Haiti Mission Possible: Day 6

Thursday, July 1, 2010 – Today was yet another long day of work, but the long days seem like nothing compared to the long days most Cazale villagers spend going about their daily business of living life. I didn’t feel good most of the day due to a stomach virus, but complaining about my ailment seemed unwarranted when there are hundreds of people who walk long miles and many hours just to get to the clinic for their health care needs. Real Hope for Haiti’s clinic (The Good Samaritan Clinic) is the only source of medical care for Cazale and many surrounding villiages. After interacting with a couple of locals and reviewing the process by which all these people are serviced, there is no doubt that this ministry needs a bigger facility that is actually designed as a medical facility for meeting their basic functional needs. Currently, the clinic operates in a large house that is modest compared to even most houses in the states.

There is one occurrence this week associated with the clinic that sits atop the many moments of awareness that struck a chord with me this week. This happened since Monday, June 28th, but I didn’t know how to verbalize what I felt in the moment; 3 days later, I’m finally able to attempt to describe the situation. The clinic operates 3 days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) to treat a variety of non-life threatening medical cases to at least 350 people per day, with Tuesday being the busiest day because of the break in between treatment days. The clinic services on a first-come-first served basis, but recognizing critical cases and pushed them to the head of the line as needed.

People coming for service are handed a ticket number at the beginning of the day outside of the clinics gates and 50 at a time are let into to clinic gates to sit in the waiting area at a time to wait to be triaged and ultimately serviced. People come from near and far to receive care and thus are willing to get to the clinic gates a day before to start lining up to receive a number to ensure they will be seen during that day before the clinic closes at 6pm. They sleep overnight outside the gates in the elements just to make sure they can get medical care. They don’t have camping chairs or sleeping bags or a soft surface to help make their (12- 18 hours) wait more comfortable.

As we, the project team, were walking back to the guest house on Monday night after our nightly devotion and technical debriefing meeting, we had to go through the clinic gates (because the guest house is next to the clinic and our work areas is in a house 2 doors down the street). What I wasn’t prepared for was all the people lined up on the ground in front of the gates sleeping on the ground in front of the gates. They were literally lined up on the exposed ground piled on top of each other sleeping amidst the dirt and trash lined street. We could not get into the gate without having to break through the human chain on the ground and stepping over people.

In that moment, I wanted to run away and get back to my comfortable American life because the scene was too difficult to bare, but I had no choice but to step over those people in the middle of the night with our flashlights (there are no streets lights so it is pitch black) all the while thinking why them Lord, why not me, what did they do to deserve such a bleak fate, what did I do to deserve the comforts of my American life? Are they not humans too, why are they to be made to live in such sub-human conditions? That moment was the hardest human moment I’ve ever experienced because it was clouded with my personal guilt because I knew once I stepped over them, I would be going inside and sleeping in a bed; I also felt guilty because I knew I wouldn’t even for a moment trade places with anyone of those over 200 people.

I saw it with my own eyes and I couldn’t even image what it feels like being that person on the ground with lights flashing in your face as you’re trying to sleep with these supposedly better people trying to get by. Did they feel shame, did they feel less than human, did they think we thought we were superior to them; did they look at me and think why I wasn’t subjected to their conditions? I was one of 2 black people on our 12 person team; I looked like them, but I got to go into the gates and live with the white people “blancs”, so was there something better about me versus them? God I don’t know what to do with this feeling at the pit of my stomach that makes me want to scream. I know life’s not far, but we as humankind have to do better for the less fortunate. What are you trying to teach me in this moment? Because right now, I feel overwhelmingly powerless. For the first time in my life, I can actually say Maya Angelou’s book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” makes sense, and the book's message can apply to many different types of life experiences…