Haiti: Notes from the Field, February, 2010

Arrival, February 3, 2010

Immediately upon arrival we see the tent camps surrounding the airport. The camps are everywhere. People are bathing in the streets and cooking food, while children run around. Where are people going to the bathroom? What about the sick people? How are they possibly sleeping? Driving by at night...seeing candles lit around the camps...we wonder, what about the children? Are they safe?

People say: "Haiti was so desperate before, and so many lived in misery...we don't want to go back to that...we need to take this as a tragic opportunity to make profound change..." That feels like a far off hope, but one to which people must cling at this time....or what is the point???? The silver lining, they say, as there faces belie the deep sadness everyone is experiencing...everyone has cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, dead, injured, missing ...in some combination...

At the Universite Quisqueya we did treatments for the medical students and they were so enthusiastic and asked us to come train them so they can use this protocol themselves in Haiti...they go to the displaced camps several times a week and also provide medical services to the community under their makeshift tents on the destroyed campus, and they want to integrate  acupuncture into their services. The banner out in front of their campus shows beautiful buildings, green grass...the school had just recently opened...what we saw post earthquake was many huge buildings crumbled to dust, and the students are now set up in outdoor tents with tables where they continue their school work...

People's eyes light up when we say we want to come back and train local people how to do what we do...it is striking...something about the empowerment and commitment that comes with training seems to be the right thing in this situation.

We drive by the supermarket that buried hundreds...the smell is unmistakable and unlike any other...dead bodies buried, death, death...the dust, the smells, people everywhere...some carrying food and water, sitting in front of their tents, UN trucks, Medecins Sans Frontieres, European Red Cross and Red Crescent Society jeeps. Piles of garbage on the streets, with dogs amongst them searching for food. Lively colors on the crowded Haitian tap-tap trucks, the main method of local transportation. And the warmth of the people.

Erick says his cousin had just walked outside the supermarket going to her car and was hit by a rock falling from above and she died. Someone nearby lived to tell the story. Erick's nephew was visiting from the States. He had just walked out of a building 7 1/2  minutes prior to the earthquake. When the earthquake hit, the building collapsed, and everyone inside died. He pulled his best friend out of the rubble. Now he walks around in a state of shock much of the time, trying to help out as he can. He was supposed to be in Haiti for 10 days, and has stayed instead.

We have much to offer here that is needed. Many drops in a bucket makes a lot of drops and it all adds up, as someone said to me recently.

After a Couple of Days

We treated at the General Hospital. Doing acupuncture for people who have never had it before was a non issue...people immediately took to it, crowds gathered, visitors of families in the hospital all wanted treatment. A woman said before the treatment her head had been spinning and she couldn't focus, and after the treatment she felt calm. After needles were put into one man's ears, tears slowly started to form around his eyes, possibly the first time he had cried since the earthquake.

U.S. doctors came into the tent, very curious...they said this had been the "sad tent" but all of a sudden people were smiling and even laughing. We treated 100 people that day, including nurses and staff of the hospital. They want us back. People asked if we could come back the next day. The hospital staff wants us to come and train them so they can carry on the work we began with their patients. We will do that.

Port-Au-Prince does live on in the midst of great tragedy and grief...people are back on the streets, selling onions and eggplants. Bright red tomatoes and oranges line baskets...charcoal sellers scrape their charcoal...helicopters fly above with packages of food drops.

Everyone has their stories...where they were at the time of the earthquake, what it felt like...a bomb going off...the end of the world...

Diesel fumes fill the air along with concrete dust from the beginning of cleanup operations and smoke from the small fires people burn for cooking and disposing of trash...water is available as is food...to those who can afford it...food prices are high, so many must survive on food aid for now.

Graffiti on wall in Port-Au-Prince

We visit a friend of Jehan, one of our hosts. We will call the friend Marie. Marie tells me about how the woman who works for her brought her a baby recently. The baby's mother had died in the earthquake, and a relative had taken it in, but didn't know how to care for it. They didn't have any money, and she gave the baby water with sugar and salt. The baby got sick. When the baby was brought to Marie, she immediately started feeding it infant formula (purchased at $20/container...no wonder people can't afford it!). But it was too late. A few days later, the baby died.

The feeling of shock, deep sadness and even depression is palpable. Everyone has lost loved ones, often many, many loved ones. How can any human manage loss of such magnitude?

After the Trip

Like many others visiting Haiti, I held back my tears while I was there. Then, at 12 am, driving home from the airport, I turned on some music in my car and started sobbing. The reporter who had been with us, Mia McCormick, told me the same thing happened to her.

I am back in New Mexico, looking at the pristine snow outside. It is hard to make sense of it all...is this world I live in the same one as the place where perhaps more than a quarter of a million people have just died in an earthquake ? My heart feels like putty tonight, flattened. I am thinking of one of our hosts, walking around in shock. Someone said his whole career is gone before his eyes...he had an architectural and engineering firm with many employees, all crumbled. His top employees were working late the night of the earthquake, and now they are dead, because the building where his firm was located collapsed. So much is gone, including precious Haitian intellectual and business resources. I am thinking of all of the people of Haiti, with so many losses my mind cannot even begin to comprehend them all...and my heart cries silent tears while I continue to walk through my days.