Category Archives: Haiti

To Be Used

There is some prerequisite reading for this post, if you haven’t already read Bipolar, you should do that first.  

In the heat of a moment, it is easy to forget or even completely miss important details, and sometimes the things that we do remember seem so pointless in relation to the broader story.  It has been exactly a month since I found myself in the back of a pickup truck with 4 other people hurtling down the road towards a Haitian hospital.  The little boy who lay on his back between us wasn’t breathing well on his own, and each pump of the bag ventilator was critical to keeping his oxygen levels up and giving him a chance to survive the trip to Bernard Mevs in Port-au-Prince.

I remember pausing at the water cooler before the truck left, and struggling with myself to calm down.  I remember the elation I felt when Webert arrived just as Denzly was placed in the back of the truck.  I remember taking my watch off and offering it to the medical team as if I was buying a place in the truck with it.  I remember the brief discussion at the hospital about whether we should put down the tailgate or just lift Denzly over the side.  I remember how I felt when I learned that the rest of the team had skipped dinner, waiting until we returned to eat.

Each person at Tytoo that day probably has their own memories of those hours of uncertainty.  Some of those memories will seem so random that they only have meaning for the person remembering it.  Some of the moments will gradually be lost to the haze of time, while others will remain sharp and clear for years.  As I reflect on that day, it is easy to see the small details of my role, but in focusing on those details, I find that I am prone to missing the larger story.

In my foolishness and the immaturity of my knowledge, I presented the events of that day as starting with a truck pulling into Tytoo.  I know better now, and I would like to tell you the rest of the story, including the news I received just this Saturday.

Allie has been in Haiti for roughly 2 years, and in some ways, she is where this story starts.  When we arrived in Haiti we shared our ride to Tytoo with Denzly, who we picked up at the hospital.  Allie had been approached by one of the boys relatives and was shown a picture of Denzlys crazy rash, because of her role at Tytoo, Allie has developed a reputation for being someone you go to when you need help.  Allie had arranged for Hillary to take the boy and his mother to the hospital for some tests.  Hillary is a Canadian paramedic, and is the coordinator for medical teams who visit Tytoo.  She had arrived in Haiti just a few days before us, and would be leaving with us at the end of our trip.

On Thursday we went to Denzly’s home, hoping to try some anti-fungal medicine on his rash since the antibiotics he had been taking hadn’t yielded any obvious results.  We pulled up in front of his home to find that he had been taken to a “church service” by his mother, who hoped he would be healed spiritually.  We piled back into the truck, and went back to Tytoo, hoping to try again the next evening.  In light of what happened the next day, it really felt like a missed opportunity.

When the fateful Friday night arrived, Hillary was already at Bernard Mevs with Annalisa, a child at Tytoo Gardens who has brittle bone disease.  On Friday morning, I had watched as Hillary loaded Annalisa into the Kia, a mid sized white truck owned by Tytoo.  She had broken her femur while turning over in bed during the night.   In fact, Annalisa would stay at the hospital all day waiting for a cast that was promised in two hours, but would never be applied.  She would have to return on Saturday for her bright blue cast.

Annalisa on Friday morning, bravely awaiting her trip to the hospital.

Annalisa on Friday morning, bravely awaiting her trip to the hospital.

Hillary was with Annalisa all day while they waited at the hospital, meaning that when Denzly arrived at our gate that evening, the person most experienced with transporting a child in distress was not with us.  Since they had taken the Kia to Port-au-Prince, when Denzly arrived, we didn’t have a fast and safe vehicle to take him to the hospital.  It would be at least 45 minutes before the truck could get back to Tytoo, far too long to wait.

Further compounding the situation was the fact that Kori, Jen, and Troy hadn’t had any time in the small onsite clinic.  They hadn’t been able to familiarize themselves with the equipment, or where it could be found. This lead to some frantic searching as they looked for equipment they weren’t even sure the clinic had.  The nearest ambulance was without a driver, and the nearest hospital wasn’t going to be able to handle a child in Denzly’s condition.

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It was as if our hands had been tied by threads of unexpected circumstance.  Each strand entangling us to paralyze our efforts.

It was only during the week that followed that Friday night that I learned the full scope of what had happened.

In our debriefing time one evening, I remarked to the group that I wouldn’t have even been in
the truck if Hillary had been with us instead of at the hospital that day.  There was barely room for me as it was, and with a 4th medical person in the back of the truck, I would have had nowhere to cling as we sped down the road.  While I hadn’t served a valuable purpose in the truck, I knew that this story would be powerful, and I remarked that I was glad it had worked out for me to go along.  Hillary agreed, but then continued the story.

She proceeded to say that if she hadn’t been at the hospital all day, they may not have even let Denzly in!  She said that when a Haitian hospital is presented with something they are unfamiliar with, aren’t sure they can help with, or even if they are just too busy, they may turn you away at the gate, forcing you to look elsewhere.  When we arrived, there were already 2 gunshot wounds in the E.R. and no one was available to begin care right away.  Hillary quietly finished by saying that if she hadn’t been there, we probably would have been turned away.

Before we left for the hospital that night, I ran back to the room to grab every penny I had with me.  I wanted to be prepared to pay for whatever needed paid for to ensure Denzly could be seen by the hospital.  By North American standards, I didn’t have much with me, and I knew that I needed to pay my extra baggage fees on the way home, but weighed against a life, I knew which choice I would be compelled to make if the moment came.   It would cripple me financially until the end of the trip, but what choice would I have?

One of the people in the front of the truck that night was Kayla, her husband Webert was the driver, and the truck belonged to them.  Kayla works with Touch of Hope Haiti, and in the last year she had done a lot of fundraising so she could set up what she called “The Lazarus Fund”.  When Hillary came out of the door and started talking through the details of paying for Denzly’s care, I was standing next to Kayla.  It quickly became apparent that even if I gave everything I had, it wouldn’t be enough.  As I was still working up the courage to mention the stash of cash I had brought, without batting an eye Kayla that they would take care of it.  She said that the reason this fund existed was for exactly this sort of situation, and that she was so glad that she had been able to raise enough to take care of this boy without thinking twice.  Would Kayla have been with us if the Kia had been at Tytoo when Denzly arrived?

Kayla awaits the news...

Kayla awaits the news…

As I put aside my own memories of the event, I start to see the larger story unfolding.

The threads of circumstance that seemed to bind us, were perfectly placed to free us.

From a broken leg and a long hospital wait, to open seats and visiting medical teams, each moment of the weeks leading up to that moment on Friday night was completely outside of the ability of any one human to control.  It was as if each unexpected circumstance was a thread on an unseen loom, skillfully woven together with a precision unmatched by human hands.  Each moment a seemingly insignificant strand, easily snapped, but together forming a picture that no one could have expected.  It is in this larger picture that I find myself able to say this.

It is good to be used by God.

Each moment was ordained by God.  I didn’t see it right away, but the more I reflect on that night, the more clear it becomes to me.  I could say that we were remarkably lucky, but that would be denying God’s presence in each moment.  God was able to use us to do his will because he was able to place us where we were needed.  Our role in the events takes a backseat to the elaborate weaving done by God to ensure all would go according to his plan.

In fact, God continues to weave these threads even now.

The “church service” Denzly was taken to on Thursday night was most likely a voodoo ceremony intended to heal Denzly.  What we originally believed to have been a rash, we now believe may have actually been a chemical burn caused by a voodoo “curse”.  When Denzly’s mother removed him from the hospital against medical advice, she neglected the provided medicine in favor of voodoo “tea”.  Her anger at us for interfering with the care provided by the witch doctor was palpable.  As we neared the end of my time in Haiti, we almost felt defeated by the situation.

Before I left, Allie and I stopped at Denzly’s home to check on him.   I didn’t expect a warm welcome, but Allie was determined to see him.  As we walked up to the house, we could see Denzly standing outside, a frozen juice pouch in hand.  He didn’t acknowledge us as red juice dripped from his deformed lips to the dirt beneath his feet.  I shudder to say it, but he was truly like a zombie, it was as if he wasn’t actually there.  His family gathered around and began talking with Allie as I began to fear that while we had saved his body, the lack of oxygen had left his mind impaired, unable to rejoin the world he had left behind.

Denzly before he went back to the hospital.

Denzly before he went back to the hospital.

Allie managed to cut through the dark clouds that had formed in my brain as she said that his heart was beating really fast.  She kept feeling his stomach and his chest, while I looked stupidly at her and asked her to count the beats.  After a few more moments of discussion she asked me to feel his heart beat.  I hesitated, not knowing what I could do, but eventually I reached out my hand to feel his heartbeat.

It was too fast to count.

When Allie told the mother to take Denzly to Tytoo’s clinic yet again, I expected resistance.  Instead, the mother quickly agreed.  Once at Tytoo they made arrangements with the mother to return to the hospital, and this time to stay until Denzly was better.  She accepted the conditions and Denzly returned to the hospital.  I don’t know that I expected Denzly to survive.  I could only hope that God had chosen to weave together this story so that Denzly and his family could know the healing power of Christ over voodoo.

I left the next morning, and Allie left the day after.  It would be nearly 2 weeks before I would learn what happened to Denzly.

Denzly

In all our time with Denzly, I had never seen him smile.

 

If you are interested in donating to The Lazarus Fund, please contact Kayla by going to her website.  She will be able to tell you the most pressing needs, and how to donate if you are interested.

 

 

Aviator

 

Before I left for Haiti and Nicaragua, I bought a new piece of camera gear that I like to call a context expander.  Before you do a google search to find out what a context expander is, let me say that it is a tool that allows me to establish the context before I begin a new section of a documentary.  It allows me to get above everything with my camera, and really pull back the veil of what is surrounding the setting we are working in.  Still not sure what I’m talking about?

A context expander is what is so lovingly referred to as a “drone”.

Is that a weed-eater I hear behind me?

Is that a weed-eater I hear behind me?

I hate the word “drone” because of the negative connotations that go along with it, but calling it a quad-copter or a flying machine just confuses people, so every now and then I just have to say the word “drone”.  My hatred of the word aside, I acquired one in February so I could be ready to safely fly it by the time I left for Haiti.  After several frightening crashes and at least 8 broken propeller blades, I finally really started to get the hang of it and felt confident enough to fly it for filming.  I wanted to use it to get a good glimpse of exactly the surroundings we would be staying in.  Test footage from home was pretty incredible, so I was excited to see what I could capture in the field.

When the time came for me to leave for Haiti, I lovingly packed the quad-copter into my box of gear, and hoped that it would survive the flight in the belly of the plane.   It did, and as we began our time at Tytoo Gardens, I was anxiously awaiting my chance to get the flying camera out.  I wanted to wait until it would not be a disruption to the activities going on at the orphanage, and I was waiting for a time I thought I could fly it as safely as possible.

After several days, the moment finally arrived, and I was growing nervously excited as I attached the propellers and turned on the transmitter.  After doing my pre-flight stuff out of sight behind one of the buildings, I started the motors and watched as the little white bird climbed gracefully into the air.   Quad-copters are not particularly quiet, so it wasn’t long before I had a small audience asking me questions in Haitian that I could not understand.  I did my best to answer questions while still keeping my eye on the bird and trying to capture great context film to use in the documentary.

The first flight ended with me reaching up from a crowd of kids to grab the landing skids of the quad-copter.  This isn’t the proper way to land, but since I didn’t think the kids were going to stay safely out of the reach of the propellers, I made the decision to preempt the possibility of injuring one of them.  I flew the drone a few more times while we were there, each time going smoothly and ending with the landing skids in my hands, reaching above my head to keep the kids who had gathered below safe.

Tytoo from the air...

Tytoo from the air…

It wasn’t until the day before I left that I heard an interesting story.  When I was showing some of the Tytoo Gardens staff the footage of the place they called home, one of them mentioned that when the kids saw me grab the landing skids, they began asking if I was going to fly up with the drone.  They genuinely thought that this little 8 pound piece of plastic and batteries was going to pick up all of my 190 pounds!  Ridiculously funny right? I was chuckling inside at the absurdity of it.

The staff member went on to explain that some of the Haitian’s who are hired to serve the orphans in the role of mothers were asking the same questions.  They even asked if that is how I had gotten to Haiti in the first place.   My internal chuckling subsided as I realized what I was being told.

Tytoo is only 45 minutes from the capital city of Port-au-Prince, home to the largest airport in Haiti.  I had personally watched jets flying over on their way to land.  Hadn’t these people ever seen an airplane?

The more I thought about it, the more astonished I was.  Seriously?  By the time I was 10 I had probably been to 2 or 3 airshows, had walked around a museum full of airplanes several times, had sat in the cockpits of airplanes and had probably even flown in one to Florida at that point.  I forget what birthday it was, but I was even given the opportunity to fly one (okay…so there was a real pilot doing the hard stuff, I just got to use the yoke a little bit).  I had grown up with airplanes my whole life, my wallpaper is pictures of fighter jets, and I spent many hours as a kid accidentally gluing my fingers together while trying to build model airplanes my parents had bought for me.  Our school even spent a day at a museum wandering around looking at various generations of planes.

Really my whole life has been nothing but one of opportunity.

Before I left Haiti, I was waiting on some of the adults to be available so I could interview them, and the kids came over by the cameras and wanted to be stars.  There wasn’t much else going on, so for 7 or 8 kids in a row I asked a pretty basic script of questions while I interviewed them.  I asked their name, age, if they went to school and where, I asked them their favorite subjects, and the last question I usually asked was what they wanted to be when they grew up.  When the first kid said he wanted to be a doctor, I wasn’t surprised, it is kind of the stereotypical answer you get in a country like Haiti.  I had several kids who wanted to be doctors, a few who wanted to be engineers, and then a couple times I heard a word I couldn’t understand.  I just brushed it off the first time I heard it, smiled and said “Merci, bien!  Fini!” (Thank you, good! Finished!) When it came up the second time, I tried a little harder to understand what they were saying.  The third time it finally clicked.

They were saying “aviator”.

Just by winning the geographic lottery, I had already attained something that these kids could only dream of aspiring to.  I had flown in an airplane.  They had probably never even seen one up close, but they knew it was a job that could bring them some stability.  They knew it was a job that offered them the chance to travel outside of their own country.

When you are Haitian, you don’t just get on an airplane and visit the United States.  Even if you are married to a citizen of the U.S., you can’t just fly there without getting a visa first.  By contrast all I had to do to get to Haiti was buy my ticket.  When I got off the plane in Haiti, I showed them my little blue passport and paid the customs agent 10 dollars and that was it.  I didn’t have to fill out a form to request entry to their country.  I didn’t have to go to the Haitian Embassy to submit my documents before I could travel.  The opportunity was given to me, seemingly free of charge!

What opportunities will those Haitian children have?

Will they ever get to see the inside of an airplane?  Will they ever have the opportunity to fly in one?  Even if they do, will they get to visit the United States?

What about their opportunities to become doctors or engineers?  Who is going to give that to them?

"Webert's School"

“Webert’s School”

One of the places I flew my quad-copter over was a small little school that serves 900 students.  It is on top of a tall hill on the outskirts of Simonette.  As you stand by the flagpole you can look down the hill and see the Tytoo Garden orphanage poking its way up through the trees.  Every kid I interviewed went to that school.  It started in a makeshift hut made out of pallets, and is now a half dozen block buildings, complete with outdoor basketball court and a cafeteria.  If these kids are going to have an opportunity at achieving their dreams, it is going to be because of the education they receive at that school.  They will likely never have the opportunities I have, simply because they were not born in the United States, but this little school is going to do its best to ensure that they have at least SOME opportunities.

Who is going to give these kids an opportunity?

You can be the answer to that question.

Head over to http://touchofhopehaiti.com/donate-here/ and send them something you have marked for the school.  You can even sponsor a child for their school expenses.

Give these beautiful children an opportunity to become something great.

 

 

I threw this quick video together pretty much on a whim…I wouldn’t consider it a finished project by any means…just a rough draft to get something out there.

Link to Video

In The Shadow

As an aspiring photographer and videographer, over the years I have become very aware of how important light is to my craft.  Sometimes you have too much light, and you end up overexposing the photo.  Sometimes you have too little light, and you underexpose, leaving the details of the photo in darkness, unrecoverable.  Manual exposure of a photo is a delicate balancing act, involving specific amounts of light over an absurdly specific period of time.  The differences we are talking about between a properly exposed photo and a ruined photo are very small, sometimes measured in mere hundredths of a second.  For a photographer, too much light can be as bad as too little.   Sometimes you just don’t get it right, and you get burnt.

I have been in Haiti for 12 days now, and I made the mistake of sitting in the sunlight during church this morning.  I realized my mistake pretty early on, but my stubbornness meant that I couldn’t move without a really good reason.  So I sat in the last pew in the east corner of the church for what was likely a 2 hour church service.  By the end, I was feeling pretty thoroughly cooked, and began leaning into the nearby concrete pillar for respite from the beating rays of the sun.  I figured out how to place my arms in such a way that I could keep the sun off of them.  The dress code in Haitian church is pretty conservative, so I had already worn long pants, but I kept switching my leg position in order to rotate various parts in and out of the heat.

The sun in Haiti is nothing to trifle with.  Too much and you’ll get burnt.

Sometimes I think that like the sun, we forget just how intense God is.  We call him friend, father, and I’ve even heard Jesus called “the original hippie”.  We toss around his name like a plaything sometimes, making it a punchline or using it as an accent word.  We slap his name on our poorly driven cars, wear the symbol of his execution around our necks, and add pithy phrases like “show us your glory” to our worship songs.  We forget that this “friend” and “father” spoke the sun itself into existence.   We forget that Moses was only allowed to see the place where God’s glory had just passed by because the sight of God’s actual glory, God in his full brightness, would have killed Moses.

God is no one to trifle with.

In this world of light and darkness, God strikes a balance with us.  I can not simplify God to some elaborate equation of light over time, because he is far too complicated for that.  I can not distill him to a photographic formula that results in a perfect picture.  I can however share what I learned today in the boiling sun of a Haitian church service.

As I sat in the back, children from the orphanage at Tytoo would occasionally sit beside me, and in that moment all of my efforts of self-preservation would evaporate as I desperately tried to shade them from the sun with my body.   If I am being honest, my efforts were pretty futile, and probably amusing to anyone who may have been watching me from a distance, but I didn’t care.  I wanted to spare the beautiful children sitting beside me as much discomfort as I could.  I would take a step forward to make sure my shadow would fall across them while we were singing, and I would sit up straight to provide them with as much shadow as I could during the sermon.

I doubt the kids really ever realized what I was doing, but for me it was an attempted expression of love.  I still don’t know the names of all of the kids here, but I knew that I wanted to protect them in any way I could.  I was willing to give up the poor shelter of a concrete pillar to bring just a little bit of soothing shadow to a small child who choose to sit next to me.   How much more does God want to protect us, his children?

God’s glory is not some terrible thing that strikes people dead for fun.  In the way that a great photograph can change your life, just a glimpse of the fullness of God would leave you forever changed, unable to continue in imperfection.  When faced with true perfection, the beauty of it would inspire you to destroy yourself, lest you mar the perfect thing in front of you.  The light of God’s glory is bright indeed, piercing through ourselves, whom the bible repeatedly calls shadows, here for only a moment, then gone as light falls over us.  What shadow can remain in the light of God?

For our sake, Jesus came.

For our sake, Jesus placed himself between us and his Father, sheltering us in the shadow of his wings, allowing us to see little glimpses of the fullness of who God is.  Jesus took our own sins upon himself so that we might one day stand in the presence of God’s glory.  Jesus has shielded us, though he himself is the light of the world, placing His body between us and a light far too powerful for us to withstand.  We are held in his arms, safe in his shadow.  One day we will be made new, strong enough to stand in God’s presence, but until then we are blinded in the brightness of a shadow that keeps us alive.

He protects us in the shadow of his wings, it is an expression of his love for us.

Electricity

We depend on electricity.  It warms our food, cools our homes, and brings light into the darkness.  It can be used to start a car, or even restart a heart.  I use a form of electricity every day, even when I am “roughing it” I still have a cell phone, a camera, or a GPS.  Electricity is nearly as much a part of my life as breathing.  If I consider that even the clothes I wear likely required electricity to make, it is difficult to escape its influence, and its importance.

In some ways, you could say that my dependence on electricity is greater than my dependence on God.  In fact, my bible now requires electricity to read, since I use an app on my phone instead of a paper version.  I suspect that you are not much different than I am in that regard.  For many people, including me, we are more likely to use a light switch during the day than we are to read the bible.   Even our modern worship services depend on electricity for amplification and presentation.

In Haiti electricity is available, but it is difficult to predict.  Some homes do not have it, but others do.  The compound that we are staying in has electricity provided to it from several sources.  For most of the day electricity comes from a nearby cement plant that provides it to the orphanage in exchange for access to water from a spring.  For some reason this electricity is not available all day, and there will be times when the staff at Tytoo will need to turn on a large industrial generator to take over.  Once power is restored, the generator is turned back off.

It is easy to live life without even acknowledging our daily electrical use, but the ability to ignore our use of electricity goes away as soon as the power goes out.  When the power goes out in a dark place, we stumble around searching desperately for a source of light.  Candles are lit, flashlights pulled from drawers and then replaced in disgust as we realize the batteries are dead.  We open the blinds or use our phones to find our way.  We are restless because so much of what we do in a normal day involves electricity.

Haiti can be a dark place, and sometimes the electricity goes out.

Last week the power went out during our Haitian worship service.  The sound system turned off and the electronic keyboards crashed.  I suspect that in many North American churches this would be cause to cancel services for the rest of the day, and I acknowledge that the way we do things is greatly enhanced by electricity.  I can imagine the confusion in my own church as emergency lights would snap on to light the windowless sanctuary.

In Haiti, the dwelling place of uncertainty, 40 Haitian voices continued in praise.  Each word just as strong as the ones before it.  It startled me to hear so many people unaffected by an unexpected loss of electricity, and it made me wonder if sometimes we depend too much on outside power to make our North American church services seem impressive.  I will say that 40 raw and untrained Haitian voices would easily rival a 300 person North American church service in volume.

I hope to learn to depend less on outside power to make an impact through my life.  Not by senselessly throwing away tools that are valuable, but by developing other internal tools that can not be taken away.

Those living in the dark have seen a great light, they bring it with them, and it lives inside of their hearts.

Bipolar

Church just wrapped up on our fourth day in Haiti, and if you have never been to a Haitian church service, I can sum it up in one word.  Loud.  The music is loud, the people are loud, and the pastor is loud.   All around you, you will see Haitians wearing their Sunday best.  A few of the men are in full suits, others nice shirts and slacks.  Most of the women are in nice dresses, and a few are dressed up as if they were going to be attending the Oscars right after church.

The effect is somewhat mesmerizing, seeing someone in a full suit, standing at the front of a church that is only a roof supported by narrow concrete pillars.  Watching ladies in dresses sitting on handmade benches while they listen to the message.  Seeing the neighborhood children, some of whom may not eat today, wearing their best while they sit listlessly during the long sermon.

I see this dichotomy everywhere.  On one hand I am sitting right on the ocean with beautifully blue waves gently lapping the palm lined shore, while a quick glance across the surface of the water reveals enough trash to fill at least one industrial sized trash bag.  Yesterday we went to the beach with most of the kids in the orphanage, 48 people jammed into a truck too small to move even a modest North American household in one trip.  The kids ran into the waves with the fervor one would expect from orphans on a beach trip, and as the little Haitian boys jumped off of my back into the cool salt water, the moment was nearly perfect.  Until a used condom floated by.

Just another day in Paradise...

Just another day in Paradise…

If you visit Haiti, you may find it difficult to look past the imperfection of their sagging, leaky homes, and the trash that is everywhere, but I suspect you will also find it difficult to forget the cloud wrapped mountain tops, and the incredible sunsets.

Haiti is bipolar.

The emotional mountains and valleys are even more impressive than the physical ones you find in this country.  On Friday, we had returned from the nearby school where we were doing basic health exams, to our home away from home for the week, Tytoo Gardens.  The general mood was one of a lazy afternoon, the kind where you kick your feet up and watch the grass grow as you become one with your lawn chair.   I slowly brought out interview equipment, hoping to make the most of what we all expected to be a lazy afternoon.

After getting set up, I wandered downstairs in search of my first victim (interview subject) for the day.  I like to circle my prey (interview subjects) before I attack (ask them to talk to me), so I drifted around like a leaf on the wind, trying to get a good feel for who may be the most willing to talk to me.  When the gate rolled open and the truck rolled in, I carelessly filmed it, wondering what I might use the unplanned footage for.  I lost interest in the truck before I saw the passengers get out, and went back to circling my prey.

Densley has already made a new friend on the way to Simonette Wednesday evening.

Denzly has already made a new friend on the way to Simonette from the hospital in Port-Au-Prince Wednesday evening.

I settled in next to one of my potential victims and casually asked where the rest of the group was, making some remark to the effect of “is someone having a baby?”.  The answer was that one of the little boys we had met earlier in the week was not doing well, and the medical people had brought the boy to the clinic to see if they could help him out.  I slowly walked towards the clinic expecting some minor bump or scrape being put right and was broadsided by a child nearing full cardiac arrest.  In one moment my afternoon went from one of peace and tranquility, to one of uncertainty and frenzy.

It only took a few minutes of watching in the clinic to determine that we weren’t going to be able to help this kid on site, and as the medical staff rushed around trying to stabilize the boy, I ran out of the room to throw back together my gear bag which was scattered across the porch I use for our interviews.   I gave some of the other team members a quick update as I hurried to fill my water bottle.  As the water poured out of the cooler, I did my best to keep the tears from falling from my eyes and the fear out of my voice.  I had stayed in the clinic long enough to see more uncertainty in Kori’s eyes than I had ever seen there before on any of our other trips together.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect next.

Densley just two days later...

Denzly just two days later…

Fortunately the gear went back together quickly, and as I rushed back into the clinic I started trying to find a way to help without being in the way.  I ran back out again to ask Beth, Alitza, and Jenna, to put together water bottles and other necessary stuff for Kori, Jen, and Troy.  I ran into the clinic again and snapped photos as I waited for what seemed like the inevitable decision to get this kid to a hospital.  Without any portable oxygen, Kori wasn’t too thrilled with the possible outcomes for the kid. It seemed that the chances for the kid surviving transportation to the hospital were not great.  Cell phones buzzed across the room as the Tytoo staff sought the fastest path and the closest vehicle to get to the hospital in Port-Au-Prince.

The nearest ambulance was 30 minutes away, and they were still looking for the driver as Webert (pronounced Way Bear), the director of the school we had worked at in the morning pulled into the compound.  Kori, Jen, and Troy carried the kid out to the back of the truck as the staff tried to decide who needed to go with us to the hospital.  I quietly took the last spot in the back of the truck and asked if I could go.  After a few moments of indecision, they seemed to forget about me, so I stayed in the car as we sped off towards the hospital with Webert at the wheel.  Jen steadily pumped air into the kids lungs as Kori and Troy did their best to monitor the kids vital statistics.

The roads in the little village of Simonette where we serve are not great, but Webert managed the truck well, slowing down only when absolutely necessary.  Once we were out of Simonette the road turned from rough stone into fresh pavement, a brand new road that lead to Port-Au-Prince from a port that is being built in nearby Minotree.  I grew up in the country, and am no stranger to riding in the back of a truck, but I can say honestly that I have never gone that fast in the open as we did on that trip.  Quickly realizing my medical uselessness, I started watching the road so I could shout out direction and speed changes for the team as they worked on the boy.  Driving in Haiti is nothing like driving in the United States, and for a North American driver, what Webert did to get us their safely was akin to a miracle.

Holding on to life...

Holding on to life…

The roadside flashed by as we sped towards the hospital, each mile measured in breaths given by a bag being pumped by hand.  When the truck made the final turn onto the street with the hospital on it, the truck horn, previously strangely silent, became a constant drone as we pushed through the still crowded streets to the hospital door.  The doors opened ahead of us and we dropped the tailgate as Hillary, a Canadian Paramedic working with Tytoo came out of the hospital to bring Denzly into the emergency room.  I grabbed a corner of the mat, but was stopped outside the door, relieved of my duty for the moment.  For me, the time for adrenaline had passed, and I waited outside with Webert, Kayla, and Troy.

After the storm...

After the storm…

For some reason it didn’t surprise me that our little medical team kept working on Denzly.  It wasn’t until several hours later when they came out exhausted that I stopped to think about how odd it was that they were not able to just drop Denzly off and head back to Tytoo.  When we arrived, the emergency room staff were dealing with a pair of gunshot wounds, and Denzly was not getting the immediate attention his situation warranted.  Our team kept pumping air into his lungs while the other patients were taken care of.  They worked to stabilize Denzly as he seized for what they described as hours.  When we finally left nearly 2 hours after we had arrived, the outlook was still grim for the boy, but he was admitted into the pediatric section and our team could do nothing else to help.

Hillary, Kori, Allie, and Jen are finally getting ready to head home to Tytoo for the night.

Hillary, Kori, Allie, and Jen are finally getting ready to head home to Tytoo for the night.

As we drove back to Tytoo through the darkened streets of Port-Au-Prince, the mood of Haiti seemed to change again, from one of frenzy to one of relative calm.  The team members discussed the events of the day, reliving the moments that seemed like weeks ago now, just a few short hours later.  Allie sat quietly on the side of truck, I suspect reflecting on this moment, and all of the moments like it that she has experienced in this country so far.  While the medical  conversation drifted from the events of the night to other experiences and stories, Allie sat looking into the darkened distance over the hood of the truck,  as the headlights reached furtively into the night in an attempt to illuminate the coming unknown…Allie hoping to discern what Haiti might bring her next.

 

It turns out this wasn’t the whole story…you can find the continuation in “To Be Used“.