to heal an infant child

From the back of her thatched-roof house, the woman heard her eight-month-old son crying. The frazzled lady waited a few breaths. The wailing did not subside; it grew more frantic. At last, she left her pile of washing and rushed around the side of the house to the source of the shrieks.

The infant boy lay kicking and screaming as a stray pig dragged him around by his ears.

The mother flew at the pig, shouting nonsensical things, waving her arms, scaring it off. Then she swept down and scooped up the little child, cradling the wounded ear against her chest. A neighbor, hearing the commotion, rushed over. Within seconds the old lady had recounted the dreadful event.

"His ear... his ear," the woman moaned.

Suddenly, the neighbor remembered: Hospital Brenda! A few years ago, she reminded her distraught friend, a falling coconut had smashed her son's nose. A saintly Canadian nun took pity on their desperate situation and had admitted the boy to Hospital Brenda (incidentally the best Ears, Nose and Throat hospital in Haiti and only right down the road). The neighbor suggested going there first and immediately, as the good sister's doctors had restored her son's nose to normal at very little cost to the family.

The two women tore down the road, the mother pressing a cloth on the side of her now silent son's head. They arrived at Hospital Brenda and, given the urgency of the child's plight, were given instant audience with the little Canadian nun herself.

When Sister Evelyn saw the little bundle, whose ear continued to bleed, her worn face crinkled with worry. Though she had no formal medical training herself, years of "field experience" had given her an ability to assess most medical conditions and incidents with incredible accuracy. Something had to be done for this little one. She gathered the baby, who had begun to whimper, in her arms and clucked her tongue quietly as she listened to the poor woman tell of how a pig was eating her son's ears.

"Of course, of course we can do something. He will be fine... you will be fine little one." Then, looking directly the grandmother, still visibly overcome with grief, she went on, "and don't you even think about the cost."

Photo courtesy Fr. Marc Boisvert

Israel's passing

Israel Valcourt. Died in front of Klinic Espwa at Castel-Pere on June 29, 2007 around 8:40am. He was 16-years-old.

*********** disturbing/graphic content to follow ***********

Paige and I emerge from the quad. It's not quite early morning but not late yet. Today reminds us of yesterday, sunny breezy, pleasant. We're going to meet Fr. Marc to go into town. Not ten steps from the building, a woman streaks by us, wailing, her hands in her hair, elbows akimbo. Then we hear more shrieks -- shrieks that can only mean that someone has died.

As we pass the clinic, we see a quickly growing crowd and in the midst, a white sheet covering what can only be a body. Security is quickly rounding up children and depositing them in the primary school. Fr. Marc is looking on with a solemn face, standing near the covered body. Later, when he comes over to sit with us under the mango tree, where we have self-consciously retreated, we will learn all the details.

One of the upper administrative staff guides Matante back to her home, she is calling out to God. Another staff member steps away and calls our lawyer, the local authorities and a funeral home. The body will not be removed until it is declared officially dead by the proper authorities. This will hopefully happen sooner rather than later, given that we have 400 curious children to worry about.

Finally, Fr. Marc joins our quiet twosome. I ask him what happen. And he replies,

"Israel died. A seventh grader. You knew him... 16 years old..." he trails off. After a moment, he collects his thoughts and delivers the rest of the story, as he's learned it. His parents are dead. His aunt, with whom he lived, said that last night he was very sick, vomiting blood. This morning he came to Pwoje Espwa to pick up his report card from the secondary school. Then, he and his aunt were hoping to get a ride in one of Espwa's vehicles to the hospital, since the boy could barely stand.

So they waited by the clinic. One of the drivers was summoned and he came expeditiously in a truck. Before he even reached the yard in front of the clinic, the boy collapsed, the rest of the contents of his stomach - and maybe even his stomach itself - were pouring from his nose and mouth. He was dead.

In the U.S., Fr. Marc reflects, this bright young kid might not have died. He would have gone to the hospital the night before, maybe sooner. We don't know yet, nor might we ever, why he died exactly. The doctor didn't seem to know. It all seems surreal -- but it's so real. Painfully real.

I watch as Marc calls over one of Israel's classmates.

"Was he your friend?" he asks.

"Yes," the boy answers, his eyes red.

"Was he sick?"

"I don't know..."

Then Marc pauss, thinking. "Did he have siblings?"

"I think so..."

Behind us, more and more villagers from Madame Combe march through our gate to see their deceased neighbor and stand with his family. The lawyer shows up a few minutes later and mercifully, the state official does too.

**************

Please keep Israel, his family and his friends in your prayers.

by the grace of God I live

Last Sunday after lunch, my friend Nick and I took a 40 min journey to the beach at Port Salut, Haiti for a little R&R. We enjoyed the sun and the warm Caribbean Sea and left to go home just before the sun sunk below the mountains. We made it through the mountain passes and the views were breathtaking. From time to time, we chatted over the sound of loud wind blowing past our ears as the motorcycle sped on. On the road below the mountains, as we neared Les Cayes and home, we passed a few small towns where people hung out by the side of the roads watching cock fights and celebrating saints days.

On a long straightaway we saw another motorcyclist pull out slowly on the right. Another man ran to catch up to the slow moving vehicle and tried to hop on the back. The rest happened instantaneously: Nick moved to the left of the road to avoid the slower bike. The slower bike popped a wheely and lost control, veering further and further left. Suddenly, impact.

The noise was metal clashing together and human bodies hitting the ground with force. I remember falling and feeling my head bounce twice as Nick and our bike fell on top of me and the other bike skidded over us and into the ditch. Nick peeled himself off the pavement and pulled the bike off me. I reached for my helmet and frantically tugged it off my head. Nick helped me up and I felt an incredible pain shoot through my whole body. Once we dragged ourselves to the side of the road I lay down and Nick played crowd control while simultaneously trying to call everyone we knew for help. After 30 minutes, some of our friends showed up.

At the first hospital we went to, Haitians lay dying on every bed in the ER and crowds hovered near the entrances. A Cuban doctor felt my body to make sure nothing was broken, glanced at the road burns and cuts covering my legs and arms, asked how I felt. When I rather shrieked that I couldn't see or hear and I was going to throw up, he ordered some drugs be brought from the dispensary and told me to lie down.

A large, frazzled nurse sutured Nick's elbow in the doorframe of the entrance while 40 passersby looked on. A doctor guided me to a hallway by the records room and instructed me to lie down on a dirty, dusty plastic mat, "it's the best we can offer." I set my head on a friends lap and a few moments later, a mouse scuttled past my toes. When I shrieked, a few on-looking women giggled. The man standing outside gazing in at me through the glass door smiled.

After a half hour or more, my friends returned from the dispensary with a syringe, painkiller and an IV. As soon as the nurse had administered the shot and hooked up the IV, I begged my friends to take me out of there. One grabbed me my under my "good" arm, another grabbed the drip bag; nurse “Ratchet” wasn't going to get another rough go at scraping my wounds clean.
Alex, Nick’s roommate, works for the UN and is a trained EMT. He did his best to clean my wounds when we got home. The IV drip ran out, I took some oxycodone and went to bed. The next morning we got a lift from a UN friend to their southern base in Cayes and saw the medical director there. After taking another go at cleaning my wounds, she instructed us to go to Port au Prince to seek further medical help. She said the UN could provide transport there.

So, I had my first ride in a helicopter ride. We traveled with some of our UN friends that we met with at the beach on Sunday afternoon.
After some planes, trains (not really) and automobiles, we arrived at the best hospital in Haiti: Canopé Vert. To make a long story (a 4 day and 3 night story) short, we had an amazing doctor who fixed us up well. Except for Nick, who needed stitches on his elbow, all the wounds were superficial. More reflections on the experience and conditions in Haitian medical facilities to come but for now, know that we are fine and will continue our work in Haiti tomorrow, after a five day hiatus. Come next week I’ll be bandage free and ready to rock.