Bon jour! I don't know how to describe the whirlwind of the last few days. Left for Leogane early on Saturday. Leogane was apparently the true epicenter of the main earthquake-- though Petit Goave was the epicenter of the first major aftershock. The destruction in Leogane defies description. We were told that 90% of the buildings were destroyed and over 25% of the population killed here. Everywhere you look is rubble -- almost like pictures of Dresden after the war. You can see where homes & buildings were by an isolated wall of a pancaked section -- but nothing intact. Tents are everywhere. There are no lights at night and it is just surreal. Haiti didn't have a big middle class-- but that is the group that was wiped out. Merchants, teachers, nurses...... The poor who lived in corrugated metal and plywood and banana leaf huts reconstructed. And the rich-- and they do exist-- who live in mini-green zones consisting of mansions made of think cement and surrounded by high walls & barbed wire---- they are getting richer because those are the buildings that are being rented to the NGOs at exorbitant rates. The house in Leogane that will serve as IMC's center is 1 story, 6 rooms, the required high walls, a small outdoor space---- and its $3000 US a month!
But back to our arrival on Saturday. We literally were the first folks to walk into the Leogane center-- 3 volunteers & the site director. We arrived at 8:30 and by 9 the house was Grand Central--- security staff from PAP, logistics, trucks of supplies and literally hundreds of Haitians asking for jobs. I don't know how they knew we were there-- but the word went viral on the streets. The center director handed the 3 of us a stack of resumes for nurses - and we literally hired the permanent staff. We set up the pharmacy, helped choose the site for the clinic.........it was amazing, scary, exhilarating, exhausting..........and all done in 100 degree heat. Haitians nurses arrived for interviews wearing skirts, heels, crisp & smiling.......and were greeted by Americn nurses wearing scrubs and sweat stained t-shirts who truly gave the term Ugly American a whole new meaning.
Too hot to sleep that night so we hauled our cots up on the roof and slept under the stars.
Sunday is truly a day for family & church in Haiti and so we caught our breath on Sunday until about 4P when a whole new shipment of stuff -- and people -- arrived from PAP. A logistics coordinator from Croatia who recently worked in Burundi, a security guy, ex-military, from Great Britain........and too many others to name. The remarkable thing is that aside from a psychiatrist in Petit Goave, we've not seen another American though we were told by one of the IMC folks that Clinton and Bush 2 were arriving on Monday. Funny-- they didn't come visit us!
Monday we hit the ground running at 7AM. After literally being under house arrest in Petit Goave, not allowed to set a toe outside of the hotel, Kathy & I were taken to the site and dropped off to set up clinic! The tent village consists of about 2000 families and is run--- pretty smoothly I might add -- by a group of men who are described as the officers of the Homeowner's Association! They are young, just a tad bit threatening -- and more than eager to help. They have appointed security staff---- young men built like brick shithouses with baseball bats! Was I ever glad they were on our side! They literally followed us everywhere! So -- two American clueless nurses, a gazilliion Haitians, children everywhere who grabbed our hands and arms and had to be pried off so we could pick up a box, the UN police arrived with officers from El Salvador so at least I could sort of communicate with them -- and in the middle of all of that chaos-- the Cuban army shows up to fumigate, so they are spraying who-knows-what all over, the dust from the road, which is a few feet away and choked with the most amazing traffic (every see a mini-bike with 3 people and a full size mattress on it?) has created a haze, there are more people than a NYC block at rush hour............
A little while later the rest of IMC staff plus our local Haitian nurses & a physician arrived along with translators with varying degrees of English-- and we started registering patients. The community president was announcing that with a bullhorn and within 30 minutes the tent was packed with so many people that we had to tell him to stop! I have no clue how many patients we saw--- one smiling child after another, the tent was suffocating, the noise so loud I could barely hear through my stethoscope........
But we did it. End of the day the local leaders were beaming, we were exhausted, everybody was telling us Merci...........and we headed back to the house which by now, mercifully, had water for the first time in two days and I took the best cold shower of my life!
I had to come back to PAP last night -- which is just what I remembered, a riot of people everywhere, dust, traffic that has no idea there is a proper side of the road on which to drive......and destruction. We spent the night at the hotel here and will, with luck, head back to Leogane this morning. But one thing I've learned in Haiti-- nothing stays the same!
So -- no idea if I'll be able to write again but I'll try. Hard to believe I've been in Haiti almost two weeks..........in some ways it feels like a lifetime and in other ways I don't know where the time went.
Much love,
Laurie
