Gonaives - One year later

This weekend, I had the opportunity to go to Gonaives again to do clinic. Mary DeKoter, who works in the ravine with me, drove the two of us and a whole carload of medications 150 miles north of Port-au-Prince to this city that has been the site of devastating flooding every time a hurricane hits Haiti. If you have a pick-up or an SUV built 3 feet off the ground, it is possible to make the trip in under 4 hours. In our little Hyundai 4x4, it took us nearly 6 hours.

I saw patients in a classroom beside Pastor Genada's church, while Mary checked blood pressures and bagged meds for me as I requested them. We saw over 100 patients in about 5 and a half hours.



Each patient had a small piece of paper with a number marked on it and they waited in the adjacent classroom until I called for them. Every time I would yell, "Nimero 12!", this little girl who was standing just behind me, would echo it. Eventually, I stopped yelling the numbers and would just nod at her when I was ready for another patient.


I thought this woman and her daughter were absolutely beautiful, but their story is even more beautiful than they are. The little boy in the next photo lost both his parents in the flooding last year. He literally watched them being carried away by the 14 foot flood waters. In a city and a time of nothing, this woman willing took the boy in and has been caring for him and raising him as if he were hers. Such is the spirit that reigns in Gonaives.



Last year, I made two trips to Gonaives to do clinic. On the first trip, I came less than 3 weeks after the 2 hurricanes that completely destroyed the city. Buildings were crushed, streets were impassable, and mud was everywhere. Four months later, I visited again and although some houses had been cleared, the city was still full of mud. I assumed that it would stay like that forever, but I was wrong! I was amazed on this trip so see streets emptied of mud, houses rebuilt, and canals freshly dug.

The river that was 18 feet wide and 2 feet deep in October 2008 has now become a pretty little stream. Where once, I crossed barefoot stepping on piles of clothing underwater, now I can cross with dry feet on a series of concrete blocks.





The sign on the wall outside Pastor Genada's church is visible again! The mountains of mud that filled his street have been removed and dumped in the mountains by UN and Haitian government trucks.



In anticipation of future flooding and in an effort to prevent the destruction that hit his church last year, Pastor Genada is slowing raising the funds to rebuild his church 5 feet off the ground. Hopefully, next time a hurricane hits, the building will fare better.



The mud flats that I crossed on foot in 2008 on my way to clinics in refugee camps are now a mini jungle. It's really quite pretty.




On the edge of the city, a small community of homes was under water when I initially visited Gonaives. In January 2009, the water had receded, but the mud still made the houses unlivable. Now, finally, the water is gone and the families have moved back in.





Just beyond that community, the lake of Gonaives is still there. Once upon a time, the lake was a valley and the city was constructing a small airport there. The water has dropped far enough for the road that crosses the lake to be reopened, but it seems doubtful that the lake will ever fully disappear.



Among my patients at clinic, I treated about 10 members of Pastor Genada's deaf community. Genada is one of the most amazing people I have met in Haiti: a Filipino pastor with a wife and a 5 year old daughter who have been serving in Gonaives for 14 years. For the majority of their time there, they have been the only long-term missionaries working in the city. They have an active church, a deaf school and community program, and a feeding program for 100 children in one of the poorest ghettos. I love hearing about what they are doing, and my favorite part is the bakery. The church owns a bakery and employs members of the deaf community - people who would otherwise be unable to find jobs - to make the most scrumptious bread I've ever had in Haiti. They sell the bread to stores and vendors and put the small profit towards the deaf school.

Those students are very proud of their bakery. When I popped my head in after I finished clinic, they jumped to show me everything and to give me two steaming hot rolls. Yum!



At Canadian Thanksgiving this month, Mary had met a young missionary girl who has recently moved to Gonaives to run a school. Trish Gauthier is staying in a large house by herself and wants visitors whenever possible, so we stayed with her for our 2 nights in Gonaives. She was my age and a blast to be around. Good friends are a rare find in Haiti, so it was great for both of us to connect. I think I may be going to Gonaives a little more often now.

On Saturday, after our day of clinic work, Trish invited us to join her at a going away party for the head of UNPol at the MINUSTAH base. So we spent our evening meeting, talking to, and dancing with UN soldiers. I met the Argentinian head of Intelligence - it was a nice connection, making for a tour of the unit's medical clinic and a gift of a satelite map of Gonaives with street names and landmarks! Decent maps of Haiti are impossible to come by so I was very grateful. It was another of those surreal Haiti moments: "I'm on a UN base, dancing with a rather handsome Argentinian, surrounded by high-ranking officers and some very big guns. Only in Haiti."




Mary and I also accompanied the Genada's to their feeding program to take care of the children's simple medical needs. The bandage I put on a little girl's infected wound was certainly the only clean thing in the entire neighborhood. But the children look healthy and traces of red hair from protein deficiency are fading from their heads. I left Bernadine, the woman in charge, with vitamins and deworming pills for all the children.

What do you want to see different?

I have the immense privilege of leading youth group at my church every Saturday afternoon. Last year, we generally had 50-60 teens attend each week. This year, though, our numbers have jumped to an average 80 attendees. And this week, we had a whopping 100 kids at youth group! Something cool is going on here and I'm very excited to be part of it.



One of my goals for youth group is to instill in the hearts of these young people a love for God that translates into a love for their country. I have always felt that real change can only happen in Haiti when Haitians begin acting. What I and other missionaries can do here is great, but what Haitians can do is far more powerful. So this week, I asked all the kids to write down things that they want to see different in Haiti.




I spoke to them from Nehemiah, a man who heard about a need and decided to do something to make it different. But instead of focusing on the part of the story where Nehemiah overcomes all obstacles to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, I asked them to look instead at the beginning of the book. The first thing that Nehemiah does after he learns of the destruction of the wall is pray. He prays, confessing his sins and the sins of his people. As a body, we knelt in the sweltering sanctuary of Quisqueya Chapel, and asked God to forgive us and to forgive Haiti of its sins: corruption, violence, laziness, pollution, selfishness, Voodoo...




I collected all the papers and with the help of my co-leaders, Ari and Miriam, read a few out loud to the group. Like Nehemiah, these kids are seeing problems and needs in Haiti and they want to see change.



Our youth wants to see "More roads, a better president, no kidnappings, respect for women, more green space, children to be treated equally no matter if they are rich or poor, no stray dogs, all the children in school, electricity 24/7, no more starving children, Haiti to be the 'Pearl of the Caribbean' again, no more hatred, peace, people to have homes to stay, no ghettos, more work for people, no more desperation."

My personal favorite said this:


Ah, to have faith like a child!

Goat thieves no more

There is a saying in Haiti, "MINUSTAH se volo kabrit." It means "The United Nations are goat thieves". They say that because when the UN first came into the country in full force and was on offensive in Cite Soleil and other high danger areas, their vehicles would occasionally run over goats and other livestock but the soldiers never tried to repay the owners. Imagine how devastating it would be to a poor family to lose their one animal!

At Sherrie's school on Delmas 31, the saying has changed. Now it goes like this: "MINUSTAH pote dlo" = "the UN brings water"! I walked out to the courtyard yesterday on my way to deliver meds to a student and there in the driveway was a UN water truck. Two Bolivians in full gear were standing by as a hose filled the giant cistern and all our 5 gallon buckets. Strange things happen to me all the time in Haiti, but this was a first: free Bolivian UN water delivery!

Feed my sheep

I got to accompany some of my favorite students from Quisqueya Christian School to a feeding program in my old neighborhood this week. Anytime small children are present, I'm excited. But I'm especially excited when those small children are being cared for by my students. I adore seeing them step out of their comfort zones and learn to truly love.

The African plain

Last week, I drove an hour outside Port-au-Prince with my friend Karen. Our destination was a little village where one of the children we have been following had recently been returned to his biological family. We wanted to check on him to make sure that he was healthy and safe at home.

Getting to the village was like stepping out of Haiti and into sub-Saharan Africa. We couldn't drive all the way to the village, so we parked on the dirt road and walked a half mile past the stream where women were bathing and washing clothes, through the fields of corn, and up to the village center which consisted of a little church, a water pump, and a sort of rotary where tire marks indicated the motorcycle route that passes through the village. As we walked around, I saw small children with red hair, indicative of kwashiorkor, protein deficieny. I saw scabies, infected cuts, and head fungus. When I asked Karen if she had ever considered doing clinics in the village, she blushed. "I was going to ask you if you'd be willing," she said. "But I figured you were too busy."

It's true that both Karen and I are busy, but we will make time. I want to get out to that village once a week and do simple care for the children like I do in the Ravine. One course of vitamins and worm pills would make a world of difference in this community! Thanks to donations from my Army friends, I have nearly all the medications I need to get started; all we are waiting for now is the approval of the town elder. Once he agrees and offers us a location to hold clinic, we will be there. I can't wait!

Real life again

Back in Port-au-Prince after my Jacmel adventure, it has been wonderful to return to my job of treating patients in the Ravine and at Sherrie's school. The old routine: coughs, colds, diarrhea, scabies, and removing nearly 100 stitches from Ivona's arm after her orthopedic surgery last week. She had the first of a series of surgeries to correct a bad wrist contracture that has made her hand practically useless since infancy.







I was very happy to see the kids again and the kids were very happy to see me again.





Well, most of them were happy...

It all ended with...

...a confused cameraman, the ambassador, and a shout-out.

On our last day of clinic in Jacmel, we treated patients all morning while a crew of Haitians began set-up for the closing ceremonies. Up front, where Stud Farm worked, we had patients sitting on long benches and medications arranged on a stage behind us for easy access and administration. Midway through the morning, just as we were hitting our stride, a camera crew arrived and planted themselves directly between the patients and the drugs. We could examine patients, but we couldn't get to the medications! Someone told the interviewer that I spoke Creole, so he pulled me in front of the camera and began peppering me with questions. I don't mind being interviewed, but could we at least wait until I'm done seeing patients?

The same thing happened the next day when we visited the hospital in Jacmel to donate some of our unused supplies. I was trying to show the troops around and explain things to them, but a journalist kept following me and thrusting his little tape recorder in my face.

Back to the first story. I finished my interview and promptly went back to seeing patients. One of the colonels must have gently told the camera crew that they were creating an obstruction because they did eventually move. And I was perfectly happy to see them go.



At noon, the closing ceremony began. The soldiers were permitted to sit this time, but I was not allowed to sit with them. Oh no, I had to sit in the front row of the tent, alongside Colonel Hershey, Commander Strong, and US Ambassador Merten. To my relief, there was a band that performed the national anthem and no one asked me to translate for the soldiers. They were simply left in the dark for speech after speech. I sat by Colonel Hershey, whispering bits of translation to her, and getting very hot as the sun crept into my side of the tent.


When Colonel Hershey was invited up to address the dignitaries, officials, and press, she took me with her and I translated into Creole as she spoke. She kept it brief and I was grateful.


The last person to speak was Ambassador Merten. He addressed the crowd in French, congratulating the troops for an exceptionally successful mission and all the support teams, especially the Haitian police and Coast Guard, for their assistance. At the end of his speech, he called up the 3 Commisioners to give them plaques of recognition for their role in the MEDRETE. And then he asked for Madame Keziah Furth. I walked up, shook his hand, and as he passed me the plaque, I heard the US soldiers.


Throughout the entire ceremony, they had been silent, applauding politely when they saw everyone else applauding. When Colonel Hershey was awarded 2 plaques, they clapped. When a plaque was announced for the entire MEDRETE team, they clapped. But when my name was announced, they leapt to their feet and gave me a shout-out. If you've never experienced an Army shout-out, I'm sorry, I can't do it justice. Imagine a score of deep male voices shouting out a secret code of Army brotherhood, something that you can't imitate and you can't fully understand. But when you look at their faces, you realize that you don't need to. And it's all you can do to keep from crying.

That was how my time in Jacmel ended.