who didn't have any arms."

"Oh," said Peter. "That was my dad."

Wow, talk about false assumptions.

We found out that Peter's dad lost his arms in a sugar cane auger when he was 13. One arm got trapped and he instinctively went for it with his other arm and it was trapped. He lost both of his arms right below his shoulders.

This was a reminder to me that Haiti was a dangerous place with numerous people who lost limbs BEFORE the earthquake. Now this awful natural disaster may have created 100,000 or more amputees.

Because the need for prosthetic limbs has always been great in Haiti, the hospital in Cite Lumieure, down the road from where we are staying, has a prosthetic unit that is pictured at the top of the page. It has been extra busy lately as teams from the United States and other countries fly to Haiti to make and fit prosthetics for people who need them.

This week we saw a young woman, whose leg was amputated well above the knee, receive her prosthetic limb. One of the woman on the team explained that it is much more difficult to learn to use an artificial limb when the loss of limb occurred above the knee. We watched this young woman walk gingerly back and forth across the room, getting used to the way the prosthetic bent.

Making prosthetics isn't a quick process; it involves making casts of legs. A kiln, pictured below, is used. The team made eight prosthetics this past week. They will also see the patients for adjustments as they get used to their new legs.

Hopefully, like Peter's dad, who has gone on to earn two degrees and raise a wonderful family, these people who have had such loss, can go on to lead productive lives.

Haitian Resilience?

2010-06-09T17:38:00.003-05:00

I subscribe to the Bob Corbett list serve about Haiti. Recently on the Corbett site was a link to an interview of Michele Montas, a Haitian journalist and former spokesperson for UN Secretary General Kofi Ban Ki-moon by journalist Alice Speri. Here is an excerpt:

You talked about Haitian resilience. What does that mean really? What are some examples? Can that still happen?

It is happening. It has been happening since the quake. The day after the quake, when you had kids from the slums going into the university and getting students out of the rubble. There was no international assistance there, it was Haitians helping Haitians. It was people with their bare hands getting other people out of danger. The way people have bounced back… The way we have had for instance, life coming back to the streets, street sellers being back selling vegetables, selling rice, different things… The informal sector bounced back in an incredible way. Resilience is the Haitian’s way of accepting conditions. In any country of the world you would have what you had in Chile, you would have people looting, people just reacting violently. Haitians were incredibly disciplined after what happened. And I think it is something which is linked to Haitian experience, within the last two centuries. It’s something which is linked to a long history of resistance first and way after that facing incredible conditions of life.

I think this is true. In our work in Haiti and in spending time with our Haitian Hearts patients, who are so sick and then usually come through major surgery in good fashion, we have seen this resilience. We also see it in our seven-year-old son. John often reminds us that it was Luke's ancestors who more than 200 years ago defeated Napoleon's troops. Haitians are tough and resilient.

Then, also recently, the following anonymous comment was posted on the Corbett list.

I have never posted due to the fact I live and work here as a private individual and have done for many years. I employ people and would not want to jeopardise mine or my friends' livelihoods by offending the wrong people with my subversive thoughts about reality, dignity and decency.

Anyway, my point -

The thing that troubles me is that I keep reading how resilient Haitians are.

Well the truth is that they are just like anybody else - they are upset and badly shaken by events like anybody would be. It is almost as if one has to worry less about Haitians in peril because
they can handle more stress than your average human being. Almost an excuse not to afford them the concern that one would an American, Frenchman, Paraguayan or whatever.

This is wrong.

I also agree with this comment. There is something self-serving, especially now, about focusing on the resilience of Haitians. If we think they are so tough, perhaps it gives us a pass on doing our part to help them. You know, "Oh, they're Haitians. They're tough. They'll be alright. Yes, I know they are missing limbs and family members, but they are used to things like this and it doesn't bother them as much as if it happened to, well, me." In some ways emphasizing Haitian resilience is dehumanizing.

If we want to speak of the Haitians' resilience, let's speak of admiring it, of it inspiring us to act, to show our own toughness in responding to a catastrophe of huge magnitude.

I'm sure the little girl pictured above is resilient. She is one of the children living at Gertrude's orphanage.

You Can Always Pray

2010-06-09T17:11:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, John taught a clinical lesson at the Missionaries of Charity compound to the nurse practitioner students. One hundred or so children live here some temporarily and some permanently. One of the sisters was holding a three-year-old who was understandable sad: she came to the sisters after the earthquake and no one knows anything about her family. She must feel so incomplete and empty, as if an important part of her is missing.

I described the Missionaries of Charity to a couple of people in Haiti as the Marines of Catholic nuns: they can only go home once every ten years; they are never seen eating or drinking; and they wear these habits that I hardly see how they keep from passing out in. It is hot and humid in Haiti now; it seems like 30 seconds after you take a shower, you need another one and this is without wearing a couple of layers of head to toe clothing. Despite these hardships (or perhaps because of them?) the sisters are productive and do very difficult work caring for the poorest of the poor.

On our way home, our hostess Beth Newton asked me what I thought of the Sisters' place. I said that I had been to their building in Port-au-Prince, but, still, it was a shock to see so many children without parents. On the wall of the building, sayings from Mother Teresa, the founder of the order, are painted in Haitian Kreyol including, "Every child is precious and a gift from God." I wish the world's priorities reflected this truth. As we go about our busy days, it's never a waste to offer up a prayer for the abandoned children of the world.

Two Haitis

2010-06-09T16:37:00.004-05:00

"There are two Haitis: Port-au-Prince and everything else," is a statement we hear a lot. Flying into Les Cayes, one of the passengers on the plane said, "I tell everyone that Port-au-Prince is not the real Haiti." As someone who has spent most of her time in Haiti in the capital, I had to agree that at least from the air, the Les Cayes area looked much different than Port-au-Prince. It was shockingly green, for one. And then on the ground, there aren't as many people around. Many of the roads in Les Cayes are much better than those in PAP.

The above photograph is from the balcony of the home of our friends, Tim and Joan Reinhold. They are Christian missionaries who live 10 months of the year in Haiti. They, with a lot of Haitian help, built their beautiful home by hand, which is how so many things are done in Haiti. Tim and Joan help put roofs on school and churches throughout the southern peninsula of Haiti. Teams from different Apostolic Christian churches in the United States come and aid them in their mission. Their accomplishments are very impressive.

After the earthquake, many of the Port-au-Princians headed to the provinces where they had family or friends they could stay with. But after a few months, it was time to return home, which in many cases was now a tent. The lives of the people in the provinces aren't exactly easy on a regular day and they couldn't continue to support their extended families any longer.

We have heard Gertrude's suggestion several times by our American friends in Les Cayes: that hopefully Haiti will become more decentralized after the earthquake with Port-au-Prince not having such a stranglehold on all the government functions. If there was more infrastructure and commerce in the rest of the country, people could find employment outside Port-au-Prince and the terrible crowding in the city would decrease. And then, maybe, we would speak of one Haiti instead of two.

A Teaching Stint in Les Cayes

2010-06-08T09:21:00.006-05:00

One of the reasons that we are in Haiti now is because John was asked to teach at a school for nurse practitioners. This is his second stint teaching at the school in Les Cayes. Yesterday, he lectured on pediatric appendicitis and shock. Today, we will go to a clinic run by the Missionaries of Charity, and John will give the students a clinical lesson with the pediatric patients.

The students are very motivated. They work full time and then come to class in the late afternoon. Yesterday, they had taken a pharmacology exam prior to John's class. They paid close attention during John's lecture and took lots of notes. It helps that John can teach in Haitian Creole.

The nursing classes are held at a business/technology school downtown, next to the new Coast Guard building that is being constructed. Here is the view from campus:

Yes, that is a cow grazing by the ocean. A new pier is also being constructed and many of our American friends hope that container ships will be able to dock and unload at Les Cayes. Many people have told us that they hope one of the responses to the earthquake is that governmental control and functions are decentralized from Port-au-Prince, making functioning throughout the rest of the country more effective and efficient. We will see.

Tent City, Haiti

2010-06-07T08:22:00.007-05:00

Almost six months out from the earthquake, the most noticeable change to my eye is the tents: they are everywhere, some places in huge camps, sometimes in small groups, and occasionally there will be a lone canvas pitched off by itself. The tents are in industrial areas, on private property, on government property. They are often found where houses were once located. There are even tents in the medians of roads.

This is not to say that other effects of the earthquake aren't obvious. Rubble is strewn everywhere, more than usual. Half completed buildings hang in ruins. Certain parts of the city were damaged more than others: the Delmas section of Port-au-Prince appears to have been particularly hard hit, A portion of the road Delmas 31 was destroyed and we had to hike down through a steep gully and cross a dirty stream to make our way down the street. The inpatient unit at Grace Children's Hospital on Delmas 31, a special place to us, is not functioning and tents serve as the outpatient clinics.

One of our Haitian Hearts patients, Jenny G., pictured below, is standing next to the car she slept in the first two months after the earthquake and the tent that served as her bedroom after this.

So it is the tents that may be the most ubiquitous symbol of the earthquake.

Providence Guest House

2010-06-05T20:48:00.004-05:00

Our friend Gertrude is doing a hero's work in Haiti. She runs a guest house/orphanage in LaPlaine. Gertrude's original guest house in Delmas was destroyed in the earthquake. Gertrude was sleeping at 4:52 pm when the earthquake struck. It woke her up and she was disoriented. She fell three times as she tried to run. "Jesus, help me," she cried. The rumbling stopped and she ran outside as her guest house was crashing down.

Prior to the earthquake, Gertrude had the house in LaPleine where abandoned children were staying. Fortunately, none of them was hurt in the earthquake. Some of the children she cares for were abandoned at the General Hospital. Some of them are disabled. The orphanage currently has 37 children. Her guest house, Providence, helps fund the orphanage. She has 22 staff members to care for these children. As you might imagine, there are many expenses in running an orphanage.

When I asked Gertrude what she would do if she were in charge of Haiti, she gave a three-part answer. First, she would feed the people. Next, she would focus on the long-term progress of the country, creating housing and jobs. Finally, she would build infrastructure throughout Haiti, not just in Port-au-Price. "If people had what they needed in the provinces, they wouldn't come to Port-au-Prince," she said.

"In the hour of our poverty, this is the time for it," she said.

Dr. John in Action

2010-06-04T19:53:00.004-05:00

Dr. John helped a lot of children this past week, many of whom had ear infections. John said, "I think I have seen so many ear infections because people are living outside. And now it is starting to rain."

Examining children's ears can be a challenging process. Some of them look upon the otoscope as an instrument of evil. They want nothing to do with it. We had to hold one little girl down on an examining table to get a good look inside her ears. Others who aren't quite as afraid, put their shoulders up as John places the scope in their ear. He jokes, "Kids don't understand that when they put their shoulder up, it makes it hard to see in the ear. I've told them but they insist on doing it over and over."

Many children have temperatures and other symptoms that are caused by these ear infections, and so it is important to diagnose them so an antibiotic can be prescribed. We see one child's middle ear that is half-filled with puss. The babies feel much better when their ear infections are treated. And so do the moms.

She Needs the Knife

2010-06-04T19:47:00.001-05:00

Meet the lovely Jenny G. She is 30-years-old, gainfully employed, and lives in a tent, which is better, I guess, than the first two months after the earthquake, when she slept in a car. Making Jenny’s life more difficult is that she has a severely ailing heart. The medical solutions are almost extinguished for her and as John would say, she needs the knife.

Jenny had surgery to repair heart valves in 1999; now she needs surgery to replace them. She looks good, but had to stop a couple of times and rest when she was climbing the stairs. She is in congestive heart failure, with a number of the symptoms that go along with this condition. If anyone reading has contacts with hospitals or medical centers or cardiac surgeons who might be interested in helping Jenny please e-mail me.

It’s hard to sit next to Jenny and know that she has a fixable problem, except for the fact that she was born in the wrong country.

Survivor Experiences of the Earthquake

2010-06-04T19:31:00.004-05:00

We’ve heard several people’s stories about where they were and what they were doing during the earthquake. One woman was outside and realized what was happening, as she had felt tremors before. But some other people around her, didn’t know what was happening and thought the loud noises were shooting; they ran into their houses and then the houses collapsed and they were killed.

Another woman was at work, on the fourth story of a building. When the earthquake started, she sat frozen at her desk, while all of her co-workers fled the building. She is in poor health. She said the building first swayed to and fro and then it went up and down. But it didn’t collapse. When the earthquake was over, her colleagues rushed back into the building and helped her out, as her health isn’t good. When she walked home from work, she saw body parts in the street and heard people calling from buildings.

Another woman was in a large house during the earthquake. First she ran upstairs, and then she ran outside along with the other people in the building. No one was hurt, but the house was destroyed. She said that she couldn’t stop laughing. Even as people came by the house seriously injured, all she could do was laugh. Shock is displayed in different ways. How can this have happened? In 45 seconds 140,000 people lost their lives and there was billions of dollars in property damage. How could it seem real?

Bag On the Ground

2010-06-04T19:09:00.005-05:00

After more than three years, this blog is now true to its name, Live From Haiti, as I am typing these words from a guest house in the LaPlaine district of Port-au-Prince. Today I accompanied John to the clinic run by the Daughters of Charity. Today and yesterday were feast days (The Feast of God) so there weren’t as many children and moms at the clinic as usual; several of them were patients John had seen before, and thanks to medicine and treatment, were doing much better.

John’s doctor bag in the above photo survived the earthquake. He had stored it at the sisters, and when he came in for his first day of work on this trip, it was sitting on the chair in his exam room as if nothing had happened. Even more amazingly, one of his suitcases, which was stored at a guesthouse which collapsed during the earthquake was pulled out of the rubble.

Dying in Haiti Like Never Before

2010-05-31T15:26:00.004-05:00

John has been in Haiti for almost a week now. It's his first trip there since the earthquake. I can tell, even though he has made countless trips over the past 25 years and spent cumulatively years there, that he is shocked by what he is seeing. He's writing about much of it at his blog, Dying in Haiti

In an e-mail to me, John wrote:

The driver came and picked me up at 10:30 and he took me downtown where I met Frandy. Took about 300 pictures and walked through the middle of the tent cities until I was advised not to do that anymore by my driver for my own safety.

The Ministry of Health building is gone, the Minisitry of Justice is gone, the tax building is gone, the Palace is gone, the Cathedral is demolished, Sacre Couer Church where David Volk got married is gone, the nursing school is gone at General Hospital with 100 or so nursing students.

The tent city in front of the Palace goes on for blocks. It is called Champ Mars. Very dangerous place with dangerous guys I am afraid. Squalid, horrible, rotten, fetid conditions is the best I can say for 10's of thousands of people.

PAP is really destroyed. Have pictures of two collapsed hospitals. And the Pediatric Building at General Hospital is cracked and vacated. The little peds patients are in 3 big hot terrible tents outside. Horrible. And it has been 4 months. Babies appear sick.

The most shocking thing is the Cathedral. The power of nature.

Where It All Started

2010-05-29T07:49:00.005-05:00

Today is John's and my 6th wedding anniversary. They have been an action-packed six years. I write this blog largely because of him. His dedication, perseverence, and hard work on behalf of Haitians give me something very meaningful to write about.

Many of these qualities John got from his mom, Mary Sullivan Carroll, who died last month at 95. We had spent much of the last three years caring for his mom, who was in declining health. At the end of the post, is her obituary which you can read if you'd like to learn about how amazing she was.

Mary had more in common with Haitians, with hardship, then we do. She was a young woman in the Depression when necessities like food and shelter weren't guaranteed. Her father and one of her three brothers died when she wasn't out of her teens. Her mother was sick and often needed care. But Mary didn't let these challenges stop her from becoming a stellar teacher or use them as excuses to complain about her lot. She cheerfully and energetically worked hard and inspired others, including her sons, to do so also. She helped build a wonderful life for her and her family.

Besides being generous financially, Mary helped Haitians in other ways by opening her home to them and most of all, raising a son who has been so committed to them. Thanks, John, for doing such a good job following the example of your mom. Happy Anniversary!

WEST PEORIA, IL - Mary Alta Sullivan Carroll, 95, of West Peoria died on Monday, April 26, 2010, at Methodist Medical Center, Peoria, IL, surrounded by her family.

She was born on July 12, 1914, in Macomb to Ambrose and Alta Arnold Sullivan. On Feb. 23, 1951, she married John Carroll, her beloved husband with whom she spent 27 wonderful years.

Mary was preceded in death by her husband on Jan. 14, 1978; her three brothers, Ambrose, John and Bill; and her grandson, Christopher.

She is survived by her two sons, John (Maria) Carroll of West Peoria and Tom (Diane) Carroll of Peoria; her six grandchildren, Jennifer (and fiance Loren), Tommy, John, Kate, Annie and Luke; and Young (Chhoung) La, who was like a son to her.

Mary received a bachelor of education degree from Western Illinois State Teachers College in 1935, and a master of science degree from the University of Illinois in 1949.

Mary was a teacher for 54 years at the grade school, high school, college and vocational levels. She taught everywhere from a one-room school house to Bradley University to Caterpillar. Other schools where she positively influenced hundreds of students include McKinley Grade School, Riverton, Springfield and Monmouth high schools, Peoria Central, Manual and Woodruff high schools, the University of Illinois and Manitoba Institute of Technology in Winnipeg, Canada, where Mary and her family spent two glorious summers. Mary primarily taught business and office occupation classes at the secondary and college levels.

Mary's vocation, both inside and outside the classroom, was helping people get the most out of their ability. She did this in such an inspiring, energetic, and indefatigable fashion that she had students from the 1930s and on who kept in touch with her and would often visit for a dose of her never-give-up optimism and advice. She was continually and enthusiastically helping friends and family with their projects and problems. She loved teaching her grandchildren and was a source of constant encouragement and support to them, holding vocabulary school around her kitchen table in the summer. She was active, walking and running well into her 80s and even went rock climbing on her 85th birthday. She was "sui generis."

Mary loved her home in West Peoria, which she and her husband built in 1957, and where she lived for 53 years. She filled it with beautiful objects, which she either created or negotiated bargain prices for. Her Catholic faith was of the utmost importance to her. She prayed the rosary frequently and demonstrated her beliefs through her actions and her courage.

Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Immaculate Conception Convent, 2408 W. Heading Ave. in West Peoria with recitation of the rosary at 7 p.m. Mary and her family have had a long and close friendship with the Heading Avenue Sisters and she wanted her services conducted there, surrounded by the Sisters whom she loved. The funeral Mass will be held at the convent on Saturday, May 1, 2010, at 11 a.m., with visitation an hour before. The Rev. James King will officiate. Burial will be in St. Mary's Cemetery after the funeral.

Wright & Salmon Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

Memorials may be made to Haitian Hearts, 2727 W. Heading Ave., West Peoria, IL 61604. Haitian Hearts is a charitable organization started by her son that brings children from Haiti to the United States for heart surgery and which Mary named.

Frontline on Haiti

2010-04-01T00:08:00.003-05:00

A couple nights ago, we watched Frontline as it covered the affects of the earthquake in Haiti. Wow, what an aptly named program. The video on this show has such an immediacy and completeness about it--the camera seems to be in the middle of things, instead of merely recording the action--that you feel as if you're right there.

As I watched the hour-long show, I jotted down a few words from the program. Here they are.

The world is coming to an end.

The first thing I noticed is the dust. And then the crying: one in ten people died.

People who live and work here found themselves in a strange land.

The earthquake decimated a weak and inefficient government.

With the city in ruins, makeshift camps appeared everywhere.

More than one million people in Port-au-Prince are homeless.

What pain I'm in, my God. What suffering.

For many Haitians, their faith rests only in the hands of God.

Haiti's story is one of a dream denied.

The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier

When I went to Haiti, I saw a country that abounded in economic opportunities.

There was a real spirit and hope that at last things were going to improve.

Per capita, Haiti has one of the highest concentration of NGOs in the world.

capacity- the entrenched elite, a handful of families.

Nearly half of all American households have contributed to Haitian relief.

We are already invested and we don't want that investment to go to waste. We want a postive outcome.

One toilet per thousand.

The stench has moved from bodies to the stench of the living.

But the big worry for everyone was the coming rains.

The above picture of Fort National was taken by missionary Karen Bultje.

Successful Surgery for Medjina!

2010-03-30T10:27:00.003-05:00

We are so happy to report that 7-year-old Medjina Bontemps had successful surgery to replace her mitral valve at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Medjina had the surgery six days ago, and will be discharged from the hospital today.

Medjina is the fifth Haitian child that St. Louis Children's has taken care of for Haitian Hearts. We are deeply grateful to them for the fine care they provide. We are also want to thank from the bottom of our hearts host family Jim and Jane Ebel who have taken such excellent, loving care of so many Haitian children.

Medjina is the first Haitian Hearts patient who has had surgery since the earthquake. We have another child, Winderlande, who is still in Haiti, but has been accepted by Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento. We are actively working on getting Winderlande's passport updated and hope that she will be coming to California soon to have her heart repaired. You can read about the wonderful fundraiser that was held for Winderlande by the welcoming folks in California here. We are hopeful that Winderlande will be coming to California in the next few months.

Prisoners

2010-02-22T21:55:00.003-06:00

For the last six months, I have been doing some research into the lives of those who were U.S. Prisoners of War in the Philippines during World War II. Many of them were survivors of the notorious Bataan Death March. They were subjected to starvation and malnutrition and the vitamin-deficiency diseases these conditions produce, including beriberi, scurvy and pellagra. Drinking dirty water led to dysentery. They were plagued by malaria, diphtheria outbreaks, and skin disorders. Their living conditions were substandard. As the United States concentrated on the European theater, they felt forgotten and abandoned. Some of them lost hope of ever being freed though for others, it was hope that kept them alive.

Their are obvious differences, but as I continue to read about these brave and resilient men, I am reminded of the Haitians. Not all of their problems are the same, but the Haitians suffer from many of the same hardships that the American POWs did. Even before the earthquake, parts of Haiti reminded me of POW camps. Poor Haitians are trapped in Haiti; other countries don't want them. Sometimes they sneak across the border and work as illegals in the Dominican Republic or take to the ocean in their makeshift boats. Once in awhile, a U.S. POW would escape.

I think for a long time, Haiti was a forgotten place, its people's sufferings unknown to others or ignored. At least for awhile, that has changed. And like the U.S. POWs, the Haitians don't give up. But also like the POWs, they need help. Let's give it to them in full measure.

The above picture was taken by Port-au-Prince resident Karen Bultje.

Live From Haiti?

2010-02-20T22:04:00.002-06:00

It's been three years since I've actually been Live From Haiti. Hard to believe. Three years ago yesterday John and I flew home from Port-au-Prince with our son Luke after a seven-month sojourn in Haiti waiting for his adoption to finalize.

Despite my absence from our second home, I've been able to report on the good work other people, mainly my husband John, have been doing there. I've also been able to report on our Haitian Hearts patients.

Everyone knows a little more about Haiti than they did two months ago. I wonder how many times the word Haiti has been uttered in January and February? More than all the years previous combined, I bet. I hope the attention will amount to some positive lasting changes for Haiti.

In the meantime, we'll keep writing and trying to help Haitians as we can. Here is an article about Haitian Hearts and here is an article about how John has influenced one young man making a difference for Haiti. And one of these days, I'll really be Live From Haiti again.

Marie Myrtha Amazan: Rest In Peace

2010-02-18T21:59:00.003-06:00

We received some sad news the other day. One of our patients, beautiful Marie Amazan died. We don't think her death was directly related to the earthquake, but we aren't sure. It didn't help, that is for sure.

Marie's fiance Junior had been reporting to us that she hadn't been feeling well. A day or so before she died, she went into some kind of a coma. She had lost her medicines in the earthquake, and that could have been a contributing factor.

Marie was operated on by the superlative surgeon, Dr. Bryan Foy at Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Illinois. Dr. Foy has operated on a number of our Haitian Hearts' patients who have had complex heart problems. They have all done very well post-surgically.

We mourn the loss of Marie. We know that she would want us to keep on working for others in Haiti who have similar problems. We will.

Pictured above are Marie and her friend Anita

Suffering

2010-02-07T23:14:00.003-06:00

Our cousin is home from Haiti now. It seems like most of the teams go down for a week or at most two. I know of other teams going and hopefully this will continue for a long time. When you read the post below, you better understand why a week is about as much as a first worlder can take.

Another long, busy day in surgery full of fracture repairs and wound
debridement. The smell of the 3 week old wounds is overwhelming.
Poor sanitization conditions combined with long hot days spent in
crowded tents with little to no ventilation. Thank heavens for Vicks
Vaporub!

I left the hospital around 8pm to return to camp. We now have running
water! I immediately headed straight for a shower, which really
consists of bathtub and garden hose pulled through the bathroom
window. It's freezing cold, but I can't wait to "come clean" of
today. I yell for someone outside to "turn on the hose!" and not
more than 2 minutes later hear a voice outside running down the alley
& coming toward the clinic. A nurse from the hospital pounds on the
door of the clinic for me to "come quick" to the hospital..."a stat c-
section". Still soaking wet, I throw on scrubs, call for Sandra (the
other anesthetist; & native Haitian), and we follow her back to the
hospital.

We quickly gather whatever supplies we can find through all of the
mess of medical equipment just shipped in (thank you to all who
donated!). Turns out there are in fact 2 c-sections, but only one
surgeon. The most critical goes first: umbilical cord wrapped around
the baby's neck. Spinal block and within 4 minutes the baby is pulled
out, blue, completly limp, and lifeless. It was then that we realized
that there was no one available to take care of the baby, who is
cyanotic and silent. The surgeon continues to suture, while I leave
mom to help the baby ("patient abandonment" and illegal in the
US)...not to metion the fact that I know extremely little about labor
& delivery nursing! ...desparate times. Sandra takes over care of
mom, while I attempt to stimulate and suction the baby. Yes... I am
screaming for help the entire time. A Canadian ER doctor hears me
and comes to the rescue. Together we stimulate and suction large
amounts of aspirated meconium, and soon....crying. The most
beautiful sound in the world!

Sandra and I must quickly get ready for the 2nd c/sec. I wheel the
last newborn into the room with us. Again, there are so many things
wrong about the conditions we must work under, but we must just adapt
and adjust to what we have. There is no NICU. New babies and moms
get sent back outside to the yard (literally) just after delivering.
This baby was no where near stable enough to be left unattended.

Sandra & I were gettig ready to do a spinal block on the next mom when
a code was called on a baby that had been rushed into the hospital
from the "tent village". She just cried and pleaded (in Creole) to
help her baby. The infant was intubated and coded for over 20
minutes before time of death was called. I completely broke down. I
tried to hide behind my glasses ad mask as I cried right there on
front of everyone. It was unbearable. And even still, after
experiencing such heartache, I had to return to the OR to finish the
last c-section. I'm thankful I stayed. A difficult and cold as it
felt at the time, I needed a "happy ending". I got just that. One
loud, crying, healthy baby. As 2 new lives were brought into the
world tonight, one was taken away. A harsh and unjust life.

The hardest part about tonight was wondering and question to myself,
"what if?" ; "what if this baby had been in the US?". ...same baby,
same illness, only with better medical access. Would the outcome
have been the same?". I heavily doubt it. That's what makes it so
hard...wondering why some are so fortunate and priviledged, just by
the geographical location in which we have been born; while others are
born into nothing. It's just seems so unfair.

Sullivans on the Scene

2010-01-31T00:56:00.004-06:00

John's cousin's daughter, Emily, a newly minted nurse anesthetist, arrived in Haiti a few days ago. She is working at a hospital in or near Carrefour, which was the epicenter of the earthquake. It is also where Frandy lives, and wouldn't you know, he and Emily not only bumped into each other, but correctly guessed who the other person was. "Are you Emily?" "Yes. Are you Frandy?" "Yes." Pretty amazing.

This is Emily's first trip to Haiti. Her cousin Jesse, whom I wrote about here, helped arrange the trip. Jesse is volunteering at the Haitian embassy in Washington, DC, assisting with the tent cities. In her first e-mail home, Emily writes:

Conditions are worse than imaginable. The entire city has suffered distruction. The streets are lined with make-shift tents. Even families whose shelter remains standing choose to live in the streets for fear of after-shock. Recently orphaned children sit blank-stared on sidewalks just lost. As we drove to the hospital, the smells are overwhelming. Many bodies remain trapped under rubble...it has now been over 2 weeks. My team joined with other Doctors without Borders. We sleep in tents outside the Hope for Haiti clinic across the street from Hospital Adventista. My first night, I was woken up to someone from the hospital across the street calling for the "blonde-hair anesthesia". There are two anesthetists (myself included) to our team. I grabbed my new-found CRNA friend and ran next door. There was a stat c-section at the hospital. The conditions are unbelievable. Make-shift ORs with out-dated drugs that I have only read about. But we have an anesthesia machine!

This morning I worked in a public health clinic. 6 of us assessed over 250 Haitian men, women, and children. Later in the afternoon I went back to the hospital to help with anesthesia.

Tommorow more surgeries. Will try to keep in touch later.

Take nothing for granted.

We have our worries and frustrations

But our houses are standing and

when things go wrong,

there are people to help.

In Haiti a broken world explodes

and the people have to pick up the pieces.

Do You Hear Me Now?

2010-01-31T00:38:00.002-06:00

My mom told me she thought, "Do you hear me now?" would be a good title for an article about Haiti, and she's right. Because for so many years, the suffering of the Haitian people has largely been ignored by the world. And the suffering is brutal.

I'll never forget the time we were returning from a trip to Haiti. We were flying from Miami to Chicago, and I sat next to an American who had grown up in Kenya and was making his way back to Africa, oddly, via Chicago, but anyway. I told him where I had been. He actually shuddered and said, "I imagine there should be a sign at Haiti's entrance that says, 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here,'" which of course was what was posted at the entrance to hell in The Divine Comedy. There was so much pain, and suffering, and premature dying in Haiti before and now this.

Our friend Mary who has made her home in Haiti for half of the year for more than a decade returned to Ohio from her recent trip to look for people. Mary writes:

No words can describe the incredible devastation the earthquake and incessant aftershocks have left behind. No words can describe the brutal injuries so, so many people have suffered. No words can describe the agony mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends are experiencing as loved ones continue to suffer and die on a daily basis. No words can describe the distress these same family members are experiencing as they try to determine the whereabouts of love ones. And no words can describe the amazing faith and strength of the Haitian people. Maybe it's because they are already so accustomed to a life of misery that in ten days, I heard many prayers of thanksgiving, but not one whine or 'why us?' It seems like the whole world has responded and much relief has arrived. It's hard to know if it's getting everywhere it needs to. People can so easily fall in between the cracks. Recovery, if at all possible, will take years upon years. I hope the world doesn't forget Haiti again.

No, let's not forget Haiti again. We do hear you now.

Things can't get any worse
And then they do
But the bad times can't destroy hope.

Haitians Helping Haitians

2010-01-31T00:14:00.006-06:00

As I mentioned on the Haitian Hearts website, we are going to provide earthquake relief by sending money directly to the people affected. The Western Union offices in Port-au-Prince reopened last week, and we finally were able to wire money to a number of our Haitian friends, all of whom lost their homes and are living on the street and, in one case, in a car. They have been very grateful and a few have thanked us via e-mail or phone call.

Jenny told us that she would use some of the money to help people who are worse off than she is, and we know that she will.

Katia writes: "hi dr john how r u maria and luk i call u to tell thank u. . . thank u very much dr God bless u and your family .i feel me bether only my head ake where the concrete fall in my head." Her English is better than my Kreyol.

Henri told me to, "Have a nice day." For the time being, Western Union is waiving their fee to send money to Haiti.

I borrowed the above picture from Dorothy Pearce an American woman who lives in Haiti and takes in sick babies. She posted it on Facebook. I thought it better shows what is going on in Haiti than the pictures of the looters.

Our little bit of money

That we don't really miss

Helps them a lot.

More Survivors Amid the Death and Wreakage

2010-01-21T20:04:00.004-06:00

We find out about people in Haiti in bits and pieces from various places. We were very worried about Haitian Hearts' patient Willy Fortune's mom, who lives in the hard-hit Canape Verte section of Port-au-Prince. We were also worried about our Canadian friend Karen Bultje, who lives in Haiti, helping disabled children and really anyone in need. She blogs about her experiences at Coram Deo.

For days after the earthquake, Karen's last post was dated January 11. But then--Eureka!--she began posting again, and when we sent her an e-mail, telling her how happy we were to read that she was alright, she responded saying that Willy Fortune's mom, pictured above, had been by, asking about us. Eureka again!

We often stay at the Visa Lodge, a hotel near the airport, when we are in Haiti. We hadn't heard anything about the hotel until we came across this article in the Boston Globe. Mr. Herve Denis, one of the owners of the hotel, survived the earthquake, but his mother did not. Gratitude mixed with mourning everywhere.

Bless the Children

2010-01-19T21:50:00.003-06:00

We received the sad news today that 10-year-old Dieula Jean Charles perished in the earthquake. Dieula was one of the people that our friend Mary Hurley travelled to Port-au-Prince to look for.

A few years ago, Dieula came to St. Louis for heart surgery, thanks to the efforts of Mary and her friend Marie. They worked so hard on Diuela's behalf because they loved her and knew that she deserved to have her heart repaired. The operation was a success, and Dieula returned to Haiti a healthy little girl. As Mary's sister who is keeping us updated on Mary's work in Haiti wrote,

"The pain in Mary's voice could be felt across the miles and miles of telephone lines and there really were no words of comfort I could offer her. Her hope is that Dieula did not suffer. I know we all share that hope."

In a later e-mail, we learned that Dieula probably died quickly. Her mother and siblings survived. What grief they are feeling. The enormous suffering that exists in Haiti today is hard to fathom.

More Solidarity Than Looting

2010-01-18T21:17:00.003-06:00

I am a member of Bob Corbett's Haiti listserv, which has been an invaluable source of information on Haiti before and after the earthquake. I know there has been some reporting on looting that is occuring in Port-au-Prince. I offer the two below reports from people who are currently in Haiti. These accounts were made yesterday, January 17. To them, I would add the following observations: on our trips to Haiti, we have always been amazed at the lack of crime (the gang/political crime, notwithstanding)on the part of almost all people, especially given the lack and incompetence of the police and judicial system. Also, I am afraid that if I were in the same situation as the people in Port-au-Prince, I would be doing what I could to get food and water for myself and my family, even if it meant looting.

First Report

Ciné Institute Director David Belle
reports from Port-au-Prince:
"I have been told that much US media coverage paints Haiti as a tinderbox
ready to explode. I'm told that lead stories in major media are of looting,
violence and chaos. There could be nothing further from the truth.

"I have traveled the entire city
daily since my arrival. The extent of damages is absolutely staggering.
At every step, at every bend is one horrific tragedy after another;
homes, businesses, schools and churches leveled to nothing. Inside every
mountain of rubble there are people, most dead at this point. The smell
is overwhelming. On every street are people -- survivors -- who have
lost everything they have: homes, parents, children, friends.

"NOT ONCEhave we witnessed a single
act of aggression or violence. To the contrary, we have witnessed neighbors
helping neighbors and friends helping friends and strangers. We've seen
neighbors digging in rubble with their bare hands to find survivors.
We've seen traditional healers treating the injured; we've seen dignified
ceremonies for mass burials and residents patiently waiting under boiling
sun with nothing but their few remaining belongings. A crippled city
of two million awaits help, medicine, food and water. Most haven't received
any.

"Haiti can be proud of its survivors. Their dignity and decency in
the face of this tragedy is itself staggering."

David Belle, January 17th, 2010

Second Report

I'm just passing this updated from Sasha Kramer of SOIL along:

"Apologies if these upcoming posts seem unpolished…that is because they are…we barely have time to write and internet is patchy so I will do what I can to get out information but I don’t promise eloquence.

Love to you all and know that we are safe and taking precautions.

Last night we arrived in Port au Prince just before sunset. As we came into the city with our truck piled full of water, gas, shovels and food we got a flat tire. The news reports of looting have been so exaggerated that we were concerned that a mob of people might come take everything before we even made it into the city. I am pleased to report that, as per usual, reports of violence in Haiti are largely disinformation. Yes, we did hear shooting late last night, and yes we did see a fight over a mattress at a camp in the city but our overall impression has been sheer amazement at the solidarity displayed by communities.

We drove into the city past the airport and along Delmas 33. Initially it looked like about 1 in 5 houses had sustained damage and perhaps 1 in 20 had completely collapsed. However as we got father in towards Delmas the damage looked much more severe with perhaps 1 in 5 buildings completely collapsed. I have never seen anything like this, honestly it is hard to even feel. People have not even begun to mourn as everyone is still in a state of crisis. As we drove by the police station on Delmas 33 we saw someone carrying a severed foot of a police officer out of the wreckage…I barely even blinked…everything is so surreal.

We went straight to Matthew 25, a guesthouse which remained relatively untouched by the quake. We went to locate our friend Amber who has been helping to coordinate volunteer efforts. We are so grateful for the way in which we have been received by the guesthouse, they immediately allowed us to remove all of the materials from the car and invited us to sleep in the backyard (no one is sleeping inside as the aftershocks have continued over the past few days). I was so amazed to run our dear friend Ellie Happel at the guesthouse. She flew in from NY the day after the quake to help with relief.

Once we had unloaded the car we all went with Marcorel to see his family in Jake. When we arrived it was already dark and there were people sleeping everywhere in the streets. As we waited for Marcorel to make his way through the camp to locate his family we saw several young men from the neighborhood setting up a large light rigged to some batteries. As light flooded the crowd of people they burst into song. Songs of solidarity, songs of grief, songs of thanks that they had survived. We followed Mako through the blankets and makeshift tents to where his family (8 brothers and sisters and his mom and dad) huddled together on a pile of blankets. They were so happy to see him and we all piled into their bed and Ellie, Paul, Cat and I were each handed a baby. The singing continued in the background as Marcorel’s family told the story of where they each were when the quake hit.

With love from Port au Prince,
Sasha "

Alive! Alive Alive!

2010-01-18T20:37:00.003-06:00

We are getting more good news on many of our Haitian Hearts friends and patients. Katie Cesar is alive! Suze LaPierre is alive! Marie Myrtha is alive! Jenny Guilliame is alive! It feels so good to type those sentences. We have also learned that the families of some of our Haitian friends in the United States are alive: Katina's family, Fastina's family, Viviane's family.

They are alive now, but their situations are difficult and in some cases desperate. Their needs now and in the future will be great. We are hopeful that the aid will soon make its way to them. We are also anxious to get money to our Haitian Hearts patients and will do so as soon as the Western Union offices in Port-au-Prince reopen.

Pictured above is Marie Myrtha

Who Should We Blame?

2010-01-17T21:43:00.004-06:00

Pat Robertson's comment about Haiti being cursed because of a deal its founding fathers made with the devil is getting a lot of play. Unfortunately, this belief isn't that uncommon among certain Christian denominations, some which have groups that work in Haiti. John has heard it for years (often in tandem with anti-Catholicism). A poster on the Corbett listserv has a page on her blog with links to different groups that espouse this view. I had a comment on this post from someone who seems to be in the Rev. Robertson camp:

If I may state what I believe to be the truth-Haiti is a culture deeply steeped in voodoo. In 2003, the president officially recognized it as a national religion. This is dangerous stuff. IT CHASES GOD OUT. I pray for the people that they will reject all evils that bring the one known as 'the destroyer' (satan) to reign in their country.

With something as horrendous as the situation in Haiti before the earthquake and now with the incomprehensible disaster the shaking ground has wrought, it's understandable to want to try to explain things. And we would like explanations that absolve us from responsibility or guilt, thank you very much. So let's blame it on an alleged pact with the devil that, abetted by voodoo, curses Haiti to this very day.

If you are comfortable with that explanation, here's a question to ponder: Is it the perpetrators of evil or the victims of evil who are cursed?

Now, we don't usually describe natural disasters like earthquakes as evil, but I can tell you that Haiti has had a lot of evil directed its way, evil that contributed to the country's fragile state and making the earthquake so very destructive. Here's a short list:

In short order, Columbus and his fellow Europeans wiped out the Arawak Indians, the original inhabitants of Haiti. This led to. . .

Slavery. The French needed people to work the coffee and sugar plantations. They were so cruel to the slaves, that the slaves died faster than the birth rate could keep up, requiring the French to constantly kidnap more people from Africa.

After the independent Haitian republic was founded, the French demanded millions in repayment for lost profits from Haitian exports. Haiti paid the huge sum, which put the country perpetually behind the financial eight ball. Can you imagine the United States paying England for agricultural profits owed during the American Revolution?

Haiti was founded in 1804 but not recognized by its powerful neighbor to the north, the United States until 1862 when we were in the midst of the Civil War.

I'll stop here and save the rest of the world's sins for another post.

This weekend, Haiti was the subject of much preaching at places of worship. While disavowing Robertson's remarks, my pastor compared the situation to that of the Christian scripture story of Lazarus, the poor man. Lazarus, who suffered miserably on earth, went to heaven, but the rich man who ignored him went you-know-where.

So, who, exactly, is cursed?

A Friend on the Ground

2010-01-17T12:27:00.005-06:00

Our friend Mary Hurley, who for years has lived six months of each year in Haiti, arrived there yesterday. As you can imagine, she knows many Haitians and the main purpose of her trip is to find and help people she knows, many whom are very poor. She will also be helping coordinate the efforts of others who want to help.

Mary works with Mother Teresa's order, the Missionaries of Charity who have several communities in Haiti. The Order was able to arrange jet transportation for Mary and her friend Marie, another Haiti veteran, from Miami to Port-au-Prince. Mary and Marie will be staying with the Sisters on Delmas 31, the site of the Sisters' home for children in Port-au-Prince. Mary usually works at San Fil, the home for the dying that the Sisters run elsewhere in Port-au-Prince. Sadly, now, much of the city has been turned into a place of the dying.

Mary is worried about many people--Kethia and Dieula, to name two. Thankfully, she has heard that Heurese, Guerline, and Gertrude, who runs the guesthouse where Mary usually stays, are safe. The guesthouse has been destroyed, but Gertrude is okay, as is her daughter Rosie who was in a boarding school in Port-au-Prince.

The Internet and cell phones are indispensible in communicating. Ten years ago, phone communication from Haiti necessitated a satellite phone. We have received cell calls from Frandy and Heurese. John has called Frandy on Skype, though he couldn't hear us. Frandy has actually been able to post on his Facebook account. The discrepancy of being able to communicate like this with people from around the world while you are homeless, hungry, thirsty, and don't know what is going to happen next is like some kind of science fiction gone wrong.

Even though Mary is a veteran of Haiti--indeed it is her home--even though she speaks Creole, even though she has spent most of her time in Port-au-Prince helping the most destitute of Haitians, she said to John, "We realize we don't know what we are getting into." It's not unlike a first trip to Haiti she said.

As we hear from Mary, we will keeo you posted.

Above: John in Haiti before the earthquake.

Heurese!

2010-01-16T11:27:00.004-06:00

We found out this morning that Heurese is alive along with her family! Heurese is a 30-year-old woman whom Haitian Hearts brought to the United States in 2008. She had surgery at Cleveland Clinic, which replaced her diseased heart valve with a state-of-the-art Onyx

artificial heart valve. Heurese stayed with us in Peoria for about five months while she recuperated.

Heurese has two young children. Today they are leaving for her hometown of Bainet on the southern coast of Haiti's peninsula, southwest of Port-au-Prince. It typically takes three hours to travel to Bainet from PAP. Who knows how long their journey will be today?

Heurese's mother and other family live in Bainet, and like many people in Port-au-Prince who survived the earthquake, she wants to leave the devastation of the capital.

In the midst of the tragedy and sorrow, we are so happy to get the good news of the survival of some of our friends. But we know many people have lost their children, their families, their friends, and we mourn along with them.

Haiti and the United States

2010-01-15T21:09:00.005-06:00

Here are the things I am feeling positively about regarding the United States and its response to the earthquake in Haiti:

The United States has a Democratic administration.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama care about Haiti and are willing to commit American resources to helping the country. They are African-American; their skin color is the same as the Haitian people, which can only raise the esteem in which the Haitian people are held. I know this last sentence seems offensive and politically incorrect, but it is true.

Hillary Clinton, who early in her tenure as an Obama cabinet member, gave a major speech about Haiti, is Secretary of State.

Bill Clinton, who along with his wife has a special appreciation for Haiti, is the United Nations special envoy to Haiti.

President Obama today granted Haitians in the United States Temporary Protected Status.

One of the major tests of the Obama presidency will be our country's sustained response to this Haitian catastrophe.

Here are some depressing features of the U.S. relationship with Haiti:

The reason the U.S. Coast Guard was able to respond to the crisis so quickly is because the ships were in the area to intercept desperately poor Haitians trying to leave Haiti on rickety boats headed for the Bahamas or the United States and return them to Haiti.

The United States has a schizophrenic relationship with Haiti. The Clinton administration restored Haitian President Aristide to power. The Bush Administration escorted President Aristide from power. And now the Obama administration appears poised to make a major investment in the rebuilding of Haiti. All of this occurred in the span of 16 years. Prior decades reveal even worse dysfunction on the part of the United States (supporting dictators, occupying the country, not recognizing the country, etc.)

The United States initial response to the earthquake notwithstanding, the U.S. government has had a definite bias against Haitians as evidenced by our immigration policies: harsh treatment of detainees at Krome detention center, difficulty of Haitian in obtaining visas, reluctance until today to grant Haitians TPS when the citizens from other countries in far less dire straits were granted the designation.

Our tendency is to only worry about Haiti when the country is having an adverse affect on us-- like when Haitians wash up on Miami beaches, looking for the American dream).

Our incredibly short attention span and self absorption. Will we tire of this Haitian crisis?

What now?

This earthquake is an event in the hemisphere of an entirely different magnitude. Will something this major reset the board on U.S-Haitian relations? Will it traumatize Americans--in a positive way--to realize what is important and how U.S. power can be used peacefully to make a positive difference in people's lives?

If the Haitians can remain hopeful, then so can the rest of us.

Good News!

2010-01-15T20:56:00.002-06:00

Frandy and his family are alive! John received a phone call from Frandy this afternoon. The call broke up frequently, but John was able to learn that Frandy and his mother and brother are unharmed, though their home was destroyed and they are without food and water. Can you imagine losing as much as they have and considering yourself one of the lucky ones? Such is the magnitude of this disaster.

More good news: we have also learned that Chris and Hal Nungester who run H.I.S. Home for Children Orphanage are okay along with the children in their care. They are having generator problems but are grateful to be alive.

We have friends who will be arriving in Port-au-Prince tomorrow, and we hope to have more updates on the situation in Haiti, including the status of our friends and patients.

Where is Frandy?

2010-01-14T14:02:00.004-06:00

We are worried about numerous people in Haiti, including Frandy Dejean. A poor boy, he grew up on the side of a mountain in Carrefour. He came to the attention of Haitian Hearts because of a heart problem. We brought him and his mother to St. Louis for medical care. Like many Haitians, Frandy fell in love with the United States, and it is his dream to return.

After Frandy returned to Haiti and with the help of his generous host family in St. Louis, he attended high school and passed all of the necessary exams. Frandy has been studying hard for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). A passing grade on this test would gain him admittance to a U.S. college.

Besides his academic work, Frandy has provided invaluable assistance to Haitian Hearts. He has located patients for us, taken them to medical appointments, helped them get passports. Everything is difficult in Haiti, and one of the above tasks can take days or weeks to coordinate. Frandy has persevered through all the obstacles--terrible roads, unreliable transportation, incompetent government.

Frandy's love for the United States has not always been returned. This past summer he applied for a visa to attend an English-language school in St. Louis. He had a sponsor, willing to host him and pay for his schooling. Nonetheless, he was denied a visa. I quote below from the letter we received from the U.S. consulate official:

Mr. Dejean was found ineligible for a visa under Section 214(b) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. Under this section of the law, all applicants for non-immigrant visas must demonstrate that they have a residence outside of the United States as well as professional, family, financial, and community ties which will ensure their return at the end of their authorized stay.

Let me unpack this for you. What the law basically says is that if you don't have a job or money to return to, you are not eligible for a non-immigrant visa. Or in other words, if you are poor, no visa.

Frandy is definitely poor. It didn't matter to the U.S. consulate that Frandy had worked hard to pass high school, that he had a sponsor for his schooling, that after the completion of this program, he wanted to return to the United States for college. He couldn't demonstrate sufficient ties to Haiti to satisfy the U.S. consulate (i.e. he is poor) and was denied a visa.

Frandy hasn't given up though. Give up isn't part of him, which is why we have hope that he is still alive. We have been watching the news, but their are huge portions of the Port-au-Prince that we know nothing about.

So we pray and wait.

The Work Continues

2010-01-14T10:50:00.004-06:00

I've had a few people ask me if the earthquake is going to change the mission of Haitian Hearts. The answer is no. Our focus will continue to be two-fold: to bring young Haitians to the United States for life-saving heart surgery and to support the work of my husband Dr. John Carroll in hospitals and clinics in Haiti providing general medical care and medications to very poor people. Those needs will remain and even be intensified as a result of the earthquake.

We encourage people to donate to the organizations that are providing immediate relief. You can find a list of them here. Haitian Hearts will always accept your contributions, too. You can learn more about us at our website.

Haitian Hearts is committed to Haiti in the long term. We will continue to help Haitians, one at a time, as we have for the past 15 years.

Please Pray That They are Okay

2010-01-13T19:52:00.003-06:00

I was driving my son Luke to school today. We adopted him from Haiti, so he hears about Haiti a lot. This morning he asked me, "Mommy, why is Haiti always in trouble?" I didn't have a good answer for him.

I don't have any answers. Like many people, we are waiting to hear about those we know and love in Haiti. People like Frandy, a hard-working, young man, who, as a very poor Haitian, is defying the odds, educating himself, studying like mad to pass the TOEFL (Test of English for Foreign Language students) so that he can come to the United States for college. Or Heurese, the young woman who spent five months with us last year as she recovered from open heart surgery. Both Frandy and Heurese live in Carrefour, which was the epicenter of the earthquakc. They are both very poor and I am hoping, however perversely, that this will somehow work in their favor for survival; they don't live in big houses, just little shacks made of concrete blocks. We grasp at straws where we can.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the "biblical" nature of the earthquake. It's really the only scale that makes any sense. Because a normal day in Haiti is like a natural disaster: lack of water, lack of food, unpassable or barely passable roads, epidemics with no adequate medical response. Add a devastating earthquake to these already impossible conditions and we run out of words to describe the situation. If you think about what happens in the United States when disasters strike--everything from car accidents to N1H1 to tornados--there is a professional, adequate response--ambulances, police, doctors, government bureaucrats--lots of people tackle the problem. When I think about the people lying under the rubble in Haiti: there is no one from Haiti that is going to be coming to their rescue soon, save their families and neighbors. I just heard Anderson Cooper bemoan the fact that he had seen no heavy earth moving equipment on the scene. Welcome to Haiti, Anderson. The existing hospitals are totally inadequate for every day circumstances; there is no military, there is no National Guard, there are no ambulances or road crews, or maintenance people to fix a practically non-existent infrastructure, there is a barely functioning police department. Really, there is nothing at all in Haiti to respond to a disaster of this magnitude.

So we are left asking, "How could this happen? How could God let this happen? What kind of social Darwinistic law rules the universe and insists that the harshest things must happen to the people who are already suffering the most?"

I'm not going to count on answers to these questions; we have to roll up our sleeves and work.

Pictured above, Chris Nungester who along with her husband Hal, runs an orphanage, H.I.S. Home for Children, and one of the children in her care

Medjina Has Arrived

2010-01-01T23:01:00.002-06:00

Seven-year-old Medjina got her biggest present ever this Christmas: a trip to St. Louis where she will have surgery to fix her faulty heart valve.

On December 18, Medjina flew to the United States with her American friends and spent Christmas with them in Ohio. They then drove Medjina to St. Louis, where she will be staying with Jim and Jane Ebel, who have graciously hosted a number of Haitian Hearts patients. Medjina had her first appointment at St. Louis Children's Hospital on December 30.

John traveled to St. Louis to be with Medjina and Jane Ebel during the appointment. He was able to provide medical history on Medjina and also translate for her.

Because of her damaged heart valve and the consequent inefficiency, Medjina's heart has gotten huge. She easily becomes short of breath, a symptom that would worsen without the surgery she needs.

Medjina has a huge heart in another way, too. She has calmly come without family to a strange country that is much different from Haiti. John reported that as she sat on his lap when the nurse had to draw blood, she didn't so much as flinch when the needle entered her skin.

We are grateful to all who have made it possible for Medjina to be helped.

New Website!

2009-11-12T09:26:00.004-06:00

Haitian Hearts has a new website1 It's at the same address as our old site: http://www.haitianhearts.org/ It is clean, easy to navigate, and up to date site, filled with John's wonderful photographs.

Please check it out when you have a minute!

Poor and Alone

2009-10-18T10:11:00.004-05:00

John is in Haiti now, so I'll be able to indirectly and vicariously post live from Haiti

He spent his first week teaching at a nursing school in Les Cayes, the third largest city in Haiti, on the coast of the southern penisula. As part of one class, John interviewed a 19-year-old who was in the hospital by herself. Her story was sad; she was sick, possibly with AIDS, and had a baby who was somewhere in Port-au-Prince.

They were about done with the questioning when one of the student nurses asked her if she had anything else to add. The young woman said she felt bad because unlike the other patients in the hospital, no one visited her, no one brought her anything.

Class concluded and John noticed the nurses in a little group. They were taking up a collection for the young woman.

It isn't the poor in Haiti who are the problem.

Good News!

2009-09-16T17:40:00.003-05:00

I am very happy to announce that we recently have had two patients accepted at hospitals! Given the current economic/health care environment, these are huge successes. Much credit goes to my husband John for his persevernce in advocating for his Haitian patients. He has to hear a lot of "no's" before a patient is finally accepted.

With one of these patients, the details are still being worked out, so I'll leave those for a future post. But today I can tell you that 7-year-old Modjina has been accepted by St. Louis Children's Hospital. You can see Modjina's picture and read more about her here.

Haitian Hearts has had a long and happy relationship with St. Louis Children's. Modjina is the fifth patient they have accepted in the past several years.

We are looking forward to completing the paperwork and bringing Modjina to St. Louis sometimes this fall.

Pictured above are two healthy girls in Haiti

Farewell Heurese

2009-07-26T22:18:00.006-05:00

In our house today, we are missing Heurese. She is a 30-year-old Haitian woman who lived with us for the past five months. Four days ago, she returned to Haiti. Despite the lavish life she was leading with us (relative to her life in Haiti with no running water, regular electricity, and much skimpier meals), she wanted to return to her home. And for good reasons: her 5-year-old daughter and her 3-year-old son.

Though Heurese came to the United States in December 2008 for heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic, she has not seen in her children in almost a year. Prior to surgery, her sick heart made her so weak that she was unable to care for her children. They lived with her mother in another town. We know there was a happy reunion in Port-au-Prince this past Saturday.

Heurese was fully recuperated from her heart surgery--the installation of an artificial valve that will last her the rest of her life. She has more energy than she has ever had in her adult life. She will need it to negotiate life as a poor person in Port-au-Prince. So much energy goes into activities like getting water, gathering fuel for cooking, washing clothes--all processes that are automated in the developed world.

It is amazing how fast humans can bond to each other. Heurese was a wonderful presence in our home. Intelligent, kind--a lovely person, who helped us a lot. We will think of her often and look forward to seeing her on future trips to Haiti.

Roldolphe Richeme 1985-2009

2009-07-13T21:25:00.004-05:00

This is an e-mail that my husband John received, regarding a young medical student/doctor in Haiti, Roldolphe, who died of severe liver disease. The e-mail was written by Rodolphe's brother, who prior to this, had campaigned with all his heart, mind, and effort to get Rodolphe medical care in the United States. He even offered part of his liver to be transplanted into his brother. Rodolphe was never granted a visa to the United States, and he died in Haiti

Dearest Friends,

God has made everysingle 1 of his creature for one purporse like he has made ROLDOLPHE RICHEME borned in our family, for us to have a sense of lifestyle in the Heaven as he was pure angel living temporarily on this earth for 24 years 7 months old (DOB 12-5-84). The Richeme's family was blessed by God to benefit that grace of having Roldolphe in the family.

No one can come in direct competion with God as we (the Richeme family+yourselves) through Roldolphe's illness end stage were pleading, fighting, shaking the earth and heaven for Rodolphe to live longer on this earth. God wins always the battle as he indeed retrieved Rodolphe prematurely from this earth on a mourning day of july the 4th while some earthly people were rejoycing where 1 other was agonizing, putting out all his blood from his body resulting from the sevrity of his unassessed medical affection experimenting in 3 months on the pitiful eyes of the Lord.

Some would have emphasixed that I would correlate Rodlophe's death on the account of the USA since he could have had better assistance and care there, but no, it's to more emphasize that weirdly according to Independence day celebration in the USA, Rodolphe took his independence from this earth which is an even better fulfillment of Lord's willing. After much sufferings, God decided that RODOLPHE worths more in Heaven then on this failing earth where he had to face sins of all nature and now HOME FREE and away from all pain, sorrows and diseases and iniquities of all kinds.

RODOLPHE's departure would live a unfilling huge gap in the Richeme's heart and yours as my grandma 86 years old fainted last night on hearing that sad news and taken right away to general hospital las night in Port-au-Prince as she wanted to make trip before Rodolphe and asking herself why Rodolphe but not her. Though through this toughFUL experience, we remain more faithful to God and praising Him more than ever not only in good times but as well in bad times like this as each of the trial takes us to a different growth maturity level and the TO BE READY AT ALL TIMES for this EARTH-HEAVEN TRANSITION as Rodolphe is not dead and just ahead of us and we are already anguish to join him to continue to rejoyce with him in songs of Honor and reverence to the Lord.

RODOLPHE HAS CHARGED ME AND FAMILY TO THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS AND ASSISTANCE FROM ALL NATURE but felt unsecure about you being ready for that transition as the Kingdom of Heaven is freely open to all of us as we get Lord's redemption.

Rodolphe's funeral is scheduled for this saturday the 11th of july and you are part of our guests to join us for that symbolic event but be sure that Rodolphe won't rest in peace as he is alive in our heart and alive in heaven eternally.

You may want to stop all medical and financial donations regarding Rodolphe's case at this point. The prayer supports are indeed requested for my family as God is the only one comforter and body and soul healer.

GOD BLESS YOU

THE RICHEME'S FAMILY