A harsh reality of life.

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