exodus

I resigned from my position in Haiti, and returned to DC. I plan on spending the next week literally on the couch, recovering from what has happened to me, then I will make plans for what I will do, - about that, I am not particularly worried. Maybe I will work for Obama, if he will take me.

I absolutely can not publicly write about the events that led me to leave abruptly in the middle of the night, but know that I am ok. The essence of the story is that I will not negotiate with terrorists who live in a tribal mentality of fear, violence, and so on. But the story is much more complex than that. I will tell you - my friends, individually, about what has gone on, but I can not be eloquent when I am still so shaken up.

Now more than ever, I have a solidarity with the Haitian people, who live with violence breathing down their necks, appearing in their bedrooms, positioning itself through the government. And this last experience, has changed my life.

One of the last things I saw, before I left, was a tiny girl, just learning to walk, a patient- dancing for the waiting patients with an elderly man who was unable to really walk. Both he and the little girl were laughing. I will never forget that moment.

Please watch this video of Maria Shriver. I certainly know who my brothers are, and I might need them the most, now.

clothes

If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.








Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. - Thoreau

and on the third day

Tomorrow will be my third full day on the job.

Paulo Freire’s Method of Conscientization is about developing critical awareness of groups of people in poor communities, and it has been used by community literacy programs, health workers, and educators through out Latin America, India, and Africa. One principle in the Method of Conscientization is that group leaders must not ask questions with built-in answers, and must be prepared for totally unexpected answers and ideas to questions.

If my question as a group leader is “how to we provide care and compassion (a suffering with) with cleanliness, the answers I witness and receive minute by minute from the nurses, doctors, and staff at Vizitasyon continue to surprise me. Somethings are a bit confusing, I will admit, - - like when the grounds keeper seems to have many complaints about the parts of his job which involve, well, grounds keeping. He would prefer to fill protein bags, and hand off his broom. But then there are the nurses who bathed and shaved an incredibly destitute man - - gravely destitute - - who some of us picked up on the way back from the village. His testicles were literally the size of watermelons, and he has probably not washed in many, many months. The doctors determined that his heart is good for surgery. Treating Camile with dignity was an unexpected answer in this place, in this mountainous island in the sea, full of beauty, and death. And then there was Joselle. She is my age. She was our last patient to leave last night. I had a moment to ask about her. She had a spontaneous miscarriage at home. The nurses told me of her sadness. I saw her father walk her out, through the front door, holding her IV. I knew that my father would do the same exact thing for me.

If you were to ask me what the average day as administrator is like, thus far, I suppose I would hand you a list including: awake at 4 am to those who have traveled through the night for the 8 am opening of the klinik; plan community child deworming mobile unit in order to spend allocated money; run the generator so to fill the cistern with water; do the pay roll; hold sick babies in front of proud mothers; struggle with kreyol; tell local priest that he does not in fact run Vizitasyon- with delicacy; hunt down some Baygone for ants in office; discuss the Gift of Water project with Karen; drink finely prepared granadia juice; ask, ‘well what are they doing in Cange about X, Y, or Z?' Watch the sunset; take a bucket shower; think about the people who were sent home with medicines that require taking with food, knowing they have no food, - and day dream about our nutrition and food program available through our (God-willing) imminent PEPFAR grant and subsequent grants. - And last but not least - - let “the grounds keeper” know that he may not in fact hand his broom to children because “timoune pa travey ici! Ou comprand!?”

Below are a few photos. A photo from the back of where I live and work. A photo of the first building. The medical director Dr. JF (as I call him), and my boss Theresa, from the States who introduced me here, and held meetings, etc. And a photo of the quiet once the day is through.

“We already experience resurrection here and now, in the midst of life, when we rise up against death in life, now, against the oppressions and the hurts to which life here is subjected. In love, resurrection is not merely expected; it is already experienced. For love makes us come alive. And love never gives anyone or anything up for lost. It sees a future in which God will restore everything, and put everything to rights, and gather everything into [God’s] kingdom.” – Jurgen Moltman

with wide eyes and a hopeless stare

Patrick came into the tiled room where I was sitting, and exclaimed, “I just read the news and Barack Obama is not taking any lobbyist money for the general election! He might really be a changing force. He might be the real deal!!” Turning my eyes from the small shoeless child carrying the big plastic chairs on his head up the hill, I managed to Patrick, “I certainly hope so.”

There is a relief in returning to Haiti, although I wish the flight to Haiti from Miami was a longer one; maybe then, I could justify the vast gulf in quality of life. When it took two days to get to Dhaka, that same gulf seemed better explained. My few journeys to Haiti are eerily similar to each other. On the way to National Airport, again I had a Ghanan taxi driver. And again, my initial land-travel in Haiti allowed the first force I encountered to be a huge UN tank, this time the tank was making a u-turn in the middle of a shanty community, for several minutes. I have noticed a few welcomed changes: the airport had air conditioning; I did not have to risk getting a ride with a stranger in the high kidnapping zone because I was traveling with Theresa; rather than taking the small plane to Les Cayes, I was able to rest in Port-au-Prince for the afternoon.

I have spent several hours talking, walking, and “shopping” with Marie-Denise a single, thirty-two-year-old, woman who is obviously much wiser and more cautious than me. You know - - it is just so flattering when conversations with new Haitian friends begin with something like, “Your eyes good. Bleu.” Ahh, the flattery. “Ou travey Delmas?”
“Secretary. But now I am not working.”
She wants to be a Canadian.
I told her that I want to see the Citadel in the north because I am so interested in Henri Christophe. (Now just imagine someone telling you something like, “I SO admire, George Washington.”)
“Ou renmen Barack Obama?”
“We!! Ay, mwen pa renmen Hillary Clinton.”
“Kisa?”
“Hillary Clinton vele plus bagay. Automobiles, maisons, gourdes. Barack gan petite maison.”
“Dakore. You say she wants many things. But how can a nationality Kenyan run for President in Etase Unie?”
“Papa Kenyan. Mama American. Barack American.”

Until Tuesday, I will stay at a church-twinning guesthouse in PAP. As you can see from the photo of my room, we have electricity for about half of each day! And, the room is screened on the top, so I don't require a net. Americans stay here on their way to or from their twin parishes all over Haiti. This will be my home-away-from-home when I come to PAP one or two weekends a month to take care of business, purchase medicines, and so on. The house and fantastic gift shop is run by Sr. Mary, a graduate of Catholic University and a former academic at the University of Buffalo she came to Haiti for the first time three years ago, and for reasons just as illogical as my own. I am unclear about the whole story yet, but she said that in the 1970’s she was in Peru with Gustavo Gutierrez and was connected to the Latin American liberation theologians. Of course I am looking forward to hearing about all of that.

Theresa flew up to Port-au-Paix Friday morning to visit a parish. She invited me to come along because the arrangements for my business here in Port-au-Prince have been postponed, however I have decided to stay here and rest. I am tempted to American friends in PAP who run the Red Cross and other things here, or I may just relax for a few days.

The time passes slowly in Haiti. It can be torturous. It can be freedom.

On Thursday, I met Patrick in one of those happenstance situations in which travelers encounter one another and the world; - his flight back to Cuba was canceled. He grew up in Anchorage, went to UCLA, and now is a fourth year med student at UCSF, currently on a leave of absence. Growing antsy in Cuba, Port-au-Prince became an exciting option. Friday night he returned to San Francisco to visit his girlfriend, and then he is off to India where he will take a month long class with Jamkhed. For the next year, he will use a grant to study anti-malarials as partial HIV/AIDS treatments for pregnant women in Uganda.

Friday morning we walked to Mother Theresa’s place here in Port-au-Prince. On Thursday Patrick was in Cite Soleil at a clinic. His first three patients were the sickest people he had ever seen: 1) diagnosed with full-blown AIDS (sores all over his body), 2) gangrene from a cut washed with dirty water, (the man was brought to the clinic in a wheel barrow), 3) a woman literally dying of the hunger that all three of them experience. When he told the Sisters at Mother Theresa’s that he was able to help in some medical capacity, he was told, “No no no no!” Why the Missionaries of Charity choose chaos over the embrace of a responsible level of medical care for the sick and dying is beyond me. If Patrick showed up at Partners in Health he would also be refused, but that is because at PIH, they believe in a preferential option for the poor. Missionaries of Charity find some kind of beauty in the idea of the poor always being with us. As one doctor wrote of their shop in Calcutta, many years ago, “I could not judge the power of their spiritual approach, but I was disturbed to learn that the formula includes no strong analgesics.”

There is nothing quite like watching a one year old sick child sit straight up in her crib, hold on to a spoon, and feed herself like a robot with wide eyes and a hopeless stare. No crying, no looking at the bowl. Just feeding. I fed two sick babies with one small bowl of porage. Their arms were so skinny, and their back bones and spines where sticking out. I made friends with Fedney, no idea how old he is, but his smile was beautiful. He sat on my lap most of the morning while little girls did my hair and a boy in a dress stared with distress at me from afar, under the grapevine that canopies their playground.

I thought of Dr. Chris yesterday, and the poverty on Il a Vasche where we met, and I thought of how much I admire and respect him. I also thought of all the other Haitian doctors who are determined to provide a high quality of care to their own country. I look forward to the water, and the mountains, and the village, and my work.

Someone mailed a card. Sister Mary misplaced it. Thank you, though, to whomever it was that sent it. The private mail system via this address is pretty reliable. I will be in Port au Prince one to two weekends a month, so I can retrieve it them. Rather than frequent mass emails, I will be blogging as often as I can, so feel free to save this link and check it for my Haiti updates. I am also excited to host you when you visit Haiti!!!

Justice lies at the threshold and begs; the guest within, in the house of the pans, is Injustice, the evil one. They invite her with laughter into their palace, and for Injustice they pour the full flagon of mead. – from Stories of God, by Rilke

This was the moment

Tonight, Senator Ted Kennedy watched Barack Obama's speech from his hospital bed, as a 76 year old man and a day after major surgery. He watched it on the eve of the forty year anniversary of the devastating assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Forty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King a black man has taken the plunge to serve as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. He already beat the Clintons, and he will beat John McCain in November. His speech tonight was superb, and his explanation of the massiveness of this hope for change was compelling. Forty years from today, people like Luke Treanor will ask me, "Where where you when Barack Obama ran for and won the presidency?" And I will say, "I was in Divinity School at Vanderbilt in the south, and when he won, I was running a hospital in Haiti." ("And before my PhD, I worked in his administration!")

Ok, so here were my favorite parts:

• Michelle Obama gave her husband "a pound" with her fist, on stage, and then a kiss.
• Barack Obama embodied Christianity: He praised and confronted, - - Hillary Clinton and John McCain respectively.
• Obama acknowledged a "known" for those of us in international poverty and health studies: Americans are generous.
• He never talks about his death threats, although the absence of his children and the presence of federal police officers prove the presence of such threats.

Barack Obama is going to be the first black president of the United States. On MSNBC Chris Matthews read some words from Bishop Desmond Tutu. I would like to share some other words from Desmond Tutu: "I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights."