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Follow us on TwitterHaiti Earthquake Recon: Hôpital Sacré Coeur Part II
Posted by Walt Vernon on April 10, 2010 at 7:44pm
Saturday, April 10, 2010, 2:09pm
We are in the Cap-Haitian airport, getting ready for the flight back to Port-au-Prince (PAP). The flight is about 30 minutes, but by road, they say it is eight grueling hours. There is a soccer game on TV, and the announcer is speaking in excited Creole; all the men are watching, and all the women are sitting in another area of the airport. Things are the same everywhere, in some ways.
We are leaving at 2:45pm, and I will see just how much I can cram into this time. I am supposed to be writing my report for HSC (Hôpital Sacré Coeur – my use of abbreviations has been pretty sloppy, I am being told by the editors; sorry for that, if it causes confusion). I am a little bit concerned because I have not been taking the malaria medicine as I am supposed to, and I always remember these things immediately after I do things like check my bag containing the pills. Hopefully I will remember enough to be able to finish this blog!!
We have now spent about 48 hours on the ground, here, amongst another amazing cadre of volunteers from all over. I have several impressions from this time. First, I think that it takes a kind of special person to do the volunteer work that these people are doing. The people who volunteer sometimes talk about all the people who wanted to come, but who were forced by other circumstances not to come. But these people who do come (not me, but the other ones who are doing the real work) are giving up their lives, often their vacation time, most often using their own money, and really giving of themselves. And they are a remarkably strong, wise, compassionate, and passionate group of people. While this is true of the people who come here to give a week or two of their lives, it is so much more true of those, like the doctor in charge here and the psychological therapist, who come back again and again, because the need calls to them when they are not here. Then there are those, like the folks we left at Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, who choose to live their lives here, and give up everything outside. It is one thing for me to come here, knowing I am leaving again in a few days. For me, sleeping on an Army cot for two days has been an adventure, not a backpain-inducing experience. I am so much in awe of the people who give up so much more to do this work. They are sensitive to the politics of being outsiders here, in an utterly foreign culture, and of the need to help the people here not by giving them handouts but by giving them CAPACITY to doing things themselves. I am also so much in awe of all of the people who live here, and who deal with things every day, who find ways to survive and live their lives. I met one boy today, who was working construction on the site near the building we stayed in. I was working on tracing some electrical feeders, and he came and asked me quite humbly if I were an engineer. I said I was, and he told me he had been in the university at PAP studying to be an engineer. He was in his second year of study when the earthquake came. He had been in the building when it collapsed, but had escaped. Now, there is no university for him to go to, and so, he has to come home and work construction to feed himself, and he has to give up his dream of becoming an engineer and bettering his lot in life. It is really kind of terrible to hear stories like this and realize the injustice, and that there is nothing I can do. Here I am, tracing these electrical feeder lines, and maybe it will help somebody a little bit, but so helpless to help this particular young mind. I watch the doctors, nurses, and therapists here who make a difference, and I much wish I were one of them. But, I am not a doctor, I am not a nurse, I am not a therapist – so I will do my job, and I will try to give them the best places I can for them to do their work.
On another note, I have to give credit and thanks to Project HOPE, who sent me here, and to the many other people they send to do so many wonderful things. I had never really known that much about the organization before I came here, but I studied them a bit as the time to depart to Haiti approached, and I was very impressed with the healing that they help to do. But when we, the facilities assessment team, would arrive at a place, we would be asked what kind of doctors we were, and, when we’d say we were architects and engineers, they’d say “Oh” in a disappointed kind of way. When we got here, and went through this, though, they were not disappointed – they told us of a previous Project HOPE volunteer, Doug, who preceded us. Doug is kind of a legend there. Apparently, when he wasn’t walking on water, he installed water filters, fixed things, and was a fun person to be around. Apparently before him, there had been another really good ‘Project HOPE Doug’. They talked so highly of Doug that we started introducing ourselves, like the characters in the Bob Newhart Show, as Doug and Doug and Doug. We were only at HSC for two days, and this was very confusing to a lot of people when we eventually told them our real names, and we probably dishonored the Dougs, but they remain proud reminders, truly, of remarkable work being sponsored by Project HOPE.
The other impression I have of the people here is MASH. I realize that many of the people reading this are my young employees who will not know the TV show/movie/book I am referring to, but MASH was sort of themed on an idea of a group of people under intense continuous pressure to cope with suffering and delivering the healing and comfort they could to those who suffered, and how they coped with that pressure in their down time. This place was very much like that. Again, the dedication of these people to the people they serve has been intensely moving to me, and it was just as moving to sit with some of them after work and drink a beer or two, watch them play dominos, and just have fun.
I am so moved by the need here, the suffering I have seen and that will come in the days and years ahead for so many of these people, and by the efforts of so many remarkable organizations and remarkable people. My hat is off to all of you, and I will do my very very best to add my little bit of help to make things better, and, in so doing, in some way, steal part of the luster more truly earned by all of you.
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