Journals from Haiti

A few of the girls suddenly lead me to the road. A procession of Haitians was walking down the road to the clinic, and I could soon see that they were carrying an elderly man on a door. As we joined the crowd that had gathered at the clinic to watch, a few people questioned the girls about the “blans” they were with. Some smiled.

David, who is a doctor, took charge as they cleared out the back of Pat and Clark’s pickup to make room for the man. They carefully laid him, still on the door, flat across the bed of the truck. The man’s family and Pastor Dorlean rode in the back with him, so the six of us who were traveling back to Pat’s house piled into the cab. I sat on the console, and Valery had to walk home. I waved to him sadly as we passed. It wasn’t far to his home but I didn’t think I’d see him again.

Apparently the man had fallen - from fairly high, a tree or a church roof or something - and injured his back. He couldn’t feel his legs. The people had carried him from his home in the mountains, probably at least a mile away. We had the only vehicle nearby.

It was a long, bumpy ride to Justinian Hospital in Cap Haitien, not far from the Moores’ home. David grimaced for the injured man as we jolted over a particularly large pothole. I felt the same. I could tell David and Abby understood more than I did about the man’s condition.

When we finally arrived at the hospital they took him inside and the family thanked us. I saw a boy waiting outside with a cardboard splint on his arm. He was crying and his mother, holding him, was crying too. I wondered how long they’d been waiting.

David seemed reluctant to leave. I think as a doctor, he felt compelled to do something more to help. He told me, back in the truck, about the deplorable conditions inside the hospital.

I’d been practicing my Creole so I could communicate better with the little boys. Back at the clinic, I asked a few of their names. One was named July (sp? pronounced like Julie). They wanted me to get Abby so I did, and Pat helped us talk to them. She offered us drinks so we went and sat on the benches outside the clinic and had Limonades/sodas.

One of the little girls beckoned me across a dry creek. A few of the children wanted a picture. Soon David came over with bubbles and had me take pictures with his digital camera while he played with the kids. They loved it. He was soon surrounded by jumping, giggling children and bubbles floating overhead. They’d been disappointed with my old 35mm camera, but with David’s they could see themselves on the screen and point each other out in the photos. They wanted pictures with Abby and me, too.

Some of the girls organized us and the other children for some kind of games. We were a little slow to figure it out, but they led us in something like London Bridges and Ring Around the Rosie. They sang, in Creole of course, the appropraite songs and clapped and beat their feet on the ground to the rhythm.