By Sasha Kramer, New America Media
This afternoon, feeling helpless, we decided to take a van down to
Champs Mars (the area around the palace) to look for people needing
medical care to bring to Matthew 25, the guesthouse where we are
staying which has been transformed into a field hospital.
Since we arrived in Port au Prince, everyone has told us that you
cannot go into the area around the palace because of violence and
insecurity. I was in awe as we walked into downtown, among the
flattened buildings, in the shadow of the fallen palace, among the
swarms of displaced people there was calm and solidarity.
We wound our way through the camp asking for injured people who needed
to get to the hospital. Despite everyone telling us that as soon as we
did this we would be mobbed by people, I was amazed as we approached
each tent people gently pointed us towards their neighbors, guiding us
to those who were suffering the most.
We picked up five badly injured
people and drove towards an area where Ellie and Berto had passed a
woman earlier. When they saw her she was lying on the side of the road
with a broken leg screaming for help. They were on foot and could not
help her at the time, so we went back to try to find her. Incredibly,
we found her relatively quickly at the top of a hill of shattered
houses. The sun was setting and the community helped to carry her down
the hill on a refrigerator door, tough looking guys smiled in our
direction calling out, “Bonswa, Cherie,” (Good evening, Dear) and
“Kouraj” (Courage).
When we got back to Matthew 25, it was dark and we carried the patients
back into the soccer field/tent village/hospital where the team of
doctors had been working tirelessly all day. Although they had
officially closed down for the evening, they agreed to see the patients
we had brought. Once our patients were settled in we came back into the
house to find the doctors amputating a foot on the dining room table.
The patient lay calmly, awake but far away under the fog of ketamine.
Half way through the surgery we heard a clamor outside and ran out to
see what it was. A large yellow truck was parked in front of the gate
and unloading hundreds of bags of food over our fence. The hungry crowd
had already begun to gather and in the dark it was hard to decide how
to best distribute the food.
Knowing that we could not sleep in the
house with all of this food and so many starving people in the
neighborhood, our friend Amber (who is experienced in food
distribution) snapped into action and began to get everyone in the
crowd into a line that stretched down the road.
We braced ourselves for the fighting that we had heard would come, but
in a miraculous display of restraint and compassion people lined up to
get the food and one by one the bags were handed out without a single
serious incident. During the food distribution, the doctors called to
see if anyone could help to bury the amputated leg in the backyard. As
I have no experience with food distribution I offered to help with the
leg. I went into the back with Ellie and Berto and we dug a hole and
placed the leg in it, covering it with soil and cement rubble.
By the
time we got back into the house the food had all been distributed and
the patient Anderson was waking up. The doctors asked for a translator
so I went and sat by his stretcher explaining to him that the surgery
had gone well and he was going to live. His family had gone home so he
was alone so Ellie and I took turns sitting with him as he came out
from under the drugs.
One of the Haitian men working at the hospital came in and leaned over
Anderson and said to him in kreyol “listen man even if your family
could not be here tonight we want you to know that everyone here loves
you, we are all your brothers and sisters.” Sometimes it is the
kindness and not the horror that can break the numbness that we are all
lost in right now.
So, don’t believe CNN’s Anderson Cooper when he says that Haiti is a hotbed of violence and riots. It is just not the case.
In the darkest of times, Haiti has proven to be a country of brave,
resilient and kind people. It is that behavior that is far more
prevalent than the isolated incidents of violence. Please pass this on
to as many people as you can so that they can see the light of Haiti,
cutting through the darkness, the light that will heal this nation.
Sasha Kramer directs the grassroots Haitian organization SOIL, which
works with rural and urban communties to develop indigenious solutions
to environmental problems. She wrote this dispatch from Port au Prince
on Monday, Jan. 19.
PHOTO: Earthquake victims receive medical treatment at an encampment in front
of Port-au-Prince’s Presidential Palace. UN Photo/Logan Abassi.