Good afternoon everyone! I hope you all enjoyed my photos in
the last blog. In this blog I am going to be pretty blunt, and honest about the
past few weeks I have had here in Haiti. These few weeks have hit me pretty
hard, but have been a wonderful blessing as well.
When we arrived
back from the beach we knew we were going to have a lot of work to do. We had a
medical group that had arrived from John Hopkins medical school in Baltimore.
Most of the time when medical groups, school groups, etc. come we offer to
translate for them. I for one am not big on translating, because it’s pretty
difficult to be honest. My creole is pretty decent, but not in translating
medical terms. I offered to translate the day they came to Lekol Jezi Mari
because they would be seeing our kids, but I didn’t think they would need me
after that. Along with the medical group coming we had to finish handing out
Tom Shoes for our children, and oh boy let me tell you that was a real treat in
itself. Now you may be thinking to yourself how hard can it be to translate
some medical terms, and hand out some shoes? I mean seriously you would think
it would be a walk in the park, but nope not in Haiti.
Well I am going
to first start with the wonderful, amazing Tom Shoes. A few months ago we knew
we would be receiving a few thousand pairs of shoes to hand out to local
schools around the area. I took in to my hands to measure every child’s foot to
make sure they would get the proper size. Well I thought that for sure this
would workout, but boy was I wrong. When we got the shipment of shoes, they
didn’t even send us all the sizes they had put on the chart. I couldn’t believe
it, but that was one small minor problem that we could make work. We sorted all
the shoes by schools, and made sure that each school would get some boxes. After
that long process we finally took our shoes to school. We had to wait two weeks
to hand out the shoes though because the organization, Food for the Poor,
wanted to hand them out to the kids. This organization worked with Tom shoes to
get them here. Before they came Katie, and I sorted all the shoes by classes,
and let me tell you it was one hell of a task. We have over five hundred kids
at our school, so sorting out that many pairs of Toms got old pretty fast.
Finally the day had come though were the Food for the Poor people came to hand
the shoes out to the children. They picked out three classes they wanted to
hand them out too, and well this is were things got ugly. They first started to
hand out the shoes to the preschoolers. They lined them all up and had them sit
down in a line in front of their classroom. We gave them a paper with all the
children’s names and next to it was their size. Now, you would think they would
follow that paper, but they decided to do it their own way. They just started
giving each kid a random size, and my jaw dropped. Katie and I had put in so
much work to have all those shoes organized, and they were just messing it up
within seconds. They then turned to us, and said none of the shoes were fitting
properly, and I wanted to say pretty nasty things, but I didn’t. I explained to
them calmly that they need to give the sizes we marked done on the paper to the
right kid, and that they didn’t send us the proper sizes. Of course they didn’t
want to hear this, but hey we were just being honest. Well as they keep handing
out the shoes the sizes we measured were off by a lot. I couldn’t believe
everything just kept going wrong. Katie, and I both looked at each other
because we knew there was no way we measured every child’s foot wrong. There was no way! So we
took one of the shoes and measured it to the paper, and we immediately found
out the problem. They sent us the wrong sizing chart, and every shoe size was
off by three sizes. We couldn’t believe it, every child was going to get the
wrong size. We couldn’t change it though, we had to make it work with what we
had, and we did. We switched around sizes for most of the kids. Some of the
shoes were two sizes too big, but the children took them. It really wasn’t a
fun situation at all, as we had pictured it. We made the best of it though, and
it really showed us a different side of Toms shoes. It took us over two weeks
to hand all the shoes out, and I was supposed to be working on them when the
visiting doctors came, but that changed for a week.
As I said
earlier we had a group of young medical residents from John Hopkins medical
school here in Haiti. They were mostly all pediatrics, but there were some
specialists. They would be traveling to different schools/churches during the
week to see children. The first stop was Lekol Jezi Mari (The school I work
at). Now, I wasn’t even supposed to
translate this day, I was only supposed to help guide the children, and be the
parents for some kids. Well that didn’t work out. We had over 200 kids show up,
so they needed all the help they could get. I had to translate for one doctor.
His name was David, and he was one of the doctors who was not a pediatrician.
He was actually a naturel disaster emergency relief doctor. He was so interesting, and he explained
everything to me as we were checking the children. The day was pretty difficult
for me because it was our kids. It was hard to see some of our children come in
with huge open sores, or infections that got out of hand, and the list could go
on. This honestly broke my heart because I know deep down inside the parents
care they just can’t afford to take them to the hospital. To give you more of
insight into how the day ran I will explain step by step what the process is of
a mobile clinic. We had a check in were people had to sign in, pay 50 gds, and
get a number. Their number would then be called, and they would go to a check
in. After they got to that check in, we had someone standing their sending them
to one of the doctors. Then when seeing the doctor we would ask them specific
questions. Typically the questions we ask are: What is your name? , How are
you?, Why did you bring your child to see the doctor?, What do they have wrong
with them?, and How long have they been sick? These are the typical run down of
questions, and then we hope we get concrete answers from the parents. Now, what
I mean by this is that most parents don’t know how long their child has been
sick, and don’t always know what is truly wrong with them. It can become
difficult to be honest. As I said though this day we started out with our
school, and it killed me. The kids I work with day in day out were coming with
sickness that I had no idea they had. It broke my heart. One that sticks out to
me to this day is a little boy in first grade. His father brought all his kids
in, and he said his one son was covered in sores, so the doctor asked to see
them. The little boy pulled down his pants, and his thighs were covered in
them. He had them everywhere, and they were so infected. I couldn’t believe it,
I honestly wanted to throw up a little, but I didn’t. I had to hold my
expressions back, because I know the children, and the parents. This was just
one case though.
Then the one little boy I hold near, and dear
to my heart came up. I was terrified at first because I thought that something
seriously could be wrong with him. The doctor did the check up, and he looked
great, except for one thing. His right testicle had not dropped yet, and it
should be by now. Now, this is pretty common in places where malnutrition is
serve because this is why their testicles do not drop. The doctor decided to
send him to the hospital because he could have surgery done. The little guy was
terrified, but I told him it was vitally important for his health. I sent him
off with his mom, and to the hospital they went. After that experience with my favorite
child, I was honestly ready for the day to be over, and thank the lord it was.
It was such a long mentally exhausting day. It really hit me hard today to see
some of things that the children are suffering from. On the other hand though I
was proud of the parents for taking the time to bring their children to make
sure they got the proper medical treatment. I guess you could say it was a “Bittersweet
moment” for me.
I didn’t mind
translating one day for them, but I honestly didn’t want to translate anymore.
I wasn’t ready to see more children who were severely sick, but I knew I had to
suck it up. They asked me to help for the rest of the week along with Katie, and
Frankie. We traveled to a new spot each day for the rest of the week. Our next
stop was up in the mountains to a very tiny school. When we arrived there were
maybe 25 people waiting outside, and we thought for sure we would have a fast
day. We went in, and got set up, and started to see the patients. We again saw
pretty common things, such as colds, fevers, upset stomach, and etc. We flew
through these patients so fast, and had no one else to see. We waited for a
good 40 minutes, and decided to call it a day. We packed up, and headed back
home. The next two days were pretty similar, and then we got to Friday. Now, you would think Friday would be the best
day ever right? Ha, well that doesn’t exist in Haiti. We headed
to a small town across the river, known as Compeche. It’s a pretty poor area,
but has a lot of people. When we arrived there were a ton of people waiting to
be seen. We went in, and got set up. As we were waiting to start Sister Doctor
Karen pointed out a very sick little girl waiting to be seen. She had been
laying on a piece of matting underneath a tree. You could tell from far away
she was pretty sick, but not to the extent that she truly was. Katie, and I had
no idea what was wrong with her, but we wanted to know. We asked Sister Doctor
Karen, and she explained to us what it was. The little girl has “Kwashiorkor.” Kwashiorkor is when a child has serve malnutrition.
Now, it’s not always the case that the parents aren’t feeding the child enough,
it can also be related to the fact that the child’s body is not breaking down
proteins properly. They get huge bellies, their hair turns orange, and they can
lose their skin, which results into open sores. It’s a horrible disease, and once
it’s to fair gone you can do nothing for them. We asked
Sister Doctor Karen if she thought the little girl was going to make it, and
she said no. We couldn’t believe it. It honestly was just another slap in the
face. It was horrible to think that this innocent little child has no future.
After the doctors got done examining her they sent her to a hospital a few
hours away to get some type of treatment. Virtually the treatment is just to
make her feel comfortable, and she could be there months before she dies, but
her end result is dying. A shock
to the heart right? This hit me hard because you feel so
helpless. You ask yourself why over, and over again. You question why are you
here? Why can’t you cure the world of disease, and hunger? I wish I had answers
to these questions, but I never will.
After seeing
that little girl I was pretty unfocused, and I just wanted the day to be done.
It only got better though. We had babies come in with TB, a child with a bone
infection, and so much more. This area had the most serve sickness we saw all
week. It was beyond heart breaking, but honestly it’s what I call the harsh
reality of life.
Living in Haiti has taught me the
harsh reality of life over, and over again. You see things that you would never
see in the states, and experience things that will be imprinted in my mind
forever. Dealing with the Tom’s shoes taught me that even though a company is
trying to do good doesn’t always mean it works out that way. It showed me how a
company can make mistakes working with other companies to achieve one common
goal. It’s sad, but unfortunately I think it will never change. As for working with
the medical group it showed me a whole need world. I learned so much about
different diseases, and saw the true struggle of parents trying to take care of
their children. As I said earlier it was a bittersweet moment.
Life isn’t always sweet, and
things aren’t always fair. You have to keep your head up, and push on through
no matter what.
I hope you enjoy the blog. My
next one will be out soon.
Love always,
Beth
