Friday, May 7, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Haiti Day 6
Day 6
My meeting with Partners in Health occured one hour early this time (at 7:00 am!) I got a call in my room while I was still sleeping, but managed to be sitting down with the principal at 7:10. It was very productive though, and he referred me to a number of people that IfUD will be able to work with.
The extra time meant that I had an hour to go for a walk (which I had not been able to do thus far). I walked from my hotel to the market at Petionville. I de-touristed as much as possible and kept my camera in my pocket. Poor Haitians seemingly buy all of their food from micro outlets on the street. I walked through the main street and it was packed. I passed another fully naked woman that again nobody was paying any attention to. I also passed a gas station that had gas and there was a horde of people fighting for it with no semblance of a line. People had not pulled their cars up to the pump but were standing with various jugs and containers to fill up and then bring to their cars.
I then walked up one of the side street markets and it was the densest market I had ever seen and I had trouble getting through. All of the merchants were woman and many gathered right in the middle of an open street with mobile baskets of goods. Cars would occasionally have to pass through and they would all move their goods out of the way and then would quickly rush back to jockey for a good position. In terms of density, picture walking out of MSG after a concert but with people yelling and selling things all over the place. It was totally insane!
There were people selling meat and fish covered with flies out in the hot sun with no ice. At one point, a tak-tak (taxi/bus type truck) had to get through and there was no room for it. The driver was yelling and someone had to get out to push some people out of the way. There was a woman with a big tray of fish and seafood that had spilled onto the street and she was trying to pick it up before the tires ran over it. I started feeling really claustrophobic and had to get out of there.
A fight then broke out between several women a few feet away from me. One was swinging a large empty tin can and another had a small piece of wood. It caused quite a commotion and went on for a while and went down the street in the direction I was walking as one woman was chasing another. One of the women got bashed in the head and was covered with blood. I had a strange sudden thought to compare how different it was to buy food here compared to Pathmark.
The episode also reinforced just how much the people here are struggling. On the way back, I passed a couple of souvenir stands set up on the road into my hotel. I bought several nice crafts to take home. I think it was the first time in my life that I readily paid the inflated tourist price without bargaining. After all I witnessed this past week and particularly on this walk, bargaining just wouldn’t have felt right.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Haiti Days 4 and 5
We left at 7:30 a.m. yesterday (our typical start time) to head to an orphanage in a rural area two hours outside of Port-au-Prince. Again, like India, the trip is half the adventure. We passed through a long industrial wasteland on the outskirts of PaP. Thus far, I have seen many men working on the rubble by hand trying to remove the steel rebar encapsulated in concrete. It was amazing to watch how long someone would spend with a sledgehammer trying to just free a small piece of steel to resell as scrap. We drove through an area that appears to be the destination for some of it. The setting then became more rural and many of the cars fell away, replaced by animals pulling materials and merchandise.
The orphanage is in the middle of nowhere and seemed about 300 meters above sea level and 3-4 km from the ocean so there were amazing vistas of the sea. It was strange to be in a place for those with so little economic means but yet such an amazing setting and reminded me that if Haiti had not suffered from twenty-five years of political corruption, it could have a thriving tourist industry like the DR.
We got out of the car and a young boy of about three came right over to greet me. I picked him up and it appeared that he wasn’t going to let me put him down and I ended up carrying him around for about fifteen minutes—another example of a child starving for any form of affection. In stark contrast to the other orphanages, this one had an open-air feel with buildings that were like pavilions. It also had an old shipping container that was converted into a medical clinic, which served not just the orphanage but also the surrounding rural community.
There were a number of people (primarily women and children) on line to see the doctor. I noticed one woman with her infant child lying across her lap with his head hanging over in a precarious manner. I have seen this several times now even from adults that work at the orphanages.
We then walked to where the children were having class and played with them for a bit. I figured out a new trick of taking photos of them and then showing them the photos and they were captivated.
We then went into one of the bedrooms and saw a beautiful little girl sitting on a little chair with a pretty dress and a blank stair. Dr. Aronson, asked what was wrong with her, but her caretakers didn’t know. She looked about four and they had never heard her talk. Jane went over to her to try to play with her and get a little reaction. Jane has the most amazing ways with kids and can seemingly cheer up anyone, but she could not get any sort of smile or reaction from this girl that just looked scared. I wondered what might be going on in her head and if she might potentially go through her entire life and never smile which saddened me.
We next went into a small physical therapy room. Several people were crammed into the room, all of them sharing a few mats and receiving treatments at the same time. Many of them seemed to have cerebral palsy and some of the grown children were wearing diapers. Some of them were using tennis balls for their therapy. One child that could only make sounds but could not talked grabbed my hand and made a loud noise smiling and I just let him hold onto me for a while. I then grabbed a few tennis balls and started juggling and got some laughs and cheers from a few of them while others just stared as though oblivious.
I walked out of the room and we began walking down to another building. Jane remarked to Rebecca, the special needs pediatrician, that it was very impressive that the children had that quality of therapy and Rebecca agreed how great it was. They felt positive about what they saw. For me, however, the combination of seeing the kids in the PT room and the girl with the blank stare made me feel horrible.
I asked Rebecca, who is an unbelievably kind person, if it is hard for her to see these things. She said yes but that it gets much easier and told me about how she would go home crying everyday when she first started work, but then got used to accepting some people’s realities. This made me feel more positive about the prospect of continuing to do this work.
On the way back, we only had one car because the other car had to leave early to take one of our colleagues to the airport. So eight of us all managed to fit into an SUV for the two-hour ride back to PaP. I sat in the way back with Rebecca in 95-degree heat on bumpy roads with no AC, but it actually was not a bad ride. We got back to the hotel with a few evening hours free which was the first meaningful amount of free time we’ve had the entire trip and I was able to catch up on some work.
Day 5
I had a meeting planned this morning with one of the directors of Partners in Health (PIH). I was referred to them by the Institute for Urban Design and the director has committed to be a speaker at our June symposium. PIH is a model organization that has worked in Haiti for many years and I learned that Jane actually knew the same director so I invited her to accompany me to the meeting despite the fact that we would be focusing on infrastructure rebuilding and urban planning discussions.
Unfortunately, the director showed up to our hotel an hour late, due to an all-too-often occurrence in PaP—traffic. The combination of all of the people that have arrived and that so many roads are closed off or slowed down by debris has made tardiness a regular occurrence. So I had to reschedule the meeting to tomorrow morning.
We then decided to go back to the La Maison orphanage for a second visit. Out of all of the places we visited, Jane decided that La Maison was the best fit to work with WWO, and wanted to visit one more time to assess the kids in a classroom environment.
WWO has instituted a “Granny Program” in orphanages in Bulgaria with great success. They hire impoverished local women whose children are already grown, and then put them through an extensive program of teaching them how to care for the children and the specific needs of orphans. They then hire them to care for the children. It provides much-needed care for the orphans and a much-needed job for the women. Jane decided after her first visit that this program would be the best route of getting started in Haiti. The only problem is that in Haiti, the average life expectancy is forty-nine years and only 4% of the population reaches the age of sixty-five. So instead we will be supplementing the Grannies with "Jeune Grand Meres" and recruiting young women (and perhaps some men) to be “Grannies.”
As we were walking into La Maison, I developed a strange feeling of not wanting to be there. After four days, I had felt like I had seen enough children with problems for this trip. We sat in on class while the kids (six year olds) repeated passages from the bible, repeated a poem, and drew some shapes. They were all beautiful, happy and healthy looking. After “class” was over, I played with them for a while and broke out my camera trick to great success and had a great time.
We then went back to the baby tent. Jane had convinced a company to donate 100 baby carriers that look like the Baby Bjorn. We brought one down to give them a demonstration (the staff had never seen anything like it) so that we can send them more. The babies were once again all sitting on the concrete floor but it didn’t bother me this time. I guess because they seemed ok and were just sleeping and hanging out and a few seemed to be having fun (see below).
Upon leaving Jane mentioned that she felt positive about her decision to work with La Maison, and I felt great to have my final orphanage visit a happy one with no sad moments.
I dropped off my colleagues, switched non-profit hats and then went to meet with the director of The Inter-University Institute for Research and Development (INURED) a group that has some similarities to the IfUD but more broad. We are trying to recruit them to participate in the symposium we are holding in partnership with the UN at Cooper Union in June. I also wanted to get more educated on the rebuilding effort.
In short, the rebuilding of Haiti cannot consist of just replacing buildings, roads and some infrastructure. The country has been in a downward spiral for a long time and the rebuilding poses a great opportunity to transform Haiti into an economically sustainable economy. Prior to the earthquake, 80% of the population lived in abject poverty, malnourishment was widespread, only 2% of people graduated from high school, and the country was rapidly running out of trees. These items have all gotten worse obviously as the result of the earthquake. (Nearly all the schools in Haiti are still closed...)
Because the government here is corrupt, the work of taking care of people and planning for the future falls primarily on NGOs. There are hundreds of them that are doing good work and trying to make Haiti a better place but there is little coordination. But given that so much money has flowed into the country to both the government and NGOs, all eyes are on Haiti to make sure that it’s put to good use.
I met today with a man that started http://www.haitiaidwatchdog.org/ to monitor all aid. My general feeling from INURED was that Haiti is welcoming input from the U.S. for smart urban planning and I think that IfUD can have a meaningful impact here.
On the way home from my last meeting, I noticed a woman in the street that was completely naked. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to her and my driver didn’t seem to think anything of it. While it seemed so strange to me I guess it’s not a strange thing to see in these extreme conditions. After being here for five days I guess it wasn’t all that shocking to me either.
I really didn’t know what to expect from this trip. Many of the things I did and saw I’m just beginning to process days later. I can’t say the trip was particularly fun but it was incredibly enlightening. I think there is something positive that comes from going through the uncomfortable process of witnessing human suffering. Seneca said “Practice what you fear, whether a simulation in your mind or in real-life.” (This is actually the basis of stoicism.)
I also feel very positive about my associations with WWO and IfUD. Jane works tirelessly. I’ve never met anyone so dedicated to their cause. She is also incredibly smart. And witnessing these philanthropic efforts make thoughtful, concrete changes make me feel great as well
I’m very happy to be going back to NY tomorrow.
The orphanage is in the middle of nowhere and seemed about 300 meters above sea level and 3-4 km from the ocean so there were amazing vistas of the sea. It was strange to be in a place for those with so little economic means but yet such an amazing setting and reminded me that if Haiti had not suffered from twenty-five years of political corruption, it could have a thriving tourist industry like the DR.
We got out of the car and a young boy of about three came right over to greet me. I picked him up and it appeared that he wasn’t going to let me put him down and I ended up carrying him around for about fifteen minutes—another example of a child starving for any form of affection. In stark contrast to the other orphanages, this one had an open-air feel with buildings that were like pavilions. It also had an old shipping container that was converted into a medical clinic, which served not just the orphanage but also the surrounding rural community.
There were a number of people (primarily women and children) on line to see the doctor. I noticed one woman with her infant child lying across her lap with his head hanging over in a precarious manner. I have seen this several times now even from adults that work at the orphanages.
We then walked to where the children were having class and played with them for a bit. I figured out a new trick of taking photos of them and then showing them the photos and they were captivated.
We then went into one of the bedrooms and saw a beautiful little girl sitting on a little chair with a pretty dress and a blank stair. Dr. Aronson, asked what was wrong with her, but her caretakers didn’t know. She looked about four and they had never heard her talk. Jane went over to her to try to play with her and get a little reaction. Jane has the most amazing ways with kids and can seemingly cheer up anyone, but she could not get any sort of smile or reaction from this girl that just looked scared. I wondered what might be going on in her head and if she might potentially go through her entire life and never smile which saddened me.
We next went into a small physical therapy room. Several people were crammed into the room, all of them sharing a few mats and receiving treatments at the same time. Many of them seemed to have cerebral palsy and some of the grown children were wearing diapers. Some of them were using tennis balls for their therapy. One child that could only make sounds but could not talked grabbed my hand and made a loud noise smiling and I just let him hold onto me for a while. I then grabbed a few tennis balls and started juggling and got some laughs and cheers from a few of them while others just stared as though oblivious.
I walked out of the room and we began walking down to another building. Jane remarked to Rebecca, the special needs pediatrician, that it was very impressive that the children had that quality of therapy and Rebecca agreed how great it was. They felt positive about what they saw. For me, however, the combination of seeing the kids in the PT room and the girl with the blank stare made me feel horrible.
I asked Rebecca, who is an unbelievably kind person, if it is hard for her to see these things. She said yes but that it gets much easier and told me about how she would go home crying everyday when she first started work, but then got used to accepting some people’s realities. This made me feel more positive about the prospect of continuing to do this work.
On the way back, we only had one car because the other car had to leave early to take one of our colleagues to the airport. So eight of us all managed to fit into an SUV for the two-hour ride back to PaP. I sat in the way back with Rebecca in 95-degree heat on bumpy roads with no AC, but it actually was not a bad ride. We got back to the hotel with a few evening hours free which was the first meaningful amount of free time we’ve had the entire trip and I was able to catch up on some work.
Day 5
I had a meeting planned this morning with one of the directors of Partners in Health (PIH). I was referred to them by the Institute for Urban Design and the director has committed to be a speaker at our June symposium. PIH is a model organization that has worked in Haiti for many years and I learned that Jane actually knew the same director so I invited her to accompany me to the meeting despite the fact that we would be focusing on infrastructure rebuilding and urban planning discussions.
Unfortunately, the director showed up to our hotel an hour late, due to an all-too-often occurrence in PaP—traffic. The combination of all of the people that have arrived and that so many roads are closed off or slowed down by debris has made tardiness a regular occurrence. So I had to reschedule the meeting to tomorrow morning.
We then decided to go back to the La Maison orphanage for a second visit. Out of all of the places we visited, Jane decided that La Maison was the best fit to work with WWO, and wanted to visit one more time to assess the kids in a classroom environment.
WWO has instituted a “Granny Program” in orphanages in Bulgaria with great success. They hire impoverished local women whose children are already grown, and then put them through an extensive program of teaching them how to care for the children and the specific needs of orphans. They then hire them to care for the children. It provides much-needed care for the orphans and a much-needed job for the women. Jane decided after her first visit that this program would be the best route of getting started in Haiti. The only problem is that in Haiti, the average life expectancy is forty-nine years and only 4% of the population reaches the age of sixty-five. So instead we will be supplementing the Grannies with "Jeune Grand Meres" and recruiting young women (and perhaps some men) to be “Grannies.”
As we were walking into La Maison, I developed a strange feeling of not wanting to be there. After four days, I had felt like I had seen enough children with problems for this trip. We sat in on class while the kids (six year olds) repeated passages from the bible, repeated a poem, and drew some shapes. They were all beautiful, happy and healthy looking. After “class” was over, I played with them for a while and broke out my camera trick to great success and had a great time.
We then went back to the baby tent. Jane had convinced a company to donate 100 baby carriers that look like the Baby Bjorn. We brought one down to give them a demonstration (the staff had never seen anything like it) so that we can send them more. The babies were once again all sitting on the concrete floor but it didn’t bother me this time. I guess because they seemed ok and were just sleeping and hanging out and a few seemed to be having fun (see below).
Upon leaving Jane mentioned that she felt positive about her decision to work with La Maison, and I felt great to have my final orphanage visit a happy one with no sad moments.
I dropped off my colleagues, switched non-profit hats and then went to meet with the director of The Inter-University Institute for Research and Development (INURED) a group that has some similarities to the IfUD but more broad. We are trying to recruit them to participate in the symposium we are holding in partnership with the UN at Cooper Union in June. I also wanted to get more educated on the rebuilding effort.
In short, the rebuilding of Haiti cannot consist of just replacing buildings, roads and some infrastructure. The country has been in a downward spiral for a long time and the rebuilding poses a great opportunity to transform Haiti into an economically sustainable economy. Prior to the earthquake, 80% of the population lived in abject poverty, malnourishment was widespread, only 2% of people graduated from high school, and the country was rapidly running out of trees. These items have all gotten worse obviously as the result of the earthquake. (Nearly all the schools in Haiti are still closed...)
Because the government here is corrupt, the work of taking care of people and planning for the future falls primarily on NGOs. There are hundreds of them that are doing good work and trying to make Haiti a better place but there is little coordination. But given that so much money has flowed into the country to both the government and NGOs, all eyes are on Haiti to make sure that it’s put to good use.
I met today with a man that started http://www.haitiaidwatchdog.org/ to monitor all aid. My general feeling from INURED was that Haiti is welcoming input from the U.S. for smart urban planning and I think that IfUD can have a meaningful impact here.
On the way home from my last meeting, I noticed a woman in the street that was completely naked. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to her and my driver didn’t seem to think anything of it. While it seemed so strange to me I guess it’s not a strange thing to see in these extreme conditions. After being here for five days I guess it wasn’t all that shocking to me either.
I really didn’t know what to expect from this trip. Many of the things I did and saw I’m just beginning to process days later. I can’t say the trip was particularly fun but it was incredibly enlightening. I think there is something positive that comes from going through the uncomfortable process of witnessing human suffering. Seneca said “Practice what you fear, whether a simulation in your mind or in real-life.” (This is actually the basis of stoicism.)
I also feel very positive about my associations with WWO and IfUD. Jane works tirelessly. I’ve never met anyone so dedicated to their cause. She is also incredibly smart. And witnessing these philanthropic efforts make thoughtful, concrete changes make me feel great as well
I’m very happy to be going back to NY tomorrow.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Haiti Days 1 - 3
It’s coincidental that two non-profits of which I serve on the board are interested in working in Haiti, so I’m here doing a little of work for both of them. My primary focus is working with Worldwide Orphans Foundation http://www.wwo.org/ and I’m also representing the Institute for Urban Design http://www.ifud.org/. WWO is interested in forming partnerships to care for orphans in Haiti and IfUD is working to ensure that the rebuilding of Haiti is done in a smart and sustainable way.
I’m traveling with WWO’s founder, Dr. Jane Aronson, an amazing woman with whom I would accept an invitation to spend a week traveling just about anywhere, as well as four others. I am the lone rep for IfUD.
On our first day, we visited the Love A Child Medical Clinic, which is funded primarily by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. We were given a tour by two American volunteer doctors. The clinic was clean, organized and seemed incredibly well run. They claimed it was the best run emergency clinic in Haiti and we all believed them. The tents were all new and high quality, they seemed to have ample medical supplies and equipment and the children were playing with a variety of new toys.
The clinic was set up to treat those injured from the earthquake and a significant number of them had missing or injured limbs. This was not an orphan clinic specifically, but had a high proportion of orphans given the number of children whose parents were killed by the earthquake.
It felt positive to see that people had committed money to the clinic, and while it was sad to see the amputees, it was also great to know that they had access to effective medical care. But I experienced a particularly sad moment when I saw a young child who looked about eight. He was delivered to the clinic without a family, and nobody knew who he was or what happened to him. He had sustained a leg injury, but could walk with crutches, hunched over with a vacant look in his eyes. He was physically alive but looked mentally and emotionally void of life. The doctor said that the child was his favorite patient. (Maybe he was the patient this doctor cared about the most?) I’ve visited other third world countries and have witnessed extreme poverty and people with severe disabilities but I think he was perhaps the saddest looking child I had ever seen. I will remember him.
We then went to visit two affiliated orphanages that Jane had visited on her first trip to Haiti. On Jane’s last visit, she noticed that the kids were playing soccer with a ball made out of rags held together with tape and rubber bands. She promised them that she would come back and bring them some new soccer balls. So before leaving I bought ten soccer balls.
We arrived at the first orphanage and I pulled out two soccer balls and gave them to the kids, who were thrilled. Jane found a boy with stitches in his head on her last visit that had not been taken out and had caused a severe infection. She took them out for him and was now happy to see that his head had healed.
We played for a little bit with the boys and then walked inside. I was taken aback by the unsanitary conditions. Additionally, the whole operation dealing with forty children seemed to be run by one guy (from Brooklyn). There were other Haitians sitting with the children and helping out, but I had the impression that they didn’t have any actual clinical experience. We walked into the “baby room” and was shocked to see more than a dozen babies sharing a small room. Some were crying but most were just hanging out with that vacant look I kept seeing. I wondered if few of them were crying more because crying probably didn’t do much for them if there was nobody there to pick them up. It was the Ferber technique at its extreme.
I’m traveling with WWO’s founder, Dr. Jane Aronson, an amazing woman with whom I would accept an invitation to spend a week traveling just about anywhere, as well as four others. I am the lone rep for IfUD.
On our first day, we visited the Love A Child Medical Clinic, which is funded primarily by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. We were given a tour by two American volunteer doctors. The clinic was clean, organized and seemed incredibly well run. They claimed it was the best run emergency clinic in Haiti and we all believed them. The tents were all new and high quality, they seemed to have ample medical supplies and equipment and the children were playing with a variety of new toys.
The clinic was set up to treat those injured from the earthquake and a significant number of them had missing or injured limbs. This was not an orphan clinic specifically, but had a high proportion of orphans given the number of children whose parents were killed by the earthquake.
It felt positive to see that people had committed money to the clinic, and while it was sad to see the amputees, it was also great to know that they had access to effective medical care. But I experienced a particularly sad moment when I saw a young child who looked about eight. He was delivered to the clinic without a family, and nobody knew who he was or what happened to him. He had sustained a leg injury, but could walk with crutches, hunched over with a vacant look in his eyes. He was physically alive but looked mentally and emotionally void of life. The doctor said that the child was his favorite patient. (Maybe he was the patient this doctor cared about the most?) I’ve visited other third world countries and have witnessed extreme poverty and people with severe disabilities but I think he was perhaps the saddest looking child I had ever seen. I will remember him.
We then went to visit two affiliated orphanages that Jane had visited on her first trip to Haiti. On Jane’s last visit, she noticed that the kids were playing soccer with a ball made out of rags held together with tape and rubber bands. She promised them that she would come back and bring them some new soccer balls. So before leaving I bought ten soccer balls.
We arrived at the first orphanage and I pulled out two soccer balls and gave them to the kids, who were thrilled. Jane found a boy with stitches in his head on her last visit that had not been taken out and had caused a severe infection. She took them out for him and was now happy to see that his head had healed.
We played for a little bit with the boys and then walked inside. I was taken aback by the unsanitary conditions. Additionally, the whole operation dealing with forty children seemed to be run by one guy (from Brooklyn). There were other Haitians sitting with the children and helping out, but I had the impression that they didn’t have any actual clinical experience. We walked into the “baby room” and was shocked to see more than a dozen babies sharing a small room. Some were crying but most were just hanging out with that vacant look I kept seeing. I wondered if few of them were crying more because crying probably didn’t do much for them if there was nobody there to pick them up. It was the Ferber technique at its extreme.
I spoke with a seventeen-year-old who told me that all of the children there were learning English, French and Creole. I was impressed by how together he seemed, and he kept telling me how lucky he was to be alive, and how it was God’s will and how wonderful God is. This orphanage, like most in Haiti, is run by a Christian organization. He had two years of school left, and I asked him what he would do after that. "God’s work," he replied.We took a ride to the second orphanage and were again a big hit with the soccer balls. I busted out three of them and the kids went crazy. They set up a couple of goals in the concrete yard and started playing a game. I jumped in and had a great time. They were happy to pass to me, despite my being the weak link on the "field."
Day 3
We woke up and drove to downtown Port-au-Prince. There are no places without collapsed buildings. PaP reminds me a lot of India. There are thriving vibrant markets everywhere and all manner of things are sold not in stores but right on the street. There is nothing here that feels either Caribbean or Latin. Despite its geographic location I feel much more like I’m in India or Africa. And similarly there are a lot of things missing. Land lines don’t work right now. Cell and internet service comes and goes. There is only electricity provided for part of the day and right now there is no gasoline. It ran out yesterday and supposedly a new shipment will be arrivingin three days. Luckily our drivers were well prepared with full tanks.
Before coming, I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of the effects of the earthquake. I still had images stuck in my head of dead bodies and open wounds. The city has been cleaned up to an extent and recovery mode is much different than emergency mode and there are two obvious effects—there are tent communities and rubble everywhere—and it is the same in downtown as it is in all of the surrounding areas.
I expected the damage to me more limited to the shoddy buildings but there is damage everywhere in buildings made of concrete and rebar. They were seemingly well constructed but I wonder if the massive damage (particularly relative to Chile) is not because they were made of shoddy materials but simply because they weren’t properly engineered. There don’t seem to be many rules here, so I doubt there is much in the way of building codes.
We stopped at the Presidential Palace—probably the grandest building in Haiti—which was severely damaged on an equally grand level and will unfortunately need to be demolished. We took some pictures and some kids from a nearby tent city came up to talk to us. We are lucky to have two among us that speak French. They asked the kids a bunch of questions to ascertain where they lived, whether they had parents and whether they went to school. They lived in the nearby tents. Some had parents and some did not and none of them went to school.
I thought it would be nice to give them a soccer ball, since they seemed to have nothing to play with and nothing to do. Jane nodded that it was a good idea. I grabbed one from the car and you would have thought I was holding a bag full of money. They were jumping up trying to grab it and I tossed it out to the group of them and a melee ensued. This was not what I had expected. I failed to realize that the kids in the orphanage shared everything where the kids on the street are individualistic. Watching the kids fight over who would get the ball, made me feel terrible. The kids then went away following the lucky one that managed to steal possession of the ball.
A few minutes later, a bunch of them came back looking for more balls or anything else we might give them. A few adults began approaching us as well so we had to jump in the car and head out.
We then went to La Maison des Enfants de Dieu orphanage. The place seemed better run, more organized and most of all more sanitary. All of the children currently sleep outside in tents. The building wasn’t meaningfully damaged by the earthquake, but the kids are completely terrified to be inside. But they are starting to occasionally make their way back in, and the director feels that within a few months they will move back inside.
We went into the baby tent, greeted once again by a dozen babies sitting on a smooth concrete floor. It was hard but clean. I sat down in the middle of them and they were pretty open to playing and letting me pick them up and most were not crying. We saw one that Dr. Jane diagnosed as having clubfeet. Apparently this is not uncommon and treatable with some sort of casting regimen. The director said that the boy (Ben) had casts when he arrived, but the doctors took them off for some reason. When we left I had to be careful not to step on any of them because they were all over the floor, making a baby obstacle course.
One thing I noticed about all of the orphanages is that you would often see infants unattended. There are simply too many of them and not enough adults to watch them. So a couple of times I was walking somewhere and would find a two-year-old all by himself, making his way in the world.
My employee, Sara, had given me tzedaka box, which belonged to Marin, her five-year-old daughter, who had wanted me to give to the orphans. I gave it to the director and asked specifically that the money be used for Ben to get him back to the doctor to get his feet fixed (feet photo below).
We left and went to our hotel to clean up and then to dinner. A friend of one of my fellow volunteers brought us to a lovely French restaurant, which seemed surreal after experiencing so much poverty. It was hard to believe that this restaurant even existed amid such misery. The proprietor rang off the specials and the first one was a prime rib imported from Madagascar. It sounded delicious but I decided I preferred to eat something that was local. Then I realized that all of their food was imported.
It was yet another paradox of this country. I had experienced two long two days that were both physically and emotionally exhausting, and I’m all for culinary therapy. But having a decadent meal in such a poor place just didn't feel quite right.
That’s all for now. More to come tomorrow!
Bonswa (thanks for the Creole lesson, Caroline),
Matt
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
