oforthep

Haiti: More than a Feeling

2011-03-12T20:26:00.003-05:00

A mark of a special place is one that continually nudges you, inviting you to learn more, and then never ceases to surprise you. Despite four years of following and three years of periodically visiting, I definitely don't know Haiti. I write from Santo Domingo, tomorrow going to spend my Spring Break week in Haiti, mostly PauP. A short time. A new time, hoping to build some relationships within the Haiti advocacy / human rights circles. Also will support and accompany some Haitian university students who are interested in this work, in hopes of beginning a sustained relationship. All of which is completely new to me, but I somehow sense that I should RSVP, again, to Haiti's invitation. Watch, listen, learn, be.

I like to remember my different entry points into any situation, and the emotions they evoke. It's good to remind myself of what changes, and what remains constant always.

Just over one year ago, I entered Haiti to pitch in at the Leogane field hospital. March 1 2010, I anxiously boarded my flight, having just stayed up all night in the Miami airport to answer emails and stew frenetically over the uncertainty of work that lay before me. I was so scared. Yet, over those following months, the people and situations I encountered surprised me in the most beautiful ways, beyond anything I could have imagined.

For tomorrow's entry, I'm not scared. Excited about being surprised, encountering something new in what is Haiti to me--the mystery and complexity, the persistent struggle, the Kompa music beat, the life of streets, the sadness, the spontaneous joy. The belief in freedom, that Neg Mawon p ap janm kraze.

Do global health work in Liberia---please spread this opportunity!

2011-03-08T19:33:00.003-05:00

Don't think I've written much about about this yet, but over the last year, I've felt privileged to work with a truly innovative Liberian organization called Tiyatien Health. Founded by survivors of Liberia's civil war, TH partners with local communities to provide care for HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases. Through a core network of paid community health workers, "accompaniers," TH both treats these complex diseases, and addresses the root issues of poverty and dis-empowerment that perpetuate illness. Some of you friends voted for TH in an online Changemakers competition last year, and we won!

For more info, see here and here

TH is recruiting for two exciting positions: an HIV/AIDS Capacity Building Officer, and a National Health Policy Advisor. Both are 1-year volunteer positions, based in Liberia. RECRUITING NOW. Would be most grateful for sharing this among circles of potentially interested people. Thanks!

Here's the National Health Policy Advisor job description and contact info:
Tiyatien Health National Health Policy Advisor RFA_v1(2)

And the HIV/AIDS Capacity Building Officer one:
HIV_AIDS Capacity Building Officer_v2

Creating a Language

2011-03-05T00:03:00.007-05:00

Five weeks back in med school. A few have wondered how I’m doing with the transition of meeting 130 new classmates and going back to basic science filling much of my mind [thank you for asking!]. To answer, I haven’t had much chance to think about it. We are moving SO fast. I feel like a car revving up RPMs, but unable to shift to an easier gear. Perhaps this inability to master any given topic is part of the hidden curriculum: teaching us about the inevitable powerlessness we will someday face in treating real disease... Anyway, I am struggling a lot to understand how a single organ system works, much less how they all jive together.

Despite the self-degrading overwhelmingness and need to titrate much caffeine for bare minimum function, I do understand one thing: we are not so much learning things as we are learning a way to talk about things. And that entry into a new way of speaking… it’s thrilling.

Today, I can at least talk about lung compliance and blood volume status. Couldn't do that a year ago. And, because of “extra” experiences—an awesome global health elective, a rockstar conferences on global non-communicable diseases...—I am expanding my diction beyond the basic science, to articulating a burden of disease and specific (sometimes controversial, often unproven) strategies to keep people well. I don’t know a single aspect of these things in any depth—probably much less depth than my physiology professor will expect for next week’s exam—but I am at least starting to learn a new way of speaking, and someday acting on my words. I am learning a language.

I had a conversation last week that got me thinking about language. We were talking about the discourse of global health as compared to the discourse of spiritually-grounded medicine. Typically, those are different conversations.

Global health people, such as the esteemed participants of last week’s conference, talk freely about community-grounded solidarity and human rights frameworks…systems solutions that translate to clear, deliverable health outcomes. Humanistic medicine people talk about the way illness “disturbs a soul” (as Daniel Sulmasy writes), and the privilege of healthcare providers encountering a patient’s suffering, and sometimes healing... though not always in the obvious ways. Panning away from health alone, Notre Dame made me much familiar with the most personal aspects of social justice—that we must intentionally sustain our own work, because we believe what Oscar Romero said, that “we are workers, not master builders...we are prophets of a future not our own.”

So, I wonder: might we find ways to merge those conversations? A rights-based solidarity approach, an appreciation for the spirit of people in health and illness, and an intentional long view that keeps us moving as individual members of a incomprehensibly grand whole...how do we talk about these ideas? I can think of a few common words—compassion, suffering with, momentum, focus, justice, trust, hope. Much remains to be said.

So, back in medical school, I am learning a browbeatingly difficult language. Wish me luck. Perhaps I might also help create a language.

From 'Anba' to 'Aba' and 'Kenbe La': We don't give up, ever

2011-01-12T01:26:00.010-05:00

Rubble hasn't moved, but has again become a focal point. Before anything else, please look at these 15 photos and read this reflection from Let Haiti Live [the events come from a schedule I posted a few days ago]. Melinda writes more eloquently than anything I've read or could say below: about the way Haitians are sharing collective memory, and rising today from tarps & tents as they do each day. [So you can stop reading now, having gathered the real point. Or perhaps follow a little more...]

I. "Anba": means 'under', as 230,000 people were crushed by concrete a year ago today, and millions who survived were cruelly shaken from their lives' foundations. How could we imagine? My hands shake as I type right now, feeling again that first night's sleepless vigil, and days of constant watching. We were there for Haiti. We cared, and responded.

Much happened. Groups like Partners in Health and many, many others did deliver lifesaving relief. I was privileged to accompany one of these incredible efforts through medical relief in Leogane. Haitians helped their neighbors from 'anba dekombe' to receive medical care, and start a precarious new day-to-day existence.

Much hasn't happened. One year later and more than 1 million still keep their families under tents or tarps in camps with inhumane lack of sanitation or other basic services. Only 38 percent of money raised by NGOs has been spent. The Huffington Post did some neat work tracking this. Fully half of American households donated, and we deserve accountability on our generosity. Our Haitian neighbors also deserve this accountability.

The International Office of Migration reports a 31 percent decrease since July in the number of people living in displacement camps. A success, notes the report, that victims are finding their own housing solutions and "getting on with their lives"... but IOM fails to mention that 29 percent of camps have been forcibly evicted, despite such eviction violating both Haitian and international humanitarian law. A solution? People who leave camps are NOT going to better places.

Cholera was a threat from the outset. One week post-quake, I remember my churning stomach as I read the first speculations of major infectious disease compounding the crisis. And so it came. Last week, Ban Ki-Moon named an independent commission to investigate the potential source of the epidemic, since a likely candidate is a contingent of UN peacekeepers from Nepal who arrived just before the epidemic began, and whose base was expelling raw sewage into the river upstream of initial case appearances. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study last month showing the Haitian strain to be genetically most like those from South Asia.

The president of the international coordination for Medecins San Frontieres recently analyzed the lackluster response to the epidemic, writing in The Guardian (and this assessment applies in other sectors): "Co-ordination of aid organisations may sound good to government donors seeking political influence. In Haiti, though, the system is legitimizing NGOs that claim responsibility for health, sanitation or other areas in a specific zone, but then do not have the capacity or know-how to carry out the necessary work. As a result, people's needs go unmet."

Which leads to...

II. "Aba": 'down with', frequently found as a first word on protest signs and graffiti. The discontent runs deep. Haiti won freedom 207 years ago in the world's only successful slave rebellion, defeating Napoleon. But they still are not free. Watching the terrible PBS Frontline "Battle for Haiti" tonight (really, quite awful), I realized how easy it would be to think of Haiti as a sick & savage land whose people prey on their own. No. Haitians dig each other out of rubble and carry each other to cholera treatment centers, saving their own. The savagery is orchestrated in international boardrooms, actually.

People talk about "discontent" and "civil unrest" among the population, with a spike of mainstream media coverage last month on the protests. No kidding. Their country is ruled not only by the aforementioned "Republic of NGOs" who are held to no real accountability. But also, all official rebuilding projects (and the $5 billion pledged for these by int'l donors) are administered through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, which has met only a handful of times since its March formation. Foreign members include relevant donor entities (IMF, World Bank, etc). Yet, Haitian members of the IHRC recently published a scathing complaint they are pointedly excluded from discussion by the foreigners, and even physically denies a seat at the table.

And the elections? Predictable. Listening to Voice of America Creole radio this summer, I learned of the exclusive and unfair electoral preparation, and talk of boycott. Low turnout plus clear fraud means the process could not be considered democratic on any other planet, much less 21st century self-determining Earth. See CEPR's report here for a few numbers, and here on how the international community is likely to accept the results anyway.

Yep, if it were my country and my entire chance at an optimistic future, I'd be pretty ticked off, too. 'Aba' is not unreasonable. It is not uncivil.

It is also progressive with a hopeful spirit...

III. "Kenbe la": 'hang in there'...see those most important first links above. People in desperate, excruciatingly unending crises still talk. Still share collective memory. Still emerge from tarps and tents each morning. Still work together.

This week, one year ago, I did not sleep. Because I couldn't believe what was happening; and I still sometimes toss & turn, angry at such undeserved cruelty. Friends in Haiti still living in tents must be angry, too, but they are also taking progressive steps of advocacy & action. We can support them. Men anpil, chay pa lou. When hands are many, the burden is light.

Let Haiti Live has posted a compilation of further analyses, FYI.

4:53PM EST on January 12. I've heard that for 35 seconds, bells all over (including at Notre Dame) will toll to mark the shaking.

I believe that action, life, comes from emotion. So I think I will simply allow myself to feel. To honestly, profoundly...hurt. Join me.

A Misdiagnosis in Haiti

2011-01-10T01:27:00.003-05:00

One of the under-covered Haiti stories, choosing from the current smorgasboard, involves removal of a top diplomat apparently because of his simple honesty. Brazilian Ricardo Seitenfus has a 17-year history of work in Haiti, and was serving as Special Representative for the Organization of American States (OAS). On December 20, Swiss newspaper Le Temps published an interview in which Seitenfus offered a pointed, yet logical critique of the international community's post-earthquake response. That same day, he was asked to take a vacation and has since been informed he will not resume his former post.

BBC Brazil and Huffington Post have run stories on this, though absent from other other media, and today Aljazeera published a new interview.

Some readers of this blog might know I'm now working with a group attempting to produce a comprehensive report on the presence and actions of the UN peacekeeping forces (MINUSTAH)--which has operated in Haiti since May 2004, on a budget of $865 million this year. We hope our research/advocacy effort can harmonize with a 10-month grassroots campaign against MINUSTAH's mandate renewal, led by the Haiti civil society organizations mentioned in my previous post.

Thus, I resonated with this comment from Seitenfus. How simple, really. One would think.

Aljazeera: "Your main criticism of the U.N.’s work in Haiti is that they put too much of a focus on security. Explain what you mean."

Seitenfus: "I believe the international system of prevention and solution of conflicts is not prepared to treat specific cases such as Haiti. Haiti is not a threat to international security. It is not a threat to regional security. It’s not a threat to Cuba or the Dominican Republic. Haiti doesn’t even have armed forces…. With relation to the UN, I ask myself if we’re not just fooling ourselves. Wouldn’t it be better if the counsel of social and economic development oversees Haiti and would have priority, instead of the council on security? Haiti is not a threat to international peace and security. Haiti is a threat to itself and its own people…The life of the Haitian people is hard. Especially after the earthquake. After the quake we have 1.5 million people that are still living under tents in the parks and in the streets. I imaged that after January 12, 2010, the world would not only show that extraordinary solidarity to help Haiti, but it would also say, ‘Let’s stop and think if we are not mis-diagnosing Haiti with wrong formulas.’ But no, we didn’t ask that question. What we did was to send more soldiers in. So I think Haiti is much more complicated and much more delicate and multifaceted than simply sending peace keeping forces of the UN to image that Haiti can be rescued from the situation. The presence of the military is contradictory and counter-intuitive with me without talking about the moral questions. With MINUSTAH (U.N. peacekeeping forces in Haiti), we spent $600 million dollars per year this year. $865 million dollars this year alone, I think. That is besides what every member of MINUSTAH spends. So I believe we need to do a balance sheet - an audit almost - to take stock of how we have advanced in this last 6 and half years and to make a new strategy with relation to Haiti. I think we fool ourselves with who the real enemy here. The enemy of Haiti is misery, is lack of hope, the lack of perspective, lack of work, lack of income. Not security.”

Nou pa janm bliye: those who annually remember, and those who can never forget

2011-01-08T00:27:00.006-05:00

Subscript of post title is "why I love Haiti"...read on to find out.

The deluge has started. As an anniversary approaches, the mainstream media is beginning its 'insightful' look at "Haiti: one year later." My daily newsfeed haunts are spiking from their baseline of independent/alternative press and policy analysis sites to include NYT, WashPo, NPR, BBC at greater concentration.

On this blog, I will offer a manageable digest of what I think are the salient points on the one-year mark...one year since 30-seconds of shaking marked arguably the worst natural disaster in recent history, in a place most vulnerable to such destruction. I promise to give a readable listing, for anyone who wants to turn off Anderson Cooper (nothing personal against the guy) and spend 30-minutes getting the real story. One time, 30 minutes. I hope there are a few of you folks out there...

In coordination with the anniversary, a number of Haitian-rooted advocacy groups are updating their investigative reports across the spectrum of calamities: IDP camp conditions, gender-based violence, ballot fraud, cholera, aid accountability etc... Another deluge, but of the pivotal "bearing witness" kind. I'll attempt to post links for these as well.

Understandably, given our busy lives, we can tune out this crisis and overlook its heightening intensity. Yet, 1 million people have been living in tents for one full year, and they cannot forget. Ever, not for even a second.

So, the most *important* message January 12, 2011 is what comes from these people. Instead of waiting passively for aid that is not coming, they have ORGANIZED. See below agenda (courtesy of original post in Bri Kouri Nouvèl Gaye), English translation not mine.

Haitian camp residents, civil society organizations, and other grassroots efforts have coordinated to produce a WEEK OF ACTIVITIES in the displacement camps themselves. Including a 45-panel photo exhibit, and critically analytical forums and discussions---these people are living their rights. Imagine trying to feed & care for your family, living in a wind-battered tent with no brighter prospects in the foreseeable future...and you still muster the energy to work together, to demand something better?

These people are my heroes. Their courage is why I love Haiti.
-----------------------------------

We Will Not Forget, The Struggle Has Just Begun

A Week of Activities to Mark One Year Since the Catastrophe of January 12, 2010
Initiative to Resist the Eviction of the Internally Displaced*

*Members of the Initiative/Supporters of the program include: Bri Kouri Nouvèl Gaye, Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, FRAKKA, Inivesite Popile, Asosyasyon Vwazen Solino (AVS), Batay Ouvriye, Camp Committees from Camp Imakile, Camp Kanaran, Camp Babankou, Camp Kozbami, International Action Ties, Let Haiti Live (a project of TransAfrica Forum)

January 5, 9am - 2pm
- Press conference to launch week of activities

January 8, 3-5pm
- Conference Debate and Photo Exhibition at Camp Imakile and Kozbami
THEME: The Struggle for Land and Right to Housing in the context of the application of the neoliberal political economy
Panelists: Patrice Florvilus (BAI), Camille Chalmers (PAPDA), Mark Snyder (IAT), Mark Schuller

January 9, 11am - 5:30pm
- Conference Debate and Photo Exhibition at Camp Babankou
THEME: The Right to Housing, The Struggle of Peasants and Workers
Panelists: Mario Joseph (BAI), Patrice Florvilus (BAI), Mark Schuller

January 10, 3-5:30pm
- Conference Debate and Documentary Film at Camp Karade
THEME: Right to Housing at the Crossroads of the NGOs Waste; Passivity of the Haitian State and Demagogy of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC)
Panelists: Didier Dominique (Batay Ouvriye), Patrice Florvilus (BAI), Mark Snyder (IAT)

January 11, 10am-4pm
- Conference Debate at Camp Kanaran
THEME: Right to Housing, Gender-Based Violence, Wasteful NGOs, Demagogy of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC)
Panelists: Patrice Florvilus (BAI), Carole Pierre Paul, Camille Chalmers (PAPDA), Mario Joseph (BAI), Mark Snyder (IAT), Mark Schuller, Melinda Miles (LHL)
Witnessing: Victims of the earthquake speak of their experiences living 12 months under tents
Witnessing: The peasants' movement
Documentary Film Screening: A Soapbox in Haiti
Final Declaration

January 12
Public Demonstration starting at the Ministry of Health on Rue St. Honore near the General Hospital

Kreyòl version:
INISYATIV REZISTANS KONT EKSPILSYON DEPLASE ENTÈN YO SEMÈN AKTIVITE POU MAKE 1 AN KATASTWÒF 12 JANVYE 2010 LA
12 JAVYE 2010 – 12 JANVYE 2011
NOU PAP MANJE MANJE BLIYE, BATAY LA FENK KOUMANSE.

5 janvye (9è-14è)
• Konferans pou la près / lansman semèn aktivite yo

8 janvye 2010 (3zè -5è)
• Konferans deba ak Ekzpozisyon foto nan Kan Imakile ak Kozbami
Tem: Batay pou tè/Dwa lojman nan konteks aplikasyon politik ekonomik liberal yo
Animaté : Mark Snyder , Mark Schuller , Patrice Florvilus , Camille Charlemers

9 janvye 2011 (11zè -5è 30 )
• Konferans deba ak Ekzpozisyon foto ( Babankou )
Tèm: Dwa lojman /Lit peyizan ak ouvriye
Animatè: Mario Joseph, Mark Shuler, Patrice Florvilus

10 janvye 2011 ( 3è-5è30)
• Konferans deba ak fim dokimantè ( Karade)
Tèm: Dwa lojman nan Kalfou gagotay ONG ,konpòtman manfouben Leta Ayisyen ak demagoji Komisyon Rekonstriksyon Enterimè a (CIRH)
Animaté : Mark Snyder , Didier Dominique, Patrice Florvilus

11 janvye 2011 (10è-4è) - Kan KA NAWAN - Konferans deba
Tèm : Dwa lojman , vyolans sou fanm nan kan yo, gagotay lan ONG yo ,konpòtman manfouben Leta Ayisyen ak demagoji CIRH la Komisyon Rekonstriksyon Enterimè a (CIRH)
Animaté : Mark Snyder ,Melinda , Mark Shuller , Patrice Florvilus, Carole Pierre Paul , Camille Cha
-Temwanyaj viktim tranbleman sou eksperyans yo fè pandan 12 mwa anba tant
-Temwanyaj mouvman peyizan
-Fim Dokimantè
0Deklarasyon Final

12 janvye :Manifestasyon piblik kap soti devan Ministe Sante nan Ri Sentonore bò Lopital Jeneral

Oh! The Places You've Gone - 2010 in Photos

2010-12-31T15:44:00.023-05:00

...Leaping, stumbled: better to hold hands. A six-word memoir may encapsulate the most important message, but plot quirks--and supporting characters--require more images. So in the spirit of procrastinating before beginning my resolutions for productivity, I've made a second Year in Review:

In an instant, so much was lost:

Wasn't in the mood for real goodbyes, but I received a sweet surprise send-off from the my classmates:

LSTH---the door to the nursing school where 3 dorm rooms were converted to ORs. In Cessna's landing on the highway outside Leogane, people showed up, taped on nametags, and worked as hard and long as humanly possible:

The same mishmash, heroic group--Jean Marc, Chris, Josh, Ralph...--got the tent pods set up a few weeks later:

Becoming more than just a trauma center, we were now a 24/7 general hospital. Dan's first on-call board offered a template, and we kept going. Working as hard and long as humanly possible. Or more:

Peter, my colleague, rose to every challenge. What we did is best expressed by a single Kreyòl word degaje "to make it work, to find a way":

Kristina (pictured) and Abbey (not) were my other comrades. One attempt at dancing Michael Jackson was more than enough:

Ralph Plastics & Mo Ortho bandaging 2-year-old Garvensly, badly burned but to fully recover with diligent care from our nurses & docs, and his grandmother:

Dan, Lars, "T", and Sony acting as transport team. Doubt that wearing shorts in the OR will be acceptable in the Mass General:

Robenson---translator, smooth operator, and my friend & protector:

Roosevelt---carpenter, and my other friend & protector:

Williamson---one special orphan:

Williamson---taken in by Manoucheka to join her son, Jonas, in a loving family:

Emily Ann---March 12, moments after birth, two-months premature, in respiratory distress. Her young mother abandoned her the next day:

Emily Ann---April 29, after two months in the Medishare NICU. 8 weeks old, 6 pounds:

Emily Ann---December, with her adopted mother, Natacha. (photo courtesy Steve Seidel). She's grown a bit:

Junior---was in constant pain since March 2009 moto accident, now in Maine recovering from a recent hip transplant arranged by Dr. Kevin. Junior calls himself my "gran frè" and is continuing his work as an artist:

Playing a little before the pain of leaving work unfinished in a place I love:

Yet, the Union Square Farmer's Market is another lovely place:

With impressive street performers:

Another life-enriching experience, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade:

Visiting my friends at the Farm of the Child in Honduras, impressed by their skills of cooking for mass community over a wood-stove:

Within and among El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua...this is how I rolled. Hours and hours and hours of rolling:

But sometimes there was entertainment:

Thousands of Salvadoran women, children, and men demanding justice in healthcare, never giving up in the long struggle:

So, while I witnessed much natural beauty (here Volcan Concepción, the one I climbed/stumbled up):

...The human beauty was far greater (girls dancing for the San Geronimo festival in Masaya, Nica):

Leaving mi familia:

To return to my family:

And to the Farmer's Market:

And our view:

We had a happy Christmas---even saw the Radio City Rockettes!

December 26, it started snowing. A lot. With thunder cracking and lightning flashing. Wikipedia "thundersnow":

Being our last night after a two-year NY hurrah, however, we still dressed up and went to Brooklyn for dinner (check out the chocolate bridge dessert):

And so in order to find (thank goodness) a subway home, we tromped ten blocks through windy 15-inch drifts:

Tomorrow is not only a new year, but the 207th anniversary of a land of slaves winning freedom---a new beginning since marked by much abuse, yet still a story of pride, and courage:

The St Rose de Lima church in Leogane collapsed completely, except the altar. People kept gathering around it, with hope and love. What was built, destroyed. Daily harm continues, ever stronger. But perhaps not everything lies in ruins:

The Year in Clouds & 6-word Memoirs

2010-12-20T15:09:00.013-05:00

I just read the New York Times "Words of the Year," which has inspired me to think about the words that personally defined this year. Also, enjoying a requisite annual screening of Love Actually with Mom and Barrick prompts me to muse. [Watching the trailer alone is joyful.]

60 blog entries in 2010---so, what happened? Where did I go? Whom did I encounter? How was I moved, surprised...changed?

I probably can't answer those questions; instead, I took all I've written here over the last year and made a cloud, with word frequency reflected by size. Lots of conjunctions and adverbs, yet I was happy to see "People" as the clear leader. Along with "friend" "Haiti" "salvador" "Leogane" "Spanish" "family" "food" "team" "home" "help" "need" "care"..."hope"

(click to enlarge)

Let's not mince words, so I'll sum it up with only six. Remember that first attempt at shared "6-word memoirs" on this blog, now two years ago? See the first and second installments. Add your own narratives by comment here, or to just me by email. Simply ponder, because it is fun. My 2010 gave these to me:

"Leaping, stumbled; better to hold hands"

11 and Counting...

2010-12-12T19:44:00.005-05:00

Today was not dramatic. It marks 11-months since the pillars collapsed in a Caribbean country already pillaged by colonialism, militarism, and neoliberalism. Yet like yesterday, millions of Haitians simply awoke homeless, jobless, increasingly ill with cholera, and desperately seeking change. Despite the heartwrenching footage sure-to-be-shown by major media one month from today, January 12 will probably not bear transformative significance either.

In its annual review of top Google searches, Zeitgeist found Haiti to be 2010's "fastest riser" in the news category. [Justin Bieber topped multiple categories.] Haiti's climb to attention started 11 months ago today, with both news and public interest ebbing & gushing since then.

This week added a few new taglines of Haiti woes, which make litany-form in most stories: "riots" "civil unrest" "flaming barricades" "Sarah Palin"...[Regarding that last one, the Grizzly Hunter's brief chopper tour was apparently neither helpful to, nor noticed by, any Haitians.]

Our challenge is to not reduce Haiti to the headlines it will undoubtedly continue making. Rigorous reporting about the country often doesn't make major outlets, except AP's Jonathan Katz. Ansel Herz also does a stupendous job. As I've mentioned, I keep watching Twitter feeds from people on the ground, and re-tweeting the info to this blog. From Twitter to Wikileaks---now is the time for us to seek information at its source.

And so, helping give voice to this unremarkable anniversary, I'll offer three things:

1. A concise and honest look at the intensifying social mobilization (i.e. the foundation of the protests, expression of collective voice) in the Boston Haitian Reporter, written by Haiti grassroots human rights worker Melinda Miles.

2. Photoessay depicting the subtext of the last 11 months. It was produced by Bri Kouri Nouvèl Gaye, a Kreyòl newspaper that serves as the major way Haitian camp residents learn the world news that affects them.

3. I close with Melinda Miles' words from a recent blogpost as she refers to the above photoessay. They are an eloquent tribute to Haitians and an entreaty to us.

"When will things begin to change for the better? Haitians never expected to be rescued, and in recent months a new grassroots mobilization for change has begun to grow throughout the IDP camps, the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, and the peasant movements of the country as a whole. Through peaceful protests and popular university discussions, people are beginning to envision their own path for the future. Where those least affected by the quake have failed to solve the problems, those most affected by it cannot fail. They must create a new path forward, because Haitians cannot remain under tarps for years.

These photos are heartache in images; they depict the most painful moments of confrontation between nature and the frail human bodies under tarps, between powerful international forces and the valiant young people, women and men who demand something better for their lives. They take us from pain to protest to action. Hopelessness is a luxury Haitians cannot afford, and so the challenge is to spend a moment with the Haiti of today and still find the hope you need to get up and do something."

World AIDS Day 2010

2010-11-30T22:21:00.005-05:00

I'd like to share a 3-minute video produced by one of my new medical classmates, Eric Lu*. Features an exclusive conversation with Dr. Paul Farmer.

[Eric and a few friends started the Jubilee Project when they decided to busk in a NY subway station to raise money for Haiti relief. This modest act inspired a video-making movement that raises funds and awareness for many causes. Worth checking it out.]

Tomorrow night, my classmates (old & new) will join others for a rally on the Boston Common---"sounding a clear call" and "affirming their commitment" as President Obama encouraged. I would be honored to work with them in coming years, as our generation delivers healthcare to everyone who needs it.

The World is About to Turn?

2010-11-28T20:39:00.016-05:00

Today begins the season of Advent in western Christianity. More than 2 billion people prepare to celebrate a new coming, and turning over the year. A priest reflected this morning that we should be mindful of our everyday actions in this changing world, one "of much suffering and brokenness, but that is surely pregnant with a new world." What kind of renewal?

My title above refers to an Irish folk hymn based on the subversive, revolutionary elements of the Biblical Magnificat, which Mary sang to Elizabeth as she waited to bear God's child. The refrain, "My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn. Wipe away all the tears, for the dawn draw near. And the world is about to turn."

Today Haiti voted for hope of a just turnover. Well, some of Haiti voted. Others boycotted, and still others were unable to reach the polls or turned away from them. By nearly all accounts, it was a disorganized and allegedly fraudulent "selection." Within 8-hours of the 6AM opening, 12 of 19 candidates held a joint press conference calling for annulment. This news is already all over your favorite media outlets, yet as usual, I respect Jonathan Katz's reporting for the AP. [He has lived in the country for 3 years..]

Issues include the following:
1. Deliberate yet unexplained exclusion of the popular Fanmi Lavalas party, among other flaws (including printing only half of the 400,000 requested national ID cards). In October, 44 members of U.S. Congress implored the State Dept to only support free & fair elections---and while late, there's still time to heed that advice. For Haiti politics aficionado's, this IJDH report is quite comprehensive.

2. Cholera. Reason enough to have postponed. Officials all admit estimates of the sick and dead are undershot; epidemic has yet to reach its peak; WHO is adjusting its projections upwards given that only 10% of the $164 million emergency appeal requested has been funded.

3. MINUSTAH---going on 5 years of what many Haitians view as militant occupation. The peacekeeping force has its own significant record of violence that includes open-firing into slums [embedded link is to one of my first blog posts in early 2007, for this particular human rights struggle was what first drew me into Haiti nearly 4 years ago. I suppose not much has changed.]

3.5 My friend Deepa works with a grassroots human rights group and wrote this excellent (concise!) update on how Haitians are responding to these issues...and how we can help their voices be heard.

4. Some irresponsible media coverage of all the above. More on this to follow via Twitter.

***One easy response: sign this petition listed on Change.org. It was started by a sharp new activist group in the Boston area called UnityAyiti, which has welcomed me into their ranks. Promise no strings attached or email deluge for signing.

As I continue working with UnityAyiti on watchdogging and advocacy, I'll post updates on Twitter (lest I overwhelm any subscribers to this blog). I will try to tweet solid Haiti news and analysis, as well as direct to good sources (i.e. Haitians and others doing the real work). So if the desire to read up on Haiti strikes, find my tweets on the right sidebar of this page http://oforthep.blogspot.com or at http://twitter.com/oforthep.

Note for the Twit-illit: you don't need an account to click on tweets or any links therein.

Today in Haiti, a new beginning did not emerge. Yet Haitians are still preparing for what they believe should rightly come to them, someday. They will keep toiling for the turning.

Gives Me Hope Today

2010-11-13T21:19:00.008-05:00

One: what tho' the odds were great, the Irish pulled a victory over 14-ranked Utah. On TV, I watched the senior players end years of adversity with golden helmets raised in pride---including law student / O-lineman Chris Stewart, who unsurprisingly was a big hit carrying Haitian children on his shoulders when he visited Leogane last year. Celebrate on Rockne's field, senior class. Celebrate on out into the world.

Two: Aung San Suu Kyi was released. May she inspire the world to struggle for real freedom in Burma.

Three: Dr. Raj Panjabi delivered perhaps the most inspiring message I've heard in 2010. 6-minute video below (really, it's awesome, I watched it 3 times). He co-founded Tiyatien Health in rural, post-war Liberia. I'm honored to call him colleague, teammate.

Ignorance & Apathy

2010-11-11T20:53:00.013-05:00

A football coach confronts his quarterback about an embarrassing string of losses. "You don't know the darn playbook, and you can't seem to rally the team when it comes down to that last drive in the 4th-quarter! What's the bigger problem, son, your ignorance or your apathy?"

The young leader ponders for a moment and then responds, solemnly, "I don't know, and I don't really care."

--------
Thank you, to a few kind readers who answered my not-so-rhetorical question. I decided not to go to Haiti. My original intention had been to simply visit with Haitian friends. Now is not the right moment for that. I also truly have nothing to offer... So from El Salvador, I came straight home: out of respect for the Haitians and foreigners working so fervently in the instant of crisis--an instant which today, November 12, has lasted for 10 months.

I am usually ignorant, and often apathetic. I sit in a comfortable house, consume too much, and pity my selfish concerns. Then memory triggers a craving for what's important, and I spend the last several hours learning and feeling.

--------
Synopsis of what we should know:
1. MSF Head of Mission, Stefano Zannini, reports in today's cholera post: "It’s a really worrying situation for us at the moment. All of the hospitals in Port-au-Prince are overflowing with patients and we’re seeing seven times the total amount of cases we had three days ago."
Rising count, at an increasing rate: 724 dead and 11,125 hospitalized. More unknown cases, surely.

2. Hurricane Tomas did cause significant flooding damage in Leogane. It's hard to quantify other than to say it was, bad. Some of you have seen photos from our common friends--shared & re-shared--across Facebook. Ansel Herz also provides an account.

3. Most of us have read about the "1.15 billion" pledged by the U.S. for reconstruction, money that seems to be playing hooky. (not to be confused with 1-billion spent in initial emergency aid). What's the story? Jonathan Katz from the AP concisely explains what any non-apathetic citizen ought to realize about our process of helping others.

Basically, Congress took its leisurely time preparing the appropriations bill which hit Obama's desk July 29. Authorization, the next step, happened Sept 20. And just now, the State Department learns it must ensure "accountability" from the Haitian government before the 1.3 million people living in tents could hope for an upgrade to a slab of concrete & some sturdy plywood. Katz also reports that reconstruction contractors with plans ready to go are losing interest.

Time is not only a matter of life and death. It's money, as well.

This predicament is only one step removed from all of us apathetic couch potatoes. It is our representative government, after all. Yesterday, we honored veterans in remembering the path to democracy. We could also remember that our civic duty did not end when polls closed last Tuesday.

4. If you're not discreetly edging away from my soapbox by now, this article is also thought-provoking "Humanitarian Crisis or Crisis of Humanitarianism?"

5. Let's be not ignorant of the good, as well: in searching the old OneResponse & Cluster sites, I just read a Partners in Health situation report that was more detailed than any analogous UN briefing I've read over the last 10 months. PIH has deep knowledge and deep response. Following their mission of "Doing Whatever It Takes," they have stayed with their Haitian community through the persistent crisis of injustice. They know and they care, so they can respond.

--------
I am probably like that poor quarterback. Yet, despite disappointment and seeming futility, he is at least honest. Wherever I am, even 1844 miles from where I wanted to be at this moment, I hope to acknowledge my ignorance & apathy. And then do something about it.

Rain pours through my eyes

2010-11-02T22:36:00.006-05:00

A few minutes ago, I was writing about Nicaragua when thunder and heavy rain began. I stopped to watch it pelt and blow through the open cabana area of the hostel. Then my eyes became moist, then wet.

Have been closely reading Haiti cholera news, and situation reports from the health cluster emails to which I´m still (uselessly) subscribed. And now following Tomas.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/videos/tropical-storm-tomas-strengthens-6584#6584

Whatever the storm´s technical strength or path, think of heavy downpour when living under a tarp or a tent, one that´s falling apart from 10 months of heat and wind and rain. Text messages on your cellphone (you can receive, but don´t have money for outgoing calls) that warn of a nationwide deadly diarrheal epidemic, urging you to use only safe water sources. But you don´t have access to those in your under-serviced IDP camp or (worse, perhaps) the isolated area near the ruins of your home, where you´ve tried to rebuild life. Plus, being unemployed and pregnant or sick or caring for kids--whatever else is in the cup of your life. The cup that the rainwater floods over.

I´m scheduled to go to Haiti directly from El Salvador, in 6 days. Embassy restrictions on non-essential travelers may change this. But even if I have a choice, should I go??? (Very much not a rhetorical question, if you know me) I have nothing to offer. Not even tarps, or cups.

It´s still raining hard here.

Nica, pt. 2

2010-11-02T16:37:00.004-05:00

*Fri 10/29: I finished my last post talking about Che Guevara. Inspired by reading him, as I took a boat from Isla de Ometepe to the hot but pleasant transit town of Rivas, I decided to dress as Che for Halloween. In the Rivas market, I found a motorcycle toy as a prop--and used a red bandana to tie back my currently-long & unkempt hair, drew a scraggly eyeliner-beard. The party? In Managua, where I arrived by early evening to stay with my friend Thomas, who has lived there for a year already through the Jesuit Volunteer Corp. Was soon attacked in a tight squeeze from my other friend Alicia, who promptly whisked me off to her barrio to zealously introduce me to a long string of her Nicaraguan friends. (if you know her, you can picture this)

Here are my friends´ blogs, sharing as nod to their good work, and deep insights about a place which to them is, home.
Thomas:http://thomasweiler.blogspot.com/
Alicia:http://spiderwebsyresistencia.blogspot.com/

Back to Halloween. Thomas & his JV compañeros threw a fantastic fiesta in the evening, with 20 or so Nica and expat friends who I loved meeting. Many recognized me, but more likely due to their radical political leanings than to my costume´s quality. Carousing continued into 2AM guitar sing-along of "Casas de Carton," and The Beatles.

*Sat 10/30: Tranquilo day, but did accompany Thomas to the market to help carry groceries...and witness his frijol & verdura-buying skills. We had time for many good conversations--the brief moment when our different paths become tangent. I´m learning more and more how important these meetings are, even when bending the curve takes a little extra effort.

Alicia joined us in the evening, to enjoy Thomas´ dinner of ayote and "gallo pinto" (Nica-speak for the always-yummy rice&beans). Then we headed with the full group of JVs to Cuidad Sandino, about an hour outside the capital. A few of their Nicaraguan friends recently opened a bar & club that´s women/family-friendly (i.e. not like the sad places of machistic drunkenness and desolation so prevalent elswhere). This night was a benefit concert / open-mic in support of an injured coworker at the local NGO where many attendees worked. Another great night of dancing and joy. Thomas kept telling me that most weekends are much more boring. But I was happy to ride the party wave!

*Sun 10/31-11/2: I´ve been in León for a few days. Called the "capital de la revolución," it was both the sight where Rigoberto López-Pérez assasinated dictator General Somoza in 1956 (then replaced by two dicator sons while Rigoberto was machine-gunned by the national guard) as well as a location of heavy fighting later up the final offensive and victory of the FSLN on July 19, 1979. The national University is also located here, contributing to the city´s importance in the resistance movement...and meaning there are lots of great murals here.

At the revolution museum, my personal tour-guide was a former guerillero. He rattled off 70years of historical detail, with colorful stories, for more than an hour. Only at the end did he tell me that he no longer formerly worked at the museo, but had come in to visit friends there, and still offered to teach me. Fighting in jungle when he was 20, he now farms export shrimp for a Spanish company.

I´ve enjoyed time to take in the city in a more relaxed way. Ironically, my months-long "don´t worry, be happy" M.O. ended in my hostel hammock, as I began reading a BRS Anatomy Review book I brought back from the U.S. several weeks ago. As I swing in a net of dismay from my completely-lost knowledge, my new classmates are learning, a lot...right now. My tranquilo time needs to end soon.

Yet, today´s excursion, likely my last hurrah of stereotypical tourism for awhile, was...VOLCANO-BOARDING. Yes, it´s what you´re imagining. It. Was. Great. A dozen happy backpackers (one quite hungover, glad I wasn´t in her shoes) jumped in the back of an orange truck for service directo across bumpy roads to the base of Cerro Negro. At 160yrs, it is the youngest volcano in Central America and also one of most active. The frequent eruptions, coupled with a characteristic east-to-west wind pattern, has created a rocky side, and a steep smooth ash side. We each carried jumpsuits, googles, and wooden boards in a hike up the rocky side. Ground at the summit was hot to the touch. We received instructions on using the boards (sled style, b/c standing would be wayyy too hard); the most important rule was "don´t smile or scream....or you´ll swallow ash."

Two-by-two, we pushed off. 700-meters at a 41-degree incline. Even though I fell off my board twice, the descent took less than a minute. Record speed in this activity is 80km/h, but my near-40 still felt pretty darn fast. Ash-covered faces and bodies, we rode back to the Bigfoot hostel and were offered free mojitos to celebrate.

I´ve loved Nicaragua, but my time in Central America is on a less-than-a-week countdown, so I need to return to El Salv to say goodbye there. Rather than take the directo TicaBus from Managua, I´m going to split up the 10-plus hour travel time by taking local buses through the three countries, and walking the borders. Estimated 7-10 buses passing from León to Chinandega to Guasuale to Choluteca to El Amatillo to Santa Rosa de Lima and finally, San Salvador. Will probably send a final note from there.

Nica, pt. 1

2010-10-31T18:07:00.003-05:00

Happy Halloween! So here´s the first installment of a Nicaragua travelogue, choc-full of silly tourist meanderings. Sadly, not nearly as witty as a Bill Bryson account.

*Sat 10/23: Sat in the San Salvador terminal at 9AM waiting for the 8AM departure bus (ETA Managua 6:30PM). I chatted with a Nicaraguan lady, who tried to convince me we would make it there no later than 4. We arrive at 10:30, and I stayed overnight in the capital.

*Sun 10/24: caught a minibus to the nearby town of Masaya, and jumped off when I saw clusters of children dancing in traditional costume around the parque central. Each group of dancers is surrounded by dozens of family & strangers admiring the dances (they were great!). I took photos for awhile. Everyone I talked with gave a slightly different explanation, but the gist was a 3-MONTH celebration for their patron San Jerónimo. I also walked through the nationally-known artisan market, fighting temptation to buy from every jewelry-vender. Then I made my way to the neighboring village of Catarina, one of the charming "pueblos blancos" where Masaya´s artesania is made. I sat for awhile at a lookout point over the crater-lake Lago Apoyo. As lovely as the natural beauty was the fiesta atmosphere of Nicaraguan families who also came to enjoy the view.

At the bus stop (i.e. unmarked spot by the highway where people say buses pass), I met 3 nice guys, fellow-travelers, and together we took an indirect, rainy route to Granada--a tourist hotspot in Central America (like Antigua in Guate, but not as pleasant, IMO). So obviously, there was a Norteamericana style sports bar, where my fleeting friends and I stopped to watch the Vikings vs. Packers.

*Mon 10/25: explored the colonial buildings & streets & markets. I wasn´t able to see the convent where St. Bartolome de Las Casas wrote his famous 1525 letter--with its outlandish proposal that indigenous people were, in fact, people and therefore deserving of human rights. I remember reading that letter in Fr. Gutierrez´s class, long ago... After a full morning, I´d seen most of Granada´s highlights, so I caught the 4-hr boatride across Lago Nicaragua to the Isla de Ometepe.

We (handful of backpackers) arrived at the island´s muddy docs well after dark. I had called ahead to a lodge hotel on a coffee finca, and was lucky to find others going the same general direction to share a taxi. Taxi = standing crammed in the back of a pickup as it rumbled for an hour over the rocky, muddy roads. Rocky & muddy enough that at some point, we had to change to a heavier-duty pickup. A quick bout of sickness was gaining fuerza in my belly at this most convenient time, so I had a moment of low & lonely self-pity. I was thrilled to finally curl up under a cosy mosquito net in my lodge bed.

*Tues 10/26: as I regained my full capacity, enjoyed a morning at the lovely Finca Magdelena. Met a handsome French photographer who entertained me by talking about his research and personal experience with "lucid dreaming." Worth googling, as trivia knowledge if nothing else. Later, I made my way around the island to the port town of Moyogalpa to arrange an excursion for the next day.

*Wed 10/27: climbed Volcan Concepción, one of two volcanoes on the island; at 1630-meters, it´s the second highest volcano in Nicaragua. With an Icelandic guy and our guide, started from 100m above sea level. While still in thick vegetation, our guide pointed out trees of glue & howler monkeys, among other things. My compañero decided to stop once we passed the treeline, so I continued with our guide. Unfortunately, once we reached 1400, he decided the sulfuric gases were too strong--the volcano is in its annual-ish period of eruption--so we couldn´t summit. In retrospect, that was probably for the better, because as he watched me frequently fall *UP*, the guide told me, "you will have real problems getting down." He was very right. I slid & slipped all the way down, scraping my hands, and swearing profusely at my sore knees and clumsy feet. Moutain climbing may never be an activity I can do with any skill, but I loved this challenge.

*Thurs 10/28: rented a moped to explore the island (30x10km for a size ref). Of course it was a big lavish & touristy (though 22USD/day was a great deal). And, soy turista! When again in my life would I be in place with a chance to ride the wind through such natural and human beauty? Hands down, awesome day.

While traveling this week, I am reading Che Guevara´s "Motorcycle Diaries" (in Spanish). Coincidental to read it now...since Che was also a 23-year-old medical student, on a yearlong leave, when he drove around South America. His perceptions and vision are naturally far deeper than anything I´ve yet conceptualized myself. But I like thinking about the path we are all riding: a journey of young minds & hearts realizing the desperation of our times, resolving to be part of history. To struggle forever, and live the memory of those we encounter along the way.

A wise man said something along these lines yesterday, at the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear." So Nica-continuation pending, will close with the words of Jon Stewart:
“We know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.”

Listening & Learning

2010-10-21T15:34:00.003-05:00

Class today was a trip to the botanical gardens, an impressive collection of local biodiversity and gifts from around the world. Wilmer, my teacher, related the cultural and medicinal importance of the plants, including the various methods of using "florifundia," a highly halucenogenic flower. We parted ways as usual, saying "nos vemos mañana." And then, with a thud of sadness, I realized tomorrow will be our last class together.

On Saturday, I´m heading to Nicaragua (11hr busing, 2 border crossings) to spend a week traveling there before meeting up with my friends, Thomas and Alicia, in Managua the following weekend. I doubt I´ll encounter whatever exotic challenges the cast of "Survivor:Nicaragua" is currently facing...but you never know. Then directly to Honduras to visit another of my dearest Domer friends, who´s working in the eastern Olancho region. Return to San Salv around Nov 4.

My random birthplace (i.e. not in the Salvadoran campo) gave me "intellectual lens" with with to approach everything from cell biology to...the Salvadoran campo. I want badly to go beyond the books, to learn to live in some solidarity with peoples´ real experiences here. But starting from "level nada" in Spanish with limited time, much of what I´ve learned about this country has come through indirect accounts. A few highlights of my education, just from the past week:
-An open lecture on neoliberalism & the Salvadoran economy at the Nacional Univ, where the speaker urged a packed auditorium that "ya no seamos subjetos de historia." I hope, also, that this country´s youth can start standing up to the oligarchy-friendly policies of past generations.
-Reading Fidel Castro´s recent daily sections in a leftist newspaper. He dedicated the last week to publishing chapter synopses of Bob Woodward´s "Obama´s Wars" book, which he felt so important for the Latin American world to understand that he had it rush-translated.
-Listening to a few hours of taped war testimonies, offered by people in a small pueblo where Wilmer once assisted a couple anthropologists. He had to help me a good bit with the campesino Spanish, but from the memories I heard...I can´t even imagine...
-Actually...Every single day in class, since early August, I´ve learned something new from Wilmer about El Salvador´s past & present. I could only directly encounter the tiniest sliver, but am so grateful to have had the opportunity to listen.

A couple fun side notes:
-Went to an Aventura concert on Friday. The Dominican band fuses tradicional "bachata" music with pop-rap, and is hugely popular--as I now recognize their songs on about every third bus ride. The 20,000ish stadium was packed, with whole crowd belting with the band for the entire 3-hrs of the show. My friend and I were in the nosebleed section. Yet, during the song entitled "Take Your Clothes Off Slowly," I could still see the mosh-pit hurl a hot pink bra at the lead singer. Most well known hit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1h3iPtpY18

-Lovely evening yesterday hosted at a girls´ home in the neighborhood of Mexicanos (site of the gang-led bus burning this summer). My friend, Jenna, lived there one summer, and maintains the connection now that she´s back here on a Fulbright. Playing Jenga and Twister and Jacks--despite my still-very-shaky Spanish--brought much affection from the sweet (and smart!) girls...

-Returned home a couple days ago to see a big bus right outside our house. Was puzzled, because buses never pass direct through the neighborhood, and this wasn´t even one of the nearest route. Mystery solved a moment later when my dear house parents got off...the driver was giving the older couple doorside service. I hurried to take my madre´s grocery bag from her, and as I did so, she grasped my forearm to steady herself in a way that reminded me, emotionally & almost viscerally, of how my Grandma would use me as support 10 years ago. Mi madre had just been named "Reina" of their neighborhood social group at an annual lunch. As she showed me her crown, shedding glitter everywhere, she remarked, "78 years of such hard work...it´s about time!"

-My favorite internet cafe, just went from playing MLK´s "I Have a Dream" speech to a techno version "Bad Romance." Big improvement over last week´s "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

El Nuevo Mundo

2010-10-13T14:01:00.009-05:00

Another good chunk of time has passed since I either a)felt inspired to update my 3.5 follower friends b)desired to prolong the internet cafe sauna or c)had something semi-interesting to say. Factor (c) is the major determinant.

I spent a week in Guatemala at the end of September, passing through Antigua before making my way to Xela, where I attended language school for a week. Much more popular a Spanish-learning destination than El Salv, Xela is home to some 25 schools. I highly recommend my choice (ICA, www.guatemalaspanish.com), with 5-hours one-on-one instruction per day. Following a Swiss-cheese analogy I tried to stretch across the cultures, my teacher worked hard to "fill in the holes" in my Spanish grammar. (Of course not even the best "maestro" could fully suceed.) He also explained much about Guatemalan history & culture. Which was good, because I unfortunately felt a bit too under the weather to explore much--and said ´weather´ was constant pouring rain all day, everyday.

Speaking of rain (and global economy & climate change), the whole region has experienced much more than its annual average rainfall. Which means El Salvador is importing even more staple foods, at record high prices. And while I was in Guatemala, tropical storms knocked out the border bridge....which meant my return bus had to take backroads across the frontera, and while driving through such muddy cornfields in the dark, had a flat tire. While I dozed, all the men felt compelled to get off the bus and watch the poor driver try to change it. Apparently, the border is still closed, further increasing food prices.

In earlier posts, I´ve mentioned how impressed I am by Salvadorans´ desire to preserve collective memory, even (perhaps especially) the hard memories. This past weekend brought an opportunity for me to directly experience the healing that comes from shared remembering: between 20-30 of my HSC Field Hospital "teammates" came to campus for the ND-Pitt game. And especially, the core people--now among my great heroes--were there. We each told stories (familiar to most listeners) of the crazy, unlikely happenings in the months after the earthquake, lamented over how bad things still are in Leogane, wished we each could do more, and resolved to keep trying... together, as a team. I was grateful my parents support their daughter´s memory to bring me back home for this, and also that they wanted to meet the people who are--will continue to be--among my most special mentors & friends.

Returning to El Salvador, was met with happy welcome from my madre, padre, and hermana here. I spent all day yesterday (our "Columbus Day") at a national Festival for Indigenous Resistence, marking 518 years of the constant struggle to remember. As the MC put it, "to be indigenous is more than an identity...we need to remember our special conscience." Events included forum discussions, Nahuat poetry readings, music, dance, artesenia, chi-cha...all with a lively crowd. At one point, I was interviewed by a local news station. To my chagrin, my teacher told me today that he had in fact seen me on TV. yikes.

Back to collective memory, for just as I was nodding off during one of the late afternoon forums, people around me jumped up to offer their own impassioned perspectives. Their impulse, the desire to speak, is so pervasive here: from the funky, youth-organized sustainability music festival a few weeks ago, to the prior generation´s wise reflections at the San Ramon base eclesial community each Sunday. And people not only speak, but act also, working together to share what they have and struggling for the justice that they believe each person deserves. Every little bit I witness is a privilege.

A friend recently asked me how I find the spirits of people El Salvador, in comparison to Haiti. While I´ve not been long enough in either place to really answer, both countries make me question what it means to be "developed." Haiti doesn´t have many ATMs, or enough ARVs, and so remains decades behind the "rest" of the world. Yet, its people hold a more nuanced appreciation of the collective history of the Americas--conquistadors, coups, corporations--than we do, or at least more than I do.

So on a day when "American" schoolchildren (North being considered the only...) learn about the "discovery" of this land, the Salvadoran woman leading yesterday´s celebration here simply commented, "Una otra America es posible, diversa y multicultural, si juntos estamos caminando para que otro mundo sea posible."
(see GoogleTranslate, rt side of page)

Finally, my laugh for the day: a friend recently passed along this warning of the potential dangers should I now boast that I "speak Spanish."
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/11/09/115-promising-to-learn-a-new-language/

Too Good to Be True - Ways to Help Out

2010-10-11T02:15:00.010-05:00

While immensely grateful for the chance to take time off school... for both the teamwork in Haiti, and now for relaxing free time to learn Spanish in Central America... I do REALLY wish I'd been in this lecture hall a couple weeks ago.

Dr. Randy King directs the MCM (molecular&cellular basis of medicine) course I took last fall, and as the video express, he is a master of teaching metabolic pathway integration, and discovering cell cycle regulation mechanisms. This class of future docs & dentists, which I will soon be lucky to join, decided to offer tribute to Randy's genius in an effort to raise funds for the neglected disaster in Pakistan.

Embrace humor. Reject embarrassment. Help others.

Enjoy (best action is up to 4:23).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKid4dMDl4U

If We Should Forget....

2010-09-21T18:11:00.008-05:00

It´s been a little while since I´ve written, though much has happened. The last week, especially, was a good one of voyaging & learning. After missing class being sick last Monday, and knowing Independence Day would keep us from school on Wednesday, I decided to "approvechar" (make use of) the week to defer my school fee and see new areas of the country.

First, I made my way west along the Ruta de Las Flores, which is highlighted in all the guidebooks. I stopped and stayed the night in Juayúa, where there are famous gastronomical festivals each weekend. Being a Tuesday, my stomach sadly had no special experience there, but it was a lovely, tranquila town to explore.

Wednesday, September 15, was Independence Day for all of Central America. I went to a small pueblo named Santo Domingo de Gúzman, also in the western department of Sonsonate. My friend & MK missioner, Erica, lives there. So we watched the parades of school children & marching bands. These included the Salvadoran version of cheerleaders, "cachiporristas," whose presence will be outlawed nationwide next year because of their controversially skimpy dress contributing to sexism. There was much debate & fervor about quickly passing this law, while important reforms like the medication bill I wrote about, remain stagnant. Sensationalism playing on popular sentiment to drive politics... a cross-cultural theme?

Anyway, in the celebration that followed, I got to hear the national anthem sung in Nahuat (Erica works with a group committed to preserving the indigenous identity). I loved meeting Erica´s friends in the community, seeing the welcoming home she has found here.

On Thursday, I headed east and north, to the village of Perquín. During the war, the FMLN operated a central command from this area, and the whole department of Morazan was victim to much violence. Now, the Museo de la Revolución is there, the only permanent museum (other than the UCA, perhaps) dedicated to the violent repression leading up to the war, and to the resistance movement.

...Unfortunately Perquín is a bit hard to reach. Bus from San Salvador to San Miguel. Bus from San Miguel to San Francisco Gotera. And for the last 30km, standing-room only in a pickup truck, with a crowdedness that would rival any Haitian tap-tap. As we loaded in Gotera, my fellow passangers actually joked that we should add up our weight in kilos.

The mountainous ride up was stunning, for both natural beauty and the signs of beautifully humble, though surely difficult, life in villages we passed. I would love more than a drive-by glimpse someday.

A few Salvadorans also were visiting the museum, company which I found heartening. Cool to see how Radio Venceremos broadcast from ditches in the forest to send critical messages to the guerillas. Very hard to see the display cases of bombshells and heavy arms that killed at least 80,000 people over 12 years of terror...purchased with the $1 million a day sent by my country.

After spending the night as the only guest in a family-owned hostel (where I think my back & side became a fleshy meal for fleas? any dermatologist readers?), I went back to the highway fork in the road early Friday morning where I expected to be able to find public transport to El Mozote. No luck. Fortunately, a big truck passed by on it´s way to Mozote on a trip for wood. He offered me a ride, so I got to see the infamous town...

There, a woman gave me a little tour of the humble memorial--silhouette of a family representing all those killed--and the reflection garden cultivated in a space where bodies of children had been found. She told me she´d been in another department that day in December 1981, but her six brothers were tortured & killed. Along with at least 1,000 people, the entire town... an atrocious massacre committed by the Atlacatl battallion, a counterinsurgency force created at the School of the Americas and subsequently closely advised by the US military. Atlacatl also was responsible for the murder of the Jesuits in 1989. There are obviously books written about the subject, and I don´t even pretend to know much beyond the most clear & obvious history that I present here.

Collective memory is so important. One of the best parts of the week was being back home Sunday and attending a memorial service in San Ramon, for the last "deslave" or deadly mudslide from the volcano directly above us. Though held outside at the site where 500-some people went missing under the mud 28 years ago, the communidad offered the same style of group sharing that I have enjoyed in past weeks. Many spoke of our need to personally be accountable for ways to reduce soil erosion & subsequent risk. While being thoughtful about this memory, I also remembered Haiti and its long history of centralization forced by bourgeois & occupying Marines, and the subsequent decades of structural violence that kept so many lives on a precarious tilt, long before the seismic tremor destroyed them. So many UN-natural disasters.

One young woman summed everything up simply, "If we should forget, we will just have to repeat."

(On a related note, I realize my post yesterday may have come across a bit strong. Not at all intended to be condemning or fanatical. Only to not forget...)

Sak Vid Pa Kanpe

2010-09-20T14:26:00.005-05:00

An empty sack doesn´t stand

You could pass on every other blog post I ever write, but please read the article linked below, by Deborah Sontag from the September 19 NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/americas/20haiti.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Couldn´t describe how this makes me feel, though it doesn´t come as surprise. Despite inattentiveness, we at least intellectually have known this to be the reality in Haiti. A ceaseless hell.

Sometimes I wonder whether our ability to see this slow, suffering death and then walk on to our usual business...makes us a little less than human.

Déjà vu & a new experience

2010-09-06T14:05:00.003-05:00

I don´t know if a Spanish equivalent to that expression exists...

Was taking scattered buses on Saturday (20-cents per exploration) and saw a Marcha Blanca in formation, a demonstration for passage of the much-needed & long-awaited Ley de Medicamientos. Healthcare reform. From bits of newspaper articles and class discussions, I´ve learned just a little about the healthcare system here. Even for people with access to the "seguro social" insurance, the prescribed medications are often not available in public health centers and must be purchased privately, for a lot of dinero. A pharmaceutical industry exists here, allied under the name Industria Químico Farmacéutica (Inquifar); yet, the production of generics (or compulsory-liscenced patent drugs) within the country apparently does not translate to improved access for the population. Surprising? Not in such a lucrative industry as Pharma, surely.

Anyway, the current government is pushing a bill to control prices and improve access. As I joined the spirited procession on Saturday--more than 1,000 citizens of all ages, dressed in white--I remembered a similar march precisely a year ago. Labor Day weekend on the Boston Common, my med classmates and I in our new white coats joined a coalition to call for own healthcare reform. I think the Salvadorans beat us by numbers, so here´s to hoping their long struggle ends with some victory. And that our reform, too, is implemented with integrity & justice.

The organizers played the Latin American (originally Chilean) activism anthem, and since we sang the song a couple weeks ago in class (to practice the future tense), I knew the words!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkYoHxzaKs4

At the Pueblo de Dios en el Camino base community service the next day, people talked about the march. One woman commented during the homily, "I see it as light that so many people would come together. That enough is reason for hope." And later, we made plans for a group collection to help support cancer treatment for the mother of a community member. I doubt it will be enough... but if only we could all count on such insurance of compassionate neighbors.

Other highlights of the last week include participating in a femininity workshop with 15 Salvadoran women and a couple Maryknollers. A full day of sharing, drawing, and dancing. As I heard testimonies of abuse, in so many forms, I could be nothing but amazed, humbled. The greatest courage from within the small, anonymous ´casa´.

School is going well. Though I know I´m learning, I keep wishing I could absorb more quickly. I´m trying to force the "auto-pilot" / thinking in Spanish stage. Not there yet. So I probably should get off this computer...

Before I close, a small new experience: was enjoying myself listening at the Marcha, on nice grass, when attacked by a small swarm of fire ants (new word: hormigas). I then had my first major allergic reaction, ever. Immediate tight-chest & hives & all. Was fine by the next day. If I hadn´t left school, I would by now understand the IgE´s & mastcell/basophil degranulation pathways that can lead to anaphylaxis. But I don´t. Something to anticipate for the coming year...

Yo creo en vos: compañero, humano, obrero

2010-08-25T16:08:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning, I am with the "Pueblo de Dios en Camino," a base eclesial community in San Ramón, just minutes from my house. It´s a Catholic group, yet there´s no priest present because a very conservative pastor arrived to the parish several years ago and didn´t accept the group´s participatory nature. Determined to listen, reflect, and act together, the "pueblo" continue on.

The centre is full of murals and posters. Many of Monseñor Romero of course. A breathtakingly detailed jungle scene. And a depiction of significant massacres on painted map, with little pictorals in each area of the country.

The person convening us welcomes me, saying I may participate for as long as I´m here.

The songs are lively and concrete, expressing the desires of the disenfranchised. Their version of the creed calls Jesus their "compañero" and "obrero"(worker).

The homily is a group reflection the gospel they´ve heard, with even a 13-year-old girl speaking eloquently. Everyone hugs absolutely everyone else at the sign of peace.

The petition prayers are also participatory. Most moving to me was the last I heard, "thank you for bringing us here, so we can share what we have with each other."

Taller, Soya, Río

2010-08-25T15:47:00.004-05:00

I´ve been in CentroAmerica for almost a month now. In San Salvador, I enjoy both my rhythmic daily patterns and my freedom for spontaneity. On the former, language learning dominates most of my days. Since so much of the morning classes involves free conversation, I spend a few hours in the afternoon on grammar. Or reading the newspaper (still not quite there with Romero..) and in evenings listening to the UCA radio station. This week, the school coordinator bumped me up into the next class level, and I appreciate the teachers´ confidence even if I don´t feel close to "intermediate." Yikes. Yet, I suppose you´re not really "in class" if you understand everything presented... This week´s challenge is scratching the surface of subjunctive.

My confidence rolls in waves: feeling great about my breakfast conversation and then near frustration-tears when I got lost on a rainy busride home yesterday evening, fumbling my way through direction questions.

Spontaneous excursions over the last week:
*Karaoke bar. I sang English this time, but Spanish ballads may be forthcoming...

*Sitting in on a "taller" (workshop) on Friday, people from various communities around the country coming monthly to CIS to discuss common experiences and plan both local trainings and broader activism, like the campaign against enironmentally-catastrophic mining rights that Pacific Rim and other companies are pushing for from the government(more info: http://luterano.blogspot.com/). I talked to one young man who came from 3 hours away to this taller. He works as a walk-through candy vender on regional buses. Wow.

*Visiting the Soy project on Saturday, run by a Maryknoll lay missioner. The effort has made measurably significant differences in child nutritional status around here. Helped make vanilla and chocolate soy milk using their new "cow" machine. Yum.

*Traveling to San Antonio de Ranchos, a small village in the northen department of Chaletenango, on Monday with the entire MK crew. Every year, a service is held in memory of Maryknoll Sister Carla, who died in 1980 crossing a flooding riverbed. She had just picked up a campesino released on stern "warning" from a nearby prison, accused on being a guerilla informant. She was taking him home to try to avoid probable torture. Also in the car were two young men and Sr Ita Ford. All were quickly pushed out of the inundated car by Sr. Carla, but she couldn´t make it in time. (Sr. Ita was martyred just 4 months later with the three other missioner women). We started by the river, with speeches from the townspeople who fondly remembered Carla. Then we processed with singing and candles to the actual service, and (predicably) ended with generously shared food.

Lugares de Peregrinación

2010-08-18T14:01:00.004-05:00

Lunes 16 de Agosto - 8:30pm
[Doña is sitting next to me on the couch, telling me stories of her many other ´hijos´ or host students. A bit earlier, Don found it howl-aloud hilarious to call my new cellphone from the kitchen. Though full from cena, I couldn´t resist a minute ago when mi hermana (who lives with us during the working week and goes to her husband´s coffee farm on weekends) literally tossed me a sizzling tortilla.]

This past week certainly opened a fire hydrant for learning (my fellow med students know the metaphor all too well). I have class at CIS in the mornings, with every word in Spanish. My placement test predictably started me in "Basic," with one other student (who has been here two months) and our maestro. Everything floods in together--trying to grasp the 8 parts of speech, fairly complex syntactical construction, regular & irregular (and reflexive) verb conjugation in four tenses...and of course a completely new vocabulary. I love it. I much enjoy the challenge of constantly thinking foreign words in foreign ways. It´s so unlike Kreyòl--which I´m trying to keep near, in a distinct brain compartment, though now realizing how limited my vocabularly is in that language. Spanish brings me back to Latin, reminding me how much I used to enjoy translating Aeneid,Ovid,Catullus...like code-breaking. Hearing and speaking the complexity is a new dimension, however, and I usually have to pause before answering Doña´s questions as my mind clicks to the right verb conjugation. Based on her often cocked eyebrows, I still fumble a ton.

Miercoles 18 de Agosto:
Last week also convinced me I want to be here, in El Salvador. I´ve questioned, wondering whether I should have landed in a more popular language school destination like Xela, Guatemala. Yet, CIS (cis-elsalvador.org) uses the Paulo Freire / popular education method, with lessons growing from our conscientization of the Salvadoran reality. In just the first week, we ve discussed some idigenous history as well as the formation of FMLN, and read a tribute to the diaspora by Salvadoran poet & revolutionary, Roque Dalton. I bought one of Roque´s books, along with a compilation of Romero homily passages, at the national University bookstore yesterday. Just this morning--based on my probably over-frequent cross references during class--my teacher brought in an article about Haiti. I am learning to listen, learning to speak. I think El Salvador has a lot to teach.

Someone told me that one should visit places here not just as tourism--though the country is promoting its tourist spots--but as "Lugares de Peregrinación," pilgrimage sites. Last week, I visited the UCA and heard the full story of the 6 Jesuit martyrs, for the first time; I will definitely return there. Also went to the war memorial in Parque Cuscatlán and Romero´s tomb in the Cathedral. I spent the weekend away, on a CIS-led trip to the towns of Cinquera and Suchitoto farther north in the country. They were both major war areas. Cinquera now has a forested national park where 30 years ago there was farmland, abandoned during the fighting. We hiked up the small mountain and swam in a waterfall. In Suchitoto, we spent the night at a wonderful centre run by a sister who has been here since 1987 (http://capsuchitoto.org). Heard live music at a local restaurant, and the next day explored the charming cobblestone streets and Sunday fair. [For latinoamerican-phytes, the place is often described as a smaller Antigua,Guate.] Climbed rocks around another waterfall. Visited two incredible projects: the Concertación de las Mujeres, and the Permaculture Institute [www.permacultura.com.sv is worth checking out, awesome example of supporting people´s natural problem solving skills and ability to "read the land" to counter the very real & worsening effects of climate change. Plus, foreign guests are welcome to learn the methods!]

Concertación is a collaboration among 5 local women´s groups that do...everything in the 45 nearby small communities. Literally everything. Training birth attendants, family planning, PAP smears, co-op style health insurance pool. Support for victims of gender violence--including a campaign in which families stamped a pledge outside their houses "en esta casa queremos un vida libre de violencia hacia las mujeres." Microfinance projects like a successful indigo-dyed clothing store and a creative cow-exchange cycle. Promotion of women in municipal politics. All of it...started and fully sustained by Salvadoreña´s. Local desire and effort far more important than any concrete accomplishment.

My highlight of the weekend, and time here so far, was a conversation in Cinquera with a man called Don Pablo. He started by saying he had to "leave in two hours for a meeting of the Communidad Eclesia de Base..." And then followed a flooring testimony in Spanish of the period leading up to the war, decades of economic and physical abuse which he emphasized as equally as (or more than) the war itself. The propaganda they were fed by the political and church authorities...

..The arrival of a new priest who asked them, "why don´t you have enough to eat?" and when they responded with the "God´s-will" fallacy they´d been taught, he promptly gave a Bible to each formerly illiterate campesino...and taught them to read with it. Then he gave them copies of El Salvador´s Constitution. Don Pablo explained, "Our resistance grew because the people saw connections between the Bible and the Constituion, realizing our oppression was ´pecado social´ and that through solidarity as a group, we could work for justice."

Don Pablo was captured multiple times and tortured; four of his children died in the fighting, and the fifth took his own life the year after it ended. Ending simply, Don Pablo passed around his copies of the Bible, Constitution, and Medillín and said "we´re still applying this to our life." And then he left for his meeting.

Update on Haiti

2010-08-16T18:22:00.002-05:00

I'm a little out of on news of Haiti, but this came to me from a friend involved in the Haiti Response Coalition. So much injustice is flooding over the most courageous...

For Immediate Release: 11 August, 2010

Haiti Earthquake Survivors Peacefully Demonstrate to Call Attention to the Forced Expulsions and Horrific Conditions in Camps
Seven Months After Catastrophe: No Solutions and No Assistance

Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Thursday, August 12, 10AM Sit-in in front of the National Palace.
Force for Reflection and Action on the Housing Cause (FRAKKA), Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), Batay Ouvrière (B.O), KOOTK, OVS, COSEM, Immaculé, Deplace, CUSLG, Camp Mezyan, Babankou and other Internally displaced people under threat of expulsion, invite the international and national press and community to their sit-in in front of Haiti’s National Palace 11am EST on August 12. Seven months after the tragic earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands and left more than one and half million survivors homeless, the most vulnerable are organizing to demand a moratorium on forced evictions, which are happening in violation of Haitian and international law. The government must immediately provide humane alternatives to the muddy, dangerous, unsanitary and simply brutal living conditions by verifying ownership titles, and nationalizing by decree all empty and idle lands in the hands of large landowners. The thousands who cannot leave their camps for fear of expulsion or lack of transport funds will participate in the protest by banging pots at noon (1pm EST) within the tent cities throughout Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns.

While international aid agencies and the United Nations readily admit that the camps do not meet international standards for internally displaced people, at the same time non-governmental organizations, charities and the Haitian Government are unwilling to provide basic services to these victims.

Food distributions have come to a halt and many aid agencies are intentionally withholding necessary and fundamental services such as latrines, water, food and medical aid, in order to force earthquake victims to abandon the camps that currently exist in former parks, school grounds and churchyards. However, no feasible plans exist to relocate these families.

Through the generosity of people throughout the world, more than one billion dollars has already been donated to charities. “Haitians who lost loved ones, homes and all their belongings are now out in the merciless summer sun all day, then soaked to the bone by rains each night,” explains Melinda Miles, director of Let Haiti Live and Coordinator of the Haiti Response Coalition. “They are deprived of fundamental human rights – access to food, water, shelter – and have no other place to go.”

The U.S. government and UN agencies all point to the Haitian Government’s inability to provide land for resettlement, referring to controversies around land tenure and eminent domain. However in the past, eminent domain has not been an issue when the government has needed to appropriate land for building roads or factories. The current situation is illustrative of a historical precedent of private property being more important than the rights of the poor.

“The law is perfectly clear,” according to prominent human rights attorney Mario Joseph. “There is a problem of political will and a problem of exclusion. The poor have been excluded from their land for years, and are now excluded from the process determining their rights to lodgings.”

In addition to demanding immediate solutions for the internally displaced people such as viable land for relocation and resumption of basic services without further delay, demonstrators are demanding that forced evictions and violent expulsions cease, and the Haitian Government and Haitian National Police enforce a mandatory moratorium on forced removals until suitable alternatives are in place.

Contacts: Melinda Miles 011-509-3855-8861 and Attorney Mario Joseph 3701-9879

mi Casa y mi Familia

2010-08-09T18:21:00.002-05:00

Domingo 8 Agosto:
Already gained comfort & rhythm in my new (transient) home. I live with an older couple, who I still mostly call "Don" and "Doña" out of respect, rather than use names. Both are retired schoolteachers. They have four grown children, but only one still in the country. I met her at Mass today, and she promptly exclamed, "Ah, not sister, my daughter!"

Mi casa is in a quaint middle-class neighborhood, guarded by friendly "vigilantes." Passing from the living room to kitchen goes through an outdoor hallway / clothesline space, which is where I wash my clothes on the pila. The front door is also often open to a little patio space before the iron gate, my favorite reading spot in a hammock chair by the cage for our two "pajaros"(birds) and in view of the basketball court across the street. It all gives a feeling of peaceful, natural comfort.

Don and Doña are very friendly, though our relationship remains superficial given my language limitations; they patiently guide me through simple conversations. I couldn´t be more eager to finally start language school tomorrow. Have been making decent attempts, but I still regularly mix in Kreyol words, frequently refer to myself in the masculine, and more often than not, omit the verb in my sentences altogether because it´s not one of the three I know. When I don´t understand a comment directed at me, I automatically give a couple quick nods, "Oh...si!" I remember that faked comprehension as an impossible bane of teaching in Cambodia, so now can finally empathize with my former students. Just smile and pretend. Will figure it out eventually, I hope.

I spend time with Doña mainly as she sits at the kitchen table, watching me eat. (Don is apparently on his own schedule). We seem to converse with steady pace, given that I don´t know how to say anything. Easy repeats. It will rain today. This fruit is grown in El Salvador, but not in Michigan. Yes, I like beans very much. She works on her "bordado" embroidered placemattes as we talk, and pretty much all day, too.

Now it´s 7:30, and my dear parents have gone to bed. I´ll likely folow suit in two hours. A 9-to-5 sleep schedule? Unbelievable.

Que le vaya bien

2010-08-09T18:02:00.002-05:00

I already love being here. San Salvador seems such a lively place, with solemn history and collective memory, as well as hilarious quirks--some of these analogous to things I´ve encountered before, but always aspects unique and special to this place. Something most unexpected, however, is an added layer of development beyond what I expected for a country only recently recovering from a most brutal war. For instance, my host parents are both retired and actually receive social security money, from the government. Fast food chains and relatively upscale stores line the city boulevards. The "consuma" fair was full of people making middle-class purchases, home electronics and appliances and such.

Of course, I only so far see the decorative icing. I realize this is city life, where the relatively small middle-class has opportunities for advancing livelihood (with tongue-in-cheek consideration of electronics purchases as "advancement" a la USA). The pueblo, the campo are different and live the same structural violence faced by rural poor everywhere. Even in the city, I´ve not yet found the disparities and oppressions I know exist.

Still, this is not Haiti.
No security, social or otherwise, exists there.

Over the last couple days, I´ve had moments of subconsciously trying to place my mind´s image of crumbled Port au Prince side-by-side with San Salvador. But I can´t, for Haiti seems so distant now, like a toddler who keeps tugging at my skirt and then running away before I can turn to look. News of the field hospital closing hit painfully 10 days ago, as I Skyped with Roosevelt only minutes before departing for the airport. Everyone did everything they could. My Haitian friend--he´s the one suffering, not I--told me to "kenbe la," hang in there. I hope they can.

I need to accept the tugging, for there´s so much I want to learn here: the lived history, base ecclesial community, local work for change... I learned my first local phrase the other day, which people say on the street as I pass, after buenos dias, "que le vaya bien" meaning "(hope) that it goes well (for you)." So far, it certainly is.

El Salvador del Mundo

2010-08-09T17:38:00.002-05:00

Fiestas Agostinas, the August Festivals, is a week of vacation in El Salvador leading up to the Church feast of the Transfiguration of El Salvador, for which this country is named (obviously a big deal). I arrived just at the culmination to experience the amusingly poignant mixing of elements, secular and spiritual.

Hours after meeting my host family, we watched the country´s Catholic TV station broadcast the slow procession of Christ´s statue carried on a bed by a score of men, toward the national Cathedral in the central square. Absolute hoards of people surrounding it, for hours. It was dark when they reached the cathedral, where the Archbishop gave a brief homily, and then the statue was somehow descended "el bajar" into a huge globe resting on pillars, two stories high above the crowd. Minutes later, Christ reappears transfigured from a purple robe to shining white...at which point the people burst into ecstatic cheering and singing. Doña follows along from our living room view.

The next day, attended the solemn feast day Mass, also in front of the Cathedral with 10s of thousands standing in the balmy sun. I may have been imagining it, but I think I miraculously understood a good bit of the Archbishop´s homily, which focused on our need to concretely transfigure the world from one of oppression to one of peace. (Fist-pump to the land of lib theo) At communion, the congregation was instructed to stay in their place. "We (the ministers) will come to you." Beautiful.

Final day of feasting was a repeat of old experiences at my county fair. Except churros in place of elephant ears. The Salvadorans call it a "consuma," which seems an appropriate name for the enormous variety of "things" pawned off there. Fair games and rides naturally included, and a good once-a-year time for all.

One of the nights included fireworks, lit above a monument to El Salvador del Mundo at one of the city´s main traffic roundabouts. Far surpassing SJ´s Venetian display, this was the most elaborate showing I´ve ever seen. Yet, we seemed among only a small group of spectators. Personally, I´m not a huge fan of fireworks, and here, I cannot help but think how other explosions were so recently here...the bombs bursting in air.

And Now, For Something Completely Different*

2010-08-09T17:11:00.002-05:00

*a la Monty Python

I am not in Haiti anymore, which is stating the obvious to the four readers of this blog (hola, madre). I spent just four days in Port au Prince at the General Hospital, and June 1 onward, was home wrestling with interminable questions: "Why did I leave?" "What should I do now?" "Am I useful to Haiti?" "Is usefulness anywhere even possible for me, right now?"...It was quite the pity party.

The only response, not even an answer, came from writing a little narrative of my last six months. I wanted to tell the story to myself, so its complexity never leaves my memory and so the admiration & affection for my Haitian and American partners never dims in my heart. I´m happy to share this narrative (shoot me an email or fb msg), once I have a chance to fix the typos & such.

I have a few months free until I must reaquaint myself with Gray´s Anatomy and the insulin/glucagon pathways. In the space between now and then, I hunger for another journey; that brings me here, to El Salvador, where I am currently living with a host family and begin language school this week. When I arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras 11 days ago, my Spanish vocabulary was 0, nada. An attempt to spend that first night at a convent didn´t work out, and led to some amusing mishap with my automatic recession into Kreyol as I fruitlessly struggled communicate with my taxi driver. The next day, however, I took a bus along the northern coast to Trujillo. Outside this town sits the Finca del Niño, where my dear friends Alisha, Erin, Kate, and Francesca live and work.

I spent a lovely 5 days with them: a privilege to witness the rhythms of the Finca´s school and home-style orphanage, the active love Honduran & American staff give the children, the generous simplicity with which the volunteers approach rural communal life. They offered me joyous hospitality. I spent the days walking the serene boundary between coastline and jungle, sharing bunks with Erin and Alisha, playing Settlers of Catan, dancing to Spanish World Cup songs with the Casa 2 girls, kayaking in the bay, running the red dirt hilly roads with Erin, watching over multiplication tables in Kate´s 4th grade class and marveling at her teaching abilities, playing tag at recess, following Alisha´s guidance as we cooked fried chicken & mashed potatoes & mango cobbler over an outdoor wood-burning fogon, enjoying plain beans and slurpy mangoes straight from the trees. Also time in the chapel, with its stained glass window as a proud symbol of the Finca´s serendipitous history, "El que in mi nombre recibe a este niño, a mi me recibe." It is so good to be with friends.

HODR Video: Everyday Extraordinary

2010-06-14T14:04:00.000-05:00

Just came across this great little video done by Hands On Disaster Response in Leogane. When they enter the hospital, watch for a cameo of nurse Christina, and Williamson!

"Lè lapli tonbe, n'ap plante pwa." - When rain falls, we plant beans.

Returning

2010-05-26T01:01:00.017-05:00

I have a very distinct memory from January 2009, of sitting at the PaP airport--my last time leaving, before the quake. Sipping a tiny cup of thick coffee in the upstairs cafe. Catching up on journaling. Then, a clear thought and sense, that I'd felt previously, but not with such clarity. "I will come back, and stay, and keep coming back."

My next return was March 1, 2010. Rushed preparation. After a month of running team logistics, I hadn't expected to be on the ground so soon; I lack the skills of an "early responder". But I was sent anyway. I spent my last night answering emails in the Miami airport. Around 5AM, twinges of nervousness became full-on fear: "what the heck am I doing? what can I possibly offer?"

Could have never predicted then how full and challenging and extraordinary the last two months have been.

This time, I'm eager. Anticipating, as I'm returning to similar work. But also comfortable with the wonder of what I can't expect.

I've said I'm working with Partners in Health, as a coordinator for medical volunteers at the General Hospital. So, more soon from HUEH.

**Importantly: all postings here are my own meandering thoughts, and do not represent the positions or opinions of PIH.

HAITI: U.N. Clash with Frustrated Students Spills into Camps - IPS ipsnews.net

2010-05-26T00:58:00.001-05:00

HAITI: U.N. Clash with Frustrated Students Spills into Camps - IPS ipsnews.net

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Emily

2010-05-26T00:33:00.002-05:00

10 days at home...you'd think I could write one little story about dear little Emily. Apparently not. But don't want to leave anyone hanging, so I'll again leave the colorful description to Abbey:

http://abbeymerryman.blogspot.com/2010/05/orevwa-goodbye-haitibut-it-wont-be.html

On that note, big congratulations to Dr. Abbey Merryman and Dr. Kristina Sinnott, who graduated last week. Partners in hospital coordination. Fantastic friends. And co-godmothers.

"Don't hurry, take time--the story will begin again"

2010-05-16T14:38:00.006-05:00

My dear friend from Jamaica Plain makes calendars, featuring her art complemented by quotations to fit the rhythms of the year. Mom had turned mine to May already, so these words by Myra Shapiro met me when I returned home Friday night.

The time is certainly welcome. Already enjoyed an evening at the Kompound with food and wine and my favorite company. Nearly all my energy is still Haiti, though: finally perusing the team photo-sharing sites, searching for new Haitian music, pulling out my Kreyòl books to hit that tough next proficiency level, eager to re-read Uses of Haiti as a refresher on the historical power disparities.

Thinking about Haiti is now more a family activity. I woke up Saturday, uh, afternoon to have Mom immediately say, "Bren, I want to go back." It meant so much to have them experience it, learning & appreciating & enjoying. Barr rubbled with HODR and played with kids. Mom eagerly served as clinic "runner" and skilled lab tech for malaria RDTs.

Our last day started with me feeling a bit crummy, because I had no idea how to approach my "last" day. This team was strikingly awesome, and I'd thought more about more projects I could have taken on.... so felt unsettled, leaving things unfinished. And so attached to Leogane.

But after taking my friend Junior to the bus stop (he'd come from Carrefour-Feuilles for check-up with our ortho surgeon, as we plan his potential hip replacement in the States), I decided to walk deeper through the town than I normally take time to do.

On the outskirts, I saw four men building a wooden house. Clumsily tried to snap a candid picture, but one waved me off. So I went up to chat with them, show I meant no disrespect. They weren't hired workers, but rather, working together as friends. In rural areas, people share labor on farms in a tradition of holding "konbit", a work party. I think there are lots of konbit's now for rebuilding.

Later, went to MSF to debrief with Rachelle, the coordinator who showed good cheer during a few middle-of-night interactions. On the way back, told my moto driver I needed to change money. I'd rather have my last $60 in gds, to be ready for return.

Stop for curbside service, and I ask the guy, "Konbyen kòb li ye?" (how much is the money?). He quotes "sèt katrevenn dis." 790 Haitian dollars, per 100 US dollars. With the fixed 5 gds per Haitian dollar, that makes 39.5 gds / USD. Good rate. I am proud to know enough of the system here to do things like change money well on the street. But each day, I realize how much more to learn... I know quite little of Haiti.

One of my favorite activities is walking through town with team members, who work so hard at the hospital that their ventures beyond the premises are few. This afternoon, when we passed through the real Ste Croix, we were given a full tour by Suzi Parker, detailing the plans to reopen there later this summer. I hope it continues to move along.

Then to the Plaj St Luke beach village on motos (kudos to Mom for riding one!). Caught the Caribbean sunset. Back home for a delicious dinner (per usual). Later, most of the team went to "Joe's", a bar around the corner which enjoys very good business from HODR vols & other expats. While I usually pass on these excursions, I of course went this time... and really enjoyed rousing conversation over Prestige's. I'll miss this group, excellent people.

Ran into Wesly as we returned to the house yard, and he pulled me aside. "I am so sad you are leaving. Please come back, Bre..."

Okay, another story soon. But I hope that doesn't mean the first ends.

This picture is too big for me

2010-05-10T22:14:00.003-05:00

"I see them boys in town, asking me how they can find a job to feed their families. They suffering. I just want to help them."

"I don't care too much about working at this hospital, where some these guys just trying to get rich and don't care how they treating people. I just want to take care of my family, maybe have a business, be responsible for myself."

"So many people out there are hungry. I let some out there have food from my house, but it's not enough."

"I want to build a safe house for my Mom to come and leave with me. I've only known her since I was 25 years old, but I'm so worried about her. Her situation makes me stress a lot." [breaking down crying here]

Robenson has been my most loyal accompanier here: guided me to households for my surveys, helped me ford small rivers, and lifted me down bleachers at the soccer stadium when things got rowdy. Via personal couriers to the US, he sent me inspiring letters. I received the last one just days after the earthquake: a lengthy spiritual reflection dated January 6, quoting from the Bible he'd asked me to send him over Christmas. I wept for him then from Boston, not yet knowing if he'd survived. He's a surviver.

I told him today about my plans: "That's fine if you gotta go work in Port au Prince. I understand. I'll follow you."

Deported and often shunned by his home culture, he deserves a chance in life. We talked about building job skills.... since we both know interpreter positions never have permanence. Potentially moving out of Leogane to follow connections or opportunities. If I do one good thing this year, it'd be to help him find a livelihood. He would be loyal to it, I hope. And I've seen him go beyond himself, with generosity to strangers in need. Though decidedly unpolished and often frustratingly distractable, I believe he is a samaritan.

"I worry about the situation in this country all the time. This picture is too big for me."

Leaving, and Arriving

2010-05-09T22:21:00.005-05:00

Feels like a long time since I've written. And now, as I struggle to put words to thoughts, I realize how much I needed to write over the last two weeks. A shift occurred then. No longer were we constantly pulled 5 different directions in each instant. No longer do the day-to-day operations at the hospital require our direct intervention. Dr. Coles and Peter, our Haitian leadership, take care of it all. They do a darn good job, too. We've continued to tie up loose ends and tackle little projects. But the field hospital's biggest current needs stretch beyond what we as medical student coordinators can offer.

Not only have I felt more useless, and helpless, but also less vivacious. My energy dipped too low to sustain the desire I need for each day. I don't want to admit that feeling, the sense of dead weight, to even myself. I'm irritated about being tired. But I am tired.

So, it's time to move on. Take a short time at home to simply rest, and to reconnect with Haiti. My mind and spirit have been full time, full force on this hospital effort since February 1. I desperately need to step back, to reflect for a moment on this place. Why am I here? Where is my solidarity? How can I be an accompagnateur to this country, which draws me in ways I can scarcely describe?

I've been given an opportunity to work with Partners in Health at the state's public general hospital: HUEH, L'Hopital Universite de l'Etat d'Haiti. More to follow on the details, but would be a volunteer coordinator, etc... similar to what I've done over the past two months in Leogane. I spent a day and night there last week, with a PIH doctor and one of their current teams. There seems to be an active role to fill. I'm excited. And a little nervous. Both adjectives are understated.

Mom and Barrick arrived today to spend the week with me, as I tie up things here. We all leave Friday. At home, I hope to find a renewed way of being here. A way to enter each day with energetic humility: ready to work, ready to learn. The Catholic Worker attitude, as I first found this vivacity at Bethany House, living and working in the emergency women's shelter 4 years ago.

More reflections later on the leaving, and the plans for coming to a new place here. But I close this post with Peter's words: "You are going, so I will work doubly hard here. We can do this ourselves."

Sharing

2010-05-03T22:33:00.003-05:00

*In "ugh" news: a few strong mini-earthquakes in last 24 hours (haven't read up much on the geology, but heard it's too late for them to be accurately called aftershocks). One last night at 1 AM; I was awake, standing in Kristina & Abbey's room because night interpreter Yves woke us to say he thought the generator wouldn't have enough gas through the night... with 2 people on oxygen (fortunately it did). That was 4.0.

This afternoon, a 4.4 right under Leogane. Was also in the house at the time, so feel them more there than on bare ground. Loud commotion from clinic and the nearby displacement camp. It only feels strange to me.... but can't imagine how terrifying for people who lived the first horror.

*In happy news: noticing others' compassion probably gives me more pleasure than anything else, and there's plenty of shared compassion here.

Natasha, one of the night nurses, comes to the house every evening to bring Emily to the hospital. She almost squeals as she walks in the door, picking up "her" baby, to watch all night.

Frantzy, the facilities/trash worker, notices it's extra hot in clinic today, so comes to me to get more water for people.

Every day, I go to market to get a plate of food for Williamson, our resident orphan (hopefully Save the Children will offer guidance tomorrow on his situation). We try to feed him as much as we can, but he's become pretty ravenous. Today, he jumps to take the styrofoam carrier from me, scurries to his bed, scrummages through his acquired belongings for an extra tin plate and spoon.... and carefully divides his food in two. To share with his friend, housekeeper's son Jonas.

He even split the chicken wing with his hands.

Baby Adventure

2010-05-01T19:25:00.002-05:00

For those seeking a more colorful story of Emily Ann's return home to us, and how Abbey ended up with 40 children singing happy birthday to her in the hospital, see her blog:
http://abbeymerryman.blogspot.com/2010/05/lets-start-with-good-news.html

Includes more pictures!
[note: we decided the baby sling I was using is too big for our little girl]

Happy Feast of the Worker!

Anba Dekombe

2010-04-30T20:29:00.002-05:00

Today was a good change: took a chance to clear rubble with Hands On Disaster Response (affectionately, "HODR"). Awesome organization that mobilizes general volunteers in projects designed in partnership with local government, OCHA, and average citizens. [They've been a HUGE help in the hospital, organizing our entire inventory. We owe much to our daily HODR "runners"]

HODR was by far the first to start clearing rubble in Leogane, and remains the dominant presence in this area(yep, slow response from others..) Individual Haitians come to ask for help clearing their homes, and often work with HODR to do it. While tackling 3 locations at a time, HODR has a waiting list of hundreds.

Our site today was on a side street off Rue LaCroix. Impassable by car because people have built makeshift homes on the road. Therefore, a big part of clearing involves moving all rubble to a "dump site" where it can later be picked up by heavy machinery.

So, I spent the time running wheelbarrows of the broken concrete (approx my weight?): as we took a 18inch strip bordered tightly by a tin house and a drainage ditch, and then zig-zagged through houses to the dump pile.

Best part of the work was our helpers. Six or so neighborhood kids joining to help shovel, pick, sledge, and wheel. They smile while they sweat. We smile too. I think I sweat more than my widest smile, however.

As we load the tools in our tap-tap to drive away, look back to see what we've done. Another dent, for sure. But much to go.

Much remains under the dekombe.

Oh, BABY!

2010-04-29T20:49:00.004-05:00

Introducing Emily Ann, born March 12, recently returned from a monthlong stay at Miami field hospital. Abbey went to PaP yesterday to bring her home, in 110-degree swelter. Abbey's birthday today spent in the hospital with significant dehydration. But even she thinks well worth it for the kiddo! More to come on this story..

The Real Leaders

2010-04-29T20:17:00.003-05:00

More and more over the last few days, rapidly!, have felt a changing wind here. Our Haitian partners are leading en force, taking initiative to do more than we blan can. Major challenges still, but anyone reading this would rather get vignettes than gripes:

*For the first time...finally, brought Dr. Coles to a OCHA/UN health cluster meeting. [He's our field hospital administrator, a pediatric endocrinologist who returned to Haiti after practicing in Montreal, with vision to reduce maternal and child mortality.] After report from MSF-Swiss, Dr. Gerald (Frenchman, WHO cluster lead) looked to me to update from the other hospital in town. Instead, I motion to Dr. Coles to stand up. Pretty sure Gerald smiled and winked at me: probably seeing the kid finally cede authority to those who should have had it all along.

*Williamson, our 7yo orphan(?) patient, has made good friends with the hospital housekeeper's son, who was admitted for an abcess a few days ago. Today, Mme Beaucicot, "Manuska," reported that we didn't need to feed Williamson that morning, because she had personally already fed him twice. With what? Perhaps generosity has caloric value.

*Our longest term patient went home today: Janine, partially paralyzed when she came to us with sores and skin grafts, but now wielding her walker with upper body tone that must rival the U.S. First Lady's. As we were waiting for the car we'd arranged to take her to Archaie, Janine asked me to write in her Kreyol Bible.

*...And as I did so, our hardest-working employee sat beside me. Frantzy, the "trashman," who incinerates all our waste, has told me he aspires to be a preacher. So he takes the Bible, and reads us Psalm 91. Pausing each verse to explain with animated metaphors.

On Eagle's Wings: Anba Zel Bondye

Here's to hoping something will raise us up...

Global Medicine

2010-04-27T20:30:00.002-05:00

"Remember you are a guest in this country. You are here to listen, to learn, and to possibly respond to the issues facing this nation if you feel so moved. You are not here to judge or to intentionally or unintentionally insult or disparage people whose lives you may never completely understand or identify with. You are not here to "fix" anything.

Please do not attempt to put what you will see and experience into an American context. You are no longer in the US and viewing Haiti through that lens will frustrate you and may insult your hosts, the people of Haiti. You are encouraged to ask questions and engage in active meaningful dialogue with the people you meet. That is one way--though not the only way--to learn about life in the villages, and slums.

For those of you who like to talk and ask a lot of questions, we ask that you occasionally shut up and listen. For those of you who say little but may have valuable contributions to make to discussions, we encourage you to speak up. At all times, be respectful of our people, cultures, and ways of life.

Again, welcome to Haiti. We hope you enjoy your stay and that you come in right."

~Adapted from Kevin Winge's "Never Give Up"
[Written for South Africa, but I think generally applicable]

Breaking

2010-04-27T20:08:00.002-05:00

Today I broke two things: my first Haitian relationship and my computer. The latter was trustworthy for 5+ years, recently living with battery ducttaped in place. The former something I never took seriously.

Also am struggling with a few heavier things: the operations which can simultaneously seem to be going well, but then jolt from crisis to resource crisis. And also my place in the operation. What can be done hung in balance with what should be done... competing against what is starting to occur on its own anyway.

Here's the beginning of a good story, which I hope to continue telling: on March 12, I watched our great peds anesthesiologist rescucitate a 32 week old baby in respiratory distress. Mother abandoned her the next day. She teetered through that weekend, but made it. We transferred her to the University of Miami Medishare hospital in PaP for intubation / NICU care [see Steve Seidel's notes if you're reading this on facebook]. We learned later that she had heart surgery, was extubated, and is doing well. Today, Abbey called about getting her transported back to us for further action. I talked to Save the Children about gov't processes for child abandonment, to set her up for adoption, which Abbey is researching. Can't wait to see her again...

So in broken shells, there are pearls.

Men Anpil, Chay Pa Lou

2010-04-25T10:28:00.006-05:00

Woke up very early this morning for a run, because then had to make Mass at 7 (-ish, was a bit late). Gary was singing in the choir, for his Boy Scout troop's festival. I haven't been going to church, and find it hard to practice any kind of spirituality here. But today, it hit me.

-The overflowing congregation standing on broken tiled floor and rubble, leaning on beams that make up the temporary church structure, crowding under the tarps to avoid heat.
-Pere Marat's homily in lively call&response style: "only strong with God... pray for his will..."
-Wilfrid gave me communion, as I remembered our conversation a couple weeks ago on a drive to PaP; when he spoke of his friends lost, and his hope for the world to help Haiti rebuild.
-At the end of Mass, a second collection was taken for the parish. Clapping & loud singing as nearly everyone processed up the aisle to give some of what precious little money they have, to something they believe in. I didn't know whether to smile or cry.

At home a few weeks ago, heard an Easter Vigil homily that seemed to be anonymously all about Haiti (or so it felt to me). The priest spoke of "Easter People" who "don't deny Good Friday... but acknowledge sadness while embracing joy" and then share that joy with others. That's what permeates here: little bits of joy being shared in much sadness.

Though usually cede all medical care to the real providers, today I helped with wound clinic because things were slow getting started in that area. Debriding large gashes that remain from when the "blok tonbe" (blocks fell) three months ago. People stoic, and somehow still both gracious and graceful.

Also visited today with a pastor who runs a little orphanage. Other than some food and supplies Sean has rounded up, they have received no aid. One of the boys, 8-year-old Williamson, is in the hospital now with bad sores that never heal because he lives in filthy debris. The pastor is desperate, has tried fruitlessly to get help through many NGOs, the Cellule d'Urgence committee, and the government. A former professor, he only wants to give a fighting chance to kids whose families can't care for them. More work on this tomorrow, so hope to update with better news soon.

Pere Marat ended church today with a call & response of my favorite Kreyòl proverb.

"Men anpil" he called [with many hands]

"CHAY PA LOU!" the people responded [the burden is light]

Men anpil, chay pa lou.

From the Rubble

2010-04-24T21:13:00.004-05:00

Just walked back from the hospital, where I was talking with Charmant, one of the security guards. He described a meeting held today by Peter, our human resource manager & assistant administrator. [I'd happened to catch the tail end of Peter's meeting, not knowing it was planned, but highly impressed by the initiative.]

Charmant told me excitedly of his personal ideas on making this place better, saying the guards want good operation; they have pride in their job. I stood there, beat as a mule wanting nothing but sleep. He works day & night every chance he gets and remains animated.

Went to PaP today to pick up the new group, always a logistician's dream. 24 people and 60+ bags fit into 3 vehicles and the HSC's faithful Taihatsu truck. No bags, and even no bodies, were lost.

On the way there, rode with HSC driver Bellange and another fellow. We passed the country's single oil refinery where rows and rows of trucks are parked. [There has been an extreme gas & diesel shortage here for the last two weeks, countrywide. ND siphoned from its broken vehicles. We struggled to keep power 60% of time at hospital].

"Tèt charge," my two accompaniers said repeatedly [phrase expressing frustration & exasperation with understanding and some humor]. The problem is centralization. People don't have a way to live outside the city. How can we rebuild like that?

On the way home, I was odd man out and perched on luggage in back of the Taihatsu. I liked seeing from that angle. Things that flashed by previously keep catching me now, sometimes almost paralyzing. I worry I've become too accustomed to seeing rubble,. To seeing the camps with Canadian & US tarps, but little else. To signs still hanging that read "we need help," in English. To the slum streets of Martissant. To marchans selling their goods in slushy mud of markets. To the trash in Portail Leogane, which has been piling up for decades.

Where will it all go?

I think people like Charmant have ideas.

Ayiti Demen

2010-04-22T22:57:00.002-05:00

Child notes:
I returned today to be immediately greeted by Ludemilla and Oneilla, two girls who live in the camp right outside our fence. They greet me many times a day. Oneilla hugs me. Ludemilla asks for my cross necklace. She's an orphan. How do I tell her I can't because was given to me by my own parents?

Their friend, a 10-ish yr old boy, holds a rubber band on which is written "Je t'aime beaucoup." Thanked him and reciprocated.

Went for another beach run. This time danced on the sand with all the kids. As always, a crowd runs with us, but one 10yo girl stayed with me for a sold 2 miles. Barefoot. We made good conversation about how her family gets water from a drum built by an NGO, but that it ran dry yesterday. She was quite insightful about the process of drinking good water, so she and her friends don't get diarrhea.

SCHOOLS are starting again in Leogane! Uniforms everywhere (I'm trying to upload a picture, unsuccessfully). Anyway, let's support Haiti's future.

Ti & Gran Goave

2010-04-22T22:36:00.000-05:00

Stayed in a hotel in Ti Goave last night, about an hour west of Leogane. I went there yesterday with ARC to tag along on another camp assessment, because ARC is trying to come into the region to do camp management, help people return home, and then work into community-based projects as they get a sense of the needs.

Interesting to experience the real humanitarian aid world. Things can move very, very quickly given willpower of sincere people leading the organizations. There's also a hoity-toity attitude of aid workers, with their badges and branded vehicles and fancy titles. I'm attracted to relief work, but not sure I want to ever assume that persona. One of the ARC folks spoke of that dilemma at lunch; she has lived in Rwanda for three years, only on a short-term stint here. "It's the difference between working and belonging."

Did the assessment in Ti Goave yesterday and Gran Goave today on the way back to Leogane. Met with the G Goave major, a friendly fellow. "Better rural schools, microenterprise with fairness, and environmental protection--with that you fix 80% of the problems here."

We found a lot of the camps have dispersed except for a couple dozen families. The camp committee leaders kept trying to tell us there were more...trying to get more help. Joe explained it well, "these people are just dirt poor, and are hoping for something, anything, before they leave." I suppose the people who left already just gave up sooner. Real help hasn't yet come to these places.

That is the disaster: acute insult on chronic misery.

I spent a good bit of time talking and playing with some kids. Told them I lived in Leogane, just visiting Ti Gwav. So one little girl said, "then come back tomorrow and make us a hospital."
"Why do you say that?" I answered (knowing the answer, of course)
"People are sick."
"What sickness do they have?"
"They eat dirt and it makes them sick."

Resuscitating, Running, Remembering

2010-04-19T21:05:00.004-05:00

All this passes too quickly for me to comprehend, or even feel. Being awakened, most often by stagnant heat, or sometimes by action--like this morning with both a late night C-section and then another early a.m. call about an older lady who died from some kind of metastatic cancer. And then work the day: talk, walk, carry, sweat. Computer at night. Pulling off my glasses for bed, I often can barely remember the day.

Wait, stop and remember:
A baby born Sunday morning, depressed. A team makes valiant efforts to resuscitate her, unsuccessful. Mother doesn't want the body, so we give them a box and 500 gds

Before that birth, a woman walks in our door in the midst of an abortion. Pills are cheap on the street. MSF is taking care of most complicated OB/GYN in the area, and reports fervently that dangerous street abortions are currently one of the most prevalent earthquake-related traumas.

But then, a couple weeks ago, I delivered two babies to happy mothers (under mentorship of a dynamic OB doc). Amazing how new life just slips out.

And rode up to Fondwa with a group in the back of John Parker's truck. Suzi packed lunch for the mountainside. [John & Suzi run the HSC guesthouse, wonderful people]. The mountains are deforested, yes. But also thick groves of banana and coffee trees. And plots of bean plants. And signs for farming cooperatives.

Ran to Plage St Luke, a fishing community, with Abbey today [she's a partner in this crazy job]. Followed by all from 4 year old boys to teenage girls. Stopped to talk with the village people once reached the beach. They know our names. I struggle to remember theirs.

We'll keep running, but hope to see more of what flashes by on the way.

God gives us this

2010-04-13T21:02:00.002-05:00

Shucks, missed Michelle Obama! But good of her to drop by.

Today, I went to a meeting for the Cellule d'Urgence et de Reconstruction de Leogane (CURL), the committee I mentioned in my last post that formed to bring local voices to this effort. I strained to use my Kreyòl to understand the French; not perfect, but am almost sure I understood this message "It is Easter, the season of rebirth. We are grateful to the blan who understand that."

We also stood for a moment of remembrance. April 12 had passed, the 3 month mark.

In the hospital later, I told a woman she had advanced breast cancer. I didn't realize I was the one to break the news, for one of the docs had passed her to me to work on referral options. In discussing these, I just mentioned it, "because you have cancer, you would need medicine after surgery." Her eyes sharpened, "O, m gen kansè?"

Apologizing, trying to be present, explained the rest: she doesn't have many options. Go home, or mastectomy with no adjuvant chemo, or find a private oncology clinic she can't afford. She explained, "I don't have money since the movement January 12. I can't know what I will have now. God gives us this."

A large tarped wooden structure went up last week, the first major building to be rebuilt in Leogane (many more trucks & heavy equipment around now, exciting!). What was it? The church, built new around the altar that survived.

I can't even imagine the faith of people around me right now. I'll never have it, but I'm glad they do.

Not by the Book

2010-04-13T00:18:00.003-05:00

The Delco broke down Saturday, so our 24/7 climatized field hospital was without power for a longer period than the usual couple hour lapse while gas is being purchased each day. We moved all temp-sensitive meds to one room, essentially dismantled the OR, made a huge mess in the ICU (clean-up is tomorrow's project!). Our guys worked very hard in steaming heat to diagnose the problem, with the best tech in town consulting the best in the country. Heck if I know how it works; they do.

But a foreign vol approached me with better ideas, "They don't really do things by the book here, do they?" I could only glare and dash off to one of the other 5 pressing tasks.

Later this morning, had a meeting with Dr. Desir. Got to talking about the committee founded by his brother, on January 13. Since that day after, a group of local professionals have been liaising between the government, UN OCHA, and all humanitarian organizations to orient the response toward what the people here want. Desir showed me maps, described some of the forthcoming detailed plan--the vision for Leogane. Continuously, since the day after... working for their comrades struggling to survive. I sat back, in quiet awe.

Listen to us, he was emphatic. It is for us to decide.

When I accompanied Joe and American Refugee Committee on a IDP camp assessment last week, we quickly realized the aid groups in charge knew little: directing us to "priority" camps that no longer exist. The complex excel matrices, updated as of last week, are inaccurate and inefficient. In contrast, met up with a young Haitian member of a civil society organization who had handwritten reports of 110 camps in the area and guided us directly to them. Spot on.

The temptation to label Haiti as chaotic and backward is admittedly there. Sometimes things just don't work, and that's frustrating to us bleeding hearts. So I have to catch myself often: be patient, it is not for me to decide.

Let Haiti write its own book.

Flooding

2010-04-08T02:27:00.002-05:00

The ND house just flooded. Survived a 7.0 earthquake to have clogged drainage pipes. Torrent, a good foot of water on second floor, inches on first. Kristina came to get me as just starting to doze in downpour. all hands on deck: pails, brooms,
towels, mops. Sean started to rig a FEMA tarp for future runoff. Back in tent, only minor seepage.
G'night.

Raining, pouring

2010-04-08T00:03:00.002-05:00

Just dashed to my tent in a downpour. Hard hard rain, feel it above, around, and below. Am dry, unlike almost everyone here. How many ways to rock and beat people?

A Longer Story

2010-04-05T22:30:00.000-05:00

Roselin traveled 80 km to reach us, in the back of a furniture truck. A connection at a hospital in Pierre Payan asked to refer her and another patient to our hospital, saying the patients needed surgical and wound care they could not offer. I accepted.

Several men had to carry Roselin inside on an improvised plank stretcher. We learned this 30-year-old woman had been crushed in the earthquake, and paralyzed from mid-back. At some point in the horrible aftermath, she had lain for a long period without being turned, and so developed a very large sacral decubitus ulcer. Just before the transfer, her previous hospital had attempted to surgically repair her raw sore with a skin flap.

But upon first examination, our two lead surgeons found that solution hadn’t worked. Her flap was highly infected, necrotizing. So they took her straight to the OR, removed the flap, de-brided the sore. And with great creativity, they jimmy-rigged a “wound vac” using tegaderm and a suction canister. The negative pressure would keep her wound clean & drained, and potentially encourage some natural shrinkage until they could attempt another closure. An absolute best effort in a complicated situation. Still, her first days with us were precarious as she battled fever and confusion, teetering on the edge of sepsis, possibly death. “She would have died if we hadn’t gotten to her when we did,” one of the surgeons remarked.

Roselin pulled through. Her mother stayed with her most of the time, “nou pa gen lakay.” We don’t have a home. Roselin’s brother, Fezen, was also often present—clearly devoted to his ailing sibling.

And so, for more than two weeks, our nurses turned her every four hours. Cleaned around her bandaging when the vacuum seal became soiled and started to break. Propped as many pillows and blankets as we had to offer comfort. Sat with her family. Easily our most challenging patient to care for, literally back-breaking sometimes. “But she’s been my favorite patient. I love her,” one nurse said. Roselin felt the care, came to know all the nurses by name, and often tried to communicate even without an interpreter. She knew me, and I usually couldn’t pass her bed without catching her eye’s subtle beckon—must stop to talk.

But things were becoming difficult. The ulcer was getting bigger, not better: 2-cubic feet across and through her back—gaping, raw. We couldn’t offer what she needed, lifetime 24/7 care. I started making calls to all referral contacts I could find: Handicap International, Hopital Paix, Adventiste. One became promising, requesting details on her case, saying “we just need to line some things up, give you a definitive answer tomorrow.” This hospital, in Port-au-Prince, was offering to take her for wound care, and then send her all the way north to Sacra Couer in Milot, where there supposedly exists a long-term rehab program.

Several tomorrow’s past, and I gave a quick pestering call on each. Until finally a tomorrow that said “we got hit hard with urgent care last night; we just can’t take her…”

Of course, we were facing the same: more acutely ill and injured people, constantly. Perhaps the anticipated infectious disease boom has arrived, from a homeless country living in squalid camps? Perhaps we’re simply now treating the baseline injuries, burns, and ailments—things that in pre-January Haiti would likely have gone ignored? I believe it’s all still disaster relief: acute insult reveals chronic suffering.

The staff doctors conferred: Roselin’s prognosis was terminal. Even in the States, her wound might beat our best-in-the-world care. And here in Haiti, even if she survived this acute insult, what is the chronic? More bedsores, surely. More infection and suffering. No rehabilitation.

Following clinical consensus, we sat with Roeslin, mother Julienne, and brother Fezen. We explained, slowly. To the questions of what could be done, we answered that even in the “Ozetazini,” long life was probably not possible. Stopping antibiotics and aggressive treatment would be most comfortable. All pain medicine she needed. All comfort possible. I offered two options, “We can keep you here, and care for you until the end, or we can send you home.”

It was a hard moment… probably don’t need to describe.

Fezen spoke on behalf of family, needing to think and talk to each other. Of course, all the time you need. “We don’t have a home,” he reminded. I told him that if he wanted to go, we’d make them a home.

Left them over the next couple days. Roselin was quiet, sometimes murmuring to herself. Fezen stood in the entrance corridor, reading a small Bible. He then came to me: home, as soon as possible.

Found 2 tents, gave them to him the night before departure, showing how to pitch them. And called Maltesser, an NGO that has an ambulance, pleaded for its use to drive the 2 - 3 hours it’d likely take to reach Tabarre in traffic. Found a cot, pillows, sheets, kerlex and dressing coverage, pain medicine. Sent them off. In the last moment of eye contact before I stepped out of the ambulance, Roselin looked calm, but also blank.

Nothing is predictable here, and this day no different. When the Maltesser ambulance driver returned, he said “the brother told me to take her to a hospital, so I did.”

Were they trying for a hospital closer to home for her comfort care, for her dying? Perhaps. More likely the decision was hope for better treatment. And now, what? Is she being turned every four hours, and kept clean? Is she comfortable? Or is she just receiving antibiotics to keep sepsis at bay? What now?

What should have been done for her? The docs & nurses did their job, offered their very best care. So then, what should I have done?

That was a week ago. I intended to write this story on Good Friday. Now it’s a day after Easter, and I don’t see Roselin’s resurrection. I guess I just hope she somehow finds it.

Mad Farmer Liberation Front

2010-04-04T01:59:00.002-05:00

Beyond just the obvious final two words, I think this poem is a profound Easter message...:

THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT
by Wendell Berry - 1991

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Tout moun ap soufri grangou

2010-04-02T00:36:00.002-05:00

[All people are suffering hunger]
Hating to follow an uplifting post with one much less so, but after just watching this video, can't but share it. Produced by Partners in Health and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Need to learn more, but is what I started to hear at camps a couple days ago:

Haiti IDP Camps video 2 from Adam Stofsky on Vimeo.

Anthem: We are the World

2010-04-01T23:48:00.004-05:00

Back in that between space, home in good ol' St. Joe. On my out, I had an early morning meeting with the MercyCorps head (courtesy of a ND connection). So Wilfrid and I hit rush hour on our way into Port au Prince, making 90 minutes into 3 hours. Conversation was pleasant, but per usual, also had the radio on.

News update turned to the opening statements of the UN conference for Haiti, during which donor countries pledged $5.3 billion immediate-term aid to a total of $9 billion. [to the skeptics: yes, there is a government plan for reconstruction available online, if you read French, and a committee co-chaired by Bill Clinton and PM Jean Max Bellerive to monitor use of disbursed funds...]

Wilfrid immediately cranked up the volume. "Our country is kraze nèt [totally destroyed]. We need to build it again." Shortly after the UN report, Radio Caribe played the remake of "We are the World." I asked Wilfrid if he knew the song. "Yes," he replied, "I heard it was made for Haiti."

Most poignant to me was when we had hit a particularly congested spot in Portail Leogane, stopped by packed lines of people on their way to a food distribution. 8 AM on the dot, every morning, the country listens to its national anthem, "La Dessalines"... remembering how they once won freedom.

Drowning

2010-03-31T01:16:00.002-05:00

Staying up tonight to answer emails before I have to leave early a.m., going back to the USA for Easter with family. Many of these emails from people who responded to ND's fervent calls to service issued to alums last week. While we're working very hard to hire local healthcare providers, the need is so great and so urgent, that we must keep staffing the hospital however we can. Our rotating teams have been phenomenal.

A young woman in critical condition might be declining now. Already watched a 1-yr old girl code tonight. They did everything they could.

Visited several IDP camps today on a sort of reconnaissance trip for a friend seeking some information about camp coordination & management in Leogane. I asked to speak with the committee chair at each, was always offered a chair. They each told me of organizations coming to do some piecemeal work (build a latrine, or a water source), but all said they lacked direct, continual presence--empowerment of their leadership. I don't know the truth, though they seemed genuine, and not likely concerned positively or otherwise about a small girl with a flouncy skirt & frizzy hair. I don't look like a very official humanitarian.

But whatever the intentions of help, things are bad now... awful crowded lines of flimsy tarp shelters. Unsurprising so much malaria, presumptive typhoid. A doc suggested the girl who died earlier perhaps had meningitis. Wonder where she lived. I suppose it's basically all the same here.

And, just now, a rushing and pounding commences. Steady hard rain.

Mobile Clinics, and Camps

2010-03-28T00:03:00.004-05:00

"These pills are for when your chest gives you acid."
"Drink this when your back hurts"
"Here is aspirin for everything that makes you feel bad."

Mobile Clinic. Or rather, a public bus to Port au Prince, with a marchan lady standing in front selling treatment for all things that make us feel bad.

Just another innovative point of care. Who needs our pharmacy?

Robenson and I took the bus to Portail Leogane and searched awhile for places to make cheaper hospital record photocopies (no dice). The congenial craziness of this combined bus stop and market area: life as if January 12 had just been a day. Except that the stadium across the road houses one of the country's largest IDP camps. And as we walked up Champ Mars to catch a tap-tap, we passed on along more camps...right in front of the palace. "Oh man, it's the first time I've seen this," Robenson said as he stopped to take a cellphone photo.

We then went to the "Log Base," where the UN runs its logistics, where major agencies have their national offices, and where expats meet for cheeseburgers. Had lunch with Joe from the ND Kroc Institute, now serving as country director of American Refugee Committee. Great idea-generating discussion, with some concrete action items. Ready, go.

Joe took us to a camp that ARC manages, called Terrain Acra--named so because near the factory run by a Haitian bourgeois, Monseiur Acra, who once wanted to collaborate with ND on fortified salt efforts. But by its proximity to a factory, it receives acid run-off. And sits in a floodplain. "We've got to get these people out before the heavy rains or this will all be gone," Joe echoed Sean Penn.

Finally to the airport to meet the new team. All people, all luggage arrived safe & well.

Good day.

The Space Between

2010-03-20T00:48:00.002-05:00

From the philosophy of DMB: The space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more.

I'm in the States for about 36 hours, and it feels like a space between: held in suspension away from where I believe I am. Reality is there. Sheepishly, I admit I don't know much else of the world right now beyond this little island. Only in between things do we have space to think about what's happened.

*New life: in the last 48 hours, three very premature babies. One born last Friday fought gallantly for 4 days, through her mother's abandonment, until we finally transferred her to the U Miami Medishare hospital in PaP. More to follow on her, we only hope. Another born in our hospital entrance when her mother abrupted, caught by a nursing student, died in a doctor's arms less than 24 hours later. And finally a mother nearing birth of an early baby, who we proactively sent to Medishare on way to airport this morning. Protect the fragile. Yesterday, CNP formally opened a stabilization center for severely malnourished in one wing of the hospital. Anticipating a full ward. Nurture the future.

*Resilience: walking to the partially condemned HSC building, Gary remarked it was his first time passing that way since the quake. We were right by his school, which collapsed killing at least a hundred. He was the only one in his class to survive. As I started to show the docs inside the hospital building, motioned he could wait in the yard. Confident reply, "I'm not afraid to enter."

*Comfort: when a weak moment found me crying in the yard outside, Roosevelt called, having seen me on his way home. Came right over. Gave me a good hug and clearer advice in Creole than I could have heard from anyone.

*Victuals: not much can beat Tampico & rum on the roof. Soothes every challenge. Allows for the perfect morsel of irreverence.

*Faith: woke at 5 a.m. this morning with steady rain pattering my tent. And people were still singing outside.

*Fear: no sooner than entering the hotel lobby tonight, see Anderson Cooper reporting with Sean Penn, who has an organization working in the T/P camp in Petionville. Academy Award winning actor frantic and pleading. The rains are coming. And, he said, things are about to get a lot worse.

Please don't forget. People need a space to live.

A Different View

2010-03-14T23:42:00.003-05:00

This vignette comes from a great primary care doc with us last week:

"After clinic today which ended at 3 PM I was called over to the ER to see a 16 yo girl with a fever--mute, delirious and, having been recently diagnosed with and treated for malaria, seemed to the folks handing her over to me to be suffering from cerebral malaria--a potentially deadly complication. My assessment suggested otherwise, even though she was febrile. It was a very hot day and she was so agitated that the stress alone could have caused a low grade fever. She was very tachycardic and hypervigilant, looking left and right, in an absolute panic. It was very scary and I wasn't sure what to do, with no ability to do lab tests, x rays or even a malaria test because our reagent ran out. I went with gut instinct and gave her Ativan, first under her tongue and then through an IV.

Through a Creole translator I determined from the neighbor who brought her in that the girl's friends, his children, thought she had been "mystified"--a voodoo belief that someone has been turned into a soulless zombie. Sure enough, with some hand-holding and gentle coaxing as the Ativan kicked in, the girl made a turn around and started talking for the first time in 5 days! I got the history that she went through a similar illness right after the quake lasing 10 days. She had seen several dead bodies and wouldn't speak or interact for almost two weeks.

She then said her first words to me, through the translator, "After the earthquake, all I could think about was my school (destroyed--all schools still closed even now). Today, the earthquake happened again. But this time I thought I was dead." Her cerebral malaria was in actuality PTSD. All medical assessments down here are made in the looming shadow of a recent severe disaster.

It's easy, coming from the States, to forget and view symptoms through a faulty lens that wants to "medicalize" everything and apply the old familiar thinking to a totally unique situation. This took me 8 days to fully appreciate and now I'll be leaving, passing torch to some fresh recruits to learn their own unique lessons."

The System

2010-03-14T02:15:00.003-05:00

Great teams last week. All rallied together, stuck together. Yesterday, our peds nurse and peds anesthesia (leaders of med & surgical teams respectively, but no prior acquaintance) worked calmly and confidently together to resuscitate a premie. Completely in sync. Our Haitian staff stepped up to the plate to run our improved clinical flow. It was a privilege to watch. They "own" their work. They care.

Rode on the back of the surg team's truck as they departed for their private flight home. I was supposed to have a rendevous in PaP but was canceled last minute, so ended up at airport. Fine, would be helpful, I assumed, as the ND plane was bringing in another 2000+ lbs supplies. I was naive.

Our Haitian program administrator and I stood in the warehouse terminal as the goods were brought in by airport staff. And quickly... they started asking. Tents. Please give me a tent. Give one tent, to me. Then I made a stupid young white girl mistake, nodding to our Admin "He's in charge."

That changed everything.

They hounded him--not physically threatening, but with angry implications: he is Haitian and he won't help other Haitians. Nothing farther from the truth.

He yelled the explanation to me in English. So I jumped to try to regain control, as forcefully as I could, speaking angry Kreyol. And he launched into a speech (a beautiful one, actually) about all he and his Haitian compatriots did for Leogane when there was no help. They made the first planes land, and they've kept it going since then, with no rest.

None of his valor or compassion shielded the blows now. It wasn't fair.

We made it to the truck, and loaded. Kept track of everything. I tipped as well as I could. Outside, the police hounded us. Same questions. Why must a little blan girl, me, have to stand in the center of a police huddle: practically yelling that it's their job to protect, that the whole country is kraze nèt, broken, and that the supplies were going to people in need?

They accepted. Perhaps were never truly agitating. But damage done, nonetheless, to a person who has only ever wanted to help.

And why only an etranger, a stranger, in this land has authority?

White.

Firsts

2010-03-07T00:18:00.002-05:00

I helped take care of a miscarriage for the first time tonight. Mother came in with abdominal pain, doc sat and questioned her, we heard the fetal heart tones (wow!). But then she vomited, and started bleeding, and not long after, I was handing her 12-week-old to a family member wrapped for burial. Remembering the image "10 week abortion" flown continuously on a banner around campus last spring, inciting people: you're with us, or you kill babies. Yes, life is precious, and fragile. Blocks fall, and people die. No hospital, and the mother with pre-eclampsia dies. Take the broad view of life, and also the 3-inch view of one who never had a chance to live.

On a lighter note, Dan's team arrived on the ND-donor jet. To return from the hospital and see old friends--Kevin, Lars, Randy, Dan--doing a fire-man unloading the 2000lbs supplies they carried, along with many new faces of the next team. Great. First fresh week.

Call night

2010-03-06T01:25:00.000-05:00

Twins are being born. A nurse just endured an ectopic, attentive husband watching. A 19-year-old and her 3lb baby, both making tentative steps toward life. Yet a toddler fights an infection with a quarter of his body burned.

No one misses a beat. Medical providers, staff. They do not only what they must, but what they should. Hopital Ste Croix field hospital, 6 tent domes with an outpatient clinic at the adjacent nursing school. Born out of desperation and a desperate desire to help. Teamwork. Intensity. Passion. To accompany people here as they re-imagine healthcare in their community...

The Episcopal Bishop blessed the hospital today, urging us forward.

Fr Jenkins and a Notre Dame delegation just finished 2 days of seeing its roots here, strong before January 12, and began reaching for deeper engagement.

In the rawness of tonight, and for many many after, we are on call.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Second night

2010-03-03T00:30:00.001-05:00

Still night, with a light breeze that passes a bit through my tent. A few others in the yard still speaking in outside voices, but no different from a dorm hall.

First steps here: onto a jet bridge in PaP! Somehow loses a bit of charm not having to walk across the tarmac. But formal arrivals/baggage is in a hanger a few hundred yards from the bridge, bc some of the building unsound.

Reuinions are blissful, so I've loved reconnecting with some, and meeting new. People tell their "story" readily...so much loss.

Could see the PaP damage is immense, but Leogane is so much worse. The entire city is homeless, many under sheets. And injuries, no longer acute, but painful and disabling. A friend from the Childrens Nutrition Progam said mothers are afraid their milk has gone bad from the trauma&stress, so they hesitate to breastfeed. Malnutrition is and will be huge problem.

I went to the OCHA / UN health cluster mtg today, rep of HSC field hospital. Amazing to see all the players, working hard to coordinate. But, it's basically managed chaos.

Breeze picked up, less still, but anyhow, night!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Haiti, again

2010-02-28T19:42:00.004-05:00

In December 2006, I read Paul Farmer's Uses of Haiti, a full year before I first traveled to the country. I started this blog to begin learning to think as Farmer does, asking tough questions about a nation, which has been used and suffered abuse for so long. Haiti has a hold on me. I'm on my way back now.

More soon from Leogane.

It's the things that have such a hold on us that they can break us that are worth dropping everything for

2010-01-29T21:49:00.001-05:00

Don't forget...

2009-04-21T17:05:00.002-05:00

Patrick Farrell, photographer from the Miami Herald, just won a Pulitzer for his work in Haiti with the hurricanes, and school collapses.

Watch this sequence (2 minutes). It speaks for itself: http://www.miamiherald.com/1401/story/1008735.html

Another six-word story

2009-02-22T12:01:00.004-05:00

Refer to March 22 and April 5, 2008 posts about the six-word memoirs. This one is from my friend Matt. (I am happy to post others!) A thought for today:

Isn't it cheating to use contractions?

'Change' for Haiti?

2009-02-22T11:40:00.002-05:00

In a time when my pragmatic hopes are simply grounded in our President helping lead the world through an economic "panic"--why not avoid euphemisms and go back to the 19th century term?--and to some greater peace and understanding between nations, and environmental stewardship, and healthcare improvements, and...

Well, I guess my hopes are many, and Haiti is always among them (I supported Dodd early on because he's taken strong actions for Haiti's truth and justice, even calling for an investigative commission for the 2004 coup against Aristide).

But....I honestly have not thought Obama would add to his consideration this desperate, oft-neglected island. So, wow, kudos Mr. President for inching in the right direction:

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2009/02/21/8478981.html

More 6 words

2008-04-05T01:14:00.002-05:00

From a friend's book club. Amazing how much we can reveal saying so little...

"I love to cook and eat."
Ellen H

"Grab life by the horns today"
Angi C

"Life's a journey. Make it count."
Liz H

"Interested in everything, doing too much."
Becky F

"Just recently bloomed where I'm planted."
Sharon B

"One long road with many detours."
Dawn T

"Happy now. I'll just keep going."
Sarah T

"Get off the merry-go-round and breathe."
"Always question. Dig for the truth."
Bean K

"Good life happens at book club."
The Club

Six words to describe our lives

2008-03-22T14:45:00.007-05:00

Ernest Hemingway was supposedly once asked to write a story in six words. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Inspired by the idea, SMITH magazine sought 6-word memoirs from its readers, publishing them in a book: "Not quite what I was planning." (http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/)

I emailed everyone I knew, asking for the same thing, 6-word memoirs, just an experiment. Here is the awesome response:

“ups and downs with little understanding”
Charlotte

“All questions with few important answers.”
Courtney

"Hope, believe, and most importantly love."
Megan

“slowing metabolism, learning how to party”
Dan

“whatever you do, make it funky”
Brendan

“Turn it up all the way.”
Anon friend’s Mom

“along the rail, finish line nears”
Anon

“family, faith, friends….love, pray, hope”
Katherine

“empathy, compassion, reflective, awareness, perspective, contributer”
Math Teacher

“The mountains lift up my soul.”
Mike

“Doubt talks, Brian writhes, God whispers.”
Brian

“God works through our weakness. Hope!”
Michele

“Love others well to serve God.”
Kevin

“Nothing is permanent, even sharpie tattoos.”
“Two years more, then life begins”
Laura

“Shooting for the moon, stumbles often.”
Andy

“go away and leave me alone”
Steve

“Rediscovering daily that life is wonderful.”
Nick

“Life to the fullest, family, God.”
John

“I live for becoming happy
I work hardly for keeping my life
I trust that God exist and He is present everywhere
I try to be cool with everyone”
Alain
Seminarian from Haiti

"life is just a true lie"
Sothearith, Cambodia
Currently studying at Dali University, China

“Winners never quit, quitters never win”
Chhim Sereypong
Royal University student
Cambodia

“too hard on myself, lighten up”
My Dad

“too hard on myself, it’s genetic”
Me (couldn’t resist...)

“Life is a box of chocolate…”
Sarah

“When all else fails, eat chocolate”
My Grandmother!

“70 yrs. I know He exists.”
Sister Bernadette Cordis, Maryknoll Missioner

“Plug and chug. Will it help?”
Anon

“Resisting cynicism: liberation, justice starts within.”
Me

Crushed

2008-03-14T23:45:00.001-05:00

In return for a favor, I was asked to write "reflections on Haiti" for the ND College of Science webpage. I didn't want to. I didn't want another fluffy, kum-bay-ya, I'm-saving-the-world deal. Mom told me to "just be authentic." Here goes:

‘Global health’ has become a buzzphrase at U.S. educational institutions. When my parents attended college, undergraduates didn’t have summer internships in Ugandan clinics, or get research grants to study the traditional birthing practices of Bolivians. There was little established connection between ivy-ridden campuses and school-less villages. But now, I look at the paths set before me at Notre Dame: opportunities for my peers and me to travel to Thailand, Guatemala, Lesotho, basically anywhere. But what do we learn from these experiences? What meaning do we find?

As informed young people, we probably anticipate the grinding poverty. But I think we are often taken aback by more insidious perceptions, as I was in Haiti. After working with the Haiti Program for three semesters, I spent eight days over Christmas break in the coastal town of Leogane and the capital, Port-au-Prince. Reading Dr. Paul Farmer’s The Uses of Haiti drew me to the country. For the past year, I have devoured books and news articles on Haiti with near-obsession, trying to learn as much as possible about its political, economic, and social situation. I thought I was prepared to see both individual Haitians’ poverty and the oppressive structures that keep them so poor. I was wrong.

Underneath the excitement of finally making friends with Haitians and being immersed in their rich culture, I was crushed. A slow crush. I just hadn’t expected the level of hunger and desperation, or the ways survival-mentality can direct people’s every action.

I visited what used to be a premier healthcare facility, one of the best in the country five years ago. Now it is a ghost hospital. Its problems start much higher than the level of the patient-doctor encounter. Bureaucrats squabbling over money and structural issues results in unpaid doctors and nurses. Understandably, these professionals leave, and no one is available to care for the patients. So the patients don’t come. They stay sick.

Walking through the near-empty wards, I finally realized it takes more than resources and good intentions to build a public health system. Medical missions and money donations are not enough. If we—as smart, caring students—want to improve healthcare in countries like Haiti, we need to understand the structural problems such as those the ghost hospital experiences. We need to recognize the oppression that underwrites all poverty. And we need to voluntarily face frustration.

In a sense, Notre Dame’s ‘global health’ opportunities have crushed me. Thanks to experiences my parents never had, I have seen problems so big they seem unsolvable. But also thanks to my Notre Dame education, I’ve learned that problems may be extremely difficult, but not impossible. As long as we don’t oversimplify ‘global health,’ and as long as we’re willing to work against the challenging structural problems, I think we can deliver quality healthcare to sick people—in Haiti and wherever else we may go.

I left with a very different view of Haiti than what I expected to see. Not better, and not worse, just different. I’m still trying to understand. I wrestle with Haiti each day. I cannot wait to go back.

Give us this day our daily bread

2008-02-23T23:06:00.002-05:00

God Our Father, it is you who gives us this food.
Help all people that you made find this food.
Thank you Father, thank you Father
for this food that you give us.
Thank you Father, thank you Father
for this food that you give us.

A simple expression of faith.
What, or who, keeps all people God made from finding food?
It must have been intercepted.

Uncomfortable Truth: READ THIS ARTICLE

2008-02-11T21:12:00.000-05:00

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html

This piece by Kevin Pina is about the recent deluge of articles about Haitians eating dirt cookies in the slums (see my Feb. 6 post). But it asks the question few do: WHY are they eating dirt?

Could not our feelings of charity be also feelings of justice?

Haitians eat dirt because we have robbed them of everything else.

Please read this article.

What is she saying?

2008-02-08T01:42:00.000-05:00

I had a conversation with a friend today about whether it's right to take photographs of people living in situations very different from ours, of poor people in poor places. While I've often despaired at the exploitive photography--poverty pornography--that abounds in our media, my friend reframed the issue for me. He told me it's not about "taking" a picture and robbing someone's identity for personal purposes. When done correctly, rather, photography is about communication: people tell their stories through what they show the camera. We don't take. They give.

This is Phalla, speaking to you from Cambodia--half a world away. She is blind, but at the end of my weeks with her, she wanted me to take her picture. She told me to show people at home, so they would know our friendship. She also asked for a copy, so she could show people. This photo is all I will ever see of her again.

What is she saying to you? What story is she telling?

Haiti in Ashes

2008-02-07T01:41:00.001-05:00

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Catholics around the world today heard these words and received the mark that begins a season of repentance, preparation for the salvation of Easter.

As I walked up the aisle—under the ornate, vaulted roof of the Basilica at Notre Dame—I couldn’t help but think of recent “news” from Haiti. “Haitians so poor they eat dirt” read the headline for an AP story run in publications across the country, even in my small community newspaper. Desperate Haitians in Cite Soleil and other slums eat dirt cookies to assuage the constant hunger pangs. Filling their stomachs with dust instead of nourishment.

Apparently, Haitians don’t even need to return to dust at the end of days. They have never left the dust. We are different. In our excessive material possessions, meticulously sanitized homes, and even overly decorated prayer, we need Ash Wednesday to attempt to return to humility—to faith only in the transcendent.

But in Haiti, children play in the dust, bare soles waiting for parasites. The old and frail sleep on the dust, offering no comfort to weary bones. And the hungry—the many many hungry—eat dust, simply having nothing else.

Where is the Bread of Life for them? I can’t help but wonder…

During Lent, Christians remember their charge to be Christ’s hands and feet on earth.

If we are to remember our beginning and eventual end in ashes, what better way to do so than to serve those who have never been allowed to forget their ashes?

Christ died for our sins and rose to bring us out of ashes. Haitians live in ashes. We are Christ on earth. So we must go to those living in ashes and offer them a chance to rise, as Jesus offered to us.

“Mwen te grangou, nou ban m manje….chak fwa nou te fè sa pou yonn nan pi piti pami frè m yo, se pou mwen nou te fè li.”

“I was hungry, you gave me food….each time you did this for one of the least among my brothers, you did it for me.”
Matthew 25

Shattering Perceptions

2008-01-27T03:34:00.000-05:00

We choose what we see. Often, we don’t even need to see: our expectations act as a filter for our senses, and we fail to accept deviations from our idea of reality. I went to Haiti—where I’ve passionately wanted to go for the past year—and for the most part, I experienced what I thought I would. I had prepared by searching for photos and video clips online, reading articles upon articles. Without intending to, I had created my vision of Haiti before setting foot on the island.

Unsurprisingly, some of my preconceived notions did not hold. Underneath the excitement and fun of finally being in Haiti—and it was fun!!!—I was crushed. A slow crush. I just hadn’t expected the level of desperation, or the ways survival-mentality can direct people’s every action. Much more than in Phnom Penh, I sensed the hunger. Not that I know what hunger feels like in the least.

I left with a very different view of Haiti than what I expected to see. Not better, and not worse, just different. I’m still trying to understand. I wrestle with Haiti each day.

Many of my friends know how ANGRY I become when people view Haiti as “wild” “uncivilized” “violent” “lawless” “backward” and “forever dependent on our charity.” I get even ANGRIER when people look at Haitian poverty as a phenomenon of “Third Worldedness,” failing to recognize that it is OUR power that has oppressed and impoverished Haiti and so many other places. The public looks at Haiti’s “current situation” (long earning the country a U.S. State Department Travel Warning) in isolation. They don’t CHOOSE to see the uncomfortable reality of the relationships between Western powers and Haiti that have long blocked positive change.

However, realizing that I myself was not immune from faulty preconception, I don’t blame others for selectively seeing. Rather, I have a renewed desire to help educate, to offer up the understanding I continue to seek. I want to use my life to work toward justice, peace, equity, and brother and sisterhood. Impatience and anger won’t help. I need to bring people in, so more of us living in such wealth WANT to shatter our preconceived perceptions to finally see more truth about Haiti….and the world.

Living Haiti

2008-01-13T12:59:00.000-05:00

Death in Search of Freedom, of Truth

2007-12-28T12:17:00.000-05:00

A tribute to Benazir Bhutto. Title links to her NYT obituary.

The coverage, though mournful of her assassination and the ensuing chaos, describes her as "complex" and "contradictory." They say her lifestyle was hypocrisy to her populist stance. That her politics were clandestine, her ignorance of weapons programs during her rule dubious.

And yet, more than 100 people died upon her return to Pakistan in October. More than a score killed with her yesterday. She stood for freedom, hope of basic human dignity for oppressed people. And people believed in her. It seems wrong to paint a woman innocent people died for as "contradictory."

Similarly, the people of Haiti believe in Aristide, still protesting in throngs for his return. He too struggled for basic human dignity. He too was repressed, removed twice from power amidst charges of corruption. The second time, he was kidnapped on a U.S. military jet, overrun by paramilitaries empowered courtesy of my country smuggling weapons through the Dominican Republic. The evidence of a coup d'etat fostered by the U.S., France, and Canada is incontrovertible. And yet in every current news article about Haiti, STILL the press refers to a "popular uprising" that drove Aristide from power in 2004. Every time I read that obligatory phrase, I scowl: frivolous words demeaning thousands of Haitians' deaths and hundreds of wrongful imprisonments.

For both these leaders, we throw around epithets of "controversial" from our comfortable lives, while the people who matter stand and die in futile search for freedom. Our dishonesty keeps it beyond their grasp.

The poor and oppressed don't even have the luxury of truth. Power creates the stories.

100 Suggestions for Being a Catholic Worker

2007-12-15T19:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I won't list all 100, but these are from a flyer on the refrigerator at Bethany House. Life instructions, as many have learned from living with our downtrodden brothers and sisters:

-take the sermon on the mount very seriously.
-don't take yourself too seriously.
-convene the kingdom of god over soup.
-compel them to come in.
-ask how far the line goes back.
-reside in the margins.
-draw a line. stand on it. get arrested.
-persevere in non-sequitur conversation.
-bless those who curse you, including guests.
-honor conscience, in yourself and others.
-be skeptical of forms, bureaucracies, institutions, and people who put you on hold.
-refuse to be called a saint.
-rage against patriarchy
-find love a harsh and dreadful thing.
-find love.
-be civil when answering the phone at 3 am
(you may swear if it rings again immediately)
-discern the times. take time. give time. do time. add thyme.
-build a new society in the shell of the old.
-try and figure out who is pilfering the toilet paper.
-study the faces of folk down and out.
-curse the filthy, rotten system.
-marvel at the survival skills of your guests.
-weep quietly in your room when necessary.
-stay in touch.
-sweat
-beg
-practice non-violence.
-argue economics over coffee.
-argue over economics and coffee.
-scrub soup pots as an exercise in contemplation.
-visit prisoners. be one.

-celebrate the incarnation.

Se fini

2007-12-09T17:24:00.000-05:00

Creole for "it's finished," meaning the journals on Cambodia. I could post a lot more, but I think I should stop, to offer new thoughts from the moment. But to everyone who wanted to hear: thank you. Awwquun jraan (thank you very much). I often would rather listen than speak, but it means a lot to be asked to share something so raw in me.

So final thoughts:
Thursday August 9, 2:35 am (somewhere)

"Now I am really out of Southeast Asia, on the plane, suspended in time. I will sleep. But now, I am churning. Following my friend's suggestion again to ask 'how am I feeling today?' before journaling...today I feel split in pieces.

Part of me is calm about my return. My friend also told me I was going to Cambodia for a reason, one I may not have known at the time. I think I've seen this reason now, in a deeper way, though I guess it's not far from my original thoughts. In the book, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," Janie Crawford says, 'You got to go there to know there." I went to Cambodia to know Cambodia, as much as I could in eight weeks anyway. I read the terrible history, and I wanted to see people rebuilding from it.

I admit that my selfish reason for wanting to go abroad so badly was to see if I could live and work in a poor country maybe long term. Also to continue to discern that medical call I keep hearing. I think I found both. At least I took a step. I'm open to being led, but I'm also ready to continue this path, however slowly I may go.

From Michael Himes, I learned that vocation is about joy, though not always happiness. From Pope JPII and Romero, I learned that solidarity may require great personal sacrifice. Being a doctor in a country like Cambodia...or Haiti doesn't feel like a sacrifice to me. It sure as heck isn't 'saving the world,' as people joke. I just feel as if I'm being pulled in a certain direction. I love the learning and the praxis. But I don't think I've started on any path on my own, without being pushed. And I don't think I can just forget about it.

My family's motto, 'from those to whom much is given, much is expected.' The Gospel for this coming Sunday (Luke 12:48): 'Much will be required from those entrusted with much, and more will be required from those entrusted with more.' Coincidence? Wow.

Teaching taught me about the real need for connection and partnership. My students can do great things...they don't really need our help to heal Cambodia's wounds...they just need us to allow them the resources they deserve.

Everything--especially the hospice--is showing me what it might mean to be a doctor. I love Phalla, my sister; all I did with her was talk and laugh and make flowers and cuddle. And my dear Malis....I guess I changed her and dressed her bedsore and stuff. I held her hand and sang and looked into her beautiful eyes. Did I help either of them? Really help? No. But these women, and so many like them, need real help.

Right now, I want to keep feeling these pieces. I want to love in humble awe. I had to leave Cambodia...so feeling is the very least I can do."

Magic

2007-12-05T20:48:00.000-05:00

Thursday July 12, 10:06 p.m., Phnom Penh, Cambodia

"I have felt so inept and useless at my hospice placement. I can't listen [language barrier], so I feel I can't share, that my being with them is not really being with.

But today was magical. I went Tuesday, at Sr. Regina's suggestion, to Boeung Tumpun to learn to make these silk flowers--as an idea for an activity for the five hospice ladies who are feeling pretty well. So I went to the hospice today. Yungsaw has gone home, and a new lady named Dany is here. I sat on Soreun's bed, and showed Chunty and her the sample flowers I made. I am continuously learning and practicing new Kemi, so I can understand and communicate superficial ideas pretty well. I asked if they wanted me to teach them. When I sat down with the materials, Phalla (who's blind from CMV retinopathy, who told Adel that being here is the first time in her life she's been happy) sat down next to me. She felt the flowers, said "sa-at" (beautiful) and motioned for me to teach her.

I guided her hands for the first part and handed her materials, but she caught on really quickly, working intently on her own as I watched. Soon, the caretakers, Saman and Hyup, came to join in, making little silk petals. Soreun and Chunty weren't feeling well, so they watched, laughing at Phalla's visible pleasure. We ended up with a community-effort bouquet, but it was mostly Phalla. she's so resourceful and sheepish at the same time. She still teases me about the way I pronounce "neak" (you), but she's getting more satisfied with my attempts. It was a beautiful afternoon with the bawng srays (ladies)."

Live...from one of the most hellish places on earth

2007-12-04T21:08:00.000-05:00

Stung Meanchey: the Phnom Penh garbage dumps....where hundreds of families live to pick throught trash for recyclables. Imagine wading through your own waste for that one aluminum can you forgot to recycle, so you can turn it in for a few cents. Imagine doing it at age 6, barefoot, every day, instead of school, sick and hungry.

More Cambodia...

2007-12-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

As it snows, and I again have an exam tomorrow and mountains of "important" things to do, I can't resist opening my Cambodia journal. More, by anonymous popular request.

Saturday July 14, 12:04 am

"I was at the netcafe lesson planning until 11:30 and still thinking and agonizing over plans for next week. It's so hard. Ed did Mass tonight. Gospel was on the Good Samaritan. Ed challenged us with the question the smart lawyer (as Ed was as an NYC DA) asked, "who is my neighbor?" All are our neighbors, as the children believe. Children raise the bar of compassion Ed spoke of. How far AM I willing to go in compassion? When I want nothing, no feel-good and no recognition, in return?

We went back to Stung Meanchey, the garbage dump, this morning. This time, the lady Kevin works with arranged to have 5 kg rice for each of the 70-95 families in that area. Everyone huddled as they started distributing rice. Meg & I brought candy, which we gave to the kids. A random ice cream cart went by (right next to a dump?) so for $5, we bought ice popsicles for dozens and dozens of kids.

They were all jumpy and clingy and wanted to play. I loved it. I basically wrestled with and gave piggy back rids to a brother and sister for an hour. Held a beautiful little girl with a rash around her face and sores on her arms. An older girl, maybe 11, wearing the dirtiest old McDonald's shirt, taught me hand slap games AND "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" in Khemi. Not kidding.

Some of them led me back through their shack homes.
I had so much fun playing with them.
But at the end, we saw the girl with the McDonald's shirt headed out to the dump to work in the filth.

She is my neighbor.

Meg and I had thought about giving the community water filters. Doy, a lay missioner, didn't recommend it--the people might sell them. We then turned to the idea of bednets and roofs. In Khemi, Kevin was talking about this with a group of St. Vincent de Paul society people. I stood nearby, hugging a little girl to my side. She said something to me I didn't understand. I asked Kevin to translate.

"Please one bednet and one roof."

Christ, this little girl asked me for a bednet and a roof.

I will make sure we do it. Roofs and bednets to the group, all the families in that cluster of hellish shacks. They are my neighbors. She's my neighbor. I am responsible for the inhumanness of her life.

I later found she lives outside that little area we were in, and I don't have a picture of her or anything. Please let me be able to find her.

Do I really have compassion for my neighbors, for her?"

----------
Now on to the less important things I'm supposed to do.

Here's what matters...

2007-11-25T17:42:00.000-05:00

I just opened my journal, and out of 140 pages to choose from, randomly, this is what I read. Here is some meaning, I think. I can't forget, never will.

Friday August 3:
"...The best moment, perhaps of the summer, came from my personal exhaustion this morning. I was not on my game. My dear Phalla was feeling sick today, headache, and dozing on her bed. I got up from my seat by Malis and lay on Phalla's small bed. Immediately and without a single word, Phalla wrapped her arm across my stomach and pulled me close. She could feel my diaphragm and I could feel her fresh soft breath on my cheek--a centimeter from her mouth. We lay there, holding hands, cuddling, dozing, breathing together for half an hour. That time was love.

I said goodye to Svay Phalla as she took those life-giving medicines that keep making her stronger. Told her I didn't want to leave Kampuchea.

Srey Pao invited me in her room to her bed. I have barely spent time with her, but when I told her I was leaving, she burst into tears and embraced me with her stick arms. We kissed each other and exchanged 'I'll miss you.' 'I love you.'
I'm amazed that my brief presence meant something to her.

Phalla was lying by the TV when I said goodbye. I hugged her and told her I loved her. I was--and am--sad. I will miss my dear friend, my sister. But Phalla put on a good face, though I got the feeling she felt as I did. She said she loved me. But when I started to say 'thank you' (for her presence and companionship), as if to stop me from being too sentimental, she simply said 'sok sapbaay' (be happy). Kept her gaze (which goes beyond her eyes) on the ceiling as I walked away. That woman defines courage to me."

What matters

2007-11-25T17:21:00.000-05:00

So it's been far too long since I've posted. The fall has been different: a rocky start from missing school, difficult classes, accomplishing less than I think I should, and perpetual fatigue. The endless self-criticism...I am not good enough, and I never will be.

"We had the experience, but missed the meaning." T.S. Eliot.

I don't want that to be me. For the meaning is far beyond what I can comprehend. And the only way to approach it is to get outside myself and into someone else.

It's snowing outside, dome shining against the grey-blue sky.
I understand some of the dome's tarnish.
Freedom should start here.
My friends are playing Christmas Carols across the hall.
The Khmer Rouge tribunals started last week with Duch's testimony.
I'm going to Haiti over Christmas break.
We're already deciding on next year's Cambodia students...so many would give so much to the experience.
I spent Thanksgiving with 84 family members, two of whom fought breast cancer.
Through various experiences this fall, I've seen disparities in the U.S. healthcare system.
I have a physiology test that I'm not prepared for on Tuesday, and three papers, and a presentation to high-schoolers.
I'm writing about humanitarian aid in Darfur, and health care justice in the U.S.....finally, things that matter.
On my 21st birthday, I might get to hear Dr. Jim Yong Kim speak about the implementation gap in health care delivery.
This blog wasn't/isn't intended to be biographical.
But I need to reflect on the meaning in everyday life.
I'm wasting time...or am I?
I understand the homeostatic compensations our bodies try to make to compensate for diahhrea. People are dying from diahhrea right now.

I miss Lem Phalla and Sothearith.
I wish Men Malis hadn't died.

Two Haitians and one Cambodian sent me emails to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. The beginning of our colonialism...wouldn't Haiti have been better off without pilgrims?

What matters?
Where's the meaning?

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

2007-09-06T09:21:00.000-05:00

This is a poem by Wendell Berry. A friend introduced me to it last week. Best read aloud, in groups, considering the truth of each phrase.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Dr. Tom Dooley

2007-09-06T09:20:00.000-05:00

"I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
What I can do, I ought to do,
and what I ought to do,
by the grace of God,
I will do."

Dr. Tom Dooley
Notre Dame alum, who built hospitals throughout Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 60s.

A new school year...

2007-08-29T00:18:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I don't think daily updates will happen now that the semester's started. But, I won't let this blog die, mostly because I really like to write.

Don't have time to dig through my journal now, but I promise to follow-up with a better entry than the last one.

Don't read if you're afraid to be shaken

2007-08-18T14:59:00.001-05:00

More from the Cambodia journal…seriously heed the above warning.

Tuesday June 19, 10:06 p.m.
Yesterday, we went to the two places in Phnom Penh every visitor sees: Chuoung Ek (The Killing Fields) and the Tuol Sleng S-21 prison. I don’t know if I can describe those. I don’t think it’s possible to really fathom the suffering and death under the Khmer Rouge—2 million in four years—but I saw some of the punctured skulls. I saw clothes and bones and teeth in the ground around the hundreds of mass graves. Standing next to the Tuol Sleng’s torture instruments; around 20,000 people entered this prison, and 7 left alive. The thousands of headshot photos of prisoners in Tuol Sleng—faces staring at me as if their pain were not 30 years ago, but rather, at this very moment. I can’t even begin…

Then today, I also am overwhelmed by a sadness just below the surface. I’m not crying, so I’m not letting it out, but I feel it hard. We learned more about Maryknoll’s Seedling of Hope program from Ed, and then he took us to Chay Chumneas: a government referral hospital for AIDS and TB. I can’t…well, I’ll try to describe.

An open ward full of metal frame beds, possibly with straw mattresses, or just a sheet. All the patients’ belongings under their beds, a few clothes and pots and pans, because they have no safe home to leave things in. Maybe an IV stand. The people were all so incredibly sick, most with both AIDS and TB. A prisoner lay shackled to his bed, skin and bones and a diaper. How much longer does he have?

Maybe worse than the physical horror of the place was the total lack of hospital staff. No nurses or aids to make sure IVs don’t run dry. No one to offer any care. Only the patients’ families—if they have them—are present to care for people. Imagine a six-year-old child taking his mother to use the filthy outdoor latrine at night. What is it like there now, in the dark? What does it feel like to live in that pain and terror?

The pediatric ward was as bad. Nearly all the children in the over-filled ward have HIV and dengue fever—Cambodia’s new plague (the country has the highest burden of dengue in the world right now). I saw a baby—who knows how old?—who was a miniscule skeleton.

Why?

By Popular Request: Cambodia

2007-08-17T11:40:00.001-05:00

A little more than a week ago, I was halfway around the world. I miss that side of the globe—a lot. When thinking so often of the tiny country of Cambodia and all within it, I’m fortunate to have my precious journal as a memory. College-ruled notebook, I wrote 135 pages and counting…

When I started this blog, I promised myself I wouldn’t make it a personal diary thing. Instead, I wanted to write commentaries on current events and world issues, to learn through my typing fingers. However, several close friends have asked me to tell them all about Cambodia; I want to, but I can’t say everything. Yet I can share some of my experiences and thoughts, meticulously recorded as they happened, though I post chronologically. I suppose this writing is a form of commentary on the world.

Saturday June 16, 10:10 pm
Yesterday morning, I was sitting on the balcony watching the HI “squeakers” start their collection. People pull rented wooden carts around and pick up recyclables to turn in for a few hundred riel—next to nothing, but their only chance for income. Imagine collecting pop can deposits for a living. They use bathtub squeaky toys to announce their presence. One little boy, with an empty cart, motioned to me. I hurried inside to get my single Coke can, but I undershot my throw, so it fell within the apartment gate. I made a sorry face to the boy. He shrugged, smiled, and walked on, squeaking.

Thursday July 26, 6:26 am
I will miss the sounds of Cambodia, the chirping/burping of geckos at night (though the ones on my bedroom walls don’t really chirp). And in the morning, I wake to the squeaks and “HI” calls of the recycling collectors—tiny children and adults, all barefoot and poor. And to the bread man calling “Pang, pang” in his throaty voice, selling baguettes for 500 riel (12.5 cents) from a wicker basket on his bicycle, and to the egg man playing his monotone recording that some haughty foreigners complained about in letters to the editor. Yet I love waking to sounds of people living—trying to live anyway—to draw me to face the day with some generosity, knowing there’s life and hope even in a desperate world.

Hiatus

2007-06-04T22:17:00.000-05:00

I meant to write several posts in the last several days, but got too busy. A response to Andrew's question about health and human rights (well, I do have to say a yes--a right--to the cancer treatment question). Comments on the media coverage of the XDR-TB patient: they're missing the point. Other musings. Comments on an email a friend sent me about faith and service. Probably nothing very interesting.

Alas for failed good intentions.

However, if anyone does happen to read this blog, it is not defunct, but will not be updated until at least early August. Maybe then I'll have more to say. Or maybe I'll figure out that I have nothing to say. Maybe I'll fail to see the point.

Life, mine at least, is Pachelbel's Canon.

Peace friends.

Unwarranted and Undeserved

2007-05-25T15:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I fainted in the local hospital. I had been stupid—donated blood on an empty stomach, ate breakfast, and then immediately went for a run in the thickly hot morning. I finished breathing harder than normal and utterly drenched in sweat. Right after showering, I drove to the hospital to pick up a family member from an endoscopic procedure. Standing by the bed, I started to feel lightheaded. I knew I was going to faint, but at the point of that realization, it’s impossible to stop.

So I passed out in a chair. Three nurses jumped to me, and within 45 seconds of coming to, I had an air pipe and smelling salts up my nostrils, a blood pressure cuff on my bicep, a pulse monitor clamped on my finger, and an IV needle jammed in my brachial vein. Within five minutes, I had been loaded into a bed and wheeled to the emergency room. Within 30 minutes, I had recovered from all lightheadness, yet I still waited through an EKG—just in case I had an arrhythmia. I didn’t, of course. I was simply dehydrated from being stupid enough to run immediately after removing a pint of blood.

Both the nurses in the endoscopy unit and the ER were amazingly kind and forgiving of my inconvenient noncompliance. And they followed our nation’s copious medical protocol for such situations. But I didn’t need that care or really deserve it. Dehydration from an unwise run wouldn’t kill me. And it was my fault.

At least 1.6 million children die each year from diarrhea complications. Unlike in my case, the dehydration is not their fault. They can’t choose to avoid the fetid water they drink. There is no other choice. These children deserve care.

I am grateful for the luxurious care that I enjoyed—and the insurance that paid for it, insurance unavailable to nearly one in six in our richest of countries. Reflecting on my healthcare experiences and thinking about the complete lack of healthcare for so many forgotten people makes this conviction difficult to believe: healthcare, just like food and clean water, are basic human rights. More important than any other right is the right to survive. But as Dr. Farmer writes (Pathologies of Power, I think) “If healthcare is a basic human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?”

So I am human. How many are with me? Surely fewer than those denied humanity. Haitians have such a hopeful proverb, “tout moun se moun” (every person is a person). Yet, only 54% of Haitians have access to safe water. They count themselves each as human. Why can’t we?

Triple A: "AIDS and Accusation" and Abbott Laboratories

2007-05-18T23:33:00.000-05:00

After finally reading "Deus Caritas Est" and former president Jean Bertrand Aristide's "In the Parish of the Poor: Writings From Haiti," I've begun the only book by Dr. Paul Farmer I haven't yet read, "AIDS and Accusation."

My blood still boiling over Abbott Laboratories continued callousness, extreme even with their deplorable track record, extreme even for a corporation, whose business needs admittedly do lend themselves to dispassion. This week, Abbott offered Thailand a "compromise": Aluvia (one of the drugs it was planning to pull) for $1000 per patient per year--fixed price, no lower, and Thailand couldn't continue its compulsory license. As an alternative to the deal, an Indian generic company, with the support of the Clinton Foundation, could make the drug for $695, with the near certainty of a price drop as more generic companies produce the ARV. Thai ministry of health looks like it won't take the deal...good decision, clearly.

In his 2005 preface to this book, originally published in 1992, Dr. Farmer addresses exactly this issue:
"Even if we agree that AIDS care is a right, there are significant challenges. We need to understand that as long as these medications remain commodities on the open market, they will be available only to those who can afford them. Regardless of how low costs go, there will always be those who cannot pay. For those interested in health as a human right, selling ARVS will always pose problems."

And a little later on...:
"...confused debates nonetheless continue to waste precious time. We should brace ourselves for the next great wave of debate, which will undoubtedly focus on what the modern world owes to the destitute sick. If AIDS care becomes a right rather than a commodity, some people believe we will open a Pandora's box. Others, including me, believe that we have no more excuses for ignoring the growing inequality that has left hundreds of millions of people without any hope of surviving preventable and treatable illnesses."

We need to put pressure on the Miles Whites [Abbott CEO] of the world. We need to put pressure on the world. We need to put pressure on ourselves in the world. To not continue to ignore inequality.

Anticipation

2007-05-16T10:58:00.000-05:00

I spoke with my site supervisor, a priest, this morning. Hearing his voice made this all more real, though sometimes I still can't believe it. What is this? I guess I should explain my pending hiatus from this blog.

On June 5, I will board Thai Airways for a 17-hour nonstop flight from New York to Bangkok. Through ND's Center for Social Concerns, a friend and I will live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for seven weeks—doing so-called “service learning.” Which basically means we’ll work and learn and discern in the midst of poverty, and hope we can do a little good in the process. My friend and I are in a class of 36 students: we all are soon to depart for places around the world to begin to learn about the real world. The one beyond U.S. borders, the one of the shafted majority, the one of struggle, but also the one of real humanity.

Our particular site placement is with the Maryknoll, the century-old global mission organization. The community of priests, sisters, and lay missioners has built a number of social programs in Phnom Penh. As student short-term volunteers, my friend and I will have the main responsibility of teaching two intermediate English classes at the local public university. So for four weeks, I will teach English to probably 60-70 students my own age. Though a language class, the topic is “Current World Affairs.” Yes, I’m a more than a little intimidated.

But I’ve been fortunate to have so many mentors in my classrooms. My teachers have inspired me and cultivated a love of learning in me. The couple thousand dollars ND donors have paid to send me to Cambodia would probably pay the salary of ten local teachers—who could likely do a better job than I can. Both this realization and a strong desire to share some of the learning excitement I’ve been given will motivate me. I don’t harbor naïve visions of how effective I might be. I’ll just do my best. But if anyone has a neat idea of an activity or something, I’d love to hear it!

Beyond teaching in the morning for four weeks, I’ll get involved somehow with Maryknoll’s HIV/AIDS program. They have adults and children on ARVs (anti-retrovirals). Some 320 children are enrolled in the program: half are orphans and live in Maryknoll-run group homes and the other half live with families. But in a true community health system, workers visit the kids every day to supervise pill ingestion and check on other needs. Maryknoll helps with food, education, and other support. My supervisor spoke just this morning of the need for counsel for the children, and when they’re older, a transition to independence. This life—not death—is the possibility for the 38 million people living with HIV, no longer a death sentence.

This description sounds great from my couch in sunny, pleasant Michigan. But I know an experience doesn’t fit into a 500-word summary on a blog. Any presumption or expectation I might have will probably go flying out the window as soon as we touch down in Phnom Penh. So I’m not expecting movie-like poignancy. My summer will be messy. But I do have one personal hope. In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie Crawford remarks, “you can’t know there until you go there.” So I hope beyond all my self-interested hope that I can “go there,” and in going, start to see if I can “stay there.” Can I live in Haiti someday, my dream? I hope so, but I don’t know, so I have to go. To Cambodia, I will simply go.

Immigration, Doing One's Job, and a Sweet Slam

2007-05-15T22:14:00.000-05:00

Since I'm back in SJ now, I have easy access to a TV. Thus, instead of reading all the news I get (which isn't as much as I should get), I watched CNN tonight. Lou Dobb's Situation Room focused on the pending "sweeping immigration reform." Most Republicans are fighting it tooth and nail, afraid of the A-word. No, not that one. Amnesty. So...let's not allow people to contribute to the economy as legal residents. Let's just punish them and deny them more rights (especially the big 'life' right) just because we're a vindictive country. Makes a lot of sense. As if we haven't already shown poor people who's boss.

All correspondents on the show also remarked that very few legislators have likely read last year's immigration bill. That's major legislation. One year later. And they haven't read it? If passing legislation is congressmen's job and knowing the legislation necessarily precludes passing it, then doesn't that mean these people failed to do their job here? No wonder the executive branch is taking over the borders.

In more uplifting news, the religion-politics question remerged following Rev. Jerry Falwell's death. May he rest in peace of course. But CNN did an interesting piece on Archbishop Mahoney of Los Angelos and his outspoken support for immigrants' rights. He directly supports specific political action to grant amnesty and humanity to "illegal" aliens. Coming immediately after Pope Benedict's sharp warning in Brazil against religion getting mingled in with Marxist and capitalist sentiments, I found the Mahoney report very interesting and encouraging. Some in the Church hierarchy do actively work for earthly justice, albeit with a spiritual motive. Always back to Matthew 25: whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me (Christ).

An AP article, which of course I don't trust as Gospel truth (excuse the pun), described the Pope's message as an exhortation to "address spiritual hunger as a means of easing poverty." I think when people are hungry--such as the 850 million suffering from severe hunger right now--they need food. Real food. Spiritual food is great and all. But if working for justice through a political mechanism brings bread to the hungry, or amnesty and life to aliens, then by all means--let's work for justice for all God's children.

Mothers Day

2007-05-14T00:33:00.000-05:00

So I'm a little late on this post, but I'm okay with being untimely.

I simply want to express my appreciation for my mother, for her unconditional love. Such a ubiquitous concept, but a difficult one to grasp--love. Though I just read Pope Benedict's encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" (God is love), so I should intellectually understand the "freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others." My mother has offered experience to my knowledge of love.

My mom supports me in everything I do. She tries to understand my thoughts and ideas, however radical they might seem. She believes in me. But more important than anything, though I didn't earn it and don't always deserve it, she loves me.

For that love, I'm grateful. But my thanks comes with some guilt: every minute, a mother dies in childbirth. AIDS and tuberculosis claim the lives of 10-15,000 parents each day. So for every child with a loving mother, many more children have no mothers--no love, often no hope.

We need to protect the world's mothers.

Haitians die in desperate search of life

2007-05-10T02:45:00.001-05:00

Another tragedy at sea for Haitians, and yet another evidence of our negligence. "More than 900 [Haitian] migrants have been caught and sent home." No hearing to determine whether these people are legitimate economic asylum seakers (which they undoubtedly were), which violates international norms. This boat capsized off the coast of the resort island of the Turks and Caicos. Which means some ritzy hotels lost out on roomkeepers...while these people lost their lives.

And a question, with the national discussion on "illegal" immigration: what can ever make a person "illegal"? Who's committing the crime here: the person who seeks their supposedly inalienable right to life though it requires passing artifical human-drawn boundaries? Or the people and countries who deny that right?

A Studying Poem

2007-05-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

This Yeats poem was quoted in my organic chemistry textbook from last year (yes, I'm serious). I think it’s appropriate for finals week….and for Kentucky Derby Day! Until a week from now, when I can write more…

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

“The Fascination of what’s difficult”
William Butler Yeats